Chapter Six

I was not surprised to find Jake, Mike, and Kyle sitting on the sofa in my lounge when I got back to the hotel. They were on their feet as soon as I opened the door, ready to bombard me with questions. They had not rehearsed very well – or at all – because I could not differentiate one person’s words from another person’s.

“Guys,” I said. I put my hands up in mock surrender. “Give me a chance to get inside the door, okay?”

It worked well enough. They fell silent and stepped back. Jake sat back down on the couch wearing an expression that I could not read. I shut the door behind me and locked it. After that, the first thing I did was walk over to the bar fridge. I pulled out a beer and took a long swig. It was not strong enough but it did the trick without burning the back of my throat. I pulled three more out and set them down on the counter for the boys.

“Okay,” Mike said. “I’m going to go ahead and guess that it was bad news, based on that.”

“Are we fired?” Kyle asked.

I laughed. I could not help it. It was such a ridiculous question – one that had not even crossed my mind on the way to the studio. “No, we aren’t fired.”

“So, it was good news?” Kyle asked.

Mike walked over to the counter and picked up the beers. He tossed one to Jake and one to Kyle. Both of them caught it. He stood beside me, opening his own beer and taking a swig. He was staring at me questioningly but he did not say anything.

“I’d never have done that. Either we would have ended up with broken beer bottles or broken heads. It wouldn’t have been pretty.”

Mike chuckled, shaking his head. “That is why I did it, rather than ask you to toss everyone a beer.”

“Dude,” Kyle said. “Please don’t leave us hanging.”

“Kayla and I are officially dating.” I said. My voice was flat. There were other ways to deliver the news but I did not really want to attempt them at that moment in time.

“What?” Jake said. He sat forward in his seat. His brow furrowed.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket. I had had several notifications. On the car ride back to the hotel, it became pretty clear that not all of them were from the label. I pulled up one of my social media accounts and I was bombarded with more notifications. While I scrolled, I walked to the sofa.

“Oh, hey, we are even trending.” I said nonchalantly. I clicked on one of the first links that came up under our trending tag. “There it is.”

Mike followed me back to the sofa and we flopped down between Kyle and Jake. They all leaned over my shoulder to view the images that I was showing them. There were a few shots of the whole band after the set, as we were heading out to the club to celebrate, where it seemed like Kayla and I were speaking only to each other. My gut clenched. People really dug way too deep into other people’s lives to search for the things that they wanted to see.

“May I?” Jake asked. I shrugged and handed him my phone. He scrolled up and down my phone’s screen. “What does this mean?”

“The fans created our relationship, it seems. The label has asked us to keep it going. So, that is what is going to happen now.”

“You lucky bugger,” Jake said. He was grinning as he handed me back my phone.

“Hey, dude, you could do a hell of a lot worse.” Kyle added. He took my phone as soon as it was back in my hand and began scrolling down the feed. “She is hot. I just always thought that she was a bit… you know, super tomboy. I like girly girls myself.”

“We could tell, with that long hair of yours,” Jake said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Kyle’s tone was threatening. He picked up one of the cushions on the sofa and launched it at Jake’s head. He missed as Jake ducked down in time.

“Well, Kayla being into you would explain a lot.” Mike suddenly said. I had forgotten he was sitting there, he had been so quiet.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She was distinctly uninterested in me on Friday night. I thought that it was me or something. You are one lucky bastard.”

“Dude, you have it all wrong. We aren’t together. This is just what the label wants because they think it will make us more money.”

“I don’t get it.”

I sighed. Kyle handed me my phone and I closed everything. “Basically, Kayla and I are going to be pretending to date so that our fans are happy. If her fans are happy, then they are more likely to like us and vice versa. So we get a lot of public attention to keep that going.”

“You aren’t actually dating?” Jake asked.

“Nope. Neither of us is into one another in that way. We established that today.”

Jake laughed. “The whole world is going to think you are with this hot blue-haired chick. You are still so lucky. I’d pretend.”

I rolled my eyes while Kyle and Mike laughed at his comment. “Yeah, yeah.” As we sat there, though, I could not help but think about what he was saying. The whole world was going to think that I was with this hot blue-haired chick. My stomach clenched as I thought about Thomas.

“Nice going, dude,” Kyle said. He clapped an encouraging hand down on my back.

I forced a laugh and stood up from the sofa. “I have to go and make a call if you guys will excuse me.”

The guys all nodded and murmured different words of ‘congratulations,’ teasing me about my new fake girlfriend. I made my way back to the bedroom. I pulled my phone out and dialed Thomas’ number. I had a twisted feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach, like a knot that I could not untie. I did not want him to read the rumors and think they were true.

Thomas answered on the fourth ring, just as I was about to hang up the phone and give up. I was so nervous. “Hello?” His voice came through.

“Hi, Thomas. It’s Myles.”

“Hey, Myles! How are you?” I could have been imagining it but his voice seemed to perk up once he found out who I was.

“I’m admittedly better now. How about you?”

“Oh, really? Why is that? I’m good.”

I felt warmth spread through my cheeks. I went to make sure that the bedroom door was closed before sitting down on the edge of the bed. “It might possibly have something to do with the sound of your voice,” I said softly.

“Is that so? Well, I might possibly feel the same way about hearing yours, Myles.” My blush grew deeper. I could hear the smile in his voice and there was something about the way that he said my name that made everything feel hot inside.

I wanted to continue flirting with him but the boys were all sitting out in my suite and they would start to wonder where I had gotten to. I could already feel my desire growing for Thomas. I could scarcely imagine the look on any of the boys’ faces if they walked in to find me talking to some guy with a hard-on. I quashed my feelings. I just wanted to see him again, and soon. “I was actually wondering,” I said into the phone. “Would you want to go out with me?”

“I’d definitely want to go out with you,” Thomas said. “I’m free this weekend if you are.”

“I am.”

“Okay, I’ll pick you up on Saturday afternoon. I’ll text you the exact time. Okay?”

I smiled. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon, Myles.”

“See you soon, Thomas.”

He ended the call and I fell flat on my back, my cheeks starting to hurt from the effort of smiling as widely as I was. Saturday could not arrive soon enough as far as I was concerned. My phone started to vibrate on my chest and I answered it on reflex.

“Thomas?”

“Uhm. No,” the voice on the other side said. It was definitely not Thomas. Her voice was lilting and shy. “It’s Kayla.”

“Oh, hi, Kayla,” I said. My cheeks burned. “Sorry, I thought that you were someone else.”

“The waiter from that club we went to the other night?” She asked.

“Yeah, Thomas. He is an old friend of mine.”

Kayla gave a little giggle. “Yeah, so you said. Listen, I was wondering if you were free to hang out with me this weekend. I thought that we could have like, our first official date.”

My heart was pounding in my chest. I swallowed. My mouth was suddenly dry.

“Myles? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, Kayla,” I said. I took a deep breath. This is what the label wanted. “Yeah, we could go out this weekend.”

“Okay, cool, how does Saturday sound? I’d say Sunday but that is a no go. My mom and I go to church.”

It was too late for me to backpedal. I wondered if I could juggle having two dates in one day. I had to bear in mind that one of them was not real – it was just for show. As long as I kept reminding myself that, I could deal with it. It did not make me feel any less guilty. I knew that I was not cheating on Thomas. For one thing, we were not even officially a couple yet. For another, neither Kayla nor I had feelings for each other.

“Myles? Are you busy? Should I call back later?”

“No, that is okay.” I mentally kicked myself for going silent on her once again. “Saturday is good. I have plans for Saturday night, though. Could we make it during the day?”

“Yeah, sure. That is no problem at all. I’ll see you then!”

“See you.” I had barely managed to get out the words before Kayla hung up the phone.

I felt awkward lying on my bed. The bubble of happiness that I had been in moments before had burst. It was not Kayla’s fault though. I worried if she was actually into me, after all, but she did not seem like the type of person who would lie about her feelings. Still, I had no idea how to feel.

Rather than stay on my bed without a clue on what to do with myself, I got up and headed back out to the lounge. The boys had pulled a console out and were playing a co-op first-person shooter. I sat down on the sofa and pulled up one of the controllers, ready to join as soon as they finished the match they were busy with.

“Were you on the phone with your lady love?” Jake said in a mocking tone.

Sometimes I thought that Jake knew but he never outright said anything to me. For a long time, I had had a giant crush on Jake himself. It would make sense for him to have known something was up. That had been years before and I was over it by the time we had played our first gig but sometimes I wondered. Plus, I could swear he had deliberately put emphasis on “lady” when referring to Kayla.

“As a matter of fact, yes, I was.” I said.

“What did she say?” Mike asked. My stomach clenched again. I felt guilty knowing that Mike did actually have feelings for Kayla.

“We are going out this Saturday.”

“What time are you guys going out? Do you know where you are going?”

“I have no clue. She will be choosing, I assume, since she is the one who asked me out. I’m going out with Thomas on the same night though.”

“Thomas? The guy from the club?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I kind of regretted saying anything. My heart started to race as Jake stared at me with narrowed eyes. “We are hanging out after I go out with Kayla. We made plans first. So, you know.”

Jake opened his mouth to say something but I never found out what because he was interrupted.

“Oooooh,” Kyle said. “The first date! This is an important moment. You have to let us take you shopping for a suit.”

I stared at him. Mike and Jake were staring, too. “Please tell me you are joking.”

Kyle burst out laughing. “Dude, of course I’m joking. What do you think this is? You are no Hollywood starlet.”

I laughed, relief flooding through my system. That was the last thing I needed. “Thank goodness for that.”

“Agreed,” Jake said. “I was not about to take you shopping. Now can we stop going on and actually play? I have a headshot score to beat.”

I joined the game and I instantly felt better. There was something about releasing all of your frustrations in a game that made me forget about all of my worries. If I had to ever quit music – not that that would ever happen – I decided that being a game tester would be the perfect job for me.

The only problem was that I had no idea how to get into that profession.