Too Fast For Love

Chapter 5 - Piece of Your Action

** This follows Take Me to the Top.****

Nikki wakes up. He shifts around, and nestles back into a cozy position. Suddenly his eyes open wide and alert. He realizes that he's warm under his bed comforter. He put it on Tommy last night, and now it's on him. Is he still here? What time is it? He focuses his eyes on his clock radio. It's 11:30. Fuck. He didn't intend to sleep this late.

Nikki hurries out of bed, eager to see if Tommy is still here. He can see immediately that the couch is empty, and he spies the bright, white sheet of note paper on the table. He reads the note. Although he's disappointed that Tommy left already, it puts a smile on his face. He likes his hair. Twins.

Nikki puts the note down and picks up the drum sticks, clapping them together. They feel foreign in his hands. He attempts to twirl one, and it clatters down onto the floor, clipping the table and chair, before even a single rotation could be made. Drumming takes a hell of a lot of coordination; with tricks, like spinning the sticks, even more. He decides this instrument suits Tommy's personality. Wild and energetic. Nikki is going to stick to the rock, steady bass. It's a pulse. It's a heartbeat. Nikki gives the music life. Mick wakes it up. Tommy keeps it up. Now they just need to find someone to tell its story to the world.

Nikki sighs and puts the drumsticks down. He doesn't have much on his agenda today until the show tonight. Maybe check the latest edition of the Recycler for singers. Maybe try to hone in on some of his songs. Perhaps another attempt at recording, despite Mick's protest that the recordings suck. They may very well suck, but eventually it helped bring the song to fruition. It's hard, sometimes, to get what's in your head musically, into everyone else's head.

Nikki decides that he should also get to the store and buy a cake for Tommy. Plus straighten up his room. Laundry might be a good idea. He's got 3 piles of clothes. Clean, worn but still wearable, worn and past its prime. Now he believes that he just added too much to his to-do list. He thinks he should start with the clothes. His room could use some airing out. He's not sure what's going to happen with Tommy tomorrow, when he turns 18. He definitely intends on kissing him, or at least trying. He stops and wonders for a minute whether Tommy is really just into him, or if he's just eager to be in a band with the illustrious Nikki Sixx. He's fairly confident that this motherfucker is into him. He'll give it a 95% guarantee rate.

Anyway, aside from a kiss, he's not sure whether to go further. It might be too soon. BUT, just in case, he should try to make his bedroom a more pleasant place to be. It just occurred to him that Tommy has already seen it. It's the only way the blanket could have made it back on his bed, unless he was sleepwalking and stole it back. Nah, Tommy thanked him for it in the note. He was in his filthy room. Maybe he'll forget how bad it was if he spruces it up enough by tomorrow.

Nikki envisions Tommy's room at home. Posters on the wall, a chair and desk, maybe two dressers and a closet, the clothes neatly put away, a cool lamp, some shit around from his childhood, like a trophy or a model airplane that he built or something like that, a few beer bottles chucked underneath his bed. The old accordion sitting in the corner, dusty, begging to be played again someday, and old baseball sitting alongside it. That's how he envisions life in the suburbs.

Nikki didn't grow up with many possessions. He moved too much. Things got lost in the shuffle, or were broken either by his mother, one of her boyfriends, or himself during a fit of rage. What he valued most was music and freedom. Freedom to roam and explore. Freedom to think under the stars or drop a fishing line into the lake. Freedom to take care of his business as he saw fit and run far away and hide when he felt his freedom being threatened. He thinks this lifestyle helped him to run towards his dreams faster than the average person who gets caught up in material things and rules of society.