One man’s “I’m not ready,” is another man’s “I knew the second I saw her.”
-Meredith Marple
Bellamy
“What the hell is going on with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Syd comments, staring me down in the rear-view mirror as he parks the car. Rocky flips his big old muscular body around, and the next thing I know, his eyes aren’t wavering from my face. I can’t bear to look at either of them, but from the corner of my eyes, I can see everything that I need to see.
“Zac texted me,” I tell them. The first thing I hear is Rocky’s growl and Syd’s sigh.
“What the fuck did he say, huh, Bells?” Rocky growls at me, ripping the phone from my hand, he tugs it into the front seat, and I watch his expression as it changes. Before I can tell him not to press the video he does, and I hear what I hoped I wouldn’t…
“What do you like to be called, baby? Tell me.”
I can hear my soft giggle, “I love it whatever you call me. Every nasty word, it turns me on so much.”
“Is cumslut your favorite?”
“Maybe,” I admit, hearing my breath hitch.
I can recall the moment he took this video, like recalling a movie I had watched at the theater. There’s a ripping sound and then moans fill the car. My moans. My hot and heavy moans. I remember that day, how I had deemed that sex the best sex of my life.
Somehow, I tune out the rest of the video and sit in silence, thinking about everything that I could have done to warrant Zac’s behavior. He’d just sent me a sexual video, which we both know he has the fullest intent to release to the public. He’s shamed me publicly before, showing the world the barest parts of me. I just wonder why he acts the way that he does. Is it because I’m actually getting somewhere with my career? Or is it something different? Is it because he wants to still have some sort of control over me?
There was a time where I felt like nothing without him;, like he was my life jacket and I was drowning. It took me a long time to understand that I wasn’t drowning. I was learning how to swim, and sometimes, you need to do that without the safety jacket.
“If Evie’s voice wasn’t drilled into the back of my thick skull, I’d be the first one to show this asshole how to treat a lady,” Rocky hisses, handing the phone back to me.
“At this point, I don’t give a shit what Evie says. I’m tired of watching the way that Zac treats you. He leaked –” With one look to Syd, I shut him up. All the guys know that I don’t like talking about it, even Miles doesn’t test me on it – and that is a shock. The one who hates me, won’t even bring it up to my face. I should count that as a blessing. Adding that to the shit we have to deal with on tour would be fabulous.
“Can we just stop, and go into that bar and do what I need to do? Please? You both know that I’m so dang nervous and all this talk about Zac and the crappy things he does to me is just making me pissed and upset, and that’s not what I came here for. I came here to talk to my sister, and you can damn well bet I’m going to do that!” I huff, unbuckling my seatbelt with as much force as humanly possible. I then swing open the door and slam it behind me – walking straight into the unknown, the lion’s den of sorts.
We’re at Bubba’s.
I make my way through the doors and see what seems to be a regular bar, the bar wraps around the entire restaurant in a big L shape, probably allowing at least fifty patrons to be seated there. The walls are lined with booths for table seating and where there isn’t a booth, there is a pool table, or what looks to be a foosball machine. As I keep looking around the bar I see that there is a small stage to one corner, and on the other side of the restaurant, I see another with a pole.
Dang. This is a full-service bar, I think to myself.
I can’t help but continue to look around. This is almost like looking into an entirely different world. Every patron in this joint has on leather, patches, and emblems lining each jacket. But all the jackets don’t have sleeves. That’s kind of weird.
“You lost, little lamb?” I turn to the right and see a man, only a foot or so taller than I. He has dirty blonde hair and this scruffy beard that would normally look mangled, but it works for him. “The reason I’m asking is ‘cause Bubba’s doesn’t look like the kinda place for you.”
“Please tell me, what kind of place do I belong in?” I ask, cocking my eyebrow.
“Something sweet, with sprinkles and sugar.”
I don’t know who this man is, or what gave him the balls to come up and speak to me that way, but there is one thing that I have to admit, I kind of like it. For some reason this man is pushing all my good buttons. All the little flashing red buttons that say “press me,” he is pushing, and I want more.
“So, you’re assuming that I’m sugar, spice, and everything nice?”
He looks me up and down, his eyes going slowly over every part of my body and finally when his eyes meet my own, they’re lit aflame. “No sweetheart. I didn’t say you had an ounce of spice in ya.”
“You’d be wrong about that…” I glance over his ripped leather cutoff vest and see his name. “Butch, you’d be very wrong about that”
“Alright then, Sugar. Prove me wrong. I’ll be here all night.” As he walks away from me and goes to the bar I can’t help but want to prove him wrong. I was challenged, by someone I don’t know. I shouldn’t have a reason to want to prove him wrong, yet…I do. I want to prove him that I’m not as innocent and pure as everyone thinks because I’m not.
I’m never what anyone anticipates.
Syd and Rocky finally make their way in the bar, they come walking up to where I’m seated. I’ve already done them both a favor and ordered a whiskey neat and a Guinness, plus a mango margarita for myself. The girl named Mar said it was her specialty, so who was I to say no to a girl who says her margaritas are better than anyone else!
Whenever I blink, in that split second when my eyes are shut the only thing I can see is Zac’s message to me. It’s funny, there was a time where I would trust him more than anything, and here I am right now, a few months after our awful break up – if that’s what I can even call it. Betrayal sounds much more fitting. No, he didn’t cheat on me. He did something far worse than that. Something that made people know exactly who I was. There were some people who said that I was the one that did it. That it was a publicity stunt to get me a bigger following.
In my heart, I knew that it was Zac. Sure, I had moments of doubt, where I thought that maybe that was my own head talking but when he admitted it to me at a music festival two months ago I was blindsided. I almost cried right then on the spot. He told me how he did a great job at covering up where the photos came from, essentially telling me the step by step process he took in trying to ruin my career before it even started. When I think about it, and I mean when I think about it hard, I’ve come to understand that I will never know why he’s done what he has and why he continues to tear me down.
Rocky, Syd, and Jase all agreed that Zac has been trying to ruin my career because until his girlfriend hit it big, no one had a clue who I was, and once that happened – his spotlight dimmed. They weren’t wrong, I remember going to events with him, how he’d be out promoting his latest music and they’d ask him about me. Now, being in the position I am, whenever I reflect back I can see it clear as day. That will never give him the excuse to sell my nudes to the press.
It was a PR nightmare according to Evie, my manager, and everyone at Rebel Records. I was lucky in a sense because they couldn’t terminate my contract because of it. Evie organized me going out to multiple events like children’s hospitals, benefit concerts and anything that she could do to help show the public that I was a stand-up girl, that I wasn’t tarnished or this slut. Half of America could flat out see what Zac did, and the other half call me a whore on a daily basis, hiding behind the safety net of their computer screens.
“Holy. Fuck” Rocky chuckles, grabbing my hand and yanking me out of the barstool. I practically fall over with the force that he used to tug me out. He belly laughs and points to a sign, “Karaoke Night”.
“Oh no. We are not doing Karaoke night.” I tell him, as sternly as possible.
“I’m not, but you are!” He gives me that grin, the one that I know melts the panties off every woman in a twenty-foot radius.
“Dang it!” I mumble.
Rocky calls over to the bartender, “Hey sweet thing, it’s karaoke night!”
“Sure can be if you can find anyone brave enough to sing in front of this crowd,” I hear her say. Internally, I’m cursing, which is something I never do.
“I am not singing one of my own songs,” I tell Rocky, who is smiling like he just won the lottery.
“Alright. Lemme find ya something good. You trust me, don’t ya?’ I nod, regretting my decision instantly.
Before I know it, I’m being led to the stage, dingy old microphone in hand. This sucker could be as old as I am, who knows. Rocky is chuckling, Syd smiling along next to him, and from the corner of my eye, I see no one else besides the woman who I’ve come here to see.
If I had any doubts that Elena was my sister, they’re all gone now. They just vanished into thin air. We are practically identical, my skin is a little bit darker than hers, but the same fiery red hair – she has it, the same eyes, cheek bones, even down to our nose.
In that very moment, her eyes meet mine and the music starts. I could kill Rocky for this one. He rips his cell from his back pocket, and I know he’s recording this.
IDGAF by Dua Lipa flows through the speakers.
I swing my hips to the rhythm of the beat, loving how much this song resonates with me. In life, there are always songs that speak to you one way or another and Dua Lipa definitely speaks to me in this one.
Through her lyrics she tells the story of an ex who realizes that he made a mistake, begging and pleading for her to come back and how she doesn’t give a fuck because she knows that he lost the greatest thing in his life.
Oh, and how I relate to that.
“Don’t give a fuck!” Rocky chuckles, I see Syd behind him shaking his head, but I know that the three of us are living it up. I don’t know any of these people in the bar, most of them aren’t paying attention, but the select few have their eyes glued to me. Two people in particular. Butch, and my sister, who I plan on talking to as soon as I’m finished with this song.
It’s game time.