CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Even with a couple of days to cool down, the minute I saw Alex’s smug, asshole face as he walked into Nick’s apartment where we’d all agreed to meet, I couldn’t stop myself. “You fucking asshole!” The words were out of me right as I jumped at him, fist back behind my head to slam into his face. None of the rest of the guys in the band made any move to stop me, and Alex was too shocked to block the punch or try and push me away.
Pain shot up from my fist through my arm, tingling at my elbow and crackling at my shoulder as Alex and I tumbled to the floor together. I tried to ignore it, pulling back enough to punch at him again, and that was the moment when everything erupted. Nick and Jules jumped in, pulling us apart, and Dan was saying something I didn’t even hear; all I knew was that Alex had not only tried to get me to break up with a woman I actually really cared about--but that he’d basically violated her to do it. Even if it had only been a fucking kiss, the fact that he’d done it that way--that he’d forced himself on her to be so fucking petty--made my blood feel like it was boiling in my veins.
Someone shoved me into a chair and I could feel the pain throbbing in my hand from punching Alex. “Good job,” I heard Nick saying, his voice shaking with laughter. “Think you broke his nose.”
“Wanted to break his whole fucking face,” I said.
“Yeah, well, we don’t want you going to jail for battery,” Nick said. “How’s the hand?”
“It hurts like a bitch,” I replied.
“Dan, grab some ice for Mark’s hand and Alex’s face,” Nick called out.
Almost in spite of me, I started to calm down. Nick was hovering over me to keep me from launching myself out of the chair at Alex again, and I assumed Jules was taking care of Alex. Dan brought the ice, and a couple of beers for good measure, and for a few minutes, it was noisy but nothing was really happening. The ice on my hand helped the rage I could feel simmering under my skin, but not enough to make it go away completely.
“We now call this meeting of Molly Riot band members to order,” Jules said dryly from across the room. Everyone sort of settled into their seats, and I looked across the living room to see that Alex had a dish towel full of ice pressed to his face.
“First order of business,” Nick said, “is whether we still have a band.”
“We’re short two tracks for the album,” Dan pointed out. “We need maybe one more week of recording and we can turn things over to Jack and be done with it.”
“But it won’t matter if we can’t even have Alex and Mark in the same room without things getting physical,” Jules countered.
“We sure as hell wouldn’t be able to promote or tour the album like that,” Nick added.
“Anyone want to comment on the fact that that fucker just nearly broke my nose?”
“You earned it,” Jules told Alex. “You’re fucking lucky that we didn’t all jump you.”
“What the fuck were you even thinking?” It felt good to hear Jules and Dan sticking up for me. “Like if you were right about Allie and believed it for real, you’d have just let her show her true colors.”
“It’s not important what Alex was thinking,” Nick said. “What’s important is whether we can function as a band, and what that’s going to look like if we do.”
“How the hell are we supposed to move forward from this?” Jules looked at me. “That asshole kissed my girlfriend without her consent to try and make me break up with her.”
“Let’s take a minute to think about this,” Jules said. “I mean, I’m not even saying that I want the band to keep going under all circumstances, but I think we have a good fucking album. I think we can move forward from this as long as people have--like--good intentions and shit.”
“What would that look like, though?” Dan sipped his beer. “I mean, we’ve had fights and shit before--but this kind of bullshit is pretty bleak.”
“We can do reparations,” Nick suggested. “Make Alex give up part of his share of the album sales.”
“What the fuck! How is that fair?” I saw Jules shove Alex back down into the chair.
“Would you accept that, if it was an option?” Dan looked at me.
“He’d have to apologize to Allie, too,” I said, flexing my numbed fingers. A little residual pain crackled along my knuckles. “And he’d have to fucking promise that he wouldn’t so much as touch her again--that he wouldn’t even be in a room alone with her.”
“That’s fair,” Jules said, nodding.
“What the fuck?” Alex tried to get up again, and Jules pushed him back down.
“You brought this on yourself, asshole,” Nick told Alex. “Unless you want to publicly be the one to break up the band and get no shares of the finished album because we won’t use any of your parts on it, or your songs?”
“I didn’t even do anything that fucking bad,” Alex protested. I rolled my eyes.
“You think Mary agrees with you? We can get her in here,” Dan suggested. “From what I hear she’s not a big fan of what you did either.”
“How many days has it been since you got laid last?” I resisted the urge to snicker at Jules’ question.
“It was a kiss, it’s not like I molested her,” Alex said. “And anyway, if their relationship was so flimsy, then that would fucking end it…”
“Your goal was to end it, so don’t pull that shit on us,” Nick said. “And you call Mary right fucking now and ask her how she would feel if one of us grabbed her and kissed her against her will.” Alex started to protest but he obviously realized he had nothing to say in his own defense.
“So, an apology from Alex to Allie, and Alex gives up part of his share of the next album’s sales to Mark,” Dan said. He shook his head. “I can’t fully believe that we’ve reached a point in this band where these kinds of things happen.”
“We’re a corporate band now,” Jules said, wryly. He looked at each of us. “I think we need to talk about that.”
“I agree,” Nick said. “We’ve let the machine do too much for us.”
“This whole album has been about that,” I pointed out. “Like the whole deal--how much money we got for it for working with Fran’s band, how long we were taking, all of it. Is this the band we want to be?” It was almost a relief to get off the topic of what had pissed me off so much, what had so nearly destroyed us as a group.
“Yeah,” Dan agreed. The chatter went on for a while, and I listened more than I talked; basically, we’d all felt--in one way or another, at one point or another, without saying anything to each other about it--that we’d lost control of what Molly Riot actually was. Of who we were as a band.
“I guess what we do is tell Ron that we want to manage more of our own shit,” Jules suggested.
“All of us,” Nick interjected. “Not just Alex.” He scowled at our lead singer.
“I get it, I get it,” Alex said. The blood had stopped flowing from his nose; when he took the ice away I thought it probably wasn’t broken, but he wasn’t going to have a pleasant time for about a week or so. “I’m fucking scum.”
“Yeah, you kind of are,” Dan said. “And if you want the band to keep existing, you’d better be fucking prepared to deal with it.”
“I’m tired of talking,” Jules said, slumping a bit in his chair. “Let’s order some food and smoke out and just chill for a while.” It didn’t feel quite like things were resolved--even an apology to Allie and me getting part of Alex’s share of the next album’s sales didn’t seem exactly to make things even--but for the time being, at least the band wasn’t breaking up. At least we’d figured out what the problem under all the problems was. We could at least get the album done; after that, who knew?