Out of Play

Jolene Perry and Nyrae Dawn

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to my mom. Thanks for teaching me to believe in myself. It’s because of you that I never gave up, and saw my dreams come true.

—Nyrae

To Melissa, Heather, Beth, Monica, Andrea, Jamie, Julie, Betty (both of them), Vivian, Emma and all the other tough Alaskan chicks I’ve been privileged to know—this is for you.

—Jolene

Chapter One

Bishop

Bishop! Bishop! Bishop!

The chants from the crowd won’t stop rattling around in my head.

Bishop! Bishop! Bishop!

I stumble from the car to the front door, catching my foot on the step and slamming into the side of the house. The world around me blurs. It always does after a show.

Look, it’s Bishop Riley from Burn!

Left, right, and left again, I look over my shoulder like the paparazzi are still behind me, their voices mixing with fans that haunt me. What kind of rock star can’t handle crowds? It’s pathetic. I’m pathetic the way I let the anxiety practically swallow me whole.

Just get inside. I need to get inside, and then it will all go away.

I wave my personal guard back into the car before grasping the handle, desperate for quiet. But as soon as I push the door open, it’s like I’m back on stage again, everyone wanting a piece of me. People are everywhere, closing in. No one’s supposed to be here. She promised. Maryanne fucking promised there wouldn’t be a party tonight.

I shove my way through the people crowded in her living room. The crowd’s screams during my drum solo overtake me, wipe away the high I get when my sticks slam down on the drums. No one’s staring, but it feels like they’re climbing inside my skin, gnawing from the inside out.

I need Maryanne. She said she had a surprise for me, and it sure as hell better not be this party.

Someone hits me on the left, scoots around me on the right. Each touch amplifies the screaming in my head, the vice twisting around my throat. I flex my hands, wishing I had my drumsticks.

“Bishop!”

I cover my ears, but then I realize it’s Maryanne calling my name.

She bounces over to me, a big-ass smile on her face. “Come with me!” She’s yelling, but I can still hardly hear her.

My feet tangle again as I go up the stairs and follow Maryanne down the hallway. With each step, the vice around my throat gets tighter, flashes of the show tonight playing in my head.

10,000 people.

Burn! Bishop! Burn!

It mingles with the phone call from my asshole dad. He wants more money, he always does. It’s the only way to get him to leave us alone. I squeeze my eyes shut, everything becoming too much.

We slip into one of the rooms…and it’s quiet. Blissfully fucking quiet, the noise of the party muted by the walls. I turn on Maryanne, hating the way my hands shake. “You better have something good.”

She holds up a pill bottle and grins.

My mouth goes dry. “What is it?”

“Come and see.” Laughing, she backs away. As soon as I step toward her, she tosses the bottle at me. When I get the lid off, I toss the pills in my mouth and grab the beer Maryanne hands me to wash them down. Pills and beer gone in three seconds flat. Gone the way we used to be before I had the money to pay Dad off, when he would find us in whatever new town we moved to so we could escape him. Only the pills make me feel a whole lot better than leaving did.

Maryanne trails her fingers down my stomach. “How many did you take before you got here?”

“A couple. I only had a few with me, though.”

“Here.” Maryanne hands me her beer, and I down that as well.

It doesn’t take long for the edge to start drifting away, for the vice, the voices, the hands grabbing for me to fade.

My cell rings.

Shit.

I pull out my phone, knowing I’ll get hell if I don’t answer. People are always checking up on me.

“Where’d you disappear to?” Blake, my band’s lead singer, asks. “I thought you were coming over.”

The room is spinning. How the hell does a room spin? I fall onto the bed to see if that makes it stop. Nope. My body tingles all over. It’s such an incredible feeling. So much better than the hands ripping at my skin during a show or the chanting trapped in my head.

“B.R.?”

Oh, right. I’m on the phone. “Paparazzi wouldn’t stop following me,” I say. “I had to ditch them.” True. The word sounds funny, so I keep playing it over. True, true, true, true.

“You could have ditched them and still come over. I thought we all decided the band would hang together after the show tonight.”

We did? Little bits and pieces try to form in my brain, but struggling to figure them out takes too much concentration. Blake’s trying to kill my buzz. I’ll be damned if I let that happen. The spinning starts to slow down, and I’m pissed about it. The dizzy was way better than dealing with him. “It’s not that big a deal.”

My upper teeth brush against something on my bottom lip, and it startles me. But then I realize it’s my lip ring, and laughter starts pouring out of me. I don’t want to stop. I don’t remember the last time I laughed this hard—the last time I let loose with people who weren’t in my head.

Burn! Burn! Burn!

It’s more than our band’s name when they yell it like that. It makes me feel like they’re burning me alive. My high starts slipping more…

I want to grab onto to it. Find something else to take to make sure it doesn’t go away for the rest of the night.

“Bishop, you need to take this shit seriously. I can only cover for you so long before—”

Wait. “Cover for me? What the fuck does that meant?”

“Mean.”

Mean? What is he talking about? The spinning slows to a stop. He’s giving me shit for something all of us do. They’re going out tonight. There’s no difference if I do it with or without them. And at least I have an excuse. They don’t feel like they’re going to lose their shit on stage like I do. Not that I’d ever tell any of them that.

“Bishop,” Maryanne whines. “You’re ignoring me. I don’t like to be ignored.” She falls onto the bed next to me and runs her fingers down my chest again. My heart picks up. This is what I’m in the mood for. Not Blake’s shit.

“Is that Maryanne?” he asks.

Bishop Riley! Burn, Burn, Burn!

My buzz is sizzling away…

“Gotta go.” I hang up the phone and drop it on the bed…floor, I don’t know and don’t care. Maryanne’s skirt is short—so short. “What’cha want, B.R.? I know you want more.”

Do I? Yeah, I do. Just a few minutes ago, I was laughing. It takes the stress away so I can be happy.

I think she bats her eyelashes at me, but I can’t tell. Maryanne gets up and walks over to the dresser. A bottle of vodka flies at me, which I almost don’t catch. With a slow smile, she pulls out two more pill containers. The stress immediately seeps out of me, just that easily. I deserve to party once in a while. I’m tired of people telling me otherwise. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t let loose sometimes. Who doesn’t need help relaxing after the crazy schedule we keep? The rest of the time, I just maintain. We all have to maintain.