Around her thigh she has a bridal garter. She swings a pair of metal cuffs from one finger.
“Handcuffs?” This feels familiar.
“At Bianca’s Halloween birthday bash, Rogue handcuffed me to the bed in order to prove I was real.” She lifts both eyebrows suggestively as she locks the handcuffs onto her wrists before slipping out of them. “I stole away before he could, and Rebel thought Rogue was losing it.”
“I can’t believe I forgot about that.” Rogue had gone to therapy after that.
“He wanted to remind Rebel he was wrong.”
“Of course he did.” I laugh.
Ivy turns to Kelsey. “So, what happened? Because those pictures paint a story, and those captions all but spell out relationship. Everyone is conjecturing.” Obviously she overheard our conversation.
“Seriously. There’s no story. I was there last night when he met her. It was the first time they’d ever talked.” Kelsey hurries to the bar. She pours herself a fresh drink, this time my non-alcoholic bubbly, then downs the glassful. “She threw herself at him. It was drama for drama’s sake.”
“Meow.” Adira claws at the air. “Someone sounds jealous.”
“No.” Kelsey can’t keep the bitterness from seeping, through. “I’m not.”
“You do sound jealous,” Ivy says. “It sounds like you may be more than friends. Or maybe you want to be?”
“I’m not talking about this.”
How didn’t I notice? It’s suddenly obvious Kelsey is in love with Riot.
“We caught them in Mojito on my birthday. And the treehouse on fakesgiving,” Ivy admits.
“That was months ago. Wasn’t he still with Rochelle then?” Was I that oblivious? Does Rebel know?
Kelsey doesn’t meet my eye. “Neither of us meant for anything to happen. Ever. I regret that it started while he was dating Rochelle, but it wasn’t until she broke up with him that we slept together.”
When Rochelle ended it with Riot, did she have an inkling that he wasn’t fully invested in their relationship? That there was someone else?
“I tried to resign from managing the band at Christmas. And then again on New Year’s. But each time he talked me into staying.”
“Talking?” Ivy teases. “Was that what Rogue and I caught you doing at Mojito?”
Kelsey’s cheeks glow.
“Does he not know how you feel about him?” I ask.
“Uh, he knows.” She eventually looks at us. “We’re together.”
“That’s awesome.” Ivy sweeps her into a hug.
“Don’t tell anyone, please.” Kelsey holds her at arm’s length and then catches each of our gazes. “We wanted to tell everyone at the same time. Can we pretend like I didn’t spill the tea early?”
“I’m guessing we’re keeping this off social media for now?” I climb to my feet and hug her. “Do you have a plan there?”
“That’s going to depend on how much Sonatina wants to push my buttons. Another post like this one...” She shows me the images on her phone screen. The first is of Sonatina in Riot’s arms, his hand on her butt. “And I might not be able to help myself. The way she threw herself at him really pissed me off.”
The next image on the screen is of the pop princess hugging Riot close while she whispers in his ear and slips something into his pocket. It looks incredibly intimate.
“She gave him her panties,” she explains. “It’s been done hundreds of times by hundreds of hopefuls. Only this one had a camera following her. And her daddy owns the record company. She doesn’t want photos and fame. She already has those. She wants Riot.”
“And?”
“And I’ve never cared about it like this before. It was always part of the show. Part of what it means to be living with rock stars. I knew how to handle it when we were friends.” She takes a seat on the wide, comfy armchair and stares at the image on herscreen. “It didn’t matter because those women couldn’t take him from me. He was my best friend. This is the kind of stuff we used to tease each other about. But now...”
