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Florence sucks in a breath, suddenly looking wide awake. “One million? How . . .”
Luca is already scrolling through the comments.
Why was this so hot???? Who are they??? Are they dating??? Please tell me they’re dating
ok but what is this song called???
ROCK STAR GIRLFRIENDS!!!!!
I saw Scorpio Season open for Juno Wilde in Brussels! They’re so talented and VERY queer. They only have a few songs out, but they’re so good!
WAKE UP BABE NEW SAPPHIC ROCK BAND JUST DROPPED
After a few seconds, Luca has to drop the phone into her lap. She’s sure her face matches the color of her hair at this point. One million. One million people have seen her and Florence eye-fucking—an awful description, but there truly is no better way to say it—in the middle of one of their most unhinged songs.
Clearly, keeping her distance is going incredibly.
“Oh my God,” Florence says. She sounds just as dazed as Luca feels. “We just hit sixty thousand followers. We had thirty thousand last night.”
“People really seem to think you two are dating,” Miray marvels.
Izzy cackles, delighted. “Oh, this is brilliant.”
Luca can’t look anyone in the eye, least of all Florence.
“We should use this,” Toni says from the front seat. “I think we should release the ‘big teeth’ demo tonight.”
“I’ll post an announcement,” Miray says immediately.
Luca hands her back her phone before pulling out her own. Her private social media account has more than a thousand follow requests. When she switches to the band account, she finds that their last post—an Amsterdam recap Miray threw together while they were riding back to the hostel—is flooded with comments.
The top comment is, The third slide?????
Luca knows what picture it’s going to be even before she gets there. It’s a photo Miray took of her and Florence at the coffee shop. It shows Luca with her head in Florence’s lap, staring up at her while Florence plays with her hair. The expression on her own face isn’t one that Luca has ever seen before: soft, unguarded, almost awed as Florence laughs at something she must’ve said.
“Luca?” Florence asks quietly. Her knee nudges Luca’s.
“Yeah,” she says, strained.
“Hey,” Florence says. “It’s all right. It’s just strangers on the internet.”
“I know.” She swallows. “This is weird, right? I’m not the only one who finds this weird?”
“It’s weird,” Florence confirms. “But it’s all right. Because it’s only strangers, and they know nothing about us.”
Luca can’t tell if she’s trying to reassure Luca or herself.
“There are worse rumors they could be spreading,” Izzy says. “We could be Scientologists. Or Tory voters.”
“All the best bands have gay allegations,” Toni adds.
“Are they really allegations if every single one of us is gay?” Miray muses.
“You know what I mean,” says Toni. “Not for each other.”
Luca melts a little farther into her seat and presses her hands into her eyes until the darkness turns kaleidoscopic. Next to her, Florence chips away at her black nail polish.
The drive to Berlin feels endless. Neither of them falls asleep again.
