6. Marley

CHAPTER 6

Marley

I 've been sitting in the stillness of the dark for hours with my brain refusing to shut down so that the peaceful calm of sleep can overtake me. Instead, my mind rages with the constant panic that I fucked up my life by sending some inappropriate texts to my best friend. What the fuck did I do? I know what I did. Some unhinged shit, that's what. What was I thinking sending those out-of-pocket texts to Iggy?

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

I burnt my skin under a scalding shower. Popped some Ativan to numb my overthinking brain. I even called my therapist, whom I hadn't talked to in months. He informed me it was one a.m. and I wired his office ten thousand dollars for an hour of his time. The impromptu session wasn't any help. He had the audacity to tell me to be honest about my feelings. Motherfucker, I can't be honest about shit. Hello, that's why I'm in therapy. I've got issues regulating my brain that's spiraling out of control as we speak.

The reality of therapy is that the patient has to do the work. Processing my brain's rollercoaster ride for Iggy Donnavan is something I'm not ready for. The only thing I'm aware of is, the weight of the pain in my chest is so heavy I might go into cardiac arrest.

Oh my god, I told him to lick the cum from my used underwear. Why the fuck did I do that? Like I could have brushed the girl off, been a dick. I rather enjoy people assuming I am a prick. It melds well with the entire piece-of-shit rockstar aesthetic. Maybe Iggy will throw my cum-stained boxer briefs at me and call me a sick fuck. Yes, that's what's going to happen. He will call me out and the two of us can go back to laughing about this .

What if this makes shit more awkward? Things between Iggy and I are already tense as it is and, unlike him, I don't have MDMA to fall back on as my perpetual excuse for why I do fucked-up shit. Right now, I wish Ativan had some sort of over-the-top horny side effect. Sorry, bro, my Ativan kicked in and shit got weird. Except why would shit get weird with Iggy and me instead of the groupie that was in front of me in my hotel room?

Jesus Christ, fuck, heroin couldn't explain this shit away.

Maybe I should quit the band. The headlines can read, Mayhem, the keyboardist for Gutless Void now lives in a cabin deep in the mountains of Montana, never to be seen again. I like this idea, I could die alone and then my dog can eat my decomposing body because of hunger.

"FUCK."

I lean forward and scrub my face with my hands. Fuck my life. I push my hands away from my face. My eyes focus on the small tattoo on my wrist, the first one I ever got. It's a small tattoo of piano keys, hiding a scar below, reminding me I've survived much worse than a momentary lapse of judgment over my best friend.

Okay, so I sent Iggy some cum. He'd sexually assaulted me in my sleep. We're even, right? Yes. We are even. I'm also relatively certain that he did everything I requested of him. He read all my texts but didn't bother to reply. Maybe the embarrassment of sucking his best friend's cum like a junkie kept him from typing anything back. Or he could have been so weirded out that he didn't know what to say. Or it weirded him out, and he didn't know how to respond to out-of-pocket texts.

There's a bang at my hotel room door. Eight years ago, when we stayed in dive hotels that housed hookers and random junkies, I would've ignored the obnoxious knocks. I'd assume it was some drunk that got the wrong room. We aren't sleeping at random motels in questionable parts of metropolitan cities anymore. This is the top floor of an establishment where royalty and presidents visit. My feet feel heavy as I stumble in the dark toward the banging. I grip the frigid pewter handle before flinging the door open. There, appearing like both a demon and an angel, Iggy stands before me.

He leans against the doorframe, and his lips turn up into a lopsided smile. He pulls his left hand from his back and twirls my boxers on top of his index finger. "Thought you'd want these back."

I want the superpower of invisibility, or to have the ground crack open and pull me under into some black hole where nothing and no one could ever find me.

A logical person who knows Ignatius Donnavan would completely grasp that he will take any fucked-up situation and turn it into a Mardi Gras. The only issue is that at this moment my brain is in full-blown panic mode and logic is the last thing I'm capable of.

I open the door wider and gesture for him to come in. "Looks like you did an impeccable job cleaning them."

Arrogance works well at masking insecurity.

Iggy stares me right in the eye and smirks. "You know what I'm like when on Molly, anything and everything depraved looks and tastes good."

"You on Molly now?" I ask.

Iggy shakes his head. "Nah, I'm pretty sure it's worn off."

"Then why did your dick get hard as soon as I opened the door?"

Here is the major difference between Iggy and I. Had he said those words to me, I would have tucked my tail between my legs and run back to my room. Then I'd have sat in the dark, like I was doing earlier, and contemplated the one thousand different catastrophic situations that would befall me.

Iggy flashes a smile, grips his crotch, and boldly says, "How nice of you to notice."

Now, what the fuck am I supposed to say to that? I noticed. I noticed so much that I might glue my eyeballs to his dick. There isn't much I've been able to focus on lately other than his dick. Yet, he can't know that. There is no way in hell I'm admitting to Iggy that all I think about is his warm mouth and that hard dick .

Iggy steps into the room and flings his body on the sofa. He outstretches one leg on the circular blue Valor coffee table. I wonder if he's aware that he literally provided his dick with a neon frame.

I stand there speechless as Iggy continues to smirk. "How about we watch some porn and take the edge off?"

"It's almost two a.m. How about you go back to your room and sleep?"

"Party pooper," Iggy mutters under his breath, before leaning toward the coffee table and lifting the remote.

"I mean it, Iggy. I'm not in the mood to watch a bunch of porn stars."

Iggy gazes up at me and even in the room's darkness, I can sense something greater than horniness in his eyes. "Can we hang out?"

I'm not sure what hanging out with Iggy is like anymore. Since that night Kaye shut us in a hotel room for days, the tension between us has been so thick that the idea of casually sitting around shooting the shit seems impossible .

"Come on, Marley, we've been best friends for almost ten years, we aren't about to fuck that up 'cause our dicks got the better of us a couple times."

"It's been more than twice."

Iggy chuckles. "Semantics. Fine, a few times. There, is that better?"

A part of me wants to demand Iggy go back to his room, not because I'm tired or don't yearn for his company. It's the opposite. The strength of my consuming desire for Iggy has me frightened that one misstep and I'll flush an eight-year friendship down the toilet. My lungs grasp for breath at the idea that I've crossed a line and went too far to the point I've ruined the only person who holds me still in a world that turbulently rotates, never allowing me to get a steady footing.

My stomach churns with sickness, and my hands tremble with worry. I look for three things, but I can't focus on anything to level myself. The only sound I can concentrate on is the screaming in my mind and the erratic, nonstop beating of my heart. The t-shirt against my flesh is more like medieval armor, so heavy that it's weighing me down. Why can't I breathe? Jesus, I can't fuckin' breathe.

"Marley," Iggy calls my name, but he sounds far away, not sitting a few feet away from me. "Marley, calm down. Fuck. Marley."