Page 95 of The Comedown

She doesn’t stop there either. She sings the chorus with me, too, then pauses while Axel and I jam out together for the instrumental break. We finish the song sharing my mic, my balls feeling so fucking big from the rush.

A sudden fight in the crowd can’t even compete as everyone else goes nuts. Collette twists her head to survey them, and even though I hear it, too—the adoration—I study her instead, only interested in her reaction. Did she like it?

Facing me again, she gives me one of those smiles of hers that says there’s nowhere else she’d rather be—the smile I fucking crave more than air itself. She loved it.

Since we’re sharing the stage with so many other acts tonight, we’re not doing our full set, but I want to do one more song with Collette, so I ask into the mic which song she wants.

She just shakes her head, laughing.

My smile matches hers as I start thinking of the one I just wrote last night. It’s about her, of course, but the lyrics might scare her. They scare me.

“How about ‘Your Bedside’?” some dude in a suit past Collette’s shoulder calls out, naming one of my most underrated songs, and some of that warm feeling I got on Collette’s bus disappears. Who’s he? And why the fuck does he think he has a say here?

Collette turns her smile to him, sending him a wave, too, and I swear I almost puke up my intestines it hurts so bad.

A bottle of cheap vodka held in the air near the front of the stage snags my attention, and I follow the arm holding it to see a broad doling out sloppy shots to whoever opens their mouths for a pour. She’s wearing a white see-through bodysuit and shorts that have the ass cheeks shredded completely out, so she’s got a long line of people waiting.

I mean, I can see why. She had me at the vodka, and the eyeful she’s providing as a backdrop only increases my thirst.

“Ayo! Get me next!” I yell out to her, not really seeing the girl’s face, just the opportunity she’s presenting with quick, easy booze. If I could get a vodka drip to my veins right now, it still wouldn’t be enough. I’m that desperate up here. I just need something—any-fucking-thing—to take this edge off. Shit hit me outta nowhere.

The laughable security helps her on the stage, and she takes her sweet-ass time to pump her arms at the crowd. Yeah, yeah. It’s great…until it’s not.

I’m too tall for her to waterfall the alcohol into my mouth so I bend a knee, which makes the crowd go even crazier. I glance over at Collette to see her smile long gone. Honestly, I just want to drown, but if me kneeling in front of another woman pisses her off…

Does it piss her off?

The vodka burns all the way down my throat, but I fight the sting, taking huge gulps to numb as much as I can. At least three shots swallowed, I stand, spitting the rest in my mouth out in front of me in a wide spray. The girl beside me squeals from getting some on her before pulling out her phone to take a selfie with me. I’m soaked in sweat and vodka and rage, but yeah, I wanna be her phone’s wallpaper for the next year.

Instead of looking at the phone, I watch Collette, catching the moment she turns toward the suit again, giving him an apologetic side head nod. He shrugs, grinning all pleasant and shit, and I sneer loud enough to get Collette’s attention again.

I end up missing security escorting vodka girl away, then I’m staring after her, wishing I’d taken the bottle off her. I need more than three shots. A blackout is in order—quick.

This is why I don’t resurface all that often. This shit is hard, especially when Collette’s involved, her and the goddamn feelings she brings out of me.

My eyes cold but my blood fucking boiling, I start strumming some chords as I stand back up. At first it could pass as any other track, a fucking country melody about a rocking chair or some shit, then I pick up the tempo, riffing even harder, and I start singing “Or Nah” by Ty Dolla $ign, The Weeknd, Wiz Khalifa, and Mustard.

The lyrics are fucking filth and match my mood perfectly. Collette had the motherfucking nerve to kiss me like that, like fucking that, then bring this fucking suit to our show? And smiles at him? That was my smile. I fucking earned it, not him.

Just when I was starting to think that maybe she felt what I do… Goddamn it. I thought the kiss on her bus meant something. It did to me.

Obviously not to her though.

Fuck it. Let’s get this out of the way now. I’m my own worst enemy. If anyone’s gonna rip my heart out, it’s gonna be me.

Collette’s already hard gaze turns murderous at the first verse, especially since I refuse to take my eyes off hers as I recite the lyrics.

During The Weeknd’s verse, she scoffs at the line talking about getting your face ridden which pisses me off because I was willing to eat her pussy. I offered. She left me though. She fucking left me, showed back up long enough to confuse the fuck outta me, and now she’s trying to leave all over again, except with another man.

One line in particular hits close to home considering where we just had our first kiss, and Collette bites her bottom lip into her mouth, her fists balling by her sides. Seeing her flinch at the last line of the verse, I drop the guitar, letting it hang loosely as I spit the next part acapella directly to her.

Third line in on the chorus, Collette spins on her heel and runs off the stage before the lyric about bringing someone else into the mix even leaves my lips fully. Abandoning the rest of the song, I take off after her, handing my guitar to the same roadie as before.

The suit turns to watch but doesn’t try following which proves why he doesn’t deserve Collette. Pussy.

Behind the stage is a bunch of pop-up tents housing the talent, and Collette weaves through them, not slowing down for a second even as her hand shoots out, snatching up handfuls of something along the way—weapons probably.

“You’re a liar,” she says when I catch up to her in one of the back tents overlooking the river. An apple is thrown at my head next—predictable—and I manage to dodge it just in time to watch it sail past my face.