‘Drink, drink, drink,’ they chanted.
I threw the fiery liquid down my throat and felt it burn and tingle. I let out a chain of swear words, then realised I had another shot in my hand. Rachel grinned, clinked her glass with mine and we downed them.
I can’t remember what happened next.
Well, that’s not quite true. I’d love to say I excused myself, thanked Rachel for the drinks and went on my way, successfully ringing in my milestone birthday without injury or folly.
Ha! What actually happened next began as a simple dance with Steph and Angel. I flopped around, screaming along with the lyrics at the top of my lungs. In our minds, we were rock stars. In reality, we were three drunk girls and one extraordinarily loose guy gyrating around the dance floor.
It only seemed like minutes, but when I stumbled out of the crowd for a drink break, I was as thirsty as if I’d danced for hours. I slapped my palm on the bar and asked for water. Lots and lots of water. The bartender rolled his eyes and pointed to the end of the bar where empty glasses and a jug of water sat. I yelped with delight and snatched up the jug, splashing water everywhere. Enough made it into the glass and I drank from it as though I’d been deprived of liquid for a week. Water had never tasted so good. I went back for another glass. This time, I sent a wave of water flying over a stocky balding man who was standing next to me.
‘Oh, sorry,’ I blurted out. ‘Here, let me help you.’
I reached over to brush at his shirt with an already-sopping napkin but he swatted my hand away.
‘Rack off, kid,’ he said, and stormed off, muttering to himself.
‘Don’t worry, his shirt looked cheap anyway,’ a guy said behind me. I turned around to see Billy smirking in his usual annoying way.
‘Billy!’ I said, my voice rising to chipmunk levels of squeakiness. I wondered how much he’d seen. It didn’t matter. It was clearly enough: the tiara, the drink stains on my dress, the way I was clinging onto the bar for dear life. Billy had arrived just in time to witness the Josie-turns-eighteen-like-an-idiot sequence. And there was probably enough footage for a sequel.
‘Let me help you with that,’ he said, leaning across to pour me another glass of water.
‘Thanks.’
‘So, eighteen, huh?’ he said, pointing at the tiara.
I sipped my water. ‘Yeah, I’m all grown up apparently.’
I swallowed, not sure what else to say. I found myself looking everywhere but at him. I stared at the bartender, who was shaking a cocktail; I eyeballed the poster-clad pillar in the middle of the club; I gazed up at the fluorescent light pulsating above the dance floor until I was almost sick with nausea. My head spun; the blue shots had clearly seeped through my system. I sensed Billy’s eyes tracing me from top to bottom, lingering on my face before moving further down.
‘You look good, Josie.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ I mumbled, tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind my ear.
‘So, did you get enough info from our latest chat?’ he asked. ‘It was fun.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘I do hundreds of interviews with journos around the world — you’re up there, trust me. Usually I struggle to stay awake because so many of them just drone on about themselves.’
I laughed. ‘You’re lying. I’m a total nobody! If you really knew me, you’d —’
‘No way,’ he interrupted. ‘Your work’s good. Fans have been printing off your articles and asking me to sign them.’
‘Serious?’ I couldn’t believe it.
He shrugged. ‘True story.’
And then it hit me. ‘Speaking of fans, shouldn’t you have a bodyguard or crew with you here?’
Billy pointed to a smoky roped-off area on the other side of the room. ‘They’re over there. I saw you by the bar and wanted to say hi.’
‘Oh …’ He did? I almost blushed.
It was hard to see what Billy’s entourage were up to — especially in my state — but I could make out a few details. A tall barrel-chested guard manned the rope, only lifting the bright-red cord for the sleekest of the club’s visitors. I watched him let in a twenty-something woman in a blue minidress and silver platforms. She tossed her blonde hair and kissed the guard on the cheek before taking her place among the group. I was so out of my depth.
Suddenly, we were interrupted by three hyperventilating women shrieking Billy’s name. Twin brunettes muttered, ‘It’s him, it’s him’ repeatedly to each other, while a redhead in a sparkly black dress pawed at his shoulder. ‘Billy, I love you so much. Can I grab a signature?’
He laughed. ‘Sure, darling. What’s your name?’
‘Hillary,’ she said, breathing heavily. ‘Can I get you to sign … here?’
Before anyone could stop her, she’d pulled down her dress and thrust a naked boob in his face. I repressed a snort of laughter while Billy played it cool.
‘Darling, on second thoughts, maybe not today,’ he said to Hillary and turned his back on the women. He clicked his fingers high in the air and two bodyguards appeared out of nowhere to drag the women away. The redhead’s cries of ‘But he didn’t sign my boob’ rang in my ears.
‘So …’ I said, trying not to laugh. ‘Just another day in the life of Billy, huh?’
‘Let me buy you a drink to make up for that,’ he said. ‘I’m used to being hassled, but I didn’t wanna drag you into it.’
‘It’s fine, really, I’m not a big drinker … usually. Anyway, I thought you couldn’t drink any more after … well, you know.’
‘I can’t. But you can. Seriously, I owe you. You’ve been good to me, you and Sash. Especially you. Plus, it’s your birthday. I’m buying you one.’
This time I definitely blushed. ‘Um, fine then — but not the blue shots. Anything but them.’
Billy smiled at me. ‘I know just the drink. And I was wrong about saying you look good tonight … you look great. Gorgeous, actually.’
He leaned over the bar and ordered my drink while I stood awkwardly behind him, flushed as red as a ripe tomato. Moments later he spun around holding a cosmopolitan cocktail. I hadn’t seen any money change hands; the bartender had simply winked.
‘Alright, you coming?’ Billy gestured to his group sitting in the VIP section. ‘We’ll be able to hear each other talk better in there.’
‘I better not, my friends will —’
‘Probably not give a damn.’
I scoured the room and spotted them dancing in a large circle of excited Japanese businessmen. ‘Okay, but just for a minute …’
‘Great,’ said Billy.
As we walked over to the VIP section, his palm moved down onto my lower back, sending small tingles through my body. The guard lifted the red rope and, for the first time in my life, I was partying with the cool kids. Every second person had a cigar resting between their fingers. Bottles of champagne littered the low tables. If Holly Bentley could see me now, I thought. I recognised some of the other band members, either sipping wine or cuddling up to a hottie on a couch. Smaller groups of stunning (probably hand-picked) girls perched neatly on the couches, too, taking pouty photos of each other as they waited for their turn to chat with the guys.
Anthony — the other band member I’d accidentally annoyed mid-interview — made a beeline for Billy.
‘Mate, what’s going on?’ he asked Billy, glancing at me. I knew he really meant, ‘Mate, what are you doing bringing a random girl in here after everything that’s happened with your pregnant girlfriend?’
‘We’re cool, bro,’ Billy said. ‘Just chill.’
Anthony sighed. Billy ignored him and led me over to a spot on one of the couches. It was black leather and gorgeous; it smelled of luxury and rich people.
‘So, here we are.’ Billy smiled. ‘Cheers to us and a very happy birthday to you.’
‘Why, thank you,’ I replied and sipped on my cosmopolitan.
The couple to our left were getting increasingly caught up in th
eir make-out session: the girl moaned softly while the guy pushed his body against hers. For the trillionth time that night, I blushed. And Billy noticed.
‘So you know I think you’re great, right?’ he said.
I didn’t get a chance to reply because suddenly he was pressing his lips against mine. The kiss was soft, unlike the kiss with Pete Jordan, and I felt myself give into it for a moment. But then I slapped him away. Hard. He had a girlfriend. A pregnant girlfriend.
‘What are you doing?’ I said, my words slightly slurred. ‘What about Kara?’
‘Is it because there are people around? Are you shy? Come back to my hotel then,’ whispered Billy, nibbling on my earlobe.
‘No, just … no.’ I pushed him off me. ‘This never happened.’
I stood up and stormed out of the roped-off area, my head blurrier than ever. And that’s when I saw him — James, standing at the bar, staring at me. He tipped his drink in my direction and gave me a small, stiff smile.
Oh crap, he must have seen the whole thing.
I didn’t know whether it was the mix of drinks, the cigar smoke wafting through the room or the fact that a gorgeous-but-taken pop star had kissed me in front of James, but the urge to vomit hit me hard. Operation Find A Toilet Before It’s Too Late was in full swing.
I lurched toward a darkened room, where I hoped to find the bathroom. Instead, I stumbled into a cocktail lounge with antique emerald-green lounges, vintage birdcages hanging from the ceiling and a stuck-up, well-groomed crowd. There were no fangirls in this room.
A waiter saw me with my hand clasped over my mouth and pointed in the other direction. ‘Run,’ he hissed.
I did.
I made the toilet stall, but the three milliseconds it took to get my head over the bowl were three milliseconds too many. There, in a five-star nightclub, I vomited down the back wall of the toilet cubicle.
Happy birthday to me.
15.
I’d done my best to clean up the vomit explosion on the bathroom wall, but apparently the definition of ‘my best’ differed greatly after a few shots. Drink-free Josie would have scrubbed, wiped and regrouted the tiles. Booze-hound Josie slapped at the wall with a tissue, then called it a day.
Walking out of the toilet cubicle was more embarrassing than the time Mum made Kat and me wear Stackhat bike helmets in the car after watching a disturbing news item on road fatalities. (There’s more: she wore a neon yellow safety vest. And we passed Holly Bentley’s family in their vintage Mercedes at the main streets’ intersection.) But this was worse. Much worse.
When I’d entered the bathroom, it’d been empty, but as I hobbled out of the stall I was greeted by a queue of glamorous women with long hair and short dresses filing in the door. There was no escaping it. Someone was going to use that toilet. I searched for a good excuse to explain the avalanche of vomit within, but had to settle for stumbling over to a gorgeous red-lipped girl and slurring, ‘Someone’s been sick in there.’
I walked out to cries of ‘Oh yuck’ and ‘I think it was her’ but I didn’t dare look back. When I spilled out into the club, dazed, I found James waiting for me. I glanced around, but the others were nowhere to be seen.
‘You okay?’ James asked, wrapping his arm around me.
I wasn’t. My head was thumping, my stomach churned and my eyes were red, but I nodded anyway.
‘Where to now, birthday girl?’
Wishing I had a mint handy, I leaned away from James and pursed my lips to prevent him from smelling my breath. ‘Home.’
‘Oh, okay. It’s probably too late to head to your mum’s but —’
‘I meant your and Tim’s place.’
He smiled. ‘Our place it is.’
He led me through the crowd toward the exit. Tim and the girls were still dancing, this time with a group of cute hipsters rocking oversized glasses and cardigans. Arms flailing, Tim looked like an Energizer Bunny who could go all night; the other two weren’t far behind him.
James waved Tim over, while I leaned against a pillar. ‘Mate, I’m taking Josie back to ours,’ he yelled over the music. ‘She’s not in a good way.’
‘You serious? Her mum’s going to kill me. And mine’s going to celebrate at the funeral.’
‘You coming?’
‘Um …’ Tim paused, soaking in the sight of Steph and Angel dancing. Even through my drunken stupor I could tell he was up to something.
‘Hey, are you two staying at ours?’ he called to the girls. It was impossible to tell which one he liked more.
‘Do you have a bed for us?’ Steph said cheekily.
‘And clean sheets?’ chimed in Angel.
‘Yep,’ Tim said. ‘Green, grey or brown — take your pick.’
I hoped he and the girls shared the same definition of clean.
‘Okay, we’re in,’ Steph said.
Tim beamed, no doubt planning an elaborate seduction back home. I was too tired to care. Too tired to worry about what might or might not go wrong. Too tired to do anything but let James lead me to the train station. The others walked behind us, shrieking with laughter at Tim’s impersonations of Elvis Presley.
My feet had exploded with fiery red blisters, so when we got on the train I removed my heels and placed them on my lap. The last thing I remembered was mumbling to James, ‘I really didn’t think you were coming tonight,’ then nodding off on his shoulder to the soft, rocking hum of the train.
The couch dug into my back. I tossed, turned and rolled around, but couldn’t find a comfy position. The air was thick and stuffy; we’d forgotten to open a window when we got home. I’d only been lying down for an hour and my mind still raced and buzzed, pounding to the faint memory of the dance floor’s beat. I lay flat on my back, wondering if I could be hungover if I hadn’t gone to sleep yet. A hazy montage of the evening’s events flashed across the ceiling like an old-fashioned slideshow. I saw the four of us laughing on the dance floor, Rachel giving me the tiara, the shots. Oh, the shots. I saw Billy smile at me, I saw Billy flirt with me, I saw Billy kiss me. I saw James see Billy kissing me.
And then, I just saw James.
For a second, I thought I’d slipped into one of my standard dreams (where I’d morphed into a six-foot babe and Summer ceased to exist), but then I realised I really was seeing James. He was hovering at the end of the couch holding a packet of lollies.
I sat up with a start. ‘Hey!’
‘Hey, how you feeling?’
‘Okay, bit blurry. I thought I was … Never mind.’
‘You did mumble something about a tall, hot guy called James.’
‘I what?’
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. Maybe I had drifted off for a second? After all, that sounded exactly like something I’d say. Especially when I was still tipsy. Or hungover. Or somewhere in between.
James grinned. ‘I’m kidding.’
‘Funny.’ I threw a pillow at him, then pulled myself further upright on the couch. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Lolly?’ he asked, offering the packet.
My big birthday night had caught up with me. Every fibre of me wanted to snatch the lollies from his hands and devour them. And a chocolate cake. With whipped cream. And a side of roast potatoes and corn slathered in butter.
Instead, I took one lolly. ‘Thanks.’
James must have noticed the animalistic look in my eyes because he passed me the packet. ‘Go on, birthday girl. I’ll get you some water.’
As much as I wanted to play it cool and resist, who was I to decline him the pleasure of seeing me hoe into the lollies. I plunged my hand deep into the packet and licked the sugar off my fingers. ‘Mmmmm,’ I mumbled, content at last.
Without even realising, James had found the way (well, yet another way) into my heart. A Guy Who Brings Me Yummy Food was number six on my ideal-boyfriend wish list, followed closely by A Guy Who Makes Me Laugh Until I Cry Or Snort at number seven.
James came back with the water. ‘So, you know what I reali
sed about us?’
I wrapped the blanket around me, fireworks crackling and fizzing in my stomach. ‘Umm …’ My usual verbal diarrhoea was zapped and I had no idea what he was going to say. More to the point, there was an us? I hoped whatever he said didn’t end with ‘That you’re a total weirdo, Josie’.
‘No, what?’ I asked, afraid of the answer.
‘We never did do the next episode of our show. You know, where you quiz me.’
I swallowed. ‘That’s true. Hey, can you pass me the water?’
James handed me the glass. ‘So do you feel like slipping on your TV-host hat?’
‘Now? I guess I could ask a question or two.’
‘Awesome.’ James sat down close enough for me to see every fleck of colour in his irises and the slight flush of his cheeks.
I held up a thick black marker to my lips to use as a microphone. ‘Welcome to Josie … Wait, I forget how to play this game. Do I … or do you … My head hurts.’
James laughed. ‘Okay, maybe we should do it some other time. You need sleep.’
You’re pushing away the hot guy, silly, my brain cried. I snapped myself to attention. ‘Wait, no, I’ll be okay,’ I stammered. ‘I promise.’
‘Yeah?’ He didn’t sound so sure. And why would he? He’d seen my decline from geeky schoolgirl to trashy drunk girl.
‘Yeah,’ I said, sitting up straight. ‘See … Okay, folks … Okay … Tonight’s guest is a lovely, kind hero who rescues girls from themselves and brings them lollies when they’re in distress. Ladies and gentleman, let’s welcome the man of the hour … James.’
He threw his arms up in the air, pumping his fists and flexing his biceps. ‘Thank you, thank you.’
‘So …’ My mind was blank.
‘So …?’
My eyes rested on a pile of his vinyl records scattered in the corner of the lounge room. ‘How many do you own?’ Okay, not great, but I didn’t know what else to ask.
‘All up? Including the ones at Dad’s place, one thousand two hundred and thirty-five. Three are missing, one’s signed by the artist and seven are scratched.’
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