Over It (The Kiss Off #2) (13 page)

“Stop talking.” He kissed me again.

“But I-” as his mouth moved over mine and my eyes fluttered closed, I said with a happy sigh. “Okay.”

I could feel him fumbling behind me, trying to insert the key card into the lock with one hand, the other at my waist, pulling me toward him.

The door buzzed and we had a green light. Ty turned the handle and the door gave way behind me. I stumbled backward into the room, grabbing his shirt to steady myself. We both giggled and he pushed the door closed behind us.

It was obvious where this was going. It was really happening. It was – in one swift movement, Ty pulled his tee shirt off and threw it across the room.

Oh wow. It was
definitely
happening.

I pressed myself to him again, kissing him long and hard, my hands running up and down the soft skin of his back. He squeezed and jerked away from me with an embarrassed laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing, sorry, it just tickled.”

“Oh.”

“It’s cool.” He kissed me again, one arm around my waist, the other at the base of my neck as we backed toward the bed. Was this a good idea? Should I really be trusting my decision–making ability while I had sunstroke and a dash of concussion? The backs of my knees hit the mattress and I fell backward. I winced at the sting of the burn on my shoulders as they scratched against the fabric, but I pressed on. I crawled backward toward the head of the bed ad Ty kicked off his shoes and followed.

“I think the competition can go…” he said with a playful smile and together we removed the Himbos tee shirt. I panicked a little, feeling exposed.

If I had been remotely anticipating this turn of events, maybe I would have worn layers. Like a top and jeans or something, so that I could build up my confidence with nakedness one piece at a time. This dress… I wasn’t even wearing a bra. One good tug and I would go from fully dressed to fully naked. I mean plus panties.

Ty leaned over me and kissed me again. It was goodbye clothing; kiss; goodbye clothing; kiss. I guess it was goodbye clothing time again.

Ty pulled away from me and, sitting on my hips, leaned over to the bedside table and pressed play on his iPod in the speaker dock. The corners of his lips turned up in a smile so mischievous and sexy I couldn’t stand it.

“Mood music,” he said.

I nodded. “Nice.”

My stomach fluttered as he unbuttoned his jeans.

The song he chose to commemorate my first time and our first time was an odd one. I mean, the sentiment was right, I guess, but the synth–heavy techno dance track
Sex Me Up Bitch
wouldn’t exactly be the precursor to the most romantic of memories.

Ty paused and looked at his iPod in confusion. “What the hell?” He rolled off me and pulled the iPod from the dock for a better look. His thumbs scrolled through the playlist.

“What’s going on?” I said. I’d thought we were in the middle of something, but I guess I could have been wrong…

“Weird,” he said. He blinked a couple of times, then docked the iPod again and John Mayer filled the room. That was more appropriate.

“Sorry,” he said and rolled back on top of me. He kissed my lips, my cheek, my neck...

“It’s just not my playlist.”

“What do you mean?” I mumbled.

“That girl must have put it on there.”

I opened my eyes. “What girl?”

“No one. Just the one the boys have been talking about; the girl who’s around all the time.”

I tried to sit up. “The stalker one?”

“Stalker’s such a strong word, Poppy…”

“Did you give her your iPod?” I asked as he kissed my throat, my shoulder blades.

“No, it’s been here the whole time.”

The more questions I asked the higher my voice got. “So she’s been in your room?”

“No!” Ty said quickly, pulling away to look at me. He was smart enough to know that needed some explaining. “Not when I was here, I swear.”

I shoved him off me and scrambled across the bed. Ty groaned and rubbed his face when I pulled my head through the oversized tee shirt and hugged my knees to my chest.

“That doesn’t make it better, Ty. That makes it bad in a whole other way.”

“Poppy.”

“No ‘Poppy’.” I shook my head vehemently.

Ty followed me across the bed and kissed the back of my neck.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Only you matter. Come here.”

I stood up and stepped out of his reach.

The mood was well and truly gone.

“Your stalker has been
in
your hotel room?” I jumped up and dashed to the bathroom, peering inside. I looked in the closet, got on my knees and checked under the bed.

“Poppy...”

I dashed out through the living room to the door and threw the chain. Ty followed me slowly and watched me search, my heart in my throat, terrified I was going to find her. “You have to move rooms.”

“I think you’re overreacting.”

“Someone was in your room, Ty!”

“I know,” he said, “And I get why you’re freaked, I do, but all they did was put a nice playlist on my iPod.”

“
Sex Me Up Bitch
is part of a ‘nice’ playlist, is it?”

“It’s just a
song
, Poppy.”

“I’m going,” I said, stepping back into my flip–flops. I didn’t even remember stepping out of them.

“Please don’t be like that.”

“It was just a playlist this time. Check your underwear drawer. Are you missing anything?”

“Gross,” Ty said. “And stupid. No one-”

How could he seriously not get what a big deal this was? I slid the chain off its bolt again and wrenched open the door.

“I am
not
being stupid. Just check. I bet I’m right. You’re missing
something
, Ty. Change rooms. There is no WAY I’m coming back until you do.”

I slammed the door on my way out. As the elevator made its leisurely way back down to the lobby, I realized I had no ride back to the camp site.

For the briefest of seconds I considered asking Ty to get his driver or whoever was getting them around to take me back, but no. Screw that. I could probably have asked Gordo to do the same (did lower tier acts get their own driver? Surely they did), but as all the hallways looked the same and I’d been in a loved-up haze with Ty when I’d left his room (and unconscious when I arrived), I had no idea what floor he was on, let alone a room number.

I texted Hamish – he’d never hear a call while in a mosh pit anywhere near the festival – and hoped for the best. Lucky me, he must have been looking at his phone at the time and texted back almost straight away, calling me a freeloader, asking how I got there in the first place and announcing that dinner was on me.

That was fine. The free barbecue on the beach would happily be my shout.

The elevator door dinged open and I automatically shuffled aside to allow a woman to enter. She straightened her navy blazer over a tank and jeans and stepped in beside me. We gave each other curt, polite smiles and she went to press the button but discovered the Lobby light was already on, so she stepped back beside me, clasped her hands in front of her and the doors closed.

I thought we were going to ride in silence, like strangers normally do and all, but it seemed she had other ideas.

“Great hotel, huh?” she asked, pushing her long brown hair off her shoulder with a friendly smile. “I love Bay Fest.”

“Mmm,” I said non–committally. It wasn’t really living up to my expectations just yet.

She smiled to herself, her eyes distant as she stared at the door. She touched a finger gently to her lower lip, caressing it slowly, as if lost in memory. “You a guest or visitor?”

Like it was any of her business. “Just visiting,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “me too. Just visited with Brenton Keller from Fat Bottomed Girls. Tonight I’m thinking of just visiting that DJ, what’s his name, Fluffy Bunny or something? I don’t know. Whatever, he’s hot, so…”

Wow… just wow. What with the tasteful blazer and lack of bling, I wouldn’t have taken her for a groupie. I wouldn’t have taken her as a Bay Fest attendee either. I made a mental note to talk to Tommy and warn him away from this chick. With the whole Lana explosion it sounded like he was up for a good time, but it was probably better he didn’t come to his senses after contracting a bunch of diseases. Was this really what girls were like on the road?

Why was this elevator taking so long?

I watched the numbers tick down.

Fourth floor.

Third floor.

“You’re a Himbos girl, I take it?” she asked, popping some gum in her mouth. She held the pack out to me but I shook my head. “That Gordo one’s sexy in that totally metro way, you know?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Were you up there just now?”

“No,” I said. Well, technically yes, but… “Just visiting a friend.”

Second floor.

First floor. Finally.

“Too bad. I’m not trying for him.” She fluffed up her hair. “My big score is Ty from Academy of Lies.”

“What?” I blinked twice.

“Come on, have you seen those abs? He gave me his number, you know.”

“
What
?”

“Yeah,” she said with a satisfied smile. “Tomorrow night, him and me? It’s on.”

My face prickled, heat rising to my cheeks from shock, humiliation, anxiety, anger... I was awhirl with emotion; you name it and I felt it right then.

He wouldn’t do this to me, would he? I trusted him. I might not always have trusted him, but I did now. Because he was trustworthy. At least I thought he was… He was really going to just sleep with this groupie? He was really that guy?

I faced her directly. “Doesn’t Ty have a girlfriend or something?”

The elevator dinged and the door slid open a floor early.

Tommy stood there, a bottle blond in a little purple dress pressed against him. For a second it looked like he and Lana had worked things out. Then the girl hauled him into the elevator and they fell against the wall. She sucked on his ear as he punched the button for the seventeenth floor.

It wasn’t Lana.

Tommy gave me a nod. “What’s up, Poppy?” he said, gently manoeuvring the girl from his ear. She craned her neck around and looked me up and down. I looked her up and down too. In
horror
.

Was this a thing? Were they all doing the groupies? Was this why Lana had gone so completely bat shit crazy? I was starting to understand how that had happened.

Tommy pushed the button for the eleventh floor.

“We’re going down.”

“Other elevator’s broken,” he said. He smiled as the girl kissed his neck. “We can wait.”

Ew.

The woman beside me looked uncomfortable, not that I could blame her. She tilted her face away from Tommy, maybe afraid he would recognize her, or maybe ashamed as she discovered she’d just been bragging to Ty’s girlfriend about her plans with him tomorrow.

Tommy’s gaze fell on her. Please, don’t recognize her, I thought to myself. Please, please. If you don’t recognize her, then maybe she’s full of it. If you don’t recognize her, then maybe you haven’t all turned into a bunch of scumbags openly being with other girls.

Tommy’s eyes lit up and he said to the brunette, “Hey, I know you.”

My blood ran cold. It was true. Oh my God it was really true.

“Did the interview come out okay?” Tommy said. “Those were some righteous questions.”

She cleared her throat and smiled at him. “Thanks, Tommy. It turned out great, my editor loved how candid you all were.”

“This chick interviewed us for
IndiePop
mag,” Tommy said to me, “best questions we had all day.”

I slowly turned my face toward her and she looked at me guiltily. She shrugged and said, “I had to try, right?”

“Oh,” I said, shaking my head, “
Oh
.” She knew who I was all along. She just wanted some dirt, she wanted me to take the bait. “Low blow, lady. Real low.”

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. As she stepped out, she said, “Nice tee shirt, Poppy,” and the faux sexed-up groupie was gone.

The girl draped over Tommy punched the seventeen button again. “Going up.”

I didn’t move. The doors slid closed again and Tommy watched me with an eyebrow cocked. We’d passed the first floor so I quickly pushed two and we stopped. I grabbed the girl by the shoulders and she was so surprised she didn’t even put up a fight.

“I just need to talk to Tommy for a minute,” I said as I backed her out of the elevator.

“Wait…but…”

“He’ll meet you up there.”

The doors closed on her, shocked and open–mouthed, and as the elevator rose again I turned around to face Tommy, arms crossed.

“What the hell are you doing?” Either one of us could have said that, I suppose, but in this instance it was me.

“What am
I
doing?”

“You broke up with Lana
yesterday
.”

“And?”

“How long were you guys together? Isn’t hooking up with…” I waited for him to supply her name.

And waited. “With…”

“I don’t know her name.”

“Oh jeez, Tommy.”

“So what? It’s not like I’m hurting anyone.”

“Uh-”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “Okay, I stepped right into that. Look, Poppy, it’s over. Lana turned into a clingy mental case and I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m a free man. I can hook up with anyone I want to. And if I want to hook up with a different hot girl every night who happens to also want to hook up with me, I’m going to.”

The doors opened onto the seventeenth floor and he stepped out.

“And frankly, it’s none of your damn business.”

The doors closed and I rode down to the lobby again, lost in thought. Why had I gone off on him like that? Lana and Tommy were my friends, wasn’t it my business? Or was I sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong? I didn’t know what was going on in their relationship, I hadn’t seen either of them in months. Why on Earth should it be any of my business…

He was just doing what rock stars were notorious for. Because that’s what he was now: a rock star. All of them were.

When the doors opened again, I had a quick check for that tricksy music journalist, but she seemed to have gone so I trudged over to the bar and sat in a booth in the back corner, away from the front door, away from prying eyes. I just wanted to get out of here. I hoped Hamish was speeding.

A waitress wearing all black, from her tights and mini skirt to her crisp shirt walked over, her gold name badge glinting off the light from the tasteful chandeliers. “Would you like a menu?” she asked.

“No, I’m just going to sit here until my ride arrives,” I said, “is that cool?”

“Sure thing hun, I can’t very well feed you to the wolves out front now, can I?”

I smiled with gratitude.

“I’ll bring you some water.”

As she strode back toward the bar and the handful of customers in for happy hour or an early dinner or whatever, I people watched; watched the teenagers in peasant dresses and flip–flops, their skin bronzed from a day out at the beach or Bay Fest. They had to be moneyed up, the socialite type, to afford this place during peak season. They sat at the bar and flirted with the handsome bartender and sipped on cocktails through curly straws. A handful of men in suits walked in, loosening their ties, and I inched further back into the corner of my booth as a pack of hipster music journalists strode in, wearing fedoras and plaid, tortoiseshell glasses and big, bushy, hobo beards in the middle of summer. Just the guys with that last one, obviously. They pulled a couple of tables together in the middle of the room, ordered a round of beers and talked loudly about the different acts that had played today and how well or pitifully they’d performed. They talked about the stars and their private lives, what they’d garnered from their interviews and just chilling with them at what sounded like an epic party last night.

Ty never mentioned a party. My expression darkened. Why hadn’t he told me? God he was stupid. All boys were stupid. I opened a new text message on my cell and tapped random letters, looking busy. I didn’t look up. Not once did I look up.

“Did you hear the potty mouth on Justina Farthing last night?” One of the guys laughed as he took a swig from his bottle.

“I did
not
see that coming. She seems so innocent, am I right?”

“Yeah, seems when she lets her hair down she really lets her hair down.”

“I was talking to Steve Mondango last night. He’s funny. Did you know he was so funny?”

“I met him at the VMAs last year. Dude could totally get his own sitcom when he’s done with music, which frankly should have been a year ago.”

“You don’t like his music?”

“You
do
?”

“Who was that screaming banshee last night? God she was annoying.”

“The one thrashing around on the coffee table?”

“That blonde girl. The nut job. Who was she with?”

Hmm. Maybe this lot were less mu–jos, more go–jos. Gossip journalists.

“One of Academy’s chicks.”

Chicks? They had chicks?

“She was following Tommy around everywhere.”

“Oohhhh,” The group said together, nodding. An unpleasant flash ran through my insides. That had to be Lana. Or I hoped it was. And hoped it wasn’t. What the hell had happened to turn her into a crazy person?

“Groupie or girlfriend?” the guy with a buzz cut asked. “He has a girlfriend, doesn’t he?”

“God,” the woman with way too much eyeliner for summer said, shaking her head, “I hope that wasn’t his girlfriend. What a train wreck.”

I didn’t want to be hearing this. I didn’t want to hear any of it, but they were talking so loudly. And I would have to walk right by them to leave. There was no escape.

I slid my sunglasses on. Yes I was inside, and yes it was kind of conspicuous, but I figured at least I’d be an anonymous conspicuous person. If they looked over here at all, of course.

Come on Hamish…
drive faster
.

“Excuse me.”

I looked up to find a business suit hovering over me, smiling uncertainly.

“Are you Poppy Douglas?”

Oh no, please no. Just leave me alone.

My heart clenched in panic and I glanced at the journalists, but they were distracted by the arrival of their meals.

“Who’s asking?” I said to the man. His smile widened, grew more confident and he sat down opposite me, placing his drink in front of him. Uh–oh.

Holding out a hand, he said, “My name’s Paul Demeter, I’m a part of the management team for the Debutante Dolls. Big fan of your work, Miss Douglas, we all are.”

I took his outstretched hand to shake it but found something solid in his palm. A business card. He was handing me his card, not shaking my hand. Smooth, Poppy.

“The Debutante Dolls are fans of
me
?”

“Absolutely. Jessie especially. And Kendra. We were planning on getting in touch with you anyway, but this is a happy coincidence that I found you here,” he said. “Very happy coincidence.”

He smiled at me again, staring at me. Was he waiting for me to say something? What could I possibly say to that?

“Thanks?” I said.

I wasn’t sure if that was right, but he seemed satisfied and continued. “We have a proposition for you, Poppy,” he said, “may I call you Poppy?”

“Sure,” I said, flitting my gaze toward the journalists again, “just quietly.”

“Right,” he whispered, glancing uncomfortably in their direction as well. It was okay; they still hadn’t noticed.