After being on tour for months, they returned to LA to do home-based tours, making them able to live at home for a month or so. Harley was thrilled to be back in her apartment and instantly crashed onto her bed.
She closes her eyes and listens to the silence, although now it was awkward. She missed the loudness of being on tour and her friends and even the parties. Harley knew she could always count on the coke being by her side though, as she opened her eyes and glanced at the bag of drugs that sat on her bedside table.
Leaning over, Harley grabs it and sits up, pouring a small section of it out and organizing it into neat lines on the side table. As she snorts it, Harley notices that she wasn't even affected by the sting anymore, but shrugged it off and chose to not be concerned by it.
The only shitty part about being back home was that everyone she wanted to see was preoccupied with their girlfriends. She couldn't go bother Vince, since Beth probably hated her more now. And Harley certainly couldn't go over to Nikki's, for multiple reasons. That only left Mick and Tommy open, which she hadn't hung out with either in ages.
Now that she remembered, she had work in 5 minutes. Groaning, she got up and found her work vest before heading out. That was the other shitty part about being home, now that she thought about it. She had to work again and had no excuse to not be working. And she couldn't exactly use a hangover or being high as one.
"Harley!" A voice exclaims as she enters Warped Vinyls.
"Hey, Jeanie." Harley gives a small wave as she signs herself in.
"How have you been? I can't believe it's been months since I last saw you. And you've been all over the United States by now, too." Jeanie rambles on.
"Yeah, I guess so. But we go back in a week or so." Harley responds.
"I know, Mark keeps going on about how he can't afford to keep you if you keep leaving," Jeanie says.
Harley groans. "Ugh. Is he around today?"
"Somewhere."
"Great." She mutters. "So... what do we need to do?"
"Just restacking some more vinyl," Jeanie says, leading Harley to the boxes. "So how was the tour? What have you done on it?"
"Just the same old. Y'know, do a show. Find some sort of party after or host one. Watch Ozzy do something absolutely stupid." She grins slightly, grabbing a stack of vinyl.
"That's insane. I forgot about the Ozzy bit. It's weird that that's your normal day." Jeanie told her.
"Yeah, I guess so. Oh, and when we were in Vegas, Vince and I - well, mainly me - thought it would be funny if we did one of those really quick marriages and so now we're married. So technically, instead of being Harley Jones, I should be Harley Neil now." Harley snorts as she re-told the story.
"I mean, it is Vegas. What'd Nikki think of that?" Jeanie asks, knowing of their relationship.
Harley rolls her eyes. "I don't care what he thinks. I'm kind of tired of whenever I do anything, someone says, 'ooh, what about Nikki?'. I honestly don't give a fuck what he thinks, I'm my person and can make my own decisions."
"So I'm guessing people say that a lot."
"Yeah, it's fucking annoying," Harley says, flipping through the vinyl and restacking them. "How come you guys don't have Motley Crue?"
Jeanie snorts. "Mark's tired of people asking about it. Especially since most of the Strip knows you work here."
Harley smirks to herself. "At least I left my impact."
"I guess so."
"With how far we are now, I will admit that it's still weird to meet people who were famous before us. Like, my teenager self would've lost her shit if she knew she'd sort of be friends with Lita Ford in the future. And that I'd have met Kiss and Ozzy Osbourne." Harley said.
"I don't know how you couldn't be excited about that at any point of fame," Jeanie said. "Y'know, in the future it'll be new bands excited to meet you."
"Ew, that's scary, don't say that." Harley shudders as Jeanie laughs.
"Oh, look who finally decided to show up," Mark announces his presence upon entering the room, crossing his arms.
"Just so you know, I've been here for about thirty minutes already." Harley points out.
"And she got to work right away," Jeanie adds.
"That doesn't matter. What does matter is that we've been understaffed because of you being gone."
"Hire more people, then." Harley shrugs, shelving vinyl.
"It's an issue when you care more about your other job than this one." He tells her.
"Jesus Christ, of course, I'm going to fucking care more about my other job. Need I remind you, it's a band and I'm just on the break in between tour legs. So you're lucky I even decided to come back here." Harley snaps, finally turning towards Mark.
He narrows her eyes at her. "And don't think I haven't noticed you coming into work high every shift."
"Fucking Christ," Harley sighs, throwing her hands into the air. "I'm done, I quit. I'm tired of you being up my ass every second, and at least at my other job, I can be high whenever the hell I want. So, fuck you, I quit." She yanks off the vest and throws it at Mark, before flipping him off with both hands and turning to walk out.
"You won't get your next paycheck!" He hells after her.
"I don't give a fuck! I make more in Motley anyways!" Harley yells back, opening the door. "Bye Jeanie!"
Slamming the door behind her, Harley felt slightly relieved to be closing that chapter of her life. Now she felt like she could celebrate it, and she went off to find Tommy's house.
In all truth, Harley missed Tommy. She could always enjoy his overly-enthusiastic energy, as she could at the moment. Walking up to the Lee house, Harley made sure to check first if she could hear the drums - knowing he wouldn't be able to hear her if he was playing them. To her luck he wasn't, so she rang the doorbell.
A couple of seconds later, Tommy opens the door and grins upon seeing Harley.
"Harley! What's up?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just enjoying the fact that I'm now unemployed." She shrugs.
"At Warped Vinyls?" He asks, and steps aside, waving her in. She follows him inside and he closes the door behind her.
"Yep. Mark was pissing me off so I just quit on him." She tells him.
"Hell yeah! Fuck them, they sucked anyway." Tommy cheers, high-fiving Harley.
"Yeah, I'm not that sad to leave them," Harley says, sitting on one of the stools in his kitchen. "Is Honey around?"
"Nah, she's out with some friends." He shrugs, following her into the kitchen. "You want anything to drink?"
"Sure, whatever you pick is fine."
"I think that since you quit your job you hated, that calls for a celebration of day drinking," Tommy announces, grabbing a few Jacks from his cabinet and handing one to Harley.
"That sounds like an excellent choice." She grins, accepting the bottle and popping off the lid.
"And for a toast, fuck working a normal job." He taps the tip of the bottle to Harley's and they both drink in silence.
"So how has it been for you since we got back?" Harley asks.
"Fine." Tommy shrugs. "Kind of boring."
"Yeah, I agree. I miss you guys."
"I miss you too, I feel like we don't hang out enough anymore," Tommy tells her.
"It's cause you don't bust into my house whenever you want now." Harley laughs as she takes another drink.
"So you're telling me that's what I need to do..." He jokes, grinning at her.
"I'll just ignore you if you do that." She warns.
They spent most of the afternoon hanging out and drinking. By the time Honey had come back, Harley was slightly tipsy while Tommy was more on the edge of being drunk.
"Doing some day drinking? You know that's what alcoholics do, right?" Honey asks, making a slight face of disgust.
"We're not alcoholics, it's just having fun." Tommy shrugs her off as he sips on his drink.
"Also, if anyone we know is an alcoholic now, it's probably Mick, not us," Harley adds, and Tommy nods in agreement. Honey doesn't say anything in response but instead walks up the stairs.
"I should probably go get her." Tommy sighs, getting up.
"Right. Well, I guess I'll see you in a couple of days when tour picks up again." Harley tells him, standing as well.
"We need to hang out more this leg of the tour." He says.
"Yeah, for sure." Harley agrees, nodding.
"Alright, I'll see you then, I guess." Tommy waves, before following after Honey.
Harley sighs to herself before finishing the bottle and leaving it on his counter. She heads outside and walks back to her apartment, where she would go to be by herself and probably sit and do nothing.
She knew she needed to confront Lela soon about how she was feeling about their relationship, and maybe admit her relationship with Nikki as well, but Harley was more nervous to do the latter. The first would be easy, it could just be a simple conversation.
But Harley knew it was also never easy to admit her true feelings without feeling scared, as she did with herself and Nikki. Why couldn't she admit to liking him and be with him as he wanted? Other than the Lela factor, there was no issue. Maybe though, it was because she still felt so self-conscious over who she truly was inside, that even being with a guy - which was a social norm - felt weird to her. She really didn't know what was wrong with her but hoped she'd figure it out soon, because Harley was tired of struggling with herself.
a / n ; hey all, i'm doing a little change to the story. i'm not sure if i mentioned that harley's brother was younger or not, but if i did i decided to change it to where he was older to have her timeline make more sense. i didn't think much about her past accuracy when i started the story & i'm realizing now that it's made it more complicated.
also, with the rewrite, i plan on updating chapters whenever i get them done so it's not a closed schedule. i will also be posting unreleased chapters so the count may be thrown off slightly.