Jess smiles. ‘I’ll make all the arrangements, but you need to make sure you rest.’ She looks at the tele. ‘What are we watching?’
‘Hostile Minds,’ I grumble.
‘Oh,’ Jess laughs. ‘You want to see it knowing Luc wrote it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘You did a really good job last night, Sienna. Mimi is really pleased with the reaction.’
I unlock my phone to start scrolling when I hear Jess and Mauve gasp at the same time. ‘Oh no,’ Jess breathes. ‘No no no no.’
‘What’s happened?’ I ask.
She turns around her phone screen and a photo which is undeniably Luc fills the entire thing. He’s wearing a hat and sunglasses but it’s so obviously him. And he’s sitting opposite someone. A woman…
Short hair. Brunette. Beautiful.
Undeniably not me.
CHAPTER 10
THE GAME YOU PLAY
TRACK 7 | PARTY POOPER
January 2020 ended up being a terrible time to release an album called ‘PartyPooper’, butthat can’t be helped. I wrote ‘The Game You Play’ as the first song on the album after waiting three weeks for a situationship to text me back. Turns out he was on his honeymoon, and I (obviously, or he wouldn’t be a situationship) didn’t even know he had a girlfriend (that should go without saying) let alone a fiancée. All I had to do was call him out, say I didn’t know. He was the bad guy.
I hadn’t intendedto get this drunk. I promise. I wasn’t even going to come with how sore my voice has been all day. But it’s Renée Ross’s birthday party, otherwise known as one of the most exclusive events of the year, a yearly fixture in early June.
And I’m known to be on the guest list, so Jess and I decided it would look worse if I didn’t go. That people would run with the rumour that Luc and I have split.We planned for me to have one drink before slipping out at midnight like Cinderella.
I find myself at the bar again. The friend I made within an hour, Eliana – who must be one of Renée’s model friends, towering over six feet and absolutely gorgeous, black braids that reach halfway down her back – is asking if I want a drink. I’ve lost count of how many tequila shots I’ve had.
It can’t be good for my voice, but I’ll be in tour bootcamp before I know it and then I’ll treat my voice properly. One night can’t hurt too much.
Eliana hands me another tumbler. She leans in, her breath tickling my earlobe. ‘Whisky,’ she whisper-shouts, taking a sip. I can smell it on her breath, the peaty, wooden smell with the cigarettes she’s been smoking all evening on the private terrace. The smirk on her face is almost conspiratorial when I bring the tumbler up to my mouth and take a small sip, so small I only let the liquid dampen my lips.
‘Nice, right?’ she asks.
I nod, forcing myself to take a gulp, the liquid swirling around my mouth, my teeth. It burns in my oesophagus. It’s definitely not good for my throat, but it lights a fire inside me. The medicine I need to forget everything… Luc’s hand in mine, the sweet coffee on his breath, the way he smiled at the brunette girl in the photo, his hand over mine while he tells me I can do anything I want to do.
The fact he didn’t respond to my text as soon as I saw the story asking if we could talk. Or the one I sent an hour ago accusing him of breaking a rule.
A man brushes past us, grabbing Eliana by the arm and pulling her away from me. She laughs, deep in her belly. ‘Back in a minute,’ I read her lips. And then I’m left at the bar at a loss, Luc’s wordsYou’re Sienna Martinwinding around my brain on a loop.
Everyone is so desperate for that coveted invite to Renée’s bash, but it’s no plus ones and everyone has to be exclusivelyinvited by the supermodel herself. She holds it at the same place every year: Tulip House, an extremely exclusive private members’ club in central London. It’s a different theme every year, and everyone goes all out. It’s like the Met Gala without the red carpet or the pictures, because no one is allowed any photos or phones inside the event. Our phones are put in one of those bags which locks, forbidding access until they take the cover off when we leave. Renée orders a social media blackout, with strict consequences if it’s broken. More people let loose and have fun if they don’t have to care about their image. We’re allowed to share pictures of what we wore, to flex the fact we were invited, providing the photos weren’t taken in the vicinity of the event.
We have to sign an order and, if someone breaks it, they’re strung up to dry. They’ll never get an invite again. One model, who shared a photo of herself and her boyfriend from inside an event without realising one of Renée’s friends looked worse for wear in the background, found herself not only struck off the guest list for the party after that, but also from the list of all the big brands for Fashion Week. She hasn’t walked in a major show since.
But it also means the hungry paps will hang about outside all the exits of Tulip House hoping to catch a glimpse of anything to do with Renée’s party, even if it’s simply the guest list.
Tonight’s theme is London Attractions, and I’m in a floor-length, gold, halter-neck dress with tiny clock sequins scattered across the skirt. I’m Big Ben, in case that wasn’t obvious. It’s a rented piece that Jess sorted from designer Kendra Heath, and I’ll be heartbroken to give it back. One man is wearing what looks like a silver hula hoop at a forty-five-degree angle from his shoulder to his hip – Wembley Stadium, I guess? – while another woman is in a floor-length chainmail dress, simple black underwear underneath. I have no idea what she is, but she looks beautiful.
There are hundreds of people, their faces distorted by alcohol and neon lights, buzzing through the room, their costumes reflecting spotlights back like a mirror in the sun. A floppy-haired man enters the room in the far corner and my eyes double take. My feet are walking before I tell them to.
Luc?
I spent an hour and a half this afternoon looking through the people Luc follows on Instagram, trying to find the woman he spent the afternoon with, despite Jess warning me not to. Warning me that it would make me feel worse. Obviously, Luc and I are not together. He can do what he wants. But no one gets to make me look like an idiot.
