So I asked the owner of the Irish Exit if he’d allow me to play at his bar tonight because I need to get back into the public arena and not pull my cock out of my pants as I do it. I have to show people that I can play a set and act like a decent, grown-up human being as I do so.

Of course, the owner was all over this idea, ‘cause people want to watch me in action, if only in the hopes that I’ll pull a repeat performance and start cock-waving again. No way. I’ve asked my doctor if I can move the pill-popping to after my shows each night, so that by the time I’m supposed to be up on stage, I’m fully with it again, and he regretfully agreed. Apparently, these pills work best if taken at seven o’clock at night, but let’s be honest—if I don’t quit pulling a Slayer, I won’t have a career anymore and I might as well go back to drinking all the time. If they aren’t quite as potent if taken at one in the morning, then I’ll just have to rely on self control to make up the difference.

As we make our way through the crowd, my band and back-up singers helping me lug equipment up to the stage, I see something out of the corner of my eye. Or rather, someone.

I don’t know why she caught my eye because there’s a stupid amount of people in here—if the fire marshal gets called, we’ll get shut down so fast, my band is gonna get whiplash from it—and so I really shouldn’t have seen her. She shouldn’t have stood out to me.

But, it’s Gisele. Apparently, I now have a Gisele sensor that goes off every time she’s in my general vicinity. I can see the flash of her blonde hair in the spotlights skimming over the crowd, and then I hear her laugh tinkle out, over the crowd.

Which, to be honest, I also shouldn’t have heard. It’s so damn noisy in here, I’m not sure if I’d be able to hear fireworks go off.

But I can hear her laughter.

Dammit, I have it bad.

As we set up our equipment, the crowd grows restless, the cheers and heckling getting louder, and more people push their way into the already overcrowded bar. I think back to the interview, where I’d shoved two pills into my mouth in front of her. I know that I was thinking about her amazing rack as I was starting to go under, but just because I thought about it doesn’t mean I actually did anything about it. It does mean that I would’ve been willing if she’d wanted to try something, though.

But let’s be honest: If I died, Gisele would still give me a boner. A rock star ghost boner—I can just imagine that hitting the tabloids …

Finally, with the equipment ready to go, I grab the mic and we start jamming. Except, when we get to our one and only love ballad in our set, I substitute “Gisele” in for “Jamie,” the original chick I wrote the song for … who I later discovered fucking a technician backstage during a concert. I’ve hated this song ever since ‘cause damn is it hard to be romantic about a chick you despise, but tonight? I suddenly found it real easy to let the words roll off my tongue. It's hard to tell in the darkness of the bar, but I think I can detect a blush on Gisele's cheeks, which of course just means that I belt the words out even louder, staring straight at her while I do it.

Oh yeah, she’s blushing hardcore right now. All of her friends are jabbing her in the ribs and she’s just sitting there with a stupidly happy grin on her face and I’m grinning back and I swear to God, we’re the only two people in that room.

Okay, so the fire marshal probably wouldn’t agree with that assessment, but we’re the only two people in the room who matter.

Finally, the long song ends and after two more fast-paced dance songs, our set is done. We wrap up, but I don’t head out the back with the rest of my band. People are drifting out of the bar and back into the streets, so there’s a little more elbow room in the place, which is nice for those of us who like to breathe along with getting drunk.

I slip into the bathroom for a minute, and check my phone. Dammit, it’s almost one in the morning. I have to take my pill now; I can’t push it any further than I already have. With a sigh, I pop one back. Oh the irony; if a reporter caught me popping pills in the bathroom, no doubt that picture would be on the front page of every gossip rag in the country, below a screaming headline about an out-of-control rock star.

I wait for a minute longer to let the fervor in the main bar die down, and then head back out … toward Gisele. I make my way through the crowd, careful not to make eye contact with anyone or draw attention to myself in any way. The best camouflage is to just pretend that you belong there. Most people don’t look twice.

I pop up next to her elbow. “Hey, Gisele,” I whisper in her very yummy-looking ear.

“Oh my God!” she yells, spinning in a circle and spilling her drink in the process. Hmmm … is that a bourbon? Surely Gisele doesn’t drink bourbon. No one drinks bourbon, other than me. Well, I used to.

God, that smells good. I hope my pill kicks in soon because my willpower is starting to wane.

“Hi,” I say, grinning. She’s panting, her hand over her magnificent chest, and then she starts laughing. 

“How are you here and not mobbed by a bazillion fans?” she asks once she stops laughing, looking around the crowd milling about. No one seems to be paying the slightest bit of attention to me.

I just shrug. “No one expects me to come out here in the crowd. For some reason, when you’re a celebrity, everyone thinks that you no longer want to just hang out with people and chill. They expect me to run out the back door as soon as the set is over.”

“The rest of your band did,” she points out, logically.

“Yeah, that’s true,” I admit cheerfully. “Which just made it even easier for me to come hang out with you. No one was expecting it.”

She looks at me skeptically and I can tell she’s trying to do the math in her head—am I really interested in her?

Yeah. I am. I don’t want to freak her out though.

I really, really wish I could remember what happened the other day. That tantalizing question plays around the edges of my mind. Did we fuck? Did she run her gorgeous mouth up and down my cock? Did I pull her hair as I fucked her from behind?

I don’t know.

And that is slowly driving me insane.

“Hold on, you’re in a bar,” Gisele says, looking at me, wide-eyed with fear. “Aren’t you tempted to drink? Should we leave? I don’t want you to fall off the wagon just because of me!”

I shrug. “With the pills, it’s not hard to keep it under control. I can tell you’re drinking a bourbon—nice choice by the way—and so yeah, the urge is there, but I’m fine. I can deal with a little temptat—”