Now I was sober and acutely aware of the fact I needed to justify the money sitting in my bank by coming up with a spectacular album. The word ‘overrated’ flies around way too much once your art translates into sports cars, high-profiled relationships, and Malibu mansions. Money is also the beginning of the end to art, the kiss of death to creativity, and the cancer to integrity. More on that later. Point is, insecurity is like a snake. It can either suffocate or eat you alive. Your choice, really.
The new album made me uneasy, and being uneasy made me a dick. The first people in my line of fire were my staff, so it was no wonder I’d decided to take it out on Waitrose and his easy smile and unscrupulous intentions. Though really, was he expecting me to just sit there and let him fuck my very fuckable hanny? Fuck no.
“What’s up with the sitter?” Blake echoed my thoughts, tucking his phone into the front pocket of his trousers.
I stopped strumming Tania and looked up. We were sitting in the back of a taxi, driving through Melbourne’s interesting bits. The Eureka Tower, MCG, the Botanical Gardens, and the Shrine of Remembrance. I knew that since Blake had actually put away his phone to ask me that question, it meant it was serious.
“Specify.” I flicked dirt from under my chewed-up nails.
“You never cared when we hit on your nannies before. And we always have. Christ, Alfie shagged two, and none of them lasted over a week.”
My eyes moved to the window, and I tapped my knee to a tuneless rhythm. Oh, my life, two lines would fix everything. Unclog the lyrics and make me do what I’d been wanting to—drag Stardust by the hair to the balcony overlooking Melbourne’s skyline and fuck her senseless until she moaned out of key.
“Allow me to refresh your memory, Blake—none of my sobriety companions made it past the three-day mark. That’s the first fact standing in your way. The second one? This nanny is on the road with us, probably for the remainder of the tour, and I don’t need the drama. Third and last—unfortunately, she’s no longer disposable. I sort of found a good use for her.”
Silence sat thick between us. Then, “Now it’s your turn to specify. What is this something?”
Blake wanted Jenna. That much I was certain of. The first time they’d met, he’d asked her about the massive ring on her finger before he asked for her name. She answered she was wearing it specifically for idiots like him, who she wanted to avoid. His sniffing around Indigo made zero sense. I plucked a fag from my pack with my teeth and lit it, ignoring the driver who shot me a silent frown from the rearview window.
Puffing, I unrolled the window. “Indigo turned out to be a bit of a muse to my next album. She’s down-to-earth; I’m sky-high. She makes me want to write about the L.A. of the old films. Just look at her. She dresses like one of those Marilyn Monroe impersonators on the Walk of Fame. I’m starting to come up with the narrative of the album, and she’s part of it. The blue-haired girl in the vintage dress, cycling around on her bike, going around trying to piece her heart back together.”
I was talking out of my arse at this point. My explanation sounded artsy-fartsy at best and delusional mumbo jumbo at worst, but that was the beauty of being a musician. No one could dispute your process, even if it essentially involved sitting on a Chinese takeout joint’s rooftop, stark naked, balancing a fruit bowl on your head while singing “We Are the World”—undoubtedly the worst song to ever be written in the history of, well, the written word.
“Huh.” Blake stroked his chin, carefully considering the load of crap I’d fed him with a spoon. I knew he’d do whatever it took to help me write a good album, including skinning Waitrose and using his flesh as a new case for Tania. The next bit was a tad trickier. See, being an arsehole is an art. I probably needed to do this without blatantly pissing all over the meaning of “friendship,” but when it came to Lucas, I genuinely didn’t care. If anything, I’d be delighted if he’d found out I was fisting his little girlfriend to the sound of The Pussycat Dolls.
“I’m also going to fuck her.”
Blake’s jaw slacked, then eased back as he let loose a smile he was trying to bite. Why did he look so satisfied? Did he know something I didn’t?
“I didn’t say it’d be a threesome,” I clarified.
He schooled his face back to a scowl. “Shut up, Alex.”
The cab stopped in front of our hotel, and it was dark and cold, and for the first time in weeks, I wasn’t feeling like my soul had been run over by every vehicle in a two-hundred-mile radius. The crisp air pinched my nose as I slid out of the back seat. Two doormen approached us while Blake paid the driver, tipping him extra for the cigarette stench I’d left in his car. One of the doormen held an umbrella above my head. The other offered to take my guitar. I tsked. No one touched Tania except me. Blake matched my steps into the building, and for a second, we weren’t Alex Winslow and his dapper manager. We were normal twenty-seven-year-old blokes, and I was getting shit from my mate for being so insufferably self-centered. There were no barricades, no barriers, and no bodyguards to shield me from the world.