Awkward

“Guys! Seriously! Wake the fuck up!”

The next day, Tré awoke to rapid pounding on the motel door. Past the thudding, he could make out the muffled yelling of the tour manager of his temporary band. His voice, deep and distinct and completely in contrast with his small frame, was edgier than usual, Tré noticed. Devoid of its normal light-hearted and cheerful tone, he sounded agitated and flustered. Tré could imagine him standing against the other side of the door, hands running roughly through his hair, and the skin covering his forehead creased.

Grumbling, he slid his hand underneath himself and scratched at his crotch before rolling over and rubbing his eyes. With the thick hotel curtains shut it was dark, too dark for him to find the lamp in the unfamiliar room, and nearly completely absent of light except for the sliver of illumination peaking from under the door. Before finally hitting the lamp switch, his hand bumped against something light and hard, and whatever it was landed on the floor almost soundlessly.

“Fuck,” he mumbled, sitting up and letting his bare feet touch the soft, and filthy, carpeting. Immediately he cringed, remembering those investigative reports he’d seen on T.V. about the ‘hidden filth’ lurking in motel rooms. He looked at the sheets beneath him, rumpled and pooled at awkward places, and imagined the millions of different sperm samples that graced the bed. Just thinking about it, he could picture the room covered in neon blue splotches underneath a UV light.

He couldn’t get into the shower fast enough.

Not ten minutes later, there was more unfriendly banging on his door. More screaming, though this time from Cliff, the band‘s guitarist. He quickly shut off the shower and clambered out of the tub. Stepping out of the bathroom, skin red and raw and tender, Tré quickly dressed, throwing on a clean pair of underwear with yesterday’s jeans and t-shirt. As he packed his things, flinging his meager belongings into a small duffel bag, his eye caught on a misplaced glowing underneath the hotel bed.

“…The fuck?”

Cautiously, he approached the bed’s edge and kneeled before it. The thing continued to glow. Tré could feel the hysteria growing. He knew, he knew there was nothing to be so worried about but he couldn’t stop his palms from sweating or the tightening in his chest. Really, he was too old to be this frightened of some ‘hidden danger’ under his bed, but…what was that thing?

He closed his eyes and inched his hand into the dark space, trying his best not to squeal or recoil like the big puss he was. When his fingers made contact with a cool and smooth surface, he sighed. Curling his hand around the object, he pulled it out and stared at it. It was a wallet. An almost silver wallet made of some soft fabric made to look like chrome, and speckled with tiny pale-green stars. Glow-in-the-dark stars.

As he reached to open it, thumbing the small latch at the side, there was more banging on the door and even louder yelling. He was sure he could make out the raspy growl-like voice of Reese, the band’s bassist, and Cliff’s irritating laugh. Tré quickly shoved the wallet into his back pocket and scrambled off the floor.

“All right! I’m coming! Shit…”

He threw his duffle, his favorite bag - the one he always brought on tour - over his shoulder, grabbed the room key, and stormed out the room.

Out in the hall, as expected, stood Cliff and Reese, both leaning against the wall, hands folded across their chests, and wearing thick black shades. Tré took one look at the two, shook his head, and continued to walk.

The two men followed, practically skipping behind him, and once they reached the end of the outdoor corridor, Cliff spoke.

“Whaddyathinkoftheseshadesman?”

A moment passed while Tré tried to decipher his bandmate’s words. Cliff had this way of speaking, too fast and nearly incomprehensible. Whenever Tré mentioned it - whenever Tré complained - he would laugh it off and mumbled something about language barriers and east coast and west coast and stupid Californians. In fact, Cliff, on several occasions, had made a point to list the differences between New Yorkers and, “those hippie leaf-eaters.”Starting with the Yankees and the Giants, and usually ending in a back-handed slam against the Dodgers, Cliff could go on for hours pointing out the reasons for which New York was infinitely better. And Tré never failed to mention the Lakers…most often in comparison to the Knicks, which usually brought the conversation to an end, and left Cliff disgruntled and grumpy and grumbling, “Don’t try to throw that shit in my face.”

“The shades?” Tré asked, titling his head just a bit. “You look like the Blues Brothers. All you need are black tuxes and matching fedoras.”

“The Blues Brothers? We were going for federal agents,” Reese said gloomily, obviously downtrodden.

As they walked toward the parking lot, Tré chuckled. “I doubt federal agents would have their ears stretched and wear tattered jeans. Doesn’t really fit the image…and you’re not very intimidating.”

Cliff ignored them both. “The Blues Brothers are from New York.”

--

“Where were you last night?”

“None of your damn business, Lucille.” Pulling her dreadlocks back into a stiff ponytail, the girl stalked across the crowded and cluttered hotel room she was supposed to have shared the previous night, her dark eyes scanning the shag-carpeted floor for any sign of her own belongings. “Has anyone seen my jacket? The blue one? I thought I packed it last night, but it’s not in my duffel.”

“Erm…” A shaggy-haired young man stood up from his own duffel, spinning around and viewing the room. “I…dunno, Benny. Last I saw it, Lucy was wearing it last night.”

“Dude!” Benny shot another glare to the other girl, her hands on her narrow hips. “I fucking told you, stop stealing my clothing.”

“Whatever,” Lucille said, rolling her eyes and falling back on one of the beds. “It looked better on me, anyway. Look in the bathroom.”

Casting a look to the young man, the only other person in the room besides the two young women, which clearly said, ‘I will end her, you watch,’ Benny stalked her way into the bathroom. She returned mere seconds later, holding the jacket away from her body as though it carried a disease, part of the fabric pinched between two calloused fingers. “Probably have to wash it, now,” she mumbled when she passed by the boy, so only he could hear. He only sighed, not willing to get involved in the spat that was no doubt about to occur, and returned his attention to gathering up his own scattered belongings from around the room.

“Seriously, Benny…” Flicking some of her long, straight, and black-dyed hair out of her eyes, Lucille rolled over so that she was lying on her stomach upon the sheets of the bed, her chin propped up in her hands and her elbows digging into the mattress. “Where’d you disappear off to? Don’t think none of us noticed when you snuck out of here last night. Booty call? With who? Ooh! Was it that roadie guy traveling with the other band? You know which one - the scruffy one, with that one little pink dreadlock? Stupid haircut, but he’s kind of cute.”

“Lucille…” Benny dropped her jacket into her duffel bag, and then stepped on it so as to stuff it in better. “Do me a favor and shut up, already.”

“So who’d you sleep with, then?”

“Lucy…” The young man stood up again, glancing to the lounging girl with an air of exasperation around him. “Just let it go, all right? Obviously, she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“Shut up, Sicily.” Lucille waved a hand dismissively but her gaze, piercing and slightly intrusive, was only directed to the dreadlocked girl. “Was it someone from the other band? Oh, come on,” she added when Benny’s glare intensified. “They’re not a bad-looking bunch…mostly. I mean, they’re a little older in Pudding, but whatever. Who was it?”

“Lucille, let it go,” growled Benny between gritted teeth. “I don’t give you the third-degree whenever you go off and fuck some random guy, so don’t do it to me.”

“Oh, so you were off fucking someone!” This was apparently delightful news. “Tell me about it, Bernardette.”

“Fuck off!” Benny stomped down on her bag again and turned to face the other girl. Already, her hands were curled into tight fists and Sicily looked wary; alert, too, as though preparing to jump between the two girls if he had to. Lucille was not deterred from her game - she never was, instead usually finding her bandmate’s constant frustration with her to be amusing, if anything. That was typical of Lucille, anyway. She claimed to never “take shit” from anyone, and most of the time she didn’t, but she spent more time and effort trying to let other people know that she was tough and not to be threatened by anyone that she usually just came off as abrasive. Everything about her was, to Benny’s eyes, offensive and loud and brash, and she just didn’t like it. Her dark makeup was always too heavy, her hair was dyed too strikingly black when compared to her very light skin-tone, and she showed too much skin with her clothing…when she was even wearing her own clothing, instead of stealing Benny’s.

“There’s only a few it could have been…” Lucille began counting on her fingers as she spoke, purposefully ignoring that Benny’s face was slowly growing to be the same color as her hair. “There’s that Reese dude…older guy, but he’s not bad-looking. What about Cliff? He’s always looking at you. But then again,” she said, adding a sickeningly sweet smile, “he looks at any female with two legs a little too long, anyway.”

Benny said nothing. Sicily placed his hand on her arm; a gentle touch that she barely felt, but acknowledged nevertheless. It told her, quite clearly, to ignore the other girl as she usually did. Riling people up was almost a favorite pastime for Lucille, and it was just Benny’s bad luck that she happened to be a favorite target. She turned her back on the still-rambling girl, packing her leftover clothing with haste and the idea of getting out of the room and away from the other girl as fast she could now prevalent in her mind. The other two members of the band, their bassist and drummer, had already run off to their cramped little tour van earlier on - they were the smart ones, apparently.

“…I mean, I guess Tré Cool isn’t bad-looking, but jeez, talk about gold-digging. How old is he, anyway? I was so weirded out when I saw that he joined up with Pudding. I mean, like, they’re older, but he’s like…old.”

“He is not,” said Benny heatedly, by then crouching on her knees on the floor and struggling with her bag’s zipper. Her firm statement was met with only a lack of verbal response, and for a moment the room was only filled with those few sounds of outside that managed to creep in under the door, and the grating sound of her bag’s zipper sticking and unsticking whenever she jerked the tiny metal clasp.

It was the laughter, sudden and riotous, that finally made the redhead look up again. Lucille was rolling around atop the bedspread, which in itself was enough to make Benny cringe - she could only imagine how often those bed-things were washed, or weren’t - and she was laughing so loudly, so delightfully, that it was though she’d just heard the funniest joke of her life. Benny cast a bewildered look to Sicily, but it was met with a blank expression in return. He wasn’t even looking at the other - possibly mad - girl, and was instead only focusing his attention on her. His mouth open and closed several times, but the words just didn’t come. He simply shook his head, clearing his throat and ducking back down to his suitcase.

“Jesus, Benny,” he managed to mumble, but that was it.

“What?” she asked heatedly, turning again to Lucille for an answer. She’d been irritated enough before; now she was on the verge of being absolutely livid, not being one that liked to be kept out of the loop about anything, especially if it involved her. “What the hell are you laughing at?”

“S-starfucker!” After trying and failing to form a single word for a few more seconds amidst her continuing laughter, Lucille finally managed to stutter that one out. It was all too much; she collapsed in a fit of giggles right after, burying her head under a rather yellow pillow and almost shrieking into the mattress.

Benny didn’t even know what to say. Did she care that Lucille had guessed correctly? Or Sicily, for that matter? Truthfully, no. Things like this just happened for the members of their band, and she had more dirt on both of them and the people they’d slept with in the past than they did on her, but Lucille’s response…that laughter, that smug face and those shrieks, as though it was really something that needed such a reaction…and that word. Benny hated that word. She had never heard it before, at least not directed entirely at her, but she loathed it with every inch of her being the moment it crossed past Lucille’s cherry-red lips. ‘Starfucker.’ How ugly. How demeaning. How…very typical of Lucille.

Benny didn’t even bother responding. She wanted to throw herself onto the bed and pummel Lucille within an inch of her life - or maybe she could be persuaded to go for that extra inch anyway - and kick her out of the hotel room, off the tour, out of the apartment that she - unfortunately - shared with her and Sicily, and out of her life. She wanted to strangle her, punch her, curse at her with every bit of profanity she had in her vocabulary until she was blue in the face and could no longer speak…

But she didn’t.

She turned her back on the laughing girl, grabbed her duffel bag - still unzipped - and stormed out of the room. The door slammed shut behind her, the force enough to make the small mirror hanging on the wall next to it shake.

“Smooth, Lucy,” Sicily muttered. He didn’t bother to go after Benny. There was no use in it. There never was. “Can’t you leave her alone for five seconds, seriously?”

“She’s a starfucker! She fucked the Green Day guy!”

Sicily shook his head, and returned to his packing.

--

After check-out the band met in the parking lot, Tré, Reese, Cliff and the tour manager, Kevin, loading the equipment into the back of the van. They’d had to move everything the previous night, just to get their luggage out, and now were doing the opposite; pulling the equipment out so they could shove the luggage back in, and have the equipment closer to the doors for when they reached the venues. As Tré hoisted a cumbersome old amp into the trunk, Benny stood only a small distance away, leaning against the shady side of the hotel as she sipped at a cup of iced coffee. Fuck the Dallas heat, she thought, wiping her forearm against her head. It was barely ten and already eighty-seven degrees. The heat here was merciless.

From under the dark cover, her hair dimmed. The fiery red, simmering to a deep burgundy, was not nearly as recognizable as it usually was. Her pale skin didn’t stand out under the shade, but was hidden and seemingly in sync with the tanned skin of the men standing close to her. She was almost normal here. And from that spot, secluded from the sun’s glare, she watched Tré and his band load their van.

It only took a minute for Tré to feel her gaze on him. He turned and spotted her, his eyes glancing at her for a short moment before he smiled and went back to his work. She rolled her eyes then, wondering if he’d take a break to run over and steal a kiss in his usual goofy way, or if he’d try to take a sip of her coffee or pull her hair or do something else completely idiotic and immature.

He didn’t.

Tré tried not to think about the girl standing so close to him. She was watching him, that impassive bored expression on her face, and he could feel the bulk of the wallet pressing uncomfortably in his pocket. His mind was reeling. Just looking at her, everything fell into place and he wondered how it had ever managed to slip his mind in the first place. How had he awoken that morning, in that bed, and not thought of her…and what they did? Even after he’d found that wallet, that stupid glow-in-the-dark thing, why didn’t anything click?

He tried to sneak a look at her. Her eyes were focused in his direction, but not at him. She didn’t look upset, he decided. She didn’t look angry or confused or awkward. She looked the same, frustratingly so. The way her eyes fell upon him, it was the same as always. Nothing new. For a moment he wondered if she had forgotten, too.

But she couldn’t have. She was buzzed, he remembered, just a bit drunk, but definitely not amnesia-intoxicated. And she came to him, if he was remembering correctly. She’d shown up at his hotel door at some ungodly hour, kissing and groping and being all, “Fuck me, Tré.” She couldn’t have forgotten.

So maybe she didn’t care. Maybe this was a normal thing for her. He couldn’t think of any rumors, not that he ever encouraged that kind of thing, but what if this was something she did on a regular basis? She was quiet enough, kind of reserved whenever she was off-stage, but that didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean she couldn’t be a secret nympho, sexin’ up all the guys (and maybe even girls) on this tour. Tré suddenly found himself outraged. Who the hell did she think she was? Using him to further her sexual deviancy. Shit, he had feelings for god’s sake! She couldn’t use him like that.

He snuck another look at her. Coolly, clearly not bothered, she raised her cup of coffee to her lips and sipped through the straw. When she saw him looking, she smiled and her eyebrows rose just a bit.

Well, maybe she isn’t a complete slut, he conceded, quickly averting his eyes. Maybe.

But that was the thing about Tré and this exuberant young redhead: they were similar in many ways, both being energetic, natural-born performers with a deep devotion to music, and a most sincere love of touring. But there were also a lot of differences.

Tré, the goofy and—in his opinion—lovable middle-aged drummer, was known for his loyalty to friends and also his easygoing spirit. He had always been one for commitment, having been married twice before, and though those marriages had failed he still strongly believed in "relationships" and "love." Sex, it wasn’t something that just happened. Well, it did, but it meant less when that was the case; it wasn’t so enjoyable when the emotions weren’t there to back it up. Sex always meant something more, something deeper. It had to, he thought. Something so intimate couldn’t be considered a simple pastime, something to be had and done and forgotten.

Benny, on the other hand, was young—nearly twenty-one, though still quite a few months off the mark. She was wild, a free spirit who’d spent most of her few years creating and breaking ties. She was rootless, with very few long-term friends and even fewer serious relationships, and she liked things that way. She enjoyed being unchained. With Benny, sex and relationships didn’t always keep the same company. So that morning, before the sun had fully rose, before the motel maids set out to clean the rooms and fluff the pillows, she awoke, climbed into her clothes and her black hunter’s boots, and walked out of Tré’s motel room. There was no shame or regret. No lingering feelings of guilt or…special affections. Last night was fun. And, really, that was all it was.

She approached the dirty, banged-up old van, and stopped to sit on a short barrier. Tré was cramming pieces of his drum set in the van while bitterly quipping with Max, the band’s lead singer. Apparently, Max didn’t feel the need to help with the loading of instruments (“The only instrument I need is built in. I’m not hauling your shit,”) and Tré took it upon himself to educate the man in good bandmate etiquette. The two had been bickering as Benny watched, Tré pulling his drum set, piece by piece, off the large dolly and into the van, while Max leaned lazily against another large amp wearing a smug smile. He’d made sure to mention, several times, that Tré was sweating…a lot, and after the third or fourth reminder, Tré threw one of his drumsticks at Max. His aim, as usual, was horrible. It landed painlessly on one of Benny’s feet but, mostly out of reflex, she yelped, catching their attention.

“Hey, Benny,” Max said turning his head to look at her. “Did he get you in the eye?”

She cringed slightly, noticing the skin at his neck pull and twist with his movement. The tattoos that lay there moved and squeezed together, creating sickening little bits of overlapping frantic color. Max, in her opinion, was very much like a British bulldog, except all his loose skin was covered in ink and slightly tanned and he wasn’t nearly as cute and lacked that lovable quality. He was of average height but so solidly built that his girth often dwarfed him. Badly proportioned, is what Benny had always thought. It was the one thing about Max that she…appreciated. It made her feel less awkward about her own “bad proportions.”

She picked up the stick and walked closer to the two. Decidedly ignoring Max, she turned to Tré, arm outstretched, offering him back his drumstick. “You need help with this stuff?”