Westside Series Box Set

by Monica Alexander

  She was looking at me.

  Oh no. That wasn’t happening.

  And she was watching me expectantly, because I still hadn’t responded.

  “Tory?” I asked her in the tone she was familiar with me using when she said something that made me question her sanity.

  “Yes, Andi,” she said sweetly, no doubt knowing exactly what I was thinking.

  “Have you ever known me to be a fan of Westside?”

  “You liked that one song they released over the summer, Take A Chance,” she ventured.

  “I did?”

  “Yes! It was on the radio when we were in The Hamptons that one weekend, and you said you liked it.”

  “I have absolutely no recollection of that. I’m not even sure what song you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. And you liked it.”

  “Okay, fine. I liked it, but that doesn’t mean I want to go to their concert. Won’t there be nine thousand screaming thirteen year-olds there?”

  “Probably, but your very good friend Tory will also be there. And she does not want to look like a loser, alone in the front row, when Van Salvatore looks down and sees her, smiles, and realizes he’s in love with her. Because if she’s there by herself, he’ll think she has no friends, and he’ll ultimately decide she’s not cool enough for him.”

  “Oh, and you think – what’s his name?”

  “Van. His name is really Vincent, but everyone calls him Van. Technically his older brother started calling him that when they were little, because he couldn’t say Vincent, and it stuck.”

  “When’s his birthday?” I asked teasingly.

  “December fifth.”

  I shook my head a little, surprised that she’d been able to regurgitate that information so quickly.

  “He’ll be twenty-two next month,” she supplied.

  “Twenty-two?! He’s a baby!”

  “He’s a hot baby. And I’m only twenty-five. Three years isn’t that much of a difference in age.”

  This was sort of true. But I’d also just broken up with a guy who was fifteen years older than me, so I couldn’t imagine dating one who was younger. The concept had never really appealed to me. All of the guys I’d ever dated had been at least five years older than me.

  “And you think Van is just going to magically see you in the audience, pick you out of the masses, and you’ll ride off into the sunset together?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” Hannah, ever the pragmatist, chimed in.

  Tory ignored her and focused on me. “Of course I don’t think that’s going to happen. The stage lights are too bright during most of the songs. They dim them when they sing their slower songs, but he’ll have noticed me way before then.”

  “Because you’ll be the tallest person there?” I ventured.

  She laughed. “No, because I’m going to meet him before the show, and he’s going to be enamored with me then. He’s going to hug me, because they do that before you get your picture taken with the band, but then as I’m leaving, he’s going to grab my hand and ask me where I’m sitting. Then he’ll tell me he’ll look for me in the audience. And he will, and then he’ll get one of the security guys to send me a message to go backstage after the show, which is where he’ll tell me he had a hard time concentrating on the set, because he couldn’t stop thinking about me. And then he’ll ask me out.”

  “Wow. That is an elaborate story,” I told her.

  “One we’ll happily tell our grandchildren about years down the road,” she said triumphantly.

  “Sounds fantastic.”

  “So, you’ll go with me?”

  “No,” I said quickly, thinking my plan to stay home and watch Netflix was preferable to going to a concert full of screaming pre-teens.

  “Please, Andi. Please. I’ll be your best friend forever and ever.”

  I laughed at her childish tone. “No, Tory. I can’t. It seriously won’t be any fun.”

  “Yes, it will. I promise. And if it’ll make it more fun, I’ll buy all your drinks.”

  “That’s kind of a good deal,” Hannah said, taking a sip of her drink as she appraised us.

  “All of them?” I clarified.

  “All of them,” Tory promised.

  I sighed. “Tory, I really don’t want to go,” I said, but that time I only sounded half-serious.

  “I’ll pick you up at five tomorrow night,” she told me. “And we’ll go out afterward. Just humor me. Sit through two hours of the show, meet four extreme hotties, who I’m sure smell incredible, and then we’ll go out. Please, please, please.”

  “I cannot wait to hear how this goes,” Hannah mumbled sarcastically.

  “You think they’ll ‘smell incredible’?” I asked Tory.

  “Of course. They’re hot rock stars.”

  “I’m going to take your word on that as I literally have no clue what these guys look like.”

  “You’ve seen their pictures on my screensaver at work,” she reminded me, since she did in fact have a Westside screensaver on her computer at work. She told people it was a joke, but I knew it wasn’t.

  “I guess I have, but I never really looked at it.”

  “Yes, you did. I asked you which one you thought was cutest, and you said Dillon, to which I told you he either has a girlfriend or is dating Camden. I’m not sure which is the truth, but I’d be happy with either. He and Camden are the cutest together, all playful and goofy. It’s kind of adorable. I’d love it if they were really together.”

  “Um, who is Camden?”

  She’d said it like I should know, but the name registered no recognition with me.

  She rolled her eyes. “Camden Baylor. He’s also in Westside. He and Dillon are best friends, but they might also be dating. No one knows for sure, but there has been speculation for years that Dillon’s girlfriend is just a beard because the Westside management team doesn’t want half the band to come out as gay. They’re afraid it would seriously diminish their fan base, but I disagree. Most of their fans would welcome it if Camden and Dillon were actually together.”

  “Um, okay,” I said, not sure how to respond to any of that. Did I even care who was dating who? No, I really didn’t. “So, what should I wear?”

  “Just look hot. Wear some skinnies, a sexy top, boots, you know.”

  I sighed. “Okay, fine. But you owe me for this.”

  “Drinks darling,” she said, grinning at me.

  “Drinks. All of them.”

  “Absolutely. And speaking of drinks, finish that one and we’ll go dancing. You in, Han?”

  “I’m in,” Hannah agreed.

  “Great,” Tory said excitedly. “We’re going to get our girl here back in the action.”

  “Can’t wait,” I mumbled around the rim of my glass.

  They were as bad as my mother who’d called me earlier in the day to ask if my mourning period was over, and then she’d conveniently slipped into the conversation that my ex-boyfriend Reid was single again. I knew Reid was single. We were friends on Facebook. I also knew that he was living in Atlanta working as an oncologist, and with the way my mother thought, if I started dating him again, I’d be with a guy she loved, and I’d move home.

  The problem was that although Reid was a nice guy, he bored me to death, and I didn’t want to date him. And I had no desires to move home. My mother refused to accept either of these things, so she continued to bring him up as an option whenever I found myself single again.

  At least my friends weren’t pushing me toward him. They just wanted me to date again so I could get over David. Their pushing came from a good place. They didn’t care who I dated, and I appreciated that. I’d always been a girl who preferred to make her own decisions. Pushing me toward something usually made me want to run the other way.

  “Look,” Tory said, leaning toward me. “This process of finding a husband, or whatever it is we’re doing, can be painful or it can be fun. Everyone gets their heart broken.
Everyone deals with asshole guys who lie. It’s life. Some of us are lucky enough to find the perfect guy with very little effort.” She shifted her gaze to Hannah. “But others of us have to try out a lot of guys before we find the right one. And even that doesn’t always work.”

  “That is so comforting,” I said, tipping back the rest of my drink and hoping for some liquid courage.

  “It’s just not always meant to be,” Hannah said casually.

  I shot her a look. “The girl with the perfect boyfriend doesn’t get to have an opinion.”

  “No, she’s right,” Tory said, as I shifted my gaze to her. “I don’t want to give you false hope that the guy you’ve been looking for your whole life is just going to fall into your lap. He’s not. But you also don’t have to struggle through the process of finding him. Just have fun. That way you won’t feel so let down when it doesn’t work out. Most guys we meet aren’t ‘the one’, and that’s life, but that just means that when we meet ‘the real one’, we appreciate him so much more.”

  “It’s really that simple?” I asked derisively, not believing her at all.

  She shrugged. “Sure. Take me for example. I am going to go back on that dance floor, flirt with the hottie who keeps looking over here, and if I feel like it, I’ll go home with him. Or maybe I’ll play hard to get and give him my number. We’ll see. That’s the fun of dating. You get to be in control. Remember that.”

  With that, she slid off her seat and turned toward the dance floor, pausing for a few beats before she headed over to the blond she’d been dancing with before.

  “How does she do that?” I asked Hannah.

  “Do what? Be so flippant about the things you consider important?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  Hannah shrugged. “She doesn’t overthink things. I know you well enough to know that if you went home with a guy and slept with him after barely knowing him for two hours, you’d feel like a giant slut. Tory never feels that way. She sees sex as something fun to do with someone cute. She doesn’t walk away feeling any remorse for her actions.”

  “But shouldn’t she?”

  “Not if she doesn’t want to. I honestly commend her for her ability to live life on her own terms. It’s liberating.”

  “Maybe I should try that,” I mused.

  “It’s not you,” Hannah said quickly. “But maybe find a way not to put so much pressure on yourself. You have years before you have to worry about missing out on the right guy. For now, try to have fun with the wrong ones while you can.”

  I nodded, mulling that thought over.

  “Come on. Let’s go dance and see if we get hit on,” she said, sliding off of her stool.

  She reached her hand out for mine, and I took it, letting her pull me out to the dance floor. I vowed to let loose and have fun. It sounded like a great way to live if I could really do it.

  * * *

  The next evening I was standing in the very industrial looking backstage area of Madison Square Garden with Tory who wouldn’t stop bouncing excitedly as we stood amongst young girls and their mothers or their other teenage friends waiting for the Westside meet and greet to start. We’d been to our seats, which were pretty amazing, and now we were being given instructions: You’ll line up inside the arena, you’ll go into a smaller area backstage, meet the guys, take a picture and then go. None of the guys will sign anything you might have brought, but you will be given an autographed picture of them as you exit. Have fun.

  And autographed Westside picture! Just what I’ve always wanted, I thought sarcastically.

  “This is going to be so epic,” Tory whispered to me.

  “We’re the oldest people here,” I whispered back.

  “No, we’re not. Those women are much older than us.”

  “They’re with their ten year-old daughters. I doubt they’re fans.”

  “Oh, stop,” Tory chastised me. “There were college age girls in the arena and walking around outside. And we totally look young enough to pass for being in college. Hell, we still get carded all the time.”

  “Fine. I’ll stop,” I said, right as the line started moving.

  We were paraded into a tent that was decorated like a cool lounge with couches and chairs, and there were snacks set up along the line we were in with pictures of the band from different performances over the years interspersed throughout the trays of food. I wasn’t sure how long they’d actually been a band, but in some of the pictures, they looked really young.

  “Aww, this was their first tour,” Tory said as she snapped a picture of a photo. “Ooh, and this was last year on The Today Show. Van looked so good that day.”

  I looked down at the picture of the four guys sitting on stools singing a song. Tory took a picture of it, and we carried on in line. She was ogling the pictures while I was looking around in confusion. It was odd, like being in a museum, where we could admire the furniture we were walking past, but we couldn’t sit on it since there was a velvet rope next to where we were lined up. The whole place looked like somewhere that would be cool to hang out, but there wasn’t any hanging out happening.

  “What’s with the couches?” I asked Tory, who was craning her neck to get a glimpse of the Westside boys who were on the other side of a curtain taking pictures with fans who’d been father ahead of us in line.

  “These are replicas from their video for the song Remember Me. It was set in a loft, and it was all in black and white. It was very cool.”

  “So no one gets to sit on the couches?”

  She shrugged. “Not right now. But maybe they do one of those things like Taylor Swift does where they pick out audience members throughout the show, give them a wristband, and tell them they can come back here to hang with the band afterward. That would be cool.”

  “They do that? Hang out with their fans?”

  “Sure. Westside is super-accessible to their fans. They talk all the time about how the fans are why they’re here, and they couldn’t do what they do without them. It’s very sweet.”

  “And they don’t even know that their number one fan is here,” I teased her.

  “Nope, they sure don’t,” Tory agreed. “They’re in for a treat when they see me, especially Van.”

  I just laughed as we moved up in line, and I hoped she really wasn’t taking this seriously. Tory was beautiful, so it wasn’t that far off that good looking guys like the ones in Westside would be into her, but her fantasy about Van falling in love with her really was a fantasy. I had serious doubts that outside of this meet and greet she’d get close to any of these guys ever again.

  “Oh, my God. I can’t breathe,” she said as we stepped to the front of the line.

  The guys were in sight, and beside me Tory was practically hyperventilating. To me they just looked like four ordinary, albeit really cute, coifed guys. Their hair was all done with more product than I’d ever seen, they were all wearing skinny jeans, and I assumed they were wearing make-up. It wasn’t exactly a look that had ever turned me on, but I could see why people thought they were attractive.

  “You girls are next,” an assistant of some sort said, and a few seconds later she ushered us to the other side of the curtain.

  “Hi,” the guy with the blond hair said.

  I couldn’t remember his name, but he was the one Tory said I’d said was cute, so I was going with that. He was kind of cute, but he was also probably no older than nineteen.

  I looked to my left, but Tory was standing there dumbstruck. She wasn’t saying a word, and the assistant was looking at us expectantly, as were the four guys from Westside. I figured I needed to say something.

  “How’s it going?” I asked them.

  “Great,” one of them said. He had dark hair, pouty lips and clear blue eyes. He looked like a bad boy.

  “Awesome. So, are we supposed to hug you guys or something? I heard that was protocol with these sorts of things.”

  The one with light brown hair chuckled a little. I noticed he had r
eally pretty green eyes. Next to me Tory let out a little whimper, and I had a feeling she might be in shock.

  “We like hugs,” the guy with shaggy, almost black hair said. He was the one Tory was in love with. She’d shown me nine thousand pictures of him while we’d been in line. I looked back at her, waiting to see if she’d speak up, but she was just staring at him in awe.

  “Great. Let’s hug it out then,” I said, stepping forward.

  I hugged each of them in turn, and could see Tory doing the same, but she still hadn’t said a word. Then we paused for a picture.

  “Okay, so thanks for that,” I said, pulling away from the dark-haired ‘bad boy’ whose arm had been around me for the picture. “Have a great show. We love your music.”

  “Do you now?” I heard and turned around to see the guy with the light brown hair and green eyes smirking at me.

  “Sure. Love it all. Great stuff,” I said, completely unconvincingly.

  “What’s your favorite song?” he asked me, and I had a feeling he might be challenging me. He didn’t believe me.

  “Remember Me,” I said, glad that Tory had just mentioned it. It was the only song I could think of at a moment’s notice.

  The guy looked at me skeptically, but then he seemed to nod his head in approval. “Good to know,” he said as his mouth twisted into a smirk.

  “And we’ll be going now. Have a great show,” I said, taking Tory’s hand in mine to tug her out of the tent. As we were leaving, another assistant handed us each the signed picture we’d been promised. Fantastic.

  When we’d walked about ten feet from the tent, Tory finally spoke. “Hold on. Stop.”

  I turned to face her. “Oh, so you can speak?”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, putting her face in her hands. “That was so embarrassing.”

  “I was a little worried about you,” I told her honestly.

  She peeked at me through her fingers. “Did I really just act like a moron in front of them? Tell me the truth.”

  “Well . . . I’m not sure how I’d classify it exactly. You were really quiet, and then you sort of whimpered. But you gave good hugs as far as I could see.”