The Lost Girl

by Lilian Carmine

  After dinner, we all said our goodbyes and I went straight to the bathroom to take a hot shower. Tristan relaxed in the bed, watching TV.

  As I turned off the shower I caught a glimpse of a shadow outside the bathroom.

  “Tris?” I called out, watching as the foggy shadow advanced towards the bathroom door. I peeked out of the cubicle, sweeping my wet hair out of my eyes. There was no one there. “Tristan? Is that you?”

  No reply. Maybe Tristan had gone to the kitchen to grab a glass of water or something. I stepped out of the shower, dried myself and then put on my comfy PJs. When I walked into the bedroom, all the lights were out and Tristan was fast asleep in the bed, the TV lights flickering softly over his face.

  As I looked around the room I noticed that the door was open. I was sure I’d closed it before going in the shower, but maybe I just thought I had. I walked into the hall and leaned over the landing banister, surveying the living room downstairs. The lights were out: the house was quiet and peaceful. I squinted my eyes. Nothing moved; from up here, the room didn’t look any different than normal. I shrugged and went back to my bedroom. Maybe I was too tired and my mind was playing tricks. It was nothing …

  So why I couldn’t shake off this eerie feeling?

  I shut the door behind me and locked it. We had a pretty good security system in the house, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  I scuttled under the covers and took the remote out of Tristan’s hands. I turned off the TV, leaving the room in near-darkness, the only light coming from a small beam which slippled through a slit in the blinds. My eyes were just adjusting to the dark when I saw a shadow moving by the wall on the other side of the room.

  The floorboard gave a tiny squeak. I started to freak out.

  Shadows weren’t supposed to make any noise, right?

  I reached out for the lamp on my nightstand, almost knocking it over in my urgency to switch it on. The light flickered and then bathed the room in its soft, reassuring glow. I glanced urgently around the room.

  There was nothing there. I bit my lip, contemplating waking Tristan up. But then I just felt stupid, like those useless wimpy girls in horror movies that can’t do anything by themselves. I didn’t need to call Tristan. What was he going to do, anyway? Look around and find nothing, like I just had? It was just shadows playing in the room, I told myself; totally normal shadow behavior. And houses always made odd noises. I sat on the bed and huffed, annoyed at myself for being such a wimp. I’d never been scared of the dark before. I was Joe Gray. I wasn’t scared of anything. So why I was still freaking out about this? This was just plain stupid.

  “This is seriously pissing me off,” I mumbled under my breath.

  And suddenly, as if by magic, the eerie feeling left me and I felt a whole lot calmer. The room was just … a room. No evil shadows lurking in the dark, no wicked things going bump in the night. I smiled contentedly and pulled the covers up to my neck, getting myself comfortable at Tristan’s side.

  He shifted and turned over, wrapping one arm around my waist. I snuggled into him, and a part of me was a little ashamed for feeling much safer now that he was holding me in his arms.

  I breathed deeply, relaxing myself. If there were more evil shadows or mysterious noises in the room, I wasn’t aware of them, because within seconds I had drifted into a deep sleep, safe and sound in Tristan’s arms.

  Chapter Five

  Kitchen Love

  I tried to move but I wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed a hold of my collar with a tight, vicious grip, and I knew I was doomed.

  There was a reason why you never let Josh get a hold of you. Because if you did, there was no way you could weasel your way out of his steel-like grip. I tried anyway, but lost my balance, landing on my back on the mattress with a loud bump.

  “Whooof! Ouch, Josh! Take it easy, will ya?” I yelled at him.

  I was mostly annoyed at myself for being this out of practice. But it was hard to train during tours, so we always resumed our martial arts practice when we were back at home. Josh and I both had black belts so we never got too rusty.

  I woke up really early, leaving Tristan sleeping comfortably in my bed, to go looking for Josh because I knew he would be up too. Josh was always an early riser.

  I was beginning to regret the idea, though. My moves were so slow. We had only been training for a few hours and I was already sweating buckets and feeling pretty out of breath. Josh was going to kick my butt all day long at this rate.

  “Come on, Joey. You can do better than this,” he taunted me.

  Huffing, I grabbed his hand and he helped pull me up. He had tossed me on the mattress, like, a hundred times already and I hadn’t managed to take him down one single time yet! Damn him.

  As he made sure I was back to standing position, I took advantage of this momentary distraction and swiftly moved to his side, grabbing his elbow while pushing my entire arm against his neck, making him stumble back and lose his balance. Now, it was his turn to fall back on the mattress.

  “YES!” I shouted smugly. “I win! I’m the man!” I laughed, raising both my arms in the air and doing a quick wriggling victory dance.

  The celebration didn’t last long, though, because Josh swept his legs at my feet. I tried to jump over them, but only one foot was fast enough; I was on my butt in the blink of an eye. He landed on top of me, pinning me down, and leaned close to my face with a wicked grin.

  “Who’s the man, now?” He reveled in his moment of triumph. Served me right for gloating in his face and doing a silly victory dance just because he fell once.

  “Oh, puh-lease. Who says being ‘the man’ is a better thing anyway? Being a girl is just as good,” I scoffed, and pushed him away from me. I was officially done with training for today.

  “What? Quitting already?” He laughed. “Don’t be a baby, Gray. Just because I’m epic at all martial arts doesn’t mean you can’t be some day, too! And hey, there’s always second place on the podium.”

  Josh was the most competitive boy I knew. “Good, you can have that spot. I’m just rusty now, but you wait until I’m back on form and climbing to that epic first place, drummer boy!” I huffed before storming out of the gym room.

  Losing non-stop tended to put a dampener on my mood. Josh’s relentless banter wasn’t helping improve matters, either. I headed into the kitchen with a thunder cloud above my head. I found Tristan sitting on a kitchen stool at the table, twisting his spoon over a big cup of tea. He was wearing his usual black sweatpants and white singlet shirt, hair all roughened up and a thin stubble darkening his jaw. He looked sexy. Even when he’d just got up in the morning, Tristan looked annoyingly good. And it wasn’t just me who thought it. An article once ran photos of him and discussed: “Does Lost Boy Tristan always look this good?” It was published in a teen magazine and afterwards the boys kept teasing him with “Wonderboy” and “Looking good”. But the fact remained that he did indeed always look this good. You could get him exhausted, sweaty, soaking wet, hungover, and he still managed to look effortlessly well put together. Everybody in the band had occasional unflattering moments caught on camera, but Tristan … Tristan was in the Greek Pantheon of Gods department. It was very irritating.

  “Hey, good morning, sunshine,” he greeted cheerfully. His face fell after taking a good look at my face, and he corrected himself: “I mean, good morning, thunderous black clouds of doom and gloom.”

  “Oh, ha ha. Hilarious,” I snapped.

  “You and Josh done training? I could hear a lot of noise coming from there. Sounded like an exciting training session.”

  “Yeah. If by ‘exciting’ you mean getting my ass repeatedly kicked, then yes, sure,” I mumbled, slouching on to the stool next to him.

  “I can try to make this morning a little more exciting for you, then,” Tristan said, pushing his tea away. He grabbed me from my seat and lifted me on to the table, facing him.

  “Is that so? How are you planning to do that, then?�
�� I asked, trying to hold back my smile. I locked my legs around his waist and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer.

  “It’s not something I can say. I need to show you,” he murmured in a husky tone, his eyes darkening dangerously as he stared at me.

  “Show me,” I whispered in his ear, grazing his earlobe with my teeth. It made him shiver. Suddenly I was feeling up for some “excitement”, my bad mood forgotten.

  He took a sharp intake of breath and pulled me even closer, hungrily claiming my lips.

  We usually didn’t have much alone time when we were on tour. Most nights we spent in our bunk beds on the bus, and there wasn’t much space for privacy there. After shows we crashed in hotels, but we were always too tired for anything more than sleep. So I’d been missing these kinds of intimate moments with Tristan. And by the way he was touching me now, I reckon he’d been missing them just as much.

  I grabbed him by the neck as he leaned me down on to the table, and kissed him back, hard. Hmm … Tristan’s kisses. They were electrifying. They made me melt. He was almost lying on top of me when I heard Harry’s freaked-out voice from the kitchen door.

  “Eeew! Oh my God! I can’t believe you guys. We eat at that table, you know that?” He covered his eyes with his hands. “Becca messaged me saying to be home early in the morning and this is what I find in my kitchen?”

  “Erm, sorry, we got a bit carried away,” Tristan mumbled, embarrassed. He leaned away from me and liftly me gently back to the floor.

  “And I had to sit through Tristan’s torturing lecture, listening to how we ‘all’ had to behave decently around here. That was such bull,” he complained. “I would say that ‘practically having sex on the kitchen table’ does not qualify as ‘decent behavior’, mister!” he said, pointing an accusing finger at a flustered Tristan.

  “I’m sorry, man. It won’t happen again. Plus, she started it!” he said, pointing at me. “You know how it is. You kinda stop thinking when they wrap their legs around you, whispering in your ear and biting your—”

  “Tristan!” I blushed fiercely.

  Tristan faked innocence by my side.

  Harry snickered.

  “Harry, I’m serious. I did not!” The more I denied it, the more they snickered. Then Tiffany and Seth entered the kitchen, looking curiously at the three of us.

  “What’s going on in here?” Seth yawned. “Why is Joey’s face all purple?”

  “TristanandJoey … werehavingsex … onthekitchen table,” Harry spilled out between laughs before I could stop him.

  “We were not! It was just a kiss, Harry!” I was getting seriously vexed at the situation.

  “Oooh! Sex on the kitchen table?” Seth high-fived Tristan.

  “This table is actually quite nice,” Tiffany mused. “Do you remember, Seth, when we were here, and you—”

  Seth slapped his hand over her mouth, a panicked look in his eyes but a weak smile on his lips.

  “Er … nothing happened here … Nor on the counter,” he added hurriedly, giving a sideways glance to Tristan.

  “Okay, that’s it! This kitchen officially needs an exorcism now. And a sanitizing crew. Urgently,” Harry shouted as he left the kitchen, his arms in the air. “I’m not eating in here ever again!”

  “Well, look what you did, Joey,” Tristan teased. “Now Harry is having a fit because you can’t keep your hands off me!” Tristan immensely enjoyed seeing me blush. He said I looked cute when I was embarrassed.

  “Yeah? Okay, mister, let’s see how long I can keep my hands off you, then. Prepare to wait a long time!” I stomped out of the kitchen.

  Tristan ran after me. “No, wait! Let’s not be hasty here. I take it all back,” he said, still laughing. “I’m the one who can’t take my hands off you. I swear. I really can’t! I can’t control myself! I will shout for anyone to hear if you want to!” He grabbed me by the waist, locking me in his arms tightly and burying his face in my neck, showering me with tickling kisses.

  That’s when we both heard Becca clearing her throat by the front door.

  Tristan was the one blushing now. He coughed, a little embarrassed, and released me quickly, straightening his clothes and self-consciously patting down his ruffled hair.

  Becca was only a couple of years older than us, but she looked a lot older because of how extremely serious she was. She always had this slightly disapproving parental stare. It always made us feel as if we were little kids who’d been caught doing something wrong.

  “So, we need to be leaving in a couple of hours,” she said, adjusting her glasses over her freckled button nose and checking her notebook. “Also, Joey, your mother rang me last night. Said you never call her and she only knows how you’re doing through magazines and TV shows.” She lifted her head for a second to look at me.

  I hunched my shoulders and sighed quietly. Oh, poop, I forgot to call my mother again. I used to call her every time we got back home from a tour, but it had completely slipped my mind.

  “She also wanted me to inquire” – Becca addressed both Tristan and me now – “about your plans for giving her that grandson she was promised. I think we can all fairly state that you are dutifully trying on that one …” she said, giving us a pointed look.

  “It was just a kiss,” I mumbled, shuffling my feet, embarrassed and glancing quickly at Tristan. He looked dejected now. He always did when the “grandchildren subject” was mentioned. We didn’t know if he could even father any children, due to his backstory as a supernatural glitch and because of his ex-ghost status. This lingering doubt was something that bothered him a lot, because he wanted to have a big family – which meant having lots of kids – to make up for the siblings he hadn’t had growing up, and his small family of one he had left behind in his past life.

  “So, which Lost Boys are still not up?” Becca asked while checking her notes. “We’ll be leaving soon, so I suggest you hurry up, and shake a leg.”

  That made us snap to attention and scurry away to our rooms. We had to get ready for a full day of promo events.

  Before we left the house, I wondered how many people there would be showing up at the signing at the bookstore …

  Chapter Six

  Book Signing

  We arrived at the bookstore in time, thanks to Becca keeping everybody on schedule. The store was in a prestigious, four-storey high Victorian building, situated in the busiest part of the city. All high-profile events were done in this building nowadays. It held signings, meet-and-greets for all kinds of celebrities, and also hosted artists’ exhibitions and cultural events.

  As to how many people would be attending, my question was quickly answered as I glanced at the massive crowd huddling outside the front doors, waiting for a chance to get in. The place looked packed!

  Our record label’s experienced driver cannily bypassed the crowds in our SUV and parked at the back of the building, and we hurried inside, Jarvis and Johnson by our sides, plus a few extra security guards from the bookstore helping as an added precaution. We were led to a room with restricted access on the third floor, where offices were located.

  “Sorry about the mess outside; word got out that Miss Worthington and Miss Sunford were coming to the event, and the volume of people doubled,” a flustered middle-aged man explained as we stepped out of the elevator.

  He signaled for us to follow him inside the private room, where we found Tiffany and Jackie already waiting for us. Tiffany was becoming a major celebrity in the city, and Jackie’s fame had risen considerably after she had started dating Harry.

  “Hey, you came!” Harry greeted her happily, giving her a quick kiss.

  “I thought I should drop by and support my man.” Jackie smiled. She was wearing black shorts, heeled boots and a sparkly purple top which complemented her vibrant pink lipstick. Her black hair was in her usual asymmetrical cut with a long side-bang sweeping over her eyes. She wrapped one arm around Harry’s waist and with the other waved a greeting to everybody else
in the room. I forced a smile in her direction.

  Despite the building being impressively big, the crowd today was still almost overwhelming. The security crew and event coordinators had a lot to organize before we could head downstairs to the signing room. As usual I tried to avoid being around Harry, because of Jackie. I could feel her distrustful glares at me while we waited.

  And all the while I couldn’t shake a weird feeling I was having. Maybe it was the tension of having to deal with Jackie that was making me nervous, but something deep inside told me that, actually, it had nothing to do with her. I kept glancing around all the time, searching for something, although I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I just had this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, telling me to be alert, warning me that something bad was about to happen.

  “Are you all right?” Tristan asked, noticing my tense demeanor.

  I shook my head, dismissing how irrational I was being. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

  He didn’t have the chance to press the matter because the store’s supervisor announced they were ready for us downstairs.

  “Wow!” Sammy exclaimed when we walked into the signing room.

  A million camera flashes exploded in our direction; paparazzi, reporters and fans fought each other for a better spot to take their pictures. The room was completely overloaded; even the air felt stuffy and suffocating because the air conditioner couldn’t handle the extra heat generated by so many people in the room. Several tables had been placed side by side in a long row, for us to sit at, and a security line was secured a few feet in front, blocking any advance of fans towards us. And as usual, Jarvis and Johnson were at our backs to ensure our safety.

  I sat down at a table between Tristan and Josh, looking around. There was a square glass table behind us, presumably where we could put any gifts we were handed, and a display of our albums had also been arranged. I smiled and turned my attention back to the crowd, preparing myself to meet the fans. From the looks of the throng, this was going to be a long day.