December 9, 1983
"Are you mad at me?" Evie asked her father. He hadn't said anything this entire morning — from the time he arrived at the jailhouse to pick her up, through the entire taxi ride, and now that they were back in her hotel room — he was silent.
"No," Mick said, washing his hands in the bathroom. But his expression suggested otherwise.
"You look like you're mad at me."
"Well, I just had to pick my teenage daughter up from a German jail because she got in a bar fight with her boyfriend, so...I'm not exactly happy with you right now."
"I'm sorry." She sat down on her bed and hung her head low.
"What were you thinking, Evie?" Mick leaned against the desk, staring at her with an exasperated look on his face.
"Those men were trying to assault me. What else was I supposed to do? Just let them?"
Mick looked down, his eyes stopping on the big bruise on her arm. The bruise from where one of the men grabbed her. Sometimes, he forgot how dangerous this world was for her. Actually, he actively tried not to think about it. It made him want to drink.
"No," he said. "I'm not mad at you about that. You did the right thing to do in that situation. I just hope this night made you realize why I don't want you hanging around Nikki."
"What?" Evie laughed because if she didn't laugh she would cry. "What would've happened to me if Nikki hadn't been there? Huh? You probably would've been picking me up from the police station for an entirely different reason."
Again with the reminders of the things he feared the most. "If Nikki hadn't been there, you would've been asleep in that bed last night, not out at some random bar." At least, that's what he liked to think.
"And what's the fun in that? We're in Europe, for god's sake, should I not be allowed to go out and explore a place I'll probably never see again?"
"There are ways of having fun that don't involve going to sleazy bars with dirtbag rockstars."
"Nikki's not a dirtbag."
"That's what you think, but..."
Evie cut him off: "But what? But the last three weeks we've spent together, where Nikki's been nothing but loving and respectful, all the time we spent together every day, all of the dates and the trips and the hobbies he promises we'll do together once the tour is over, it's all because he doesn't actually care about me? He has dozens of groupies who line up backstage every night, yet he's choosing to spend time with me, just because he has some master plan of deceiving me and breaking my heart? And even if that's not the case, should I really have to avoid someone who makes me happier than anyone else in the world, just because he makes stupid decisions sometimes?"
When she looked back at him, Mick's face was contorted into a scowl, but his eyes were adrift. She could tell he was thinking. He was thinking about the 'dates, trips, and hobbies' part of Evie's spiel specifically. Nikki was planning for a future with her.
"Dad?" Evie asked when Mick stayed silent. He looked back over at her.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry I got arrested. But please, just let me be with Nikki." Her eyes were watering. "He makes me really happy. I-I think I love him."
"Who let you out of the pound, bassist?"
"Doc." Nikki walked into his hotel room later that day to find Mick laying in bed, reading a magazine. It was nearly four hours after Evie was picked up from the jail. Motley Crue's manager let Nikki stay a little longer because he wanted the bassist to think about what he did.
"You look like shit."
Nikki did. The guards hadn't let him clean himself up after the fight. The blood caked on his face was almost ten hours old.
"Thanks." Nikki went to the bathroom and brushed his teeth with the lights off. He looked and felt horrific. He considered showering, but decided instead to go back to his bed. He was never able to get any sleep when he was in jail.
He laid there for a while. He wanted to forget the elephant in the room, but the tension in the air was almost suffocating. In a low voice, Nikki said, "I'm sorry, Mick."
Mick made a little grumbling noise that Nikki couldn't tell the tone of.
Against his better judgment, the bassist laughed. "What the fuck was that, Mick?"
"What?"
"That noise. What that a sneeze or a 'fuck you?'"
Mick sighed. "It was me acknowledging that you're sorry."
"So...do you forgive me?"
Mick set down his magazine and sat up. "I don't know."
Nikki didn't respond to that, just looked to the floor.
The room was silent for a few minutes, and Nikki was sure that that was going to be the end of the conversation. Nikki had fucked up again, and Evie had gotten hurt in the process, and now Mick was understandably mad at him. Nikki was about to get up to wash his face, when Mick spoke up again.
"Do you care about her?"
"What?"
"Evie. Do you really care about her or is she just your newest plaything?"
"I care about her."
Mick looked at him with skepticism.
"I do!" Nikki said, in a still not entirely convincing tone. "If I didn't care about her, would I have taken this black eye for her?"
"She thinks she loves you, you know that?"
Nikki's eyes widened. "She told you that?"
"Yes."
"Well... I think I love her, too."
Mick didn't say anything for a moment. Then: "I hope that's the case because if you're just toying with her..." I'll murder you. It will break her heart. She doesn't deserve that. "That's fucked up."
"I'm not toying with her."
"I'm trusting you, Nikki."
"I know."
With that, Nikki got up. He needed to go see Evie.
When he was almost to the door, Mick spoke: "You did a good thing, Nikki. Beating up those fuckers."
Nikki gave him a nod and walked out the door.
"Honey..."
It wasn't the response Nikki was expecting when he saw Evie again after their unexpected separation last night. "What?" He asked, walking into her hotel room.
"Are you okay?" She got on her tippy toes so she could get a better look at the wounds on Nikki's face. She had been too drunk and scattered to notice how injured Nikki got in the fight last night.
"Nikki!" Diana was sitting on her bed. Her and Evie had been talking about the night's adventures when he knocked on the door.
"Oh..." Nikki really just wanted to be alone with his girlfriend. "Hi Diana."
"Long time, no see," she agreed.
"Uhm," Evie spoke up. "Let's go get you cleaned up." She grabbed Nikki's arm, pulling him into the bathroom. He closed the door behind them.
"When did you get out?" She asked as she looked through the cabinet under the sink for a first aid kit.
"About half an hour ago."
"Yeah?" If there was one, she couldn't find it. They would just have to make do with soap and water. "Did you...did you talk to anyone?"
"If by 'anyone,' you mean Mick, yes."
Evie ignored the sudden burning in her stomach and ran a fresh hand towel under warm water from the sink. "Is he still upset?"
"Not as much as I thought he would be." Nikki said as the girl ran a bar of soap through the towel and then gestured for him to sit on the toilet lid. "We...we had a good talk. He's not happy with me, but he didn't tell me off like I thought he would."
"That's good." Evie began to gently rub the washcloth over Nikki's lips. "Is it just your face where you're hurt?"
Nikki thought for a moment. He hadn't completely inspected himself after the fight, but he could feel where he was hurting. "My chest, I think. One of those fuckers kicked me right in the chest."
Evie inhaled sharply. She had heard stories of people's hearts stopping because they were hit or kicked too hard in the chest. She seriously couldn't let this happen again. "Okay, we'll deal with that in a minute. You should also take a shower, too. You've got dirt all over you."
Nikki mumbled his agreement then said, "I'm assuming Mick was the one who picked you up?"
"Yes."
"How pissed was he?"
"Pissed." Evie didn't really want to discuss her conversation with Mick. The two of them had never really been open with their emotions, and now Evie felt embarrassed about the way she admitted her true feelings about Nikki. And worse, Mick hadn't tried to comfort her even when she was tearing up: he just nodded his head solemnly, patted her shoulder, and then left.
"I think he's chilled out a bit. He even said I did a good thing when I saved you, my little damsel in distress."
"Yeah?" She held up the bloodied towel. "Well, who's the damsel in distress now?"
Nikki smiled as she moved to his forehead.
"You know," he began. "This reminds me of a time long, long ago. It was Motley's first gig. These assholes in the front row started giving Vince a hard time, and we ended up jumping into the crowd and beating them up, you remember that?"
She nodded. She remembered the night perfectly.
"I got hit in the face pretty badly," Nikki continued. "But we got back on stage and blew the crowd away. Then, after the show, you came into the dressing room and I got so nervous. I had only seen you a few times before but every time I did, you intrigued me. And that night, you looked absolutely gorgeous. I didn't know what to say to you, but Mick ended up leaving for one reason or another and you did what you're doing now: you helped clean up my cuts. I think that's when I first decided I had to have you."
Evie smiled and took a step back. Nikki's face was as clean as it was going to get. "And I had the biggest crush on you." Even after everything they had been through, admitting that still made her blush. "Ever since you got me that birthday card, I daydreamed about being alone with you. But I didn't know you felt the same way about me. I still remember that night, when you looked me in the eyes and then looked away so quickly that I thought you were disgusted or something. Then, when we were at the after party, at that filthy old apartment, it was like I didn't even exist. You were surrounded by all these beautiful girls and cool musicians that I was sure we'd never even talk again." They obviously had talked again (did a lot more than talked, actually), but remembering how she felt at that point in her life still brought a pang of hurt to her heart.
Nikki put his hands on her waist and smiled sweetly. "You know why I looked away so suddenly? Because when I looked into your eyes, I could tell that there was something special about you. I had never felt like that around someone before, and it scared me. I decided that it would be best if I kept my distance, because a deadbeat rockstar like me shouldn't be corrupting a beautiful, kind, loving girl like you."
Evie took his hands into hers. "What changed?"
Nikki thought for a moment. They both did. How did they go from being two people who brought each other pain with every reminder of their incompatibility to standing in a German hotel bathroom reminiscing over their two-year-long past? Then, Nikki remembered: he couldn't pinpoint an exact moment where he first began to fall in love with her. It was more a series of events, or maybe the passage of time, over which she came to feel more familiar. She began to feel more familiar because she had invited him into her home.
Nikki was a loser and a drug addict: a broke musician living in a biohazard where he drank himself to sleep every night to numb the feelings of failure and loneliness. He wasn't going to pretend like everything in his life came together once he moved into the Deal home's basement because it didn't. He didn't even fully realize the weight of it until much later on: this girl had no obligation to open her home to a destitute guy like him, but she let him live there because she was kind and caring. And she didn't just let him live there: she treated him as a friend, showing him a kindness he had lacked his whole life by making him lunch, doing his laundry, and picking up after him so that Mick wouldn't kick him out. And how had he repaid her? He cheated on her.
But that was besides the point now. He had suffered the guilt, apologized, and continued to feel the regret to this day. The question now was what solidified his feelings for her? Nikki always saw the turning point as the night on the patio, when he tried to bring her an ounce of the comfort she had brought to him by sitting beside her, consoling her when she had no one else to talk to. He could hardly remember exactly what they said to each other that night, but he could remember that it was the first time he found himself truly attracted to her. Sure, she was pretty and he had wondered what she looked like under her clothes, but hearing her quiet voice talking about an issue he knew all too well, looking into her soft eyes glistening in the light, and feeling her fragile body leaning against his chest, made him want to kiss her. It made him want to tell her it would all be alright, and that he recognized everything she had done to care for him and all the things she had to do much too young because of her broken homelife. Nikki was too egotistical to say those things out loud back then, but he put them into a song for her.
And the night they played that song for the first time with her in the audience, Evie kissed him backstage. By that point, Nikki had desired her for a week. That wasn't very a very long time, but it felt like one when the girl who seemed far too perfect and normal for him to ever have a chance with was living upstairs. But when she took the initiative and kissed him — that was when he knew he didn't have to hide his real feelings anymore.
Funnily enough, Nikki didn't think it was the night on the patio or the backstage kiss when he realized Evie was the one. It was probably actually their first fight, which was fitting considering all the other aspects of his life.
It was after the concert where they first played Starry Eyes (and after she kissed him), and Evie decided to come to a party at the Motley House. Toward the end of the night, she got on him when he started doing cocaine. She cussed out his dealer and stormed off outside. Nikki had to go chase after her, because if anything happened to her Mick would kill him. He tried to turn it around on Evie, making her feel bad for ruining his party. But she wasn't going to let him do that. She called him out for the manipulator and addict that he was, but she did it with such truth and calmness that he could tell it was coming from a place of concern for him.
It had to be that night — when he realized she cared about him and wasn't going to hold her tongue when something bothered her — that he really fell for her.
"Nikki?" Evie asked. The bassist had just been staring at the bathroom door for a good thirty seconds now, and she was starting to get concerned.
"I love you."
Evie's breath caught in her throat. When was the last time someone said that to her? When was the last time Nikki said that to her? Her face turned into a smile of pure happiness.
"I love you, too." She leaned down and kissed him, careful to avoid the side of his lips that were broken open.
Then, they looked at each other and suddenly, everything else in the world went away. The guys who attacked them last night, the police who arrested them, the people who didn't approve of their relationship. None of that mattered anymore.
"I think I'm ready to take that shower," Nikki said.
A few minutes later, Nikki was back in his own hotel room. Evie had sent him back to get a new outfit, because there wasn't much of a point of showering if you just got back in the same dirty set of clothes.
"Where'd you go off to?" Mick asked from the same spot and position he was in when Nikki left.
"Somewhere," Nikki mumbled.
"Evie's room?" Mick knew that it wasn't Tommy who cleaned Nikki's face.
"Maaaaybe." The way he smiled at her name revealed the truth.
"I thought so."
He didn't say anything else until Nikki started heading for the door.
"Wait," Mick said. "Are you going back to her room?"
"Maaaaybe."
"Just..." Mick thought for a moment. "Tell her I'm not mad at her anymore, okay?"
"Okay."
"And ask if she wants to go out to dinner with me after the show tonight...if you guys don't already have plans."
That made Nikki turn around to face him. He gave Mick a little smile and a nod, then walked out the door.
"Your dad wants to go out to dinner with you," Nikki said when he got back to the hotel room.
He watched Evie's eyes light up in the bathroom mirror. Everything in her life was coming together once again. "I'll go call him. You get ready, alright?"
Nikki used his brief alone time to take off the dirt-covered, blood-soaked, jail-smelling outfit. It took a certain type of girl to tell him she loved him when he looked like that.
Nikki had only a towel wrapped around his waist by the time Evie came back in. She wasted no time, stripping off all her clothes a little too quickly for Nikki's preferences, but he supposed there would be plenty of other times for her to tease him. He looked her up and down, but something caught his eye. It was a pink streak across her chest, above her left breast. A scratch mark from where one of the guys last night had tried to grope her.
Evie's eyes followed Nikki's and her shoulders fell with the pain of the memory.
Nikki forced himself to swallow despite the scratchiness in his throat, then opened the shower curtain. He took deep breaths as he turned on the water.
"Ladies first," he gestured when the temperature was just right.
Evie climbed in. She had changed her outfit and washed her face when she got back from jail, but she got sucked into a conversation with Diana before she could shower. It felt good to get the night's germs off of her.
She got so into the water flowing over her that Nikki's arms enveloping her waist startled her. Nikki bent over and kissed her neck sweetly. He rocked her back and forth, gently turning her around until he was underneath the water.
Suddenly, Evie gasped and pulled away from him, her eyes filling with tears.
"What?! What's wrong?"
She turned to face him and looked down at her left arm. How had Nikki not noticed it before? The bruise was a deep purple, with spots of dark red. It was a good five inches long and wrapped nearly all the way around her forearm.
"I'm sorry," Nikki breathed out. He was furious. Furious at the guys last night for giving them a hard time, furious at himself for not protecting her, and furious that he had managed to hurt her again by wrapping his hand around her arm.
"It's okay. You didn't mean to."
"You can hurt me now," Nikki offered, tapping the big bruise on his chest from where he had been kicked. "Go ahead, punch me."
Evie laughed. Nikki always had the strangest ways of apologizing. "What? No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." She leaned into his shoulder, careful to avoid his bruise. She wrapped her arms around him, and he rested his chin on her head and stroked her hair. He really loved her.
Evie broke away after a few minutes. She didn't want to forget to actually shower while she was in the shower. She grabbed the bar of soap off the soap dish and ran it along her legs, giving Nikki the show he wanted.
She hadn't even gotten the chance to clean her arms when Nikki stopped her. He took the soap out of her hand, set it back down, and kissed her deeply. Evie ran her hands through his hair as they made out against the shower wall and Nikki stroked himself.
Before long, he turned her around so that her back was pressed against his stomach. He reached down. His middle finger was the first to go inside her, followed by his ring finger.
Evie nearly buckled in his arms. This was just what she needed after the night they had. She tilted her head upward, waiting for Nikki to kiss her. She moaned into his mouth, her hand on his wrist urging him to go faster.
Soon, Nikki was applying just the right amount of pressure inside of her while she focused on her clit. She came within ninety seconds, but Nikki wasn't done yet. When her walls tensed around his fingers, he thrust his hand harder, making her nearly scream in pleasure. Just when she expected him to pull out, he dug into her g-spot. Nikki had to wrap his free hand around her waist to keep Evie from falling to her knees.
She leaned against him, kissing his chest and telling him how good it felt. Nikki couldn't help but touch himself. After another minute or two, Evie's toes began to curl, her grasp on his wrist tightened, and her mouth dropped open. She came while Nikki told her what a good girl she was.
Afterward, Nikki didn't blame her when she didn't help get him off. He remembered that whenever she came with penetration alone, she needed some time to recover. She would get very quiet and loving, just wanting to be near to him. In this case, she hugged him, watching him jack off until he came on her stomach.
Now Nikki could finally wash himself. Evie stayed within six inches of him at all times while he used the soap. She only broke away when she wanted to wash her own hair.
By the time they were done, Diana had gone off somewhere else (Evie didn't feel bad about it, considering how many times she had to leave when her and Vince were going at it), so Evie sat on Nikki's lap and they watched The Joy of Painting until it was time to head to the gig.