Classic rock one shots and imagines [requests closed]

Tom Petty #2

This was a request! (Sorry it took a little while post it) I love those, so if you have one tell me. I'm terrible at coming up with people you'd like to read about. 

This request was one for a story based off of the song Magnolia from the Heartbreakers' second album. I decided to do the same thing with this one shot that I did with Brian Jones's and make it Tom's point of view. I enjoyed doing that, and thought it would be fun for this too. 

Hopefully it's not too bad and you guys enjoy :)

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Benmont and I stepped into the dingy bar almost side by side. Cigarette smoke, sweat, and alcohol like a literal slap to the face as soon as we opened the door. I hadn't stepped foot in a Florida bar since I left Gainesville four years prior. But no matter where you went in the world every bar had the same vibe and presentation: dirty, lonely, and a suffocating feeling of claustrophobia that would overwhelm me. 

Benmont didn't seem to mind it at all. In fact, the only reason he had drug me here in the first place was because he said I'd been working too hard and needed to get laid. Which seemed easy enough for him. He was a great talker, not that he had anything great to say seven stale beers in, but girls would just get carried away hearing his drunken nonsense. I guess they liked being with someone so nice and handsome and clever. It was all just a game to him, though. He never craved to have sex with a woman.  Sleeping with random girls was all his twenty-four-year-old brain could think of to appease the loneliness the life of a rock star brought about. 

Not that I was any older, but felt that I was a little wiser. And though I did enjoy that certain touch of a woman, I hated the day after.  The loneliness of a one night stand is hard to take, and after a while, the whole experience feels pointless. I'd wake up with some strange woman in my arms with the room reeking of alcohol. She'd get up grumbling, in the same hungover fog I sat in, and say things like "I hope you used one last night. It's the worst day of the month for me." Then she'd sit in front of the vanity, fixing her hair, reapplying her lipstick and fake eyelashes. Pulling up her stockings, and hateful words spewing from her lips as though it was all my fault she decided to spend a night in some stranger's arms. I would have preferred to not spend the entire night with them, but the guilt that consumed me at the mere thought of leaving them kept me there until morning. When the sun would rise with the feelings of self-loathing and disillusionment, that's when she'd leave, but only after adding to my self-hatred with scarring words that I'd still hear days later. 

Benmont seemed to have gotten an early start, spotting a girl at the bar as he was ordering our drinks. I rolled my eyes, knowing I'd feel no remorse for him if I walked out and left him by himself. I threw myself into a corner booth on the far side of the room, keeping my gaze low to the dimly-lit floor. He eventually did join me. Spending a little time as a friend talking about life and work. Even though we practically shared lives, it was still nice to vent about the little things that we bottled up inside. 

It didn't last long. A rather tall woman caught his eye and he reeled her in so fast, I didn't even realise he had left with her. 

"Dammit, Tench!" I huffed through clenched teeth, glancing quickly around my surroundings to make sure he had actually left.

Snatching my beer up from the table, I frustratedly gulped the now-warm liquid for a few seconds, jerking it away prematurely and slamming it back down on the table. I wiped the droplets on my chin away, hissing in aggravation. 

"He really left me." I huffed, shaking my head. I stared at the sweat of the beer bottle for a few seconds. I slumped back into the vinyl seat, still shaking my head.