[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Chapter Fifteen: Drinking Buddies


It was a dive bar, the kind of place that country singers sat in and crooned about moonshine and their cousin's uncle's brother's broad running away with the dog or whatever. In fact, Desi was willing to bet many a CMT number one video had been filmed within those four walls. Nick glanced around nervously, like he expected to see someone he knew, and Desi waved at the bar tender and ordered two beers and carried them to a table in the corner where Nick was sliding in, back-to the door, and hunkering down. Desmond sat and slid Nick's beer to him. They clinked glasses.

"To AA," Desmond mocked.

Nick laughed and the two of them knocked back their first sips.

"You know the fact that you brought me here is possibly the worst display of sponsorship AA's ever had?" Desmond said.

Nick shrugged, then, making an excuse, said, "I think sobriety is partly about having willpower, knowing how to cut yourself off responsibly. I mean, you can drink as long as you don't over do it, there's nothin' wrong with one..." he took another pull off his bottle.

"I don't even really need AA," Desmond commented, laughing.

Nick raised an eyebrow. "Denial?"

"Kelsey," Desmond replied.

Nick started picking at the label on his beer, "Kelsey?"

"I've never had an issue with drinking. I'm not much of a drinker. I mean, I do drink, but it's not an abundance thing. It's not a condition thing. It's more a social thing. I don't drink when I'm sad, I don't drink to medicate, you know? I drink 'cos I like the taste and it's just --" he shrugged. "But Luke, he drank."

Nick had the label peeled off. "The ex."

"Right, the bastard ex." Desi sipped his beer. "Anyway, part of the agreement with coming here was I was gonna join AA and quit completely. She watched alcohol change Luke, watched it change her mother. She didn't want it to change me."

Nick nodded.

Desmond sipped his beer. "It's not like I've been jonesing is my point."

"I sure as fuck have," Nick confessed. "That night at Bluebird, when I took your beer, I drank it," he laughed.

"I think that means you owe me two tonight," Desi said, shaking his bottle.

Nick licked his lips. He legitimately liked Desmond, which was why what he was about to do wasn't going to be easy. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded collective of paperwork he'd had faxed to him from a law office in California. He smoothed the pages out. "I wanna buy your song," he said.

Desi laughed, "Buy my song?"

"Yes, I wanna buy your song - the tune, the lyrics, the rights. Everything." He stared at Desi, trying his best to keep his eyes level, to keep from looking in any way shifty. He cleared his throat.

Desi leaned back, disbelief filling him. He had dreamed of this moment for years and years and years - the moment when he'd sell his first song - and here it was. He stared at Nick, unsure what to say.

"I'm prepared to pay you. Cash," Nick said. "Twenty-five grand."

Desmond choked on his beer.

Nick handed him a napkin. This was the reaction he'd been hoping that Desi would have - one that indicated he thought twenty-five grand was a lot of money for a song. In the world of song-buying, it wasn't. The Backstreet Boys had paid over fifty for a track they never even ended up releasing commercially two years before. A solid hit could make enough over time in commission for a person to retire on, as people the likes of Max Martin could verify for you. But Desmond didn't need to know that.

"Twenty-five grand?" Desmond said, surprised.

"Yeah."

"That's a shit ton of money."

Nick nodded. He didn't want to lie, so he said: "It's the least I could do." This was true. "It's a great song, it's hit quality." True, also true. He took a sip of his beer, watching Desmond trying to process the idea of $25,000, cash. Nick licked his lip as he lowered the bottle from his lips. "What do you say?"

"Where do I sign?" Desmond asked, laughing in disbelief.

Nick pushed the paperwork toward Desi. "Right there."

Desi picked up the sheets of paperwork and stared down at the legal mumbo-jumbo verbage. Phrases like all rights included and all future royalties and compensation swam in front of his eyes.

"Just a formality, you know, signing the paperwork," Nick said. He held out a pen.

Desi shuffled the papers. "Do you mind if I read through them first?" he asked.

Nick felt a wave of panic rumble through him, but he shook his head, "Nawh, it's cool. Course you can read through it," he said. He leaned back in the booth and watched Desi skim read the document. "You can take it home and read it," Nick suggested. "Bring it by the house tomorrow. Maybe you and Kelsey can stay for lunch or something..." The real motive to this, of course, was seeing Kelsey.

Desmond muttered, "I'm working tomorrow."

"Dinner?"

"Maybe." He looked up from the document, folded it, and slid it into his pocket. "You really think I have something in the song?" he asked.

"Why else would I buy it off you?" Nick asked.

Desmond shrugged. He studied his beer for a moment. "I don't know. Maybe to impress Kelsey."

Nick felt his palms start to sweat. "You really do got talent," he said.

"Kelsey told me about last night," Desi said.

Nick swallowed. "And?"

"She's not that kind of girl," Desmond said.

Nick looked confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean she's not the kind of girl that almost gets arrested for having sex in a public space," Desi said. "She's not that kind of girl." He shrugged, "She's the kind of girl that takes bubble baths and watches How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on cable and makes cookies with little designs drawn on them in colorful frosting. And not even just on the holidays, she does that just for the hell of it. She's the kind of girl that still writes on her LiveJournal account. She's the kind of girl that gets hurt easy."

"I would never hurt her," Nick said defensively.

Desmond took a deep breath. "I've known Kelsey my entire life, basically," he said slowly. "We grew up together. When I turned eleven this thing happened... one day I biked over to her house and she came out the door and she had her hair up in a pony tail and she'd put on lip gloss and she smelled pretty and I don't know if it was really the first time she'd done that stuff or not, it might just be in my head that it was, I don't know. What I know is that I saw her and I fell in love with her."

Nick stared at Desmond from across the table without saying anything.

"And I've loved her every single day since then," Desmond said.

"She doesn't love ya back?" Nick asked.

"I don't know," Desmond said, "But if she ever looks at me and sees me like I looked at her and saw her... I'm gonna be there. One thousand percent. Because I love her, and I'll die loving her." He paused. "If you hurt her," he said, and he leaned toward the table and pointed directly at Nick's face, "I swear to God I will kill you."

Nick stared into Desmond's eyes. "I won't hurt her, man," he said.

"Okay." Desmond sat back and tilted his head back, letting the last of his beer slide down his throat. He dropped the glass bottle to the table top and studied Nick a moment. "That second one you owe me?" he said, "Yeah. I'm gonna be going to get that now." He slid out of the booth and went for the beer.

Nick pressed his palm to the table top, trying to resist joining Desi at the bar.




Kesley was laying flat on her back staring up at the ceiling. Desmond should've been home hours before from AA. The movie hand ended and now Pretty Woman was on TV and she was blowing spit bubbles staring up at the stucco texture on the ceiling, wondering where he was. She shot him a text message but he didn't answer.

She was so gonna rub this all in his face, she thought.

She was just about to turn the TV off and go to sleep (I'm not going to sit here all creepy-stalker like and wait like he did, she thought), when she heard voices - loud and obnoxious - outside in the stairwell. It'd been a relatively quiet hotel experience, save for the banging and clanging of the maids as they got on and off the elevator outside with their big cleaning carts, so the noise was unusual. Kelsey froze, arm aloft with the TV remote. Whoever was yelling outside was obviously drunk, and drunk made her nervous. She hit the power button and crawled to the edge of the bed as the voices got louder and louder, and walked over to the door and peeked through the peephole in the door, just as it pushed open. She only just leaped out of the way before she would've ended up crushed between the door and the wall.

"If there's something straaaange in your neighborhoooood... who you gonna call?" Desmond was singing loud and off key.

"Ghostbusters!" Nick shouted, then continued - also loud and off key, "If there's something weird and it don't look goooood, who you gonna call?"

"Ghostbusters!" Desmond yelled.

They both tumbled through the door, tripping over their own feet. Desmond almost fell into Kelsey and she pushed him back off her and backed away, staring at him, eyes wide. She looked at Nick.

"This place is nice man, this is a great place, I like this place, I've never stayed at this hotel before so I didn't know it was nice like this," Nick rambled loudly.

"It's only like forty-five dollars a night if you round that out it's like almost as much as normal rent almost. But we need normal rent you know? But its kind of sweet too because we get housekeeping here too," Desi rambled. He waddled across the room and laid down on Kelsey's bed.

"It'd be nicer if it wasn't spinning around like this, though," Nick commented. Then he spotted Kelsey. "'Ello there sweetcheeks," he said, and he grinned.

"I thought you two were at AA?" Kelsey snapped.

"We were," Desi said from the bed, where he had his eyes closed and arms spread out like he was trying to steady himself on the bed. He squeezed his eyes shut even more, "Then we had a business meeting."

"A business meeting?"

"I bought his song," Nick said. He waved the contract, which at some point between the bar and the hotel had been signed though neither Desi nor Nick could remember when Desi had signed it and given it back to Nick. "I'm gonna tape it," he hissed.

Kelsey looked between the two of them, "You went to an AA meeting and then you went and got drunk?" she raised an eyebrow, "There's something seriously fucked up about that."

"Irony, it's called POETIC IRONY!" Desi said, shouting the last two words.

Nick knelt down and grabbed the carpet, balancing himself. "Oh Jesus, everything's spinning so much," he commented.

Kelsey leaned against the wall. "You didn't drive like this, did you?"

Desmond looked up. "Did we drive like this?" he asked Nick.

"No man we called a cab remember?"

"Oh yeah." Desmond fell back onto the bed. "We called a cab, Kels."

"Well at least you had some intelligence left in your bodies," Kelsey snapped.

"Aw don't be mad babycakes," Nick whined from the floor, "It was all in fun, just a couple beers you know?"

"This is way more than a couple beers," Kelsey growled.

"Oh. I don't remember if there was more than beer," Nick mumbled. "But maybe. I don't really remember a whole lot. Desi, was there more than beer?" He looked up at Desmond's legs hanging over the bed. "Desi? DUDE, DESI?"

"I'm tired man, stop talkin' to me," Desmond said from the bed.

Nick rolled onto his back on the carpet. He stared up at Kelsey. "Desmond said I could sleep here tonight."

"Fine whatever." Kelsey turned back to the door and slammed it shut, then crossed the room quickly and climbed into Desmond's bed, annoyed. She pulled the blankets up by her face and curled away from the two drunk idiots and hugged her knees to her chest.

Suddenly Desmond was standing over her. "Kels," he said, "You're in my bed."

"Yeah well you were in mine," she answered.

He stared down at her, now that his bout of dizziness was ending, he could feel a little bit of his brain starting to function again, though only marginally. Nick was still passed out on the floor on the other side of the bed, sprawled across the carpet like he'd been shot down midflight. Desi bit his lip, staring at Kelsey's bare shoulder in her tank top, at the blanket and the way it curved around her body like liquid.

"I'm in love with you," he said.

Kelsey looked up at him, "Go to bed, you're talking like a psychopath."

"I mean it, Kelsey," he said, "I love you like the grass loves the sun and the moon loves the night and the whole world loves potato chips."

"Go to bed, Desi."

He leaned down, about to crawl in beside her and she pushed him away, her palm pressed against his forehead. "Go to my bed, Desi," she corrected.

"Okay," he said. "I bet it smells like you..." he turned and crawled into her bed.

Kelsey turned away and hugged his pillow closer to her, tears sneaking out of the corner of her eyes. She blinked, trying to chase them away, and took a wobbling, shaky breath.

"Good night," Desi's voice came through the dark.

The tears officially started rolling across Kelsey's face, and she didn't answer, afraid her voice would break if she tried, and hugged the blanket closer.