Before He Was Famous: HotFlush Book 1

by Becky Wicks

  'We got her good this time,' she tells me. 'She had no clue. Not like the time you ruined Jack's surprise graduation thing...'

  'Yeah, yeah,' I roll my eyes. She knows damn well I didn't mean to do that. I called him drunk and said I'd be late to his party. What party? was his reply. I didn't hear the end of it for weeks. 'Hey, when are you getting here?' I ask her now. 'Do you need a place to stay? My room's free 'cause I'll be in midtown with Courtney and probably about a million other people who think they're helping us but aren't. Jayde's here, but she won't mind.' I grin at Jayde, whose eyebrows have shot up to her hairline.

  'I don't know what's going on yet,' Chloe says and I'm not surprised at the flash of hesitation that crosses her face. 'I wanna see this pad they've set you up in anyway!'

  'I'll take you,' I reply, watching her bangs bouncing over her eyebrows. They've gotten long.

  'You haven't taken me yet!' Jayde butts in, knocking my shoulder, but the Commander's snapping her fingers at the camera.

  'Noah, you win that competition this weekend, OK?'

  I salute at her the way Jack and I always do -- the way we did when she and Dave and my own parents tried to drag us all out of the hot tub in our Estes Park lodge that time. We wouldn't listen to them until Dave put on some stupid voice and said, 'This is your Master and Commander. Your ship is being hijacked. Evacuate immediately!' and threw ice-cubes all over us.

  'Yes ma'am!' I tell her now and she laughs and her forehead crinkles and her eyes, the same khaki green color as Chloe's, twinkle at me in megapixels. It took a long time for Sophia to laugh again after Dave died.

  'Is that Noah?'

  Jack's behind her now. I feel a pang of missing him. Damn, I miss everyone in that room. 'Noah, it's cake cutting time,' he says, wrapping his big arms around them both. I see the bottom of his Prairie Dog tattoo, make a mental note of his biceps bulging below the sleeves of his T-shirt. He's been trying to outdo me at the gym again. 'I'll give you a call in a couple hours, bro.'

  'OK, guys. I love you all,' I tell them, seriously. 'And Pan, if you need the apartment, let me know.'

  'I will, thanks Peter. I'll call you later, too,' Chloe says, running her fingers over Tinker-Bell. Her expression has changed now and I see it, right before my brother tries to drag her away; that secret smoldering at the edge of her words. She's nervous about something. She has something to tell me that she's not gonna tell me in front of the Commander. I'd know that look a million miles away.

  We disconnect the call and I shove my hand through my hair. I'm having a serious moment of homesickness that actually doesn't hit me a whole lot. Maybe it's the nerves kicking in. I turn to Jayde. She's looking at me quizzically.

  'Why do you call her Pan? And why does she call you Peter?'

  'Peter Pan?' I stand up, reach for my six string.

  She rolls her eyes. 'Blates, Noah. But why?'

  'Blates?'

  'Blatantly.'

  'Oh. Right.' I fix my eyes on the guitar as I tune up and start to pluck a song. 'It's just something we do, I don't know. We were in the play together; some drama club thing in Boulder. The Commander... her mom... always said Chloe was like my shadow.'

  'Is she?' She looks interested now. She's twisted round on the couch arm towards me, stretching her bare feet out in front of her. Her toenails are painted fluorescent pink. My mind somersaults backwards to the afternoon of the play.

  We were practicing up in the tree house. 'Fly with me!' I cried, stretching my arms out over the ladder, looking up at the sky.

  'Noah, stop,' she shrieked, 'You're gonna fall!' She was eleven.

  'That's not the line, Chloe,' I retorted.

  'Fine. I can't fly, Peter,' she laughed, playing along.

  'I'll teach you, Wendy! I'll teach you to jump on the wind's back and away we'll go!'

  I dropped to all fours then, crawled over to her, forced her backwards on the mattress so her hair splayed out around her and my guitar crashed over in the corner. It was so hot that summer. I remember the sheen on her cheeks, how I was mesmerized suddenly. 'Wendy, just think, when you're sleeping in your bed you could be out flying with me instead, touching the stars!'

  I propped myself up on one elbow then, held out a pack of strawberry laces from our secret stash. 'I can give you a kiss if you like?'

  'That's my line,' she breathed. I could see she was flustered. Her cheeks were scarlet.

  'Then let's swap lines.'

  'What's that?' she said. 'What's a kiss?'

  I pulled out a lace, put one end of it between my teeth and circled her face with it. 'Surely you know what a kiss is?'

  'I shall know when you give it to me.'

  Grinning, I dangled the lace against her lips till she pulled it into her mouth. I started eating downwards slowly with my eyes closed, sucking the lace in till we met in the middle. Chloe's smiling lips were on mine, soft and wet for a split second. Long enough for me to like it.

  When she pulled away we stared up at those fucking glow-in-the-dark-stars while my heart bashed at my ribs and my arms twitched to hold onto her. I don't know about her but I'll never forget that feeling. The boy who never grew up was growing up, and his friend Chloe was doing very weird things to his body.

  'We were practically kids, Jayde,' I tell my girlfriend now. I hate all these questions. It was only a matter of time before Jayde started with them, too. I should just come right out and say that she needn't bother with her jealousy, that Chloe's just my friend, blah, blah, blah. It's the truth, isn't it? No one knows anything else, at least. But my answers always lead to more questions; mostly my own.

  'I have a new shadow now,' I say instead, turning to Jayde with narrowed eyes and a smile. 'And she's pretty much stitched on.' I drop my guitar to the side of me, crawl across the leather cushions and drag her underneath me by her feet. She squeals and laughs, wraps her arms around me as I lower my elbows, prop my hands either side of her head and kiss her. She smells like vanilla essence; like she bakes cakes and swims in the mixture. It's one of the things I noticed when I first picked her up. She ordered a soy latte. I served it with a heart drawn in the foam and my number written on a napkin.

  Jayde fumbles at my belt, at the zip on my jeans and as I kiss her I reach under her flimsy dress, feeling for her. She's warm and wet and I know she wants me. 'How about another orgasm?' I say in a low voice and she grins under my kiss. She tastes of the licorice tea she's been drinking.

  She's forgotten about Chloe.

  On the way back to Manhattan, Jack calls to tell me they'll be here on Thursday and that Chloe, Alyssa and Cooper will be driving. Something about this strikes me as strange. Why the hell would Cooper offer to drive? I know damn well he doesn't give a shit about me being on the show and he sure as hell can't want to see me play in New York; he barely made it to the Twisted Pine whenever the guys and I gigged in Boulder.

  But Jack jabbers on about the competition, what the papers are saying about Ronette since she left and was promptly signed by Monster Records, as predicted. She's texted me a few times to wish me luck, sweetheart that she is, but I barely have time to breathe, let alone reply. I have three songs I'm singing in the live final. In fact, I'm going over the lyrics in my head when Chloe calls, just as I step off the subway at 23rd Street.

  'Spill it,' I say.

  'What do you mean? I was just gonna wish you massive luck, privately...'

  'Whatever, Pan.' I can hear the party still going on in the background and I can picture her behind the closed wooden door of my dad's study, biting her lip the way she does when she's thinking.

  She sighs. She knows I know her. 'Fine. I'm worried about Cooper, Noah, he's stealing stuff.'

  My heart wedges in my throat like I've just sucked in a ping pong ball. 'What do you mean, stealing stuff?'

  'Shit... I don't know why I'm telling you this...'

  'Because you tell me everything.' I reply.

  'Not everything, don't flatter yourself,' she bounces back. 'I th
ink he's just bored. I mean, he has all these brains and he's not using them anymore. He quit school for the weed, he's trying to challenge himself in other ways...'

  'What did he steal? Were you with him?'

  'Yeah. We were in Walmart.'

  'What the fuck? Chloe, what if they caught him, you'd both be arrested!'

  'I know! You think I don't know this? He doesn't listen to me, though, Noah, you know what he's like.'

  I realize I'm clenching my fist as I walk down 6th Avenue. I can't believe the shit she puts up with from this guy, seriously. Stealing? From fucking Walmart? 'Ditch the asshole and get out of there,' I tell her. 'I mean, what kind of advice did you want from me on this, Chloe, seriously?'

  She's silent for a moment. I know that stung. We've tried to keep things how they were, in that she's supposed to be able to tell me anything. But she knows and I know that Cooper's a sore point.

  'I don't know,' she sighs. 'I can't tell Alyssa though, she'd call the cops.'

  'I might do the same thing,' I reply. But she knows I wouldn't. Another thought flickers into my head. 'Hey, you know, I saw an ad for something here that would be perfect for you. You should go for it, move your ass to the city,' I say.

  'What kind of job is it?'

  'It's at one of those teen mags, can't remember which... a photographer's assistant position or something. You should go see them while you're here! You'd be great at that. Your photos are incredible.'

  She's silent for a moment. 'Thank you, but...'

  'I'll email you the link. Chloe, look. I'm not fucking around. You should really think about this. Why are you still in Boulder?'

  'You know why,' she says and I bite my tongue. I force a smile and a wave as I walk past a girl who stops and stares at me, starts giggling with a friend. I do know why.

  'The Commander's gonna be fine, Pan,' I tell her, softening my tone. 'You need to do something for yourself. All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust, remember?' I smile at my own quote, but she's not playing.

  'Why are we talking about me, Noah,' she snaps. 'You're about to go on TV, at Radio frickin' City Music Hall. Are you excited? Nervous?'

  It's my turn to sigh. God bless Chloe, changing the subject when she doesn't want to talk about something; acting like she's more interested in me than her own retarded pothead of a boyfriend. That guy has always been a disaster waiting to happen. I curse the fucking day Jack brought him to the house to learn guitar. I remember his eyes roving all over Chloe; the way she flushed crimson as he told her he loved her dress. I remember the way she went back to him after her dad died; even after we...

  I force myself not to think about it.

  But if that loser thinks he's gonna bring Chloe down with him, he's got another thing coming.

  6

  Chloe

  We pull into the McDonalds drive-through and I turn to the backseat, where Alyssa's head is doing a nodding dog impression against the window.

  'Wake up, girl, what do you want?' I ask. Her giant boobs jiggle as I shake her knee to bring her round.

  'Are we there?' she asks groggily, opening her eyes slowly and swiping her hand over her mouth. She got in the car hung over after a big one with Rusty and Matt last night and she's been a zombie all day.

  'Not quite,' Cooper replies, fiddling with the GPS. 'We're somewhere in the middle of Iowa City and Davenport.'

  'Where?' she asks, adjusting her bra.

  'Fuck knows. I'll get a quarter pounder with large fries and a Coke,' he tells the machine, 'and you guys?'

  We tell him our orders. I reach for my phone to check for messages as he drives through to the collection point and hands the paper bags around to us before parking up. There's a text message from Noah:

  The Facebook Song's gone viral!

  Holy hell. I turn around to Alyssa. 'The Facebook Song's gone viral!' I repeat out loud and her eyes bug out beneath her filled-in eyebrows as she stops shoveling fries in her face and fishes for her phone.

  'Seriously?'

  'What's The Facebook Song?' Cooper asks boredly, squirting ketchup from a sachet onto his burger and tutting as he squirts a bit on his sweater. Thankfully it's not cashmere.

  'Noah wrote this hilarious song about social media,' I tell him, hitting the YouTube app on my iPhone. 'All the stupid stuff people say and do, status updates and all that. He put it on his channel, like, a week ago. Apparently it's... holy shit!' I stop. There are over a hundred thousand comments.

  'It's had almost a million hits!' Alyssa shrieks, almost spilling her milkshake as she flings her own phone in my face. 'What the fuuuuuuck, Chloe, what the hell did he do?!'

  'They mentioned his YouTube channel on the show last week, right?' I reply, racking my brains. My mind is a little cloudy. We've been on the road since five a.m and while Cooper's been keeping his promise about not driving stoned I've been too nervous to sleep. I even personally requested the drive-through because I'm terrified that if he physically enters a store he might steal something.

  'Who gets that many hits on a fucking YouTube video unless they're Miley Cyrus smoking a spliff, or a cat doing backflips?!'

  'I know,' I breathe, gazing out at the parking lot. Everything's happening so fast for Noah. It was only a couple of months ago he played me the first verse and chorus of this song. I think I was visitor number one to the YouTube upload because no one else knew about it. And now this.

  I still remember when he wrote a song about a Lego man falling in love with a plastic Care Bear.

  'Play it again Noah!' the girls at school would yell, crowding round him on the grass outside the science lab. I was a grade below him but I remember the looks on the older girls' faces; the way they'd go all doe-eyed and giggly and how they'd flock around him, calling out words and names so he could magically fit them into his music as he made stuff up on the spot. I remember Alyssa dancing around him, acting like a clown with her skirt rolled up and her loud voice booming, drawing even more attention.

  He made Mrs Babineaux cry once. She was his French tutor. He wrote a song in French around the word 'piscine', which means swimming pool. He'd linger on the first syllable, so the pissssss sounded like some kind of rude snake and I don't even know what the rest of it was about but the whole school was singing it for weeks, cracking up. Mrs Babineaux either loved him or hated him but either way, she won't forget him.

  We eat our burgers as Cooper swings the Jeep into another disabled spot and Alyssa plays the Facebook Song out loud. Even my boyfriend cracks a smile at the line Look at my cute cat, she's licking up gravy, someone please upload another photo of their baby!

  When it ends I reach for the radio dial. Some Iowan music station blares out and the DJ starts speaking over the end of a song.

  'How long till Chicago?' I ask Cooper, who's still swiping at the ketchup stain on his sweater with a napkin, cursing. We're staying the night at his friend's place; some friend I've never met. He's been a little vague on the details.

  'Google maps said fourteen hours from Boulder, so I guess about three or four more from here.'

  I want more answers. 'How do you know this guy again?' I say, but he shrugs instead of replying, busies himself with shoving a straw into his Coke and slurping.

  Familiar chords fill the Jeep. I turn to Alyssa, who's looking at her phone and now to the radio, and now to me. Her eyes are wide as hula-hoops. 'Holy shit!' we both yell at the same time and she springs up, almost hitting her head on the canvas roof as we jump up and down in our seats.

  'It's the song!' she screeches again, her bobbed black hair bouncing everywhere. 'It's on the fucking radio now?!' She grabs my shoulders, squeezes them hard. With fumbling hands I hit contacts and bring up Noah's number. He answers after one ring.

  'Noah!' I shout over Alyssa's shrieking. 'The Facebook Song, it’s gone totally viral now! It’s on the radio, in Iowa!’

  'Really?' He sounds stunned.

  'Listen!' I hold the phone out to the speaker, just as the c
lip ends and the DJ's voice comes back on. My heartbeat has gone into overdrive.

  'We won't play you the whole thing folks but we did want to show a little bit of what seems to be turning viewers onto a certain Noah Lockton's YouTube channel this week. What's known as The Facebook Song has broken records for the number of hits gathered in one week by an unsigned artist, and it's widely assumed he'll be playing this song live for his growing legions of fans on this week's Show Us What U've Got final. Call us, guys, tell us what you think of the song everyone's talking about! Has he used any of your Facebook status updates, at all?'

  Noah's quiet on the other end of the phone as I bring it back to my ear. 'Did you hear that Peter?' I yell. 'This is amazing!'

  'This, Pan,' he replies in a low voice that I can tell is accompanied by an infamous, heart-melting Lockton grin, is an awfully big adventure. Hey, are you staying at mine in Brooklyn, or at the hotel? Did you decide?'

  I chuckle at the quote, but my face falls at the mention of the hotel. 'Oh, Cooper's booked the hotel, yeah. And Alyssa's staying with the guys when they get there, in Greenpoint.'

  'OK, well if you change your mind for any reason just let me know. I'll get Jayde to leave a key with the doorman.'

  My eyebrows knit together for a second at his girlfriend's name. He's only been seeing her a few months and he's moved her in already? I mean, he's mentioned her before but I guess it didn't really sink in that she'd be around. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Noah's always got some girl on the go. I ignore the twinge of discomfort already pinging at my insides. I have Cooper, I remind myself. I went back to Cooper.

  'I'm sure it'll be fine,' I tell him. Don't worry about me, just go practice! I can't wait for Saturday night,' I say, meaning it. 'You're gonna be so famous, Noah.'

  'Ah, come on Chlo, it's just a show,' he says, but I can hear the nerves seeping through his words; the acceptance behind his dismissal. Life for Noah will never be the same again after all of this and we both know it.