The Kiss Off (21 page)

“Yes,” I said, my voice tight. “Who is she, Ty? Who is she!” I froze, hearing my voice so shrill, so panicked. So…jealous. So untrusting. A wave of shame rolled through me.

“She was some fan who was completely off her head and clearly looking for a good time for the night and she decided I was it. I don’t know how she did it, I didn’t see it happen, but she climbed over the barricade into the VIP section at this club – Seb saw the whole thing, and he says she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She was just…she stunk like a chimney and she kept getting right in my face and breathing all over me. She was so handsy!” he said. “Definitely not my favorite fan moment,” he said it more to himself than me, like he was lost in an unpleasant memory. The jealous girlfriend in me slithered down my insides and emptied out through my toes.

“Oh,” I said. I was quite eloquent in a fight. “Ty, I-” there was some movement and Ty took the phone from his ear, or it was taken from him, and there was muffled conversation and then someone come back to the phone.

“Hello, Poppy?” It wasn’t Ty.

“Yeah…?”

“Popster! It’s Archie!” I could feel the warmth of his grin through the line. “How you doing? How’s things at home? Listen, I just wanted to say that you don’t need to worry about your boy here, he’s a little bitch now.”

I heard Ty protesting in the background. “Yeah,” Archie continued. “He’s completely lame and doesn’t like even hugging girl fans, and let me tell ya, there seem to be a lot of them, anyway Seb and TomTom don’t have a problem with it even though they’ve got lady friends but Ty gets all uncomfortable and stiff and like, pats the ladies on the back, he’s turned into that much of a pussy boy.” There was some grunting and it sounded like a fight for the cell phone back. “You know he’s completely whipped, right?” Archie continued. “There are so many smoking hot girls around but he-
ow
, stop it, I’m talking! Anyway, your boy’s not straying, Poppy, we’re keeping an eye out for you, cool?”

A grin crept onto my face. He wasn’t cheating on me, it was all a lie, made to look like something it wasn’t. He wasn’t cheating. There was nothing wrong with me.

“Um, yeah,” I said, relieved. “Cool.”

“It’ll be so good to see you at the Throwdown show, you’re coming, right?”

In the background I heard Ty with surprising clarity, “I haven’t told her about it yet!”

“Why not?” Archie asked.

“Because you…”

There was a thump and Archie went “Ow!”

“Stole my…” Thump.

“Hey!”

“Fucking phone.”

“Dude, chill! Stop hitting me! Here, God. Bye, Poppy.” And Archie handed the phone back to Ty.

“I-” Ty started, but he was cut off.

“And FYI, it’s Seb’s ‘fucking phone’,” I heard Archie say.

Ty growled and breathed out heavily. I was smiling. I couldn’t help it. “Sorry,” he said to me.

“It’s okay,” I said. “And I’m sorry, about being angry before.”

“It’s cool, I get it. The photos look pretty damning. But it was all her, I promise. The bouncer booted her out soon after that and I think she passed out on her friend’s shoulder.”

“Lovely.”

“So we’re cool? We’re alright?”

“Yep, we’re cool,” I said. And I meant it. It was a good explanation, and all that stuff Archie had said. I may not have been able to keep an eye on him, but there were three other boys to slap him upside the head if he stepped out of line. I had no doubts they’d do it, either. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like I needed to worry about him. It was just the girls of America I needed to worry about.

“So what’s this about a Throwdown show?”

“Yes! Throwdown are coming to South Marlington next week during Spring Break.”

“Yeah, I know. Mads and Dev tried to get tickets for it.”

“Right, exactly, well Faux Hawk just asked us to open for them. It’s totally last minute, something happened with their original starting act, but we’re doing it. They have a forty thou’ sell-out crowd, can you believe that?”

“Wow,” I said. “Forty thousand people…that’s so…so you’re coming home next week?”

“Just for a couple of nights. I want to take you out on Thursday, okay? Just you and me. We’ll do normal stuff, go to a movie, hit up Down Town Records and Acoustic Heaven and then you can come watch the show from beside the stage on Friday.”

“Yes. Definitely,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

Except maybe I
would
miss it. Since I was stupid and had a meltdown in front of Dad, he wasn’t overly thrilled with the idea of it. Of any of it. And then, in the spirit of joint and supportive parenting, he went all tattle-tale on me and told Mom about the magazines and rumors.

“No. Absolutely not,” Mom said as we all sat around the dining table. She stabbed her fork into her tortellini.

“But Mom!”

“He is obviously bad news,” she said. “Rock stars have bad reputations for a reason.”

“He treated you appallingly,” Dad added.

“He didn’t!”

“Poppy!”

“Can I go instead?” Rory said.

“Shut up, Rory!”

“How can you say that, honey? Do you let all your boyfriends cheat on you?” I bristled. If only she knew the truth.

“Why can’t I go?” Rory said. “It’s not like he cheated on
me
.”

“Shut
up
, Rory!” I dipped my fingers into my water glass and flicked droplets at his face. “He didn’t cheat on me, it was all this big misunderstanding.”

“I like ponies,” Bex declared, opening her mouth wide and spooning her fork toward it. She dropped saucy pasta all over the table cloth.

“He didn’t?” Dad said. “I guess he told you this, right?”

“Yeah, he explained everything. The photos are way out of context.”

“How can photographs be out of context?”

“She was a skeezy drunk fan girl coming on to him. You should have heard him on the phone, he sounded a bit freaked. Said she was…‘handsy’,” I said, doing air quotes. I smiled, nearly giggled at that, but Mom and Dad weren’t laughing.

“I’d
like
to talk to him on the phone, Poppy,”

“
Dad
,” I groaned and put down my fork. “Look, I’ve forgiven him because he didn’t actually do anything wrong. I still like him, he likes me and-”

“Don’t know why,” Rory said.

I threw a piece of tortellini at him and continued. “And that’s really all you need to know.”

So I was going, with or without their approval, but I knew it wasn’t going to be quite that easy when he came to pick me up next Thursday. So it was kind of awkward when Ty turned up and my dad stared him down, which was hard for him since Ty was half a head taller. Dad looked
up
at Ty to give him the protective father ‘if you break her heart I break your face’ evil eye and I took Ty by the hand, pulling him off the porch and toward his dad’s car. Guess he could afford one of his own now, not that he would have had any use for it what with touring and all.

We slammed our car doors closed and looked at each other. He smiled, and I smiled and he pulled me in for a hug. I tried to kiss him but he pushed me back by the shoulders. “I’m not so sure the audience would approve,” he said, nodding his head ever so slightly behind me at the porch.

“He’s still watching? Just drive, let’s get out of here.” It was annoying, but I figured I could kiss him later. We had plenty of time to be alone, right?

“So, how’s it feel, Mr. Famous Rock Star?” I asked as he pulled out onto the main highway, heading for the strip mall.

“Mr. Famous Rock Star, huh?” he said with a half-smile. “Hmm. It’s different to what I thought.”

“How so?”

“Well people are crazy, and the paparazzi are intense, pushing and shoving, and they call you names just to get a rise out of you. Did you see the paper about how Tommy nearly punched a pap in St Louis?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, he’s getting a rep for being the bad boy, the angry one. The new tattoo he got probably doesn’t help.”

“What sort of tattoo?”

“It’s nothing really, just some pattern, he’s working his way up to a whole sleeve, you know? Anyway, he dyed his hair black and he’s just getting a rep as a bad ass. Anyway he wasn’t even really punching the guy, just wanted to surprise him and make him step off, so he faked a punch in the guy’s face and the idiot got such a surprise he fell over backward and broke his camera. He got the shot, though. Of Tommy looking seriously pissed, with his knuckles aimed at the camera.

“I didn’t see it,” I said. “Wow.”

“And the fans are insane, girls are asking for their tits to be signed, this one girl, she was kind of adorable, like a middle schooler or something. She could
not
stop screaming, until Seb gave her a hug and she fainted stone cold on the pavement, I’m not kidding.”

“God,” I said. It sounded like a lot to deal with. So I said so.

“Yeah, it is,” he said. “It can be. I hope some of it dies down, you know? It’s just been so much so fast. LA’s the worst for it that I’ve come across, cos there are so many tourists and paparazzi around, but some places it’s not so bad.” He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. “It’s nice to be home.”

We pulled into a park on the street and Ty threw on some shades and pulled a baseball cap down over his face. He jumped out of the car and as I opened my door he scurried around to me and held it for me, with a bow. Taking my hand in his, we strolled along the storefronts, heading toward our first stop of the day, the burger joint.

I felt giddy and tingly and so happy to be with him. Until that first fan noticed it was him, Ty from Academy of Lies. The girl came up for an autograph and Ty dropped my hand and complied. Then a handful of teenagers came up with their camera phones out and scraps of paper, of any paper, Chinese takeout menus and car wash flyers they’d pulled from car windshields.

I stepped back as the crowd swelled around him, a dozen, two dozen people. I spotted a couple of girls from school. They didn’t see me, just joined the mob and squealed to each other, their faces going red with fluster. It was weird, he was just Ty. An elderly couple, a mom with her kid in a stroller and storeowners came outside to check out the commotion. I blinked twice when I heard a woman ask if he would marry her.

After ten minutes it was getting a bit much, and by fifteen there more people than ever, the crowd expanding out onto the street around the parked cars.

“Ty,” I said, stepping forward, trying to get in. “Ty!” He looked around at the sound of my voice, stepping on tiptoe to see over the man with the beard and the goth boy, but he couldn’t reach me. He shrugged apologetically and lowered himself off his toes as a pen was thrust in his face, nearly stabbing him in the ear.

My cell rang. “Hi, it’s me,” he said. I saw him in the middle of the crowd, cradling his cell on his shoulder while signing things and trying to smile at people as he handed them back his signature. Cameras flashed in his face. Good thing he hadn’t taken his sunglasses off. “I think today might be a bust.”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “I know.”

“I’m sorry, you don’t need to be dealing with all this.”

“It’s fine Ty, it’s not your fault.”

Some girls standing at the back of the crowd turned their heads to face me. One of them looked me up and down and her eyes lit up with recognition. Oh no.

“O-M-G, you’re Poppy Douglas, aren’t you?” she said. Her friend’s eyes widened as well. “You’re totally going out with Ty.” A couple more heads turned.

“Hey!” I heard him yell. “Enough with the grabby hands people, or I walk.”

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked.

“Are you two on a date right now? You are so lucky.”

“
So
lucky,” her friend nodded at me.

“Why are you still with him?” Someone else asked. “How did he explain all the girls and make it sound okay?”

“Hi didn’t-” I stopped myself. I was not explaining my relationship to these strangers. “Ty, I’m sorry, I think I’m gonna go,” I said into my phone.

“I hear that,” he said. “Oh
thank
you,” he said with relief, on the other side of the crowd it was parting and I spotted two cops pushing their way through, forcing everyone to take a couple of steps back.

“I think we’re okay now,” Ty said into his phone, looking at me across the crowd from only feet away. “Are you-hey!” A girl snatched his ball cap from his head and ran away with it, screaming, holding it triumphantly in the air. Ty pushed his hair back from his face and looked after her with annoyance. He slid his sunglasses on top of his head and turned his gaze back to me. Like an automated single being, the crowd shifted their gaze as well. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” he said, then one of the policemen clapped a hand on his shoulder and started speaking. I hated it, I hated myself for it, but I couldn’t deal. My muscles twitched and my feet were determined to just go, get gone, get away from the insanity. This sort of thing didn’t happen here. Some girl had literally stolen the hat off his head.