Over It (The Kiss Off #2) (19 page)

“Poppy.”

I figured the best way to do it was tell her everything, get it all out fast. Rip it off like a Band–Aid. This way she could only get mad at me the one time, but for everything.

“Okay, so first I went swimming and a wave stole my bikini top and while he was guarding me, to make me feel better, Gordo took off his board shorts and people took photos and now the world thinks I went skinny dipping in a public beach with him and I’m cheating on Ty, then I got super sunburnt and had heat stroke, and then Ty introduced me to Lexie De Graff and I fainted (I’m so humiliated), and Ty dropped me on my head and gave me a concussion, and the press has been all over this love triangle thing so the three of us are at a club right now proving how Ty and I are together and he and Gordo are total BFFs; we’re fixing it, I promise.”

I took a deep breath but continued before she could speak. “But I also have really exciting news – I’m writing a song for the Debutante Dolls.”

Mom was silent. Processing. Not sure which part to comment on first.

Or maybe we’d been disconnected somehow?

“Hello?”

“Your dad will lose his mind,” Mom said. “We’ll never hear the end of it if you write that song.”

Yes! She skipped the lectures and grounding and demanding I come home!

“If?” I said. “It’s actually happening, Mom,” I said. “I’m brainstorming as we speak. I mean…not right this second, but…”

“As for the other stuff…”

“We’ve got it handled,” I said quickly. “Trust me. You don’t even need to worry. It’s all going to be good press or no press from here on out.”

There was a crash from the pool room and a scream.

The pool room doors swung open and a girl tottered out in her too–high heels, hurrying over to her friend behind me in the line. “Oh my God,” she said, grabbing her friend’s arm, eyes wide with excitement. “You won’t believe this, Ty from Academy of Lies and Gordo from The Himbos are beating the crap out of each other!”

“They’re doing
what
?” My words came out too loud. Everyone stared at me in awkward silence for a moment. The girl and her friend blinked at me in surprise as I strode past them toward the pool room door. The girl breathed in and murmured to her friend, “Was that who I think it was?”

I spotted them immediately, stuck in the center of a huddle. The crowd had simultaneously closed in on the fight in a tight circle and made room, giving it enough space to get interesting. Camera–phones were held high, people talked excitedly and glanced around, wide–eyed, as if checking that they weren’t imagining it, that others were witnessing it too.

How long had I been in that line? I pushed through the crowd, not caring whose feet I stepped on or biceps I bruised.

“Mom? I gotta go,” I said, and ended the call. I could imagine her head exploding all over her office back home. But I had more important things to think about.

“What the hell, you guys? Hey,” I yelled as Ty tackled Gordo around the middle and drove him into the floor. “
Hey!
” They ignored me. Gordo rolled out from under Ty somehow and with some fancy legwork, slammed Ty onto the sticky floor.

I dialled Dexter. With phone to one ear and fingers in the other to block out the noise, as soon as the call connected, I shouted, “Abort, abort!”

“What’s going on?”

“We need the car. Right
now
.” I looked up to see two burly security guards in snug black tee shirts and radio earpieces pushing through, just as I had. Jeez, I hadn’t expected the bouncers in sleepy Tallulah Bay to look like WWF wrestlers. Only they were bigger and more menacing. “Shit, security’s here.”

Dexter swore too and disconnected the call as each guard grabbed one boy from behind and prepared to frog march them both right back out to the street.

“No–no–no, wait!” I yelled and jumped in the middle of the group. “You can’t put them outside – they’re famous, they’ll get mobbed. Store room. Stick them in the store room until the car comes,” I said, “they’ll be good, I promise!”

The security guards led Gordo and Ty through a door that read ‘Staff Only’, holding them each in vice–like grips, each guy with an arm pinned behind their backs. I followed in the security guards’ wake, a hand up to my face, shielding myself from the blatant stares and camera phones in the air. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

The security guards pushed Gordo and Ty into a staff room with a small kitchenette, a round table piled high with old magazines, newspapers and coffee cups, and an old, battered couch.

“Sorry man,” Ty was saying as his guard let him go in the kitchenette by the fridge. Gordo was deposited on the other side of the room by the couch. “It’s all good, I swear, we won’t do it again, right G?”

“Yeah – totally,” Gordo said to the guards seriously, bobbling his head up and down. “It was stupid, it’s over.”

“Right. Exactly,” Ty agreed, nodding too.

One of the guards put a finger on his earpiece, gave them each a deliberate, icy glare, then left the room. As soon as he left, the other guy’s whole demeanor changed. He sort of lowered his head and looked bashful, the hard ass drained right out through his toes. “Look guys, it’s a’ight, I just can’t be having fighting up in da club here.”

I raised an eyebrow. In da club? You mean da family bistro in Tallulah Beach with the kiddie play area in the back?

“Yeah man, of course,” Ty said.

“We know, we know. It was dumb.”

“Totally dumb.”

“And we won’t do it again.”

“It’s cool,” the guy said. “In all honesty, I’m a big fan of you boys. Your tunes are tight.”

Gordo and Ty blinked at each other and then at me.

Then the guard proceeded to sing. “Goodbye / you didn’t say why / but I’m not gonna cry / cos baby this is your kiss off.”

We stared at him in awkward silence, the hint of an uncertain smile quivering at the corner of Ty’s lips.

“Think I could trouble you for a photo?” He pulled his phone from his back pocket.

Gordo and Ty shrugged and made “Yeah, I guess, sure, why not,” noises. The security guard turned his attention to me. “You mind?” He held the phone out to me. He obviously had no idea what he was in the middle of tonight. From the number of photos that had been snapped of the fight, though, he’d find out in tomorrow’s papers. Maybe even on the blogs tonight.

“Sure, yeah,” I said and took the camera. He stepped his hulking frame between Gordo and Ty. The two six–foot–plus teenagers looked like 98-pound weaklings beside him. The guard put two thumbs up, said, “cheeeeeeeese,” and I snapped the photo.

“Thanks Ty, Seb, I really appreciate it.” Gordo’s face fell and Ty let out a snort of laughter, but spun around to face the fridge so he could pull himself together. Gordo grabbed a pen from the table and threw it at Ty behind the guy’s back.

I handed him back his phone. He checked out the photo and grinned. “Thanks a lot, girl.” Girl? I couldn’t decide if I was happy he didn’t know who I was, or insulted. He was an Academy fan, sure, but he clearly wasn’t a hard core one.

“You boys work out your differences, okay?”

“Yes sir,” Ty said.

“You bet,” Gordo said with a sigh. His heart didn’t really seem in it anymore.

“As soon as your ride gets here, you’re on your way, right?”

“That’s the idea,” I said, holding up my cell, our link to our ride.

The guy stuffed his phone back into the pocket of his black jeans. He stiffened and stared blankly for a moment, then his expression darkened and he held the microphone of his radio to his mouth. “I’m coming now.” The hard ass was back.

“Good luck, boys,” he said, and opened the door back out into the club. A wall of music blasted us for a moment before the door closed again. They had pretty good soundproofing in here.

Ty started rotating his left shoulder, wincing at the pain, and Gordo rubbed his jaw. Seemed they got some good punches in. At least neither of them was bleeding. I crossed my arms and looked pointedly at each of them, one at a time.

“So?” I asked. They both looked guiltily at anything but me. Gordo shifted his weight from foot to foot and Ty stuffed his hands deep into his pockets, staring at his sneakers.

Neither of them spoke, so I continued. Seemed there was a new hard ass in the room. “What. The hell. Happened?”

Ty grimaced. Gordo scratched the back of his neck.

I groaned, my hands balled into fists. “Talk to me, you pussies!”

“It’s embarrassing,” Gordo mumbled.

“Embarrassing?” I mimicked. “The whole reason we’re here tonight is to prove what good buddies you morons are! How there’s nothing going on with us,” I motioned between Gordo and I, “and to show the tabloids and fans and stuff that it’s all just a big misunderstanding.”

“I know.” Gordo still wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he ran his fingers along the edge of the noticeboard. A lightning strike of nerves shot into my belly as I watched him avoid my eyes. We were here to prove that the whole love triangle thing was bullshit. It hadn’t occurred to me before but as I looked at Gordo I had to wonder…
was it
bullshit? Kenny had asked
me
if there was anything going on, but no one had asked Gordo.

My face flamed with embarrassment. Surely he didn’t…

Well this was awkward.

“It
is
all a misunderstanding, right?” I asked, staring at the wall just beside him. Seemed I couldn’t hold eye contact when I was embarrassed, either.

“What? Yes,” Ty said.

“No,” Gordo said at the same time. “It is, yeah. A misunderstanding. There is no…” he waved between us as well.

“I know,” I said.

“
I
know, too!”

“That wasn’t what the fight was about,” Ty said.

“Then tell me.”

They both looked at me and each other and then at the linoleum, the wall, the microwave…

“For the love of-”

“He said The Swift Rockets sound like a ‘90s cover band,” Gordo said. He glared at Ty for a second before looking at me again, trying to be adult about this. He swallowed hard, his jaw set, obviously still angry. “He’s obviously deluded.”

I turned to Ty, waiting for an explanation.

Ty’s eyes widened, panicked. “It wasn’t just me,” he said quickly, and pointed the finger of blame at Gordo. “
He
said my guitar looks like the Cookie Monster!”

“It does!”

“How?” Ty yelled. “How does it look like the Cookie Monster? It’s
blue
, you dipshit, that’s all!”

“Hey,” I said as they continued to yell at each other. “
Hey
!”

They both shut up and glared at each other for a second before turning their focus to me. I stood, motionless; shocked. It took me a while before I could find the right words.

I said all there really was to say: “
Are you fucking kidding me
?”

By the time the car pulled around the circular drive up to the hotel door, Ty and Gordo had practically forgotten I existed. Ty had already had a lecture and verbal smackdown from Dex between his Skype meetings on his iPad. Ty was now nodding into the phone and saying “Yeah,” a lot to their new publicist, who had already been awoken by tabloid journalists calling for confirmation of the Ty vs. Gordo nightclub brawl–turned–blood–bath. Apparently, they asked if anyone was hospitalized. They asked if Ty was pressing charges.

Just. Great.

Gordo’s manager and one of his bandmates were waiting by the door for him, not looking pleased. Everyone climbed wearily out of the car, about to spend a sleepless night in command central – Ty’s hotel room – attempting to avert yet another scandal which, according to the misinformed media, was because of stupid Poppy Douglas. I sat in the car and watched as Ty and Gordo walked through the glass doors and across the lobby without even a backward glance, so deep in their own stupid drama that they didn’t even notice I wasn’t with them. Which was fine with me because I didn’t want to talk to either of them, anyway.

I needed to sleep. Or write. But let’s face it: that wasn’t going to happen tonight. Not in there. Mostly I just wanted someone to talk to about all this; to get it all out of my head.

I needed to see my friends.

I leaned forward in my seat, resting my elbow against the headrest in front of me. “Hey Don,” I said to the driver, “I know it’s late, but do you think you could make one more stop tonight?”

Don dropped me under the archway to the camping ground. I threw on a black hoodie one of the guys must have left in the back of the SUV and crunched quickly up the gravel toward our site. It felt like a lifetime since I had been here, but it had only been one really long, really eventful day.

Mostly, the camping ground was dark; flashlights were off, fire pits smouldered and overhead lights in Winnebagos were out for the night as everyone rested up for another big day of music.

But it wasn’t
all
quiet; laughter, chatter, some yells and music from someone’s iPod played from a couple of rows up and it seemed some people were keeping the party going all night. I was surprised more weren’t, to be honest.

I frowned; Hamish’s hunk of crap car was missing. Hopefully that meant only he was gone somewhere. I hoped my friends were around, but it didn’t look good. The tents were dark, and there was no movement. I moved faster across the dirt and grass to the tent, my chest aching with the need to see them, desperate for a hug of reassurance, for someone to tell me it was going to be okay. 

I paused for a moment outside our tent, observing the combination lock holding the two zips together. They weren’t here. Or if one of them was, the other had locked her in. My shoulders slumped. I headed over to Hamish’s tent, just in case, but it was locked too.

I trudged over to the smouldering fire pit and sat beside it, pulled my cell from the cavernous hoodie pocket and texted Mads. Who knew if she wanted to see me or not; I figured she was probably mad at me, frustrated with me, but she didn’t hate me. She’d give me a hug if I needed it. They all would.

There was a raucous cheer about something a few rows over and I assumed my girls and cuz were at the party. I pulled the hood of the sweater further over my face and waited.

I closed my eyes and relaxed as the warm but not hot breeze washed over my face and legs, the only parts of me exposed to the elements. Leaves rustled in the gentle wind. A dog barked somewhere in a trailer over to the left and someone snored loudly a couple of times in the tent in front of me, muttered to themselves and went back to sleep. The distant sound of chatter and music wafted through my consciousness like white noise as I took deep breaths, in and out, in and out.

The white noise of conversation started moving closer.

There was a flash of something behind me and I turned around to see Gabby and Kat weaving along the path, taking selfies on their phones with super–bright flashes, twirling in circles just because they could and taking turns swigging from a bottle of clear liquid with a red label on it.

Ah.

There was a shriek from behind them and as Spencer ran up to them she yelled, “Guess who I just made out with!” and jumped on Gabby’s back.

Gabby made an “urk” sound, tipped to the side a little and knocked into Kat, who was thrust forward and toppled over under the weight of all of them. The three of them landed in a hysterically laughing heap at my feet.

“Not the vodka!” Kat held the bottle out, away from the writhing limbs, her features contorted in horror. Finding she hadn’t spilled a drop, she relaxed and took another swig.

“You girls alright?” I asked as they laughed and pushed each other off, sitting up to brush dirt and twigs from their bare legs and clothes.

“Poppy!” Gabby cried and her phone flashed as she took a photo of me. Then they all started talking at once.

“Where have you been, girl?”

“What are you doing over here by yourself? There’s a party going on, did you know?”

“I haven’t seen you all day. I’ve seen your friends, though.”

“Those girls are hard–core.”

Hard–core? I wondered what they were talking about but didn’t get a chance to ask.

“Talk about intense. Hey, is Hamish seeing anyone?” Spencer asked. “Because he’s completely hot.”

Gabby gasped and slapped her friend on the forearm.

“Ow, what?” Spencer asked, rubbing her arm.

“Didn’t you
just
hook up with somebody?”

Spencer shrugged and wiggled her eyebrows deviously. What was this. the twilight zone?

“You dirty, dirty girl.”

“Holy crap, love square!” Kat laughed.

“Hey, are you okay?” Spencer asked, ignoring her friends. “You look stressed.”

“I’m fine,” I said, though I couldn’t even convince myself. I glanced behind them at the path, but it was empty. “No Astrid?”

They exchanged confused looks. “I thought she was with you guys. Where the hell is she? She’s been AWOL all day.”

“Oh,” I said. “She probably is. I haven’t seen much of them today.”

“Maybe she met a hot boy and didn’t tell us,” Gabby said. “What a devious little minx.”

“Always the quiet ones, eh?” Kat added, lifting the bottle to her lips.

“But we weren’t talking about her. You don’t
look
fine, you wanna talk?”

I shrugged, staring at the dirt.  “I just... I had a fight with my boyfriend. Sort of. It wasn’t a fight, really... Either way, I’m kind of pissed at him.”

“What happened?”

I looked up quickly at the girls, my heart clenching in my chest. “Oh, you know...” I said. It’s not like I was going to tell them. “Nothing really...”

“You can tell us,” Kat said. “We don’t judge.”

My gaze must have flit to Spencer for a second, because Kat followed my gaze and said, “Except each other.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “it’s complicated.”

Two magical words. ‘It’s’ and ‘complicated’, girl code for “I don’t want to talk about it so stop asking me.” Luckily, it seemed like it was a universal code, as the girls each did their own variation of nodding and looking away from me.

Phew.

Maybe there was something in that I could write a song about? Universal girl code?

“It’s not even the boyfriend drama I’m really stressed about though,” I said. “It’s this whole other thing.”

“Do tell,” Gabby said, resting her chin on her fist. She ignored Spencer as she picked leaf litter from her hair. “Doctor Kastakedes at your service.”

Spencer and Kat gave her very distinct “WTF are you talking about” looks. She didn’t even look up, just felt the pressure of their gaze, waved them off and prodded me to start talking.

“Well I’ve been asked to... write this article,” I said.

“An article?”

Yeah, okay. An article, that could work. “Yes. I’m a regular contributor to this um, lifestyle blog. Entertainment, fashion, celebs, girl stuff, things like that,” I said. “And the um, the editor asked me to write this article about girl power. Strong women. Something everyone my age could relate to. And it’s a big opportunity.”

“How so?” Gabby asked.

“Um, he said it’ll be on the front page of the site. Big exposure.”

“He?” Kat asked, frowning. “A guy runs a site for women? No way.”

Oh crap. “I know, right?” I said with a laugh. A slightly high–pitched, hysterical laugh. I cleared my throat and turned serious once more. “I mean, he’s just the editor...”

“What site is this?” Spencer asked.

“Yeah, have I heard of it?”

“Oh, it’s just this site,” I said. “It’s not big or anything, but it’s good experience and anyway, I need to have written the article by tomorrow night and I’m freaking out. I don’t think I can do it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not like I have a lot of girl power inspiration right now. You’ve seen what Nikki and Mads are being like.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Spencer said. “What about us?”

I didn’t want to be rude, but what was she saying,
about
them?

“We’re here doing our thing. Making out with boys if we want to, but they’re not our world. We’re our world.”

I wasn’t sure I was following.

“We’re in charge.”

“How about
you
?” Gabby said.

Me? We all looked at her silently, waiting for her to go on.

“Your boyfriend’s been a bit of a douche, am I right?”

“Kind of…” I said uncertainly.

“And you’re not standing for it. He wants you to hang on his arm like his dutiful little trophy piece of ass that makes him look good or whatever-”

“That’s not what she said, Gabs.”

“Just go with me here,” Gabby said, clearly on a roll. “He wants you as his arm candy but you have this big opportunity and you’ll be damned if he’s the boss of you and like hell you’ll let his drama get in your way. She’s a strong, fierce independent woman, bitches.” She snapped her fingers in front of her face, putting attitude into her words. None of us said anything and she glanced around at us, her confidence wavering. “Or something like that.”

“That sounds good,” Kat said, nodding with an encouraging smile. “You’re stronger than you think you are.”

I didn’t feel strong. I actually felt like everything was going to shit.

“What it all boils down to is this,” Spencer said. “Your editor knows who he asked to write it. He asked you. And he wouldn’t have asked you to do it if he didn’t want an article with the flavor that you’d bring to it.”

“She’s right, Popp.,” Gabby nodded again earnestly. “Don’t try and write what you think they want, but write the way you write, because that’s what they hired you for. They hired you for you.”

“Huh,” I said. Maybe she had a point.
And maybe they were onto something. Maybe there was something in that that I could write about. I felt a spark of excitement in my belly at the thought of a new idea coming to life.

“You’re right,” I said. “And I think I have an idea.” I stood up, brushing dirt off the back of my hoodie.

“Good girl,” Kat said.

“I think I’m gonna go.” I pointed behind me. I didn’t really know what I was pointing at, but they understood the gesture.

“Go get ‘em, girl,” Gabby called, raising the vodka bottle in the air, toasting me, before she poured some down her throat.

I waved and walked away. I didn’t know exactly where I was going, but I was going somewhere, walking with purpose.

I fished my cell out of the front pocket of the hoodie and just as I looked at the screen, it lit up with the words ‘Van Calling’.

A wave of gratitude and love for the level–headed, sane one of my friends washed over me as I connected the call.

“Van the man! I’m so glad you called, I miss your face, lady,” I said with a big grin. Why hadn’t I thought of calling Van for advice before now? Never mind, I knew why: who had time to even think about it? Plus she was off adventuring in the Empire State so I wasn’t going to interrupt that.