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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. Marya
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 Marya
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 Marya
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 Marya
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 Marya
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 Marya
Marya
“A couple. I only had a few with me, though.”
“Here.” Marya
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 spi
“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 fu
“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 spi
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 spi
“Bishop,” Marya
“Is that Marya
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. Marya
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. Marya