THE SECOND TIME Joel and I have sex without a condom is different from the first, with lots of giggling and repositioning and knocking things over on the kitchenette counter. Afterward, I’m liquid in his hands, and it takes every ounce of strength I have left to put my clothes back on and join everyone else outside. The bonfire is relit and raging, and the entire party is rippling with an exhausted sort of excitement, the kind that makes people friendly and stupid-happy.
We find Rowan, Adam, Shawn, and Mike sitting in a circle of lawn chairs with Van, his band mates, some familiar faces from last night, and a few faces I don’t recognize.
“The man of the hour!” Van shouts, and everyone cheers Joel and lifts their Solo cups in a toast. I’m looking for a spot to sit when someone taps me on the shoulder.
Two pretty girls grin at me when I turn around—one short, one tall, both with candy-apple-red hair and milky white skin. The short one has an eyebrow piercing and a pixie haircut, and the tall one has a tiny diamond nose stud and hair down to her waist.
“I love your shirt,” the tall one says. She’s built like she was born to roll around in music videos, with long, long legs and a slim, slim waist.
“Thanks . . .”
“Did you make it yourself?” the shorter girl asks. When I nod, she beams up at her friend. “Told you!”
“Can you make me one?” the taller girl asks me.
“And me?” her friend adds.
Today, I lost count of the number of compliments I received on my shirt. A few girls asked me where I bought it and were awed when I told them I made it. But these are my first requests, and I feel an odd sense of pride getting them. “I’d need scissors . . .”
“Van!” the taller girl suddenly shouts, and Van stops flirting with a blonde sitting at his feet to look up at the girl by my side. “Do you have scissors on the bus?”
“How the fuck should I know?” he shouts back, and the tall girl rolls her eyes.
“He’s useless,” she says, hooking her arm in mine and walking me away from the party.
“Well, not entirely useless,” the shorter one quips, and they both chuckle while leading me toward the buses. I’m too curious to resist going with them, so I follow without argument, and on the way, I learn that the taller one’s name is Nikki and the shorter one’s name is Molly. Nikki stops at a monstrous silver-and-red bus and roots a key out from beneath the step pad. Then she unlocks the door and leads me inside.
It’s even nicer than Joel’s bus, sporting slick black leather and a new car smell. The girls lead me to a kitchen in the back and root through a junk drawer until they find a pair of scissors. Then Nikki pulls off her shirt and Molly follows suit, and I’m just standing in a ridiculously extravagant tour bus with a pair of scissors in my hand and two half-naked girls practically throwing their clothes at me. This must be what Joel feels like on a daily basis.
“So you’re with Joel?” Molly asks, hopping up onto the counter as I sit down at a table and stretch her T-shirt on top of it. Nikki hands me a hard lemonade, and I take a long sip, wondering who these girls are and why we’re suddenly best friends.
I glance up at Molly, wondering what she’s playing at, but her smile is easy and genuine, so I opt for telling the truth. “We’re not really together.”
“Well, yeah,” she replies with a giggle, “but I mean, like, you’re with him? You’re his girl?”
Nikki is leaning against the counter next to her, studying me as they both wait for my answer. “His girl?” I ask.
“Yeah. Like Nik and me, we’re with Van.”
“I thought that blonde outside was with Van?”
Nikki rolls her eyes. “He probably doesn’t even know that bitch’s name.”
“He doesn’t,” Molly says with a laugh. “I heard him call her Ashley, but she told me her name is Veronica.”
Nikki snorts out a laugh. “That’s not even close!”
“I know!” Molly says with glee, and Nikki smiles at me.
“Are you asking if I’m Joel’s groupie?” I ask her bluntly, the situation dawning on me.
“That’s such a dirty word,” she says, but her tone is light and she’s still smiling when Molly nods emphatically.
“Yes,” the shorter girl answers.
“I’m not a groupie.” I turn my attention back to cutting the sleeves off Molly’s shirt, feeling more like a groupie than ever and trying to shake off the feeling.
“So what are you?” Nikki asks, and I wish I had a good answer.
“His friend.” Even as the words cross my lips, I know they’re a lie. Joel and I have never been friends. We’ve always been more. And less. After last night, there’s no denying it, even though I fully plan on doing just that.
“Are you sleeping together?”
“Yes,” I answer, hoping that ends the girls’ line of questioning.
It doesn’t. Instead, Nikki insists, “Then you’re not friends. How long have you known each other?”
“A few months.”
“Is he sleeping with anyone else?”
“Does it matter?” I ask, irritation seeping into my tone while I alter Molly’s shirt.
“Oh, it matters,” Nikki says. “With guys like these, you’re either a groupie or a girlfriend. If he’s sleeping with other people, you’re a groupie. If he’s not, you’re a girlfriend.”
“What if I’m sleeping with other people?” I counter.
“Then you’re an idiot.”
I shoot her a look, but she just shrugs and gives me a smile.
Molly swings her legs back and forth, watching me take my frustration out on her shirt. “Why would you want to sleep with anyone else when you have Joel?” she asks. “He’s so fucking hot. Did you see him perform with Van today? He was so good. I wanted to tear his clothes off with my teeth. That mohawk?” She swoons, and Nikki laughs. “I bet he’s a god in the sack.”
“Confirm or deny?” Nikki asks me, and I can’t help it—the ghost of a smile sweeps onto my lips.
“Oooh,” Molly croons, “that’s a confirm. Ugh, I knew it.” She lets her head flop back against a cabinet, and Nikki and I both laugh.
The mood in the room lightens, and Molly suddenly perks back to life, her head flying forward and her dark eyes landing on me. “I’d love to join you guys . . . I mean, if you’re open to that sort of thing . . . You’re really pretty.”
My eyes widen in surprise, and Nikki watches me with her arms crossed over her chest like she’s waiting to see if I’ll pass some kind of test.
“Thanks, but I don’t think so,” I say, and Nikki’s smile widens while Molly’s falls into a pout. “You’re really pretty too, though,” I quickly add, and her eyes light up, her shifts in mood giving me whiplash.
“You think so?” she chirps. “I’m thinking about bleaching my hair and getting blue highlights.” She pulls a chunk of asymmetrical bangs in front of her face. “This red is getting so boring.”
Nikki elbows her, but Molly barely seems to notice, studying her bangs like she’s imagining them in a rainbow of different colors. I toss her T-shirt at her, finished with the modifications, and she holds it up and squeals.
“This is so cool!” she says, pulling it over her head and modeling for Nikki. “How do I look?”
“Totally badass,” Nikki affirms with an approving smile. I made Molly’s shirt different from mine, but Nikki is right—it’s totally badass and I almost wish I had kept it for myself.
While I work on Nikki’s shirt—yet another totally new and custom design—I learn the girls both met Van two years ago and that they usually follow Cutting the Line to most of their US shows. They get free tickets, backstage passes, and invites to all the parties. They don’t seem to get much respect, I noticed, but they seem happy to be doing what they’re doing. I guess Van’s attention and the envy of other girls is what matters most to them, and I shudder when I realize that there was a time when I wasn’t so different.
The girls ask me where I’m from, how I met Joel, if I’m in school. When I tell them I am, they ask what I’m majoring in, and I assure them I haven’t the slightest clue.
They grumble about homework and wasted youth, and Nikki summarizes our collective sentiment. “That sounds miserable.”
“It is,” I agree, tying pieces of her shirt into knots.
“Do you know what you should go to school for?” Molly squeals, hopping off the counter and spinning around in the center of the kitchen. “You should go for fashion design!”
I chuckle. “I’m pretty sure ‘T-shirt cutter’ isn’t an actual job.”
I put the finishing touches on Nikki’s shirt and hand it to her, and she marvels at the alterations. “Maybe it should be,” she says, pulling the shirt over her head.
“Oh, wait!” Molly squeaks, yanking her own shirt back off. She roots through the junk drawer and thrusts a Sharpie at me. “You have to sign my tag! When you’re a big famous fashion designer, I want people to be able to tell that my shirt is an authentic Dee creation.”
I laugh and sign her tag, surprised when Nikki hands me her shirt and asks me to do the same.
Outside, we’re nearly back at Van’s circle when Nikki’s hand clamps around my arm and jerks me to a stop. She nods her head toward the fire and says, “You want to find out if you’re a groupie or a girlfriend?”
I follow her gaze to a trio of girls with Joel in their sights. He’s sitting across the circle from Van, a beer hanging between his knees and an easy smile on his face as he talks to Mike sitting next to him.
Molly squeals and claps her hands, and Nikki pulls us farther into the shadows. I know what’s going to happen—I could walk over and sit myself on his lap to stop it—but I do want to see it for myself, so I stand in silence between Nikki and Molly and watch as one of the girls by the fire separates herself from the herd to make her move on Joel.
When she steps in close, he gazes up at her. She says something to him, he says something back. They talk for what feels like forever, and then the girl nods her head toward what I don’t doubt is a dark corner fit for blow jobs and quickies.
“She’s going in for the kill,” Molly whispers with far too much excitement. I resist the urge to smack her.
Joel says something back, and she reaches for his hand. My breath catches.
And then he pulls his hand away and shakes his head. He immediately follows by turning back toward Mike and brushing her off by talking to him instead. Molly skips wildly around me, chirping, “Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend!”
If only they knew he told me just last night that I was not his girlfriend and that he was not asking me out . . .
Still, seeing that girl walk away from him gives me a little sort of thrill, and when I walk up to him and he tugs me into his lap, my heart skips just as gleefully as Molly had. The girls shoot me secret smiles, and they make a spectacle of showing off their shirts.
“What do you think, Van?” Nikki asks, spinning in front of him and practically trampling Ashley or Veronica or whatever the hell the blonde’s name is.
Van traces his fingers intimately down her exposed back. “I like it.”
Nikki’s face lights up, and Van rewards her with a smile, but the moment is lost when the girl at his feet asks, “Can I have one?”
“Nope!” Molly chirps, tossing herself on Van’s lap and draping her legs over the arm of his chair. “Dee has to keep production low to keep demand high. These are Dee originals. Besides, you don’t even know her and you’re just going to ask for a favor like that?”
I see Rowan give me a look, no doubt wondering when these girls got to know me, but the only answer I have is a noncommittal shrug.
“Can I pay you for one?” the blonde offers, standing up when Molly swings her legs around and nearly kicks her in the face.
I’m about to tell the girl no, since I really don’t feel like missing any more of the party, but Shawn pipes in before I have the chance. “How much would you pay?”
“What do you charge?” she asks me.
T-shirts at the festival today were selling for twenty bucks. Curious to see if she’d pay it, I throw out twice that amount. “Forty bucks a shirt.”
Nikki scoffs. “No way. At least fifty.”
Molly nods in agreement, and before I can answer, Shawn says, “Keep an eye on our website.”
Shawn is like the unofficial manager of the band. He’s the one who books the shows, who keeps everyone in line, who networks with the right people. By the glint in his eye and the smile he gives me, I have an odd feeling I just became one of those people.
“Shit, that’s a good idea,” Van says, and my world stops spinning. “I’ll talk to merch and have them get in touch with you.”
I’m too stunned to reply, so instead I just sit there like an idiot until someone sparks up a new conversation. I’m mostly talking to myself when I finally say, “They can’t be serious.”
“Why can’t they?” Joel asks, reminding me that I’m on his lap.
With my arm around his shoulder, I gaze down at him. “All I do is cut up shirts.”
“All I do is play guitar,” he counters.
I turn back around, settling against the ridges of his body, thinking they’re so not the same thing.
His arms tighten around me and he says, “If you’re good at something, you like doing it, and you can make money at it, you should go for it.”
“So I should be a prostitute?” I argue, and he chuckles against my back.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You could be a high-end escort.”
I’m glad I’m facing away from him so he can’t see my amused smile. “You’d never be able to afford me.”
“You’d make me pay?”
“I’d charge you double.”
“Why?”
“Hazard pay. I think I sprained my pinky when I jammed it in the toaster.”
Joel laughs so hard that I have to laugh too. Everyone’s attention turns on us, and when they ask what’s so funny, he starts to say, “Dee and I were on the bus earlier and—”
I spin around and clamp my hand over his mouth, and his muffled laughter sounds into my palm. I turn back toward the group to make up a lie to finish the end of his sentence, but then his fingers are digging into my sides. He tickles me without mercy while I laugh hysterically and try to throw myself off his lap.
“TOASTER!” he yells when I free his mouth to pry his hands from my sides, and everyone looks at us like we’re crazy as we laugh and wrestle until we’re both falling out of the chair.
For the rest of the night, Joel acts like learning that I’m ticklish is better than Christmas coming early. He makes it his mission to discover all the places I’m sensitive, and I’m contemplating biting his fingers off, when someone brings up the flyers I’ve posted all around the festival about the auditions we’re holding next weekend.
“I was actually wondering about that,” Van says, his eyes glassy from one too many beers. Rowan and Adam have already gone back to the bus, but the rest of us are still hanging out under a sea of twinkling stars.
Van takes another sip of his beer and adds, “What happened to the little guy?”
“Wasn’t his name Cody?” someone else says, and the name sends a cold shiver crawling up my spine.
“Yeah!” Van says. “I never liked him.”
Joel’s fingers stop exploring my sides to tighten around me reassuringly, but it’s a pointless effort. This weekend has been make-believe. I should’ve always known I’d have to wake up sometime.
“Creative differences,” Shawn offers dismissively. He’s sitting on the edge of a cooler with a guitar on his lap and a fan club at his toes. His thick black hair is wild from the humidity, and his cargo shorts are a tattered mess. He doesn’t even glance at me, his expression schooled and impassive.
“I heard it was a girl,” a random guy says, ignoring Shawn’s explanation. I feel Joel tense behind me.
“Who told you that?” he asks.
“Cody,” the guy answers. “He said some psycho groupie was all over him but she started saying he was trying to rape her or something and you guys bought it.”
All eyes turn to me and Joel, and it takes everything in me to make sure the heartbreak in my chest doesn’t appear on my face.
“Cody is a fucking liar,” Joel snaps, giving voice to the fight no longer left in me.
Cody is a liar about some things, but not all of them.
“He just doesn’t want to admit he’s a shit guitarist,” Shawn says.
“My dead grandmother could play better than he could,” Mike adds, and Shawn nods his agreement.
“He’s lucky we kept him as long as we did.”
I love the guys for lying for me. I hate myself for putting them in a position to have to.
“Did you seriously beat him up?” the same someone-from-before asks Joel, and I can’t listen anymore. Each question is a memory unburied. This weekend at the festival, it’s been easy to pretend that what happened with Cody was a lifetime ago, that it happened in a distant place to a different girl.
But I’m not a different girl. I’m the same psycho groupie who lured a guitarist to a bus and made sure to seduce him where his band mate would find us. I’m that same jealous, selfish, stupid girl. The same girl who started a fight she couldn’t finish. Who played a game and lost.
“I’m heading to bed,” I interrupt, standing up and giving the group a weak smile. I know they’ve all probably guessed that I’m the girl in question—it’s written in my empty eyes, my forced smile, my broken voice. There’s nothing I can do about it except hide until tomorrow and hope I never see them again.
I don’t get far into the dark before Joel’s fingers clasp with mine, firm and supportive.
I don’t pull away, but I want to.
On the bus, I climb into the darkness of the upstairs level and kick my shoes and shorts off next to my bunk. Then I climb under the covers and try to disappear.
“Move over,” Joel says. He starts sliding in next to me, leaving me no choice. I scoot toward the wall, too numb to argue.
He said some psycho groupie was all over him but she started saying he was trying to rape her.
“Those guys didn’t know what they were talking about,” Joel says, his hand coming to rest in the curve of my waist. We’re facing each other with worlds of distance between us, and still it feels too close.
“I saw you turn that girl away tonight,” I say. It sounds like an accusation, and it is. When I saw him turn her down, I had felt the glow of pride in my chest. Now, it’s shadowed by something else. Something heavy.
“I didn’t know you were watching.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“I’m here with you.”
He says it so simply. But the Joel from a week ago wasn’t the type of guy to give girls thoughtful gifts, or to go away with them for the weekend. And he definitely wasn’t the kind of guy to turn down a pretty girl regardless of where he was or who he was with. None of this is simple.
“Joel, last Saturday with Cody . . . I was trying to make you jealous.”
“I know that.”
If he really knew, he wouldn’t be denying that I’m a “psycho groupie” just like Cody said. He wouldn’t be lying in bed with me right now. He wouldn’t be trying to make me feel better.
“I asked him to come to the bus with me,” I continue, “because I knew you’d be there soon. He wanted to take me upstairs, but I insisted on staying downstairs. Do you know why?”
Silence.
“Because I knew you’d catch us there. I knew you’d see us making out, and I was hoping it would make you so jealous that you’d realize you wanted me more than anyone else.” As the words leave my mouth, a horrible realization dawns on me, and I let out a humorless chuckle. “And you know what? It worked. You brought me to this festival, and you’ve given me all your attention, and you turned down another girl when you didn’t even know I was watching. This is exactly what I wanted, Joel. Don’t you get that? That’s how fucking crazy I am. Cody got that part right.”
Joel’s hand remains motionless and heavy on my side. When he finally pulls it away, I brace myself for the emptiness I’ll feel when the rest of him is gone.
“Do you know which part of that is the craziest?” he says in a soft voice, and I steel myself for his answer. He tucks my hair behind my ear and says, “That it took all of that for me to realize I always did want you more than anyone else.”
His words sink deep beneath my skin, and I pray that in the dark, he can’t see the tears welling in my eyes. I want to accept what he said, without reservation or argument, but clearly I haven’t said enough. If I had, he wouldn’t still be beside me.
“Do you know why I wanted you to like me?” I continue. “Because everything between us was just a game I wanted to win.”
Sleeping with Aiden. Leaving Joel at the grocery store. Making out with Cody. Every outfit I bought, every fingernail I painted, every perfume I wore. All of it was a game, a stupid game played by a stupid girl who was way out of her league.
“I didn’t actually want you to keep you,” I confess. “I wanted you just to throw you away.”
Joel’s voice is quiet when he says, “Is it still a game?”
His thumb traces the curve of my jaw, and I manage not to shy away. “No.”
“Good,” he says softly, “because I’m done playing.” He rolls onto his back, tucking his arm under me and pulling me against his side. And maybe I am different from the girl I was last week, because instead of resisting him, I rest my cheek against his chest and let him hold me.
We lie like that for long, stretching minutes, until his voice breaks the silence. “My mom is a drunk.”
I keep still, my breathing steady. I don’t know why he’s telling me, but I know there’s a reason, and the girl I’m becoming wants to hear it.
“She always has been. My grandma helped raise me, but she had a stroke when I was in high school and has been in a nursing home ever since.” He trails off, and then shakes himself free of unvoiced thoughts. “Anyway, after that, my mom and I moved, and I started going to school with the guys. I heard they had a band, so I made them listen to me play guitar. One of the guys my mom dated had played, and when he split, he left his guitar behind and I taught myself to play.” Another pause, more silent memories. “Most days, my mom was trashed and belligerent, so I stayed at Adam’s house. Even when he wasn’t home, most nights I slept on his floor just because I never wanted to be at my own house. I drew a lot back then. I got better at playing guitar. And you know what? I was happy. Those were the first years of my life when I felt seriously happy.”
I never wondered about how Joel had grown up, about how he met the guys. I never wondered about him at all. Now, he’s all I can think about, and I want to know everything. I want to know the answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet.
“Maybe that’s why I don’t have a car or an apartment or anything,” he continues. “I like sleeping on Adam’s couch because that’s what I was doing the first time I ever really felt like I had a family. The guys were my brothers, and their moms bought me clothes and cooked me dinners . . . When I was little, one of my mom’s boyfriends bought me birthday presents one year—he even bought me this awesome Hot Wheels Dragon racetrack I really wanted—but my mom turned around the next week and sold them all for booze money.” Joel sighs, his chest rising and falling beneath me. I rub my hand over his downy-soft T-shirt, and he says, “I guess I just got used to not having anything.”
After a long, long while, I say, “Joel . . . why’d you tell me all that?”
When he doesn’t answer, I think he must be asleep, but then his quiet voice says, “Because I want you to know.” His arms hug me closer, and he adds, “And I’m starting to think that maybe having nothing isn’t such a good thing to get used to.”