He takes a step closer to me. “Doyouknow how much I want to fuck you?”
I fold my arms across my chest. “You don’t want to fuckme. You just want to fuck. Me being me has nothing to do with it.”
He cocks his head like he’s trying to figure out what I just said. He’s been doing this for the past few days, talking about screwing me then acting surprised when I laugh in his face.
I shrug and make my way over to the tables of food. There are piles of fruit and trays upon trays of things to eat, all of it looking and smelling delicious. Damian stands and stares at me, I can see him from the corner of my eye. I find myself a folding chair and sit. That has to be hygienically safer than the spunk-filled fabric of the couches in here, right? “So,” I say, looking up at him and nibbling on a strawberry at the end of my plastic fork. “Why don’t you tell me some ofthosehorror stories?”
“Which horror stories?”
“The ones where you think you can get any girl you want to do anything you want,” I say, smiling.
He lowers himself onto the couch, watching me carefully. “You really think your Dex won’t be having sex without you?”
“Hopefully without me there, it’ll be just with himself,” I mumble. I don’t want to talk about me and Dex anymore. Damian is making it awkward.
“What if that Pippa Grace is there, lying beside him. Him pleasing himself and her pleasing herself, would that be okay with you?”
“No,” I say, almost choking on a piece of pineapple. I slap my plate onto the nearest table, appetite ruined. “Stop putting thoughts like that into my head.” I press the video button on my phone, just as the other band members come in. “Come on, regale me with all your sexual exploits.”
Damian glares at me. I’m not sure if he’s angry, but he looks like something I’ve said has gotten under his skin. He leans over the edge of the couch and whispers, “Is that on video?”
“Yeah,” I say just as low.
“Good, you’ll have something to watch later when you’re alone in your room tonight and you need to stop thinking of that Dex guy and what he’s doing without you.”
I want to scream at him, but I don’t fall into the trap he’s trying to catch me in. I can’t acknowledge what he’s saying. He’s just a privileged little cock star who’s pissy he can’t have something he wants. Too bad. It’s not even me he wants to be with; just the thought of someone who isn’t throwing herself at him is what he can’t handle. He wants the chase. “Go ahead, I’m recording. Be yourself.”
For the next thirty minutes before the start of the concert, Damian and the band get high. He expertly talks to my camera like he’s showing an audience the best ways to use as many drugs as possible. Like it’s no big deal that deaths from drug overdoses outnumber traffic fatalities where I come from. When they take the stage and I watch from the sidelines, adrenaline rushing through my veins, I’m stunned he’s able to stand, let alone perform. They go on at half past nine, thirty minutes late, and the crowd is screaming. I FaceTime Dex—it’s the afternoon in California—hoping he’ll have a bit of time to watch.
His eyes look tired, ringed dark with no sleep. He waves at me and says something I can’t hear over what’s happening on the stage.
“Want to go to a concert with me?” I yell, over the music.
He smiles and gives me a thumbs up.
I face my phone toward Damian singing on stage, and he’s ignoring the crowds, the tens of thousands of people, and he’s staring back at me clutching my phone.
My cheeks heat until he shakes his head and looks away.
I stay like that for the whole show, me sitting on a stool just off the stage, holding up my phone with Dex’s handsome face listening in. But the show lasts only forty-five minutes, and even though the crowd is chanting for Damian to come back out, he flips everyone the finger and walks right off the stage.
I face the phone and shrug at Dex.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, walking down the steps and into the back hallways of the stadium. “I’ll text you later when I know what’s happening. Miss you.”
“Miss you too,” he says right before he clicks off the screen. I hate that I have to say goodbye to him and run after Damian.
I haven’t even lifted a finger during the whole performance and my body is heavy with exhaustion. But not Simply Sinister; when I walk into the green room, it’s as if the party is just about to start.
I sit back down on my folding chair and turn to Damian. “Wasn’t that a really short show?”
He glares at me, sweat dripping off his face, fingers trembling. “I’m finished. Now it’s time to party.” I record the way his hands shake and the way he looks almost starved. “Hope yourboyfriendliked the free show.”
His words make sparks rip out across my chest. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong by having Dex watch with me, I was just missing him. I wasn’t trying to get a free ticket or anything.
As I stare at Damian, two roadies escort a group of women inside, each one squealing and trying to grab at the band members, but before they’re allowed, they have to hand over their cellphones or they can’t come in.
