“I’ll text you my room number in Vegas!” I call to her. “Come to my room after tonight’s show!”
“Not gonna happen!” she yells back.
“It’s happening tonight!”
“One and done!”
“Tonight and every night for the rest of the tour!”
There’s only silence now. No footfalls. No reply.
“Laila?”
But she’s obviously gone.
Exhaling, I get up and grab my clothes off the ground. I dry myself off with my shirt and throw on my pants. And then, I grab Laila’s bottle of whiskey, plop into a nearby chair, and stare at the starry night while drinking and replaying what just happened, over and over again, in my head. I knew it’d be hot with her, but that hot? Good lord. When we really got going, it was like she was a junkie, chasing a high. A hate sex high.
I freeze with the lip of the bottle against my mouth. Now, that’s a hit song.
Hate Sex High.
My heart thumping, I grab my phone and record a flurry of voice memos. Some initial lyrics, a melody for the hook, an idea for the dirty, raunchy beat. Finally, when I get enough recorded to keep the song from slipping back into the ethers before I’ve arrived in my room to nail it down, I throw on my shirt and sprint out of the pool area, all the way to my suite on the far end of the hotel. Once inside the room, I rip off my damp clothes like a madman, grab my guitar, and start writing “Hate Sex High” in earnest, feeling like a man possessed.
When asked about my songwriting process in interviews, I often say it feels even better than sex, when it’s going well. But after fucking Laila the Unicorn Freak, the Hate Sex Addict, the woman who just rocked my world like none other, I know my usual comment isn’t entirely accurate. Now that I’ve had hate sex with the one and only Laila, I know the more accurate statement is that songwriting, when it’s going well, feels better than regular sex, and almost as good as hate sex with the hottest woman who’s ever walked planet earth, Laila Fitzgerald.
Seventeen
Laila
Las Vegas, Nevada
As I speed-walk across the sprawling lobby toward the elevator bank on my way to Savage’s suite on the twentieth floor of our Vegas hotel, I chastise myself for giving in to temptation. I shouldn’t be heading to Savage’s room. Not right now. And not at all. The plan, as of mere hours ago in Phoenix, was for me to resist Savage and his insanely delicious fingers and cock, that incredible body, those soulful, burning eyes and cut jawline, for the rest of the tour. On principle. To teach that rockstar cliché a lesson about the way he reamed me in Atlanta in front of everyone. To let him know his abundant charms have absolutely zero effect on me.
Ha.
I’m so mad at myself right now. And yet, powerless to change course. At least, if I was going to give in to temptation, which I swore to myself I wouldn’t do, then self-respect demands I wait at least a full week to do it. At a bare minimum. Not mere hours. And yet, here I am, speed-walking like a middle-aged mom with a Walkman across this expansive lobby, on my way to Savage’s room for Round Two, feeling like a hungry dog who’s just heard the dinner bell.
Walking away from Savage on that lounger this morning, and not taking him up on his offer to head to his room, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. But I did it! And I was so damned proud of myself! And now, here I am, not even waiting until after tonight’s show to admit I’m hopeless.
I tried to resist Savage when I got his text a half hour ago, telling me his room number and begging me, literally, to let him eat me “from every angle” after tonight’s show. Upon receiving that text, I put my phone down on the nightstand in my hotel room and muttered, “Nope. You have zero effect on me, Savage.” But when I felt my resolve quickly crumbling like a beachside cliff, I stuffed my phone into my pocket and marched downstairs to the lobby, intending to spend the next few hours before soundcheck in the casino. What better way to distract myself?
But, unfortunately, I ran into our tour manager, Tracy, in the lobby, before making it to the casino. And that’s when she mentioned Fugitive Summer had just finished an interview and that all the members of the band were heading to their respective rooms to chill for a bit before soundcheck. In that moment, I felt possessed by a demon. Incapable of waiting a second longer to let Savage make good on his offer to eat me from every angle. I knew, whether I liked it or not, I was a goner.
And now, here I am. Pounding on the call button at the elevator bank in the lobby like my very life depends on it. After only one time with Savage, I feel physically addicted to him. Like I don’t care what pride I need to swallow to have him.
When one of the elevators opens, I lope over to it, lurch inside, and punch the button for the twentieth floor. But just before the doors close, two young women enter the small space, and immediately gasp.
“You’re Laila Fitzgerald!” one of them says.
“I am. Hello.”
“We love you!”
I thank them, and they ask for, and receive, a selfie.
“Are you going to the show tonight?” I ask, intending to offer them tickets if they say they’re not already going.
But it’s a moot point when they reply, “Hell yes, we’re going! Fugitive Summer is our favorite. And you, too!” They look at each other and at the same time, scream, “Savage!” And then quickly burst into gleeful, giddy laughter at their silliness.
“He’s definitely one of a kind,” I say.
One of them says, “Everyone says he’s your boyfriend . . . ?”
“No!” I bark, involuntarily, unable to keep the panic out of my voice. I clear my throat and try again, this time more calmly. “No.”
But the damage is done. I’ve obviously come off as a lunatic. The woman who doth protest way too quickly and loudly. The girls pause, apparently sensing, accurately, that I’m off my rocker. “Sorry if we assumed,” one of them says, slowly, like she’s talking a jumper off a bridge. “We saw that video of you and Savage shouting at each other and—”
“That was a misunderstanding,” I reply, my heart thumping. “But there’s nothing going on between us, I assure you.” They’re referring to a video of Savage and me in New York, taken while we screamed at each other on the sidewalk in front of that restaurant. Thankfully, the street noise and other ambient sounds were too loud to capture our words with any clarity. But our body language was clear enough—fierce enough to instantly spark rampant rumors Savage and I were having a passionate lover’s spat.
“Well, good, that just leaves him for us, then,” one of the young women says, making her friend giggle.
The elevator stops on their floor, but one of them holds it open while asking me if I can get them backstage tonight. But now that I’ve revealed myself to be a total nut job, I’m too embarrassed to see them again.
“No, I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not allowed to do that.”
“Oh well. It was worth a try. Say hi to Fugitive Summer for us, okay? Especially Savage!”
“I will!”
After the doors close between us, I begin pounding on the button for Savage’s floor, despite it already being lit up. Now that I’m this close to Savage, I can feel his magnetic pull on me. Indeed, my mouth feels like it’s physically watering at the thought of what I’m going to do to that man, the minute I have him alone. Hopefully, he’ll be smart enough not to speak when I arrive. Or else, quite possibly, he’ll talk himself right out of the best blowjob he’s ever gotten.