TRAVIS
I rollmy tongue ring between my teeth, fighting the urge to bite down on it as I watch these two schmucks dote on Ellie. She brought them back here to meetus, yet they can’t stop staring at her. Talking about how amazing she was earlier, when people were crowding the line to buy merch before the show. How she was personable and incredible, and blah fucking blah. We already know this about Ellie. She’s great at everything she does. I’ve never seen her fail at anything.
“You guys were a lifesaver, truly. Couldn’t have done it without you,” she says, smiling at them. She hasn’t once glanced at me. Not even to glare at me. She’s still pretending as if I don’t exist. Well, fuck that.
“Hey, May, could you log me into the band’s Instagram?” I ask, taking out my phone. Her eyes slide to me, annoyance written all over her face. I smirk, holding the phone to her. I don’t ever go into our Instagram account anymore. I couldn’t care less what’s going on in those DMs. But I want her attention on me and not those chodes.
“Are you making a post?” she asks warily, probably afraid I’ll post something stupid that she’ll have to deal with later.
I shake my head. “No, I just want to look at the messages.” I hold in my grin when I see red creep up her neck. She’s getting angry, but she’s damn good at hiding it. She snatches the phone, typing away, and boom, I’m in. She drops it in my hand and goes back to talking to those guys. I scroll through, not even bothering to open a single message. I can tell by the few words I see, it’s nothing but horny girls.
“What do you say, Ellie, want to join us?”
My head snaps up at the question—coming from that Jordan dude.
Ellie doesn’t even hesitate when she says, “Yeah, go ahead and wait for me outside while I finish up here.” I watch the guys leave, and I don’t like the sinking feeling in my gut. “I have some news,” she announces, standing up and moving to the middle of the room like she’s about to drop a bomb on us. We focus on her. She bites her lip, chin wobbling slightly, and my heart starts beating harder. What the fuck’s going on. Is she quitting? Because of what I did?
Goddammit, I tug at my shirt. I’m sweating. What the hell is wrong with me? She can’t leave. She’s stuck with us for the long haul. We need her here…Ineed her.
“You guys sold out tonight! And there was a line halfway around the building all night of people trying to get tickets!” she squeals.
“Holy shit, really?” Liam asks, jumping up.
She smiles so wide it makes my chest tighten. I rub at the spot. I need to look into the side effects of these pills.
Ellie has always been a fangirl. Sometimes I forget because to me she’s just Ellie, marketing manager, PR person, and friend. But it’s clear how much of a cheerleader she is.
“Fuck yeah,” Penn says, hopping up too. We gather around, forming a circle to hug and congratulate each other.
“I wanted to tell you guys sooner, but it was a crazy day.”She sniffles. She’s actually crying for us. I know she’s still mad at me, but I take advantage of her emotional state and pull her to me. She stiffens, but I squeeze harder, letting her know she’s not getting out of this. Eventually, she loosens up and hugs me back.
“Thank you,” I say, looking at her.
“For what?”
“There’s no way we’d be here if it weren’t for you. We know how hard you work to get our name out there.”
“He’s right, you’re the best, Ellie,” Liam says, pulling her into a hug of his own. “We should celebrate!”
I glance at Penn and Tanner, expecting them to disagree, but surprisingly they’re nodding, too.
“You gotta come, too, Ellie,” I urge, only slightly aware of how desperate I sound.
“Oh, um. I already told Jordan I’d hang out with them. They’re waiting on me, so I should probably get going.”
“No way, you gotta go with us. Right guys?” I don’t want her to go out with those guys, she doesn’t even know them. It’s not safe. It has absolutely nothing to do with the heartburn that randomly hit me a few minutes ago thinking about it.
“You definitely have to come with us,” Liam agrees. “Bring your friends.”
My eyes fly to Liam, because what the fuck? But he’s oblivious.
“Ok, uh, sure. Let me just text Jordan.”
She has his number? Jesus Christ.
After mulling around our options, we ended up at a local bar. It’s chill and there’s no bumping club music playing that Ellie can grind to, so I’m happy.
I’m sitting in our booth in the corner, keeping one eye on her, and sipping a beer while everyone else talks around the table. She’s been hitting the shots pretty hard with her new “friends.” She’s sitting between them laughing. I’m pretty sureone of them keeps touching her under the table, but I can’t see from here.
