Chapter Eight
Rich
“Come on, Rich.” Liam callously tugged the pillow out from under my head, causing it to flop onto the sheets below with an agonizing thump, one that possibly only happened inside my own mind. “The bus is waiting for you to go.”
“Nugh,” I grumbled back, needing just a few more hours of rest. This wasn’t just a hangover feeling. This was a genuine hangover and it seriously sucked. My mouth felt like a badger had climbed in there and promptly died. My stomach was on a rollercoaster of its own doing, and my head had a whole building site within it. “Leave me alone, Liam.”
“Rich, don’t be stupid. I know you feel like hell but you’ll have to sleep it off on the bus. Get up.” He was exasperated, and I knew why. He’d told me not to drink anymore, and I’d done it anyway. Well, so what? I was a grown man who did whatever the hell I wanted.
And I wasn’t ready to leave just yet.
The illness wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to go. I also wasn’t quite ready to leave this place just yet. There was a lot of unfinished business in this city, and I wasn’t totally ready to skip out on it just yet. The thought of leaving without seeing Nathan just one last time caused an empty hollow sensation in my chest.
“I’ll be up in a moment, just leave me alone.”
“For God’s sake, Rich, you obviously can’t hack it anymore, so why did you act like that last night?”
“Oh, fuck you, Liam. I’m the one who can command a room, who grabs attention without even asking for it…”
My ego-centric rant was cut short by Liam’s cutting words. “Yeah, well I highly doubt the fans would still cheer for you in the same way if they could see the state of you now. The hotel staff are waiting to come in and clean this hole, so make it quick. I’ll wait in the bus for you with Nick and Michael.”
As I heard the door close behind him, I forced myself to move, but as I did, the hot dizziness became something more intense and I knew for sure that I couldn’t contain any of my stomach contents any longer. I raced into the bathroom, hung my poor, sorry head over the toilet, and allowed the burning vomit to fall out of my mouth.
I collapsed my body backwards onto the cool bathroom floor while my insides settled. I should not drink that much. It sucked the next day. I wouldn’t do it again, if I could help it. Especially not when I needed to travel all day long, being on a tour bus was bad enough without this.
Speaking of moving on…
I grabbed my phone and looked at the list of last calls to see Nathan’s name at the top of the list. I knew it was going to be there, I could vaguely recall our awkward conversation at goodness knows what hour the night before, but to know it wasn’t a dream sucked hard. My harsh, silly words span through my mind, washing cold guilt over me.
“That didn’t stop you jumping all over me last night.” Why the hell did I say that? What an absolute ass!
“I think what you need is to sober up.” I’d heard that advice from everyone, but when Nathan scathingly told me so it stung much worse. Why didn’t he want me? Most guys would’ve given their left arm to be with me, however wasted I was.
Why was it the one guy I wanted, was the only one who didn’t seem to feel the same way? And why did that make me want him even more? The chase made him appeal to me even deeper.
I was going to have to call him, to at least apologize, to see if there was anything worth salvaging. With a heavy heart, I hit dial once more and I waited to hear Nathan’s silky smooth voice.
Ring, ring… Ring, ring… Ring, ring…
The longer the phone call went on, the worst I felt. If Nathan didn’t answer the phone to me, it meant he couldn’t stand me so much that he didn’t even want to say goodbye. He wasn’t even prepared to have a little argument to get it all out in the open.
“Rich!” Oh God, Liam was hammering at the door again. Clearly, he hadn’t ever trusted me enough to go to the bus. I couldn’t put it off any longer. “Come on, now!”
Well, it seemed that it was done.
***
“You have got to be kidding me.” Nick snatched the bottle out of my hand and glared at me. “You’re not drinking before we go on, are you? What the hell is wrong with you? When did you start drinking all the time?”
“Don’t be such a twat!” I couldn’t stop the giggle from bursting out of my mouth, possibly highlighting that I’d been drinking for longer than I should’ve been. “We used to do this shit all the time.”
“Yeah, when we were all kids, before we started taking the band seriously. This isn’t a joke to us lot, you know? We all have things that we’re working for. Families, mortgages, our future, you know? We aren’t kids now. We don’t have to take the booze just because it’s readily available.”
I rolled my eyes in a dramatic, exaggerated fashion, refusing to acknowledge his words. I didn’t need that stark reminder that they all had lives. I preferred to selfishly wallow in my own bullshit.
“Give it a rest, Nick. It’ll still be a good show.”
“We have an interview with that music magazine in a minute. They want an up to date discussion just before we go on. Will you be able to handle it? We can’t really push you into the background, what with you being the lead singer.”
“Yeah, the audience only gives a shit about hearing from me.” I puffed out my chest, pride filling me. “Their fucking hero. No one gives a shit about you lot, and don’t you forget it.”
I didn’t mean to come across quite as dickish. I just wanted to remind them all that I was hugely important, that they couldn’t just continue to push me out.
"Whatever, just don’t fuck it up for us.”
Liam and Michael wouldn’t even look at me. It was as if they felt nothing but shame for me, which riled me up even further. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t behaving in the best way, I wasn’t stupid enough to not be able to see that much, but I wasn’t murdering anyone. I was just having a bit of fun before we went up on stage, behaving in the way that rock stars were supposed to.
“Sam is here.” Jenny popped her head around the door, flickering her eyes anxiously between us all. She’d taken even more of a backseat as tensions rose through the band, as if she had no idea how to handle it. I had a feeling she’d end up quitting on us if we carried on this way. “Shall I send her in? She’s got a photographer with her too. Are you all ready for a shoot? I know we didn’t exactly know that was going to happen, but…”
I shook my head, but answered ‘yes’. It was time to throw that mask back on, to act like everything was hunky dory when it was a shit fest. But more importantly, it was time to remind these assholes that I was Morton, and that without me they had absolutely nothing.
The flash blinded me, but I did my best not to squeeze my eyes shut. I didn’t want to look drunk in all the pictures, especially as I was. I’d been on the wrong end of the press before and didn’t want to be there again.
“Right guys.” Sam stood up, tugging on her little black dress. “I’m going to ask you some questions now, and Danny will keep on shooting to get some more natural shots, all right?”
“Fine, whatever.”
“So, you guys have playing music together for years now, without any sign of acrimony. How do you do it?”
I couldn’t even look at the other guys, their hate was burning into my back. Before now, we could’ve answered that stuff honestly. Yes, we bickered, but ultimately, we were mates. Now… well, everything was different. The hate was real, and the others really didn’t want me around anymore.
“Oh well, you know how it is,” Liam coughed awkwardly behind me as he tried to spit out some words. “It isn’t always easy, but we make it work.”
Sam eyed us all quickly, sensing something was happening, and in typical journalist fashion, she leapt upon that and tried desperately to pry us apart. “Right, so you haven’t announced a new album for a while. Would you ever consider a solo career?”
“Yes,” I snapped back, without even thinking about it. “I’m sure I would have a lot of success if I went off by myself.” Urgh, what the hell was I talking about? Maybe it was true, if any of us could have a solo career it would be me, but I was just running my mouth off. My temper had gotten the better of me, and I couldn’t seem to rein myself in.
“But we do have a new album ready for next year. We’re all in the studio writing in between tour dates.” Liam was lying, trying to salvage my comment, which ran through my brain like nails down a chalkboard. What gave him the right to say anything like that?
“Yeah, we’ll see.” I sounded like a petulant child.
“Riiight,” Sam drawled. “Okay, well I’m sure the fans will love to hear about that. I know you guys have to go on in a moment, so do you think we could ask some more questions after the show? Maybe question you all individually?”
“Yep.” I leapt up, needing another drink. I didn’t want to even give myself a chance to sober up. The acting was becoming too intense. I needed to get drunk to keep it up. “See you later.”
I pushed past the photographer and grabbed the bottle, all the while trying to gear myself out to be the famous Rich Gold once more. This used to come so easy to me. It was a little sad that the persona was slipping to be honest. It meant that I was changing.
Anyway, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was the way I was perceived.