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Judging from the sudden tenseness of his muscles, the way his fists and jaw clenched so tightly she could see muscles pulsing in the veins that stood out from his skin, and the slight straightening of his posture, Laurie got the feeling that Axl Rose did not have a good history with the woman in the doorway.

"Erin," he said coolly after a bit. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

The smile on her face was frozen, but she answered:

"I came to tell you something."

"Oh Jesus. You're not pregnant, are you?" grunted Axl, pushing into the hotel room without looking directly at either woman. As much as he liked kids, he seriously didn't think he wanted to be tied down to any at the moment, especially not Erin Everly's. He'd met her in early 1989, married her in May of 1990, and annulled it in November of the same year. During that time, he'd hoped he'd be able to forget Laurie in Erin, but he'd been wrong. Erin hadn't been able to follow him psychologically, whether he was talking about his dreams, his thoughts, or simply ranting out his anger. She hadn't understood him well enough. Then there had been the problem of her personality. Erin Everly was a shallow bitch with nothing to give to their relationship outside of sex. Though she was pretty, Axl felt like maybe she was really a hollow shell of a woman, lacking a heart--or any other vital organs. He knew he was setting her up to very high standards by comparing her to Laurie, but he couldn't help it--Laurie was still on his mind from time to time at that point and he couldn't quite let go of her. He'd tried so hard to love Erin, but it hadn't worked out.

And now she was back to haunt him.

Maybe this is punishment for what I did to her, Axl thought, throwing his bags on one of the beds. He hadn't meant to hit her, honestly, but sometimes she'd annoyed him so badly that his rage at her dissimilarities to Laurie had come out in his fists. She'd been battered and bruised by the time he left her, but he'd felt no remorse, mainly because he hadn't allowed himself to think about it. Any time he did caused him to feel guilt for sinking down to Reverend Stephen's level. Axl had never hurt Laurie (at least not intentionally) because they'd been such great psychological matches; they'd challenged each other and conversations with her were never boring. The thought of hurting someone so like him had never once crossed his mind.

Erin, on the other hand...

"No," said Erin, who had followed Axl into the hotel room and was now leaning against the wall, "I'm not pregnant."

"Thank God," muttered Axl.

Laurie snorted as she passed by his bed but managed to hide it by changing it into a cough.

"Don't you want to know why I'm here?" asked Erin.

"Not really," said Axl. "I just really want you to get your shit together and get the fuck out of my hotel room."

"Okay," said Erin, obviously not taking Axl seriously. "So, your background singer, Brynn, she called me a few weeks ago and told me she's pregnant!"

"Congratulations," said Axl sarcastically. "Whose?"

"Um...she said Izzy's, but I don't believe it," said Erin. "Anyway, she told me there was no way in hell that she could face the band with that information, especially once she started getting bigger, so..."

Axl's nerves were instantly set on edge as he remembered Erin's annoying habit of trailing off at the end of her sentences and expecting him to know what she was talking about.

"So...what?" he asked finally, after a full minute of silence had gone by.

"So...congratulations, Axl, you've got a new background singer!"

"Yeah," muttered Laurie. "Me."

Erin either didn't hear her or chose to ignore her as she gazed expectantly into Axl's eyes.

"Well, all right," said the singer after a moment. "Who is it?"

Erin grinned. "You're looking at her."

It took Axl a moment to digest this information, but once he did, he nearly threw up.

"What?" he yelled. "You? You're our new...?"

"Yeah! Isn't it exciting?"

Axl didn't quite meet her eyes as he replied quietly, "Yeah." His world was spiraling downward, fast. First Laurie had re-entered his life, now Erin? Who next, fucking Gina, the girl he'd dated in high school?

If this shit keeps up, he thought, I might have to commit hara kiri.

Aloud he said:

"How'd you get into my hotel room?"

"I told the lobbyists that I have an association with Guns N' Roses and that I used to be married to you, so they recognized me from the magazine covers and gave me your room key. Said I could surprise you."

"That's...cool," said Axl, lying through his teeth. Laurie snorted again behind him and he shot her a quick warning glance, though what he was warning her against, exactly, he wasn't sure.

"And there's one more thing I have to tell you, Axl," said Erin, after a moment.

"What's that?"

"I don't have a room to sleep in."

"Fuck," snarled Axl angrily, whirling on Erin. "Don't go begging off me, you bitch! Just because you're touring with us now doesn't give you the right to try and weasel your way between the sheets with me, because it's not gonna happen. You go downstairs and find yourself a room of your own, right now, because there is no way in hell that I'm sharing with you."

Two little bright red spots appeared on Erin's cheeks, but the fear that flashed in her eyes at the look on his face overpowered her indignation, and she left the room.

"Who was that?" Laurie asked.

"No one," muttered Axl, his fists clenching and relaxing against the rough canvas of his duffel bag.

"It was someone," said Laurie. "You knew her, Axl. How?"

He whirled on her. "Shut up, Laurie! Jesus Christ, can't you people leave me alone? I told you, you don't need to know who she was."

"I'm going to be touring with her for the next six-odd months, Axl Rose. I think I do need to know who she was."

His jaw set in anger as he realized, once again, that Laurie Stevens was right and always would be.

"I was married to her for a while last year," he said. "Her name is Erin Everly. We met in '89."

"There," said Laurie calmly. "Was that so hard, Axl?" She turned back to her bags, her insides boiling with anger mixed with jealousy. So that little whore had shared Axl, had known him during a time when Laurie hadn't...had shared his bed with him and listened to all his dreams and rants the way she had? Who in hell besides Laurie had that right?

No one, that's who.

She finished unpacking and was about to ask Axl if Erin was the stuck-up snob that she looked like when the door clicked open again, and the supermodel herself came inside.

"Hi, Axl," she said. "The people at the front desk said all the rooms here are full. So I'm sharing with you."

He grabbed the phone book off the table between the two beds in the room and hurled it at Erin; it missed her by inches.

Laurie raised one eyebrow but remained wisely silent. Since when, she thought, has Axl become abusive?

"Fuckin' bullshit!" he yelled, breathing heavily. "You go share with someone else!"

She shook her head. "I already asked. No one else will take me."

Axl ran his fingers agitatedly through his hair. "You can't sleep in here," he said after a moment. "Laurie's already taking that bed."

"So kick her out!" exclaimed Erin, who clearly had not made the connection between the two.

Laurie glared at Axl. "May I speak to you alone for a moment, please?"

He nodded, and they stepped out into the hallway.

"You listen to me right now, Axl," she said angrily, when the door was closed. "I'm not checking myself out of your room just because that slut shows up randomly and invites herself in. This arrangement was already set up and I'm already unpacked. If you think you're gonna kick me out--"

His eyes flashed. "Why the hell should it matter, Laurie?" he yelled. "I'm not with either of you!"

"I'm not leaving your room," she said. "I'm not leaving you two alone." For reasons she couldn't quite explain, she hated the thought of Axl being alone with Erin while she--Laurie--was on tour too. She hated the thought of them getting back together and having to watch them nuzzle backstage while she stood alone.

"Oh, so now you won't leave me?" His voice was sardonic. "My, this is a twist of events from what you felt in '87 when you up and left my hotel room. Surely, Lauren, you can't possibly feel more remorse for this scenario. Surely leaving men alone in hotel rooms is a habit by now?"

His words stung. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could get the words out his fingers were enclosed around her wrist, tightly, and she drew in a sharp breath of pain.

"Look," he said, his voice lower as he focused his eyes directly onto hers, "I don't know why you want to share my room with me, but I think that's fine, and personally I'd rather share with you than her. Now, I think the three of us can come to some sort of an agreement about this, huh?"

She hesitated, then nodded. His grasp loosened slightly.

"Okay, how about...we ask them to transfer us to a room with three beds?"

"Do they make those?"

"I'll find one." The sincerity in his eyes was real, and for the first time in three-and-a-half years, Laurie realized that before her was a man she could completely, utterly, and totally trust with everything, up to and including her own life.

That was security you couldn't find on the streets.

"Okay," said Laurie, in response to his suggestion. "That sounds fine."

He nodded once, though Laurie thought she saw the glimmer of a smile pass over his face as he let go of her wrist, turned away, and went back into the hotel room to tell Erin the plan.

She rubbed the tender pale skin on her wrist. He'd left bruises on her flesh, he'd been gripping her so hard. Laurie studied them. She could see his fingerprints. She traced her fingers over them and was surprised to find that, even in bruises, their fingerprints were perfect, instant matches for each other.