“Frances, can you take Ms. Green and Mr. James to the green room?” one roadie asked me. I threw the towel I was haphazardly folding to the side, and I went to guide Ella and K.L. to the green room.
When we got there, Ben was celebrating something, and he wanted me to hear it. He showed me the invitation that had been waiting for them when they got here. It was for the American Music Awards in November, and when I saw that he and the band were nominated for an award, I was just as giddy with excitement as the whole lot of them. Ben and I hugged and jumped up and down, squealing in excitement.
After we came back to our senses I said, “Oh, guys, Ella Green and K.L are here.” The sound of Ella’s name struck a fire in Ben. Not a good fire either.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
Ella was suddenly screaming at Ben. I was so confused, and so when Ella kept yelling, I yelled over her.
“Shut up! What the hell is going on?” I asked.
Ben waved his hand, signaling that I should leave this alone, and I ignored him.
“Don’t you know?” Ella said. “I wanted to date the wonderful Ben Morrison, but he refused. He refused! Like, who refuses to date me? I’m Ella Green for Christ’s sake. I’m the mother—”
“It’s time to shut up, Ella. I can see your ego loud and clear.” She gasped at my comment, more enraged that I even spoke to her during her outburst than the fact that my brother had refused her invitation.
“Who are you? Like, what are you even doing here? You were folding towels when I came in—you’re a little, good for nothing—”
It was a reflex, and I mean it when I say this—but I punched her in the nose. Usually I’m pretty good at controlling my anger, and other times I don’t realize how angry I am, and my reflexes take over. She was wailing like a child and holding her head back as she stumbled around as if my punch to her nose had debilitated her ability to maintain her balance.
“Dammit, Frances! Do you know who she is?” Ben was yelling at me now, and I didn’t know how to react. He was rushing to get towels and ice for Ella.
After a medic checked her nose and said it was fine, she was escorted off the premises, all the while shouting about how I was going to pay for this. I was like a child stuck in the time out corner when Ben came back. My arms were wrapped around myself for safety, and I hung my head in shame.
“What are you doing, Bea? Do you want to get us into trouble? She’s a YouTube star. She could easily post a rant about this and make it go viral overnight!”
It was time to prepare for the show, and I tried to leave, except Ben wouldn’t stop yelling.
“Frances, if you keep screwing things up the way you are, I’m going to regret ever bringing you on this tour! How can I show the world how wonderful my sister is if she keeps acting like a whiny, spoiled brat with an uncontrollable right hook?”
I could tell Everett was about to call him out on his behavior, but I shot him a look that told him not to.
“I’m sorry, Ben, it won’t happen again. I’ll go back to folding towels.” I had never been so isolated and demeaned in my life. So much for sibling love.
***
The show was a success as usual—though, when I joined everyone on the bus that night, it was obvious there had been a shift among the people on it. I felt so horrible that I didn’t know what to do. Though it was obvious Everett was still angry with me, he wanted to help me with Ben. Ben was angry with me and kept as far away from me as he could on the bus. He was obsessively checking Ella Green’s YouTube channel in hopes that she didn’t post a video about the incident. I was hoping she didn’t either, but she had said I was going to pay—and that could be any number of things to a girl with a camera and an Internet following. I knew things were different between my brother and me now. When he looked at me, it wasn’t with the love and affection I usually got from him—it was with anger and disgust. I wanted to tell him that family was more important than a silly threat from a silly girl—though, I had a feeling his reputation was more important than his family at this point. How the world saw him affected him so much.
When I went to my bunk that night, I checked YouTube as well. Before I could even see if any new uploads had made it to my feed, I saw another anonymous text.
Anonymous: You’re being very naughty, B. You best control your temper; it’ll get you nowhere. How is paying that debt coming along?
The first thing that came to my mind was: I’m being stalked. I’m being stalked.
I’m being stalked.
CHAPTER FIVE
Fourteen cities, three weeks, eight break days out of the fourteen sold-out shows. This was the life of a rock star. Except, I didn’t get all the perks. Ben still wasn’t really talking to me, and Everett was still giving me a hard time. All I had left was Splinter, and he wasn’t exactly my idea of good company.
It was the last night of the first leg, and everyone was on edge. We were traveling back to NYC from Rapid City, South Dakota. We were flying this time, and we were supposed to have a day full of shows. One would be held in a small music shop, and another would be at Madison Square Garden. After the New York show was over, we would be going on our one-week break for the holidays. Technically, we were given five days—although due to the Fourth of July, we had two extra free days. After our vacation, we would be back at it again, and the West Coast of the United States was expecting us for the second leg of the tour.
Despite my feeble attempts at apologizing to Ben for punching Ella in the nose, he wasn’t easing up on being a brat to me.
Ella Green never posted a video, Snapchat, Instapic, or Tweet about the incident, which proved to me she was more bark than bite. This didn’t help me like I thought it would, though. I guess Ben was angry with me for more than my nose-punching reflex, and I had no clue what else I could have possibly done to piss him off.
Most of our trip was silent. When we landed at JFK International Airport and were heading toward the streets, I was relieved.
Ben and I had a driver who was picking us up. Splinter had his family come get him for his break. Grayson’s fiancé, Lydia, and their daughter, who’d just turned nine, met him at the airport. Rian also had a driver, and Everett had his brother Ryker pick him up.
Since Ben and I had started fighting, Everett and I had sort of made up. When I say “made up,” I mean when we weren’t bickering with one another; we were making out until our anger toward each other melted. It made a huge difference, yet it made me feel as if I was hiding something important from everyone else on the bus. I didn’t know if we were ever going to tell my brother and the band that we were a thing. Were we a thing? I couldn’t really tell where we had drawn the line.
I said goodbye to everyone and climbed into a van with Ben to go to the Marriott Hotel, where we would have separate rooms. Ben said he wanted to be by himself to write, kind of like Splinter wanted time by himself after being on a bus with me for nearly four weeks. Everyone was doing their own thing. Me? I was going to be stuck alone with my own thoughts. I was planning on being able to get out and roam the city streets like I always did—though at this point, I knew it would be hard to leave while remaining unnoticed. Even though Ben wanted his alone time to write, he always had a sense of when I was about to cause trouble for him.
When we got to the hotel, Ben was getting into his writing mode—he was frustrated and angsty, and I was getting ready to go out on the town. He wouldn’t even know I was gone.
I dressed in a pair of high-waisted shorts, a faded white muscle tank with the Coca-Cola logo on it that I had cut into a crop top, and navy blue low-top Converse. To block the wind, I put on a yellow cardigan. My hair was up in a ponytail, except you could barely tell with all the curls and frizz. I was hoping the frizz would go down, but it was New York, and it was humid. I grabbed my hotel key and put it in my back pocket, as well as my phone, then left the hotel room.
Once I was outside in the streets, I was able to walk down the busy sidewalk with the millio
ns of other busy people. It helped get all the thoughts out of my head, and I was able to calm down quite a bit. I felt like I had been cooped up too much lately. Even though we had eight free days, I rarely got to leave the bus. Mostly that was by my own choice since I didn’t want to cause a scene in public with my brother or anyone else who was angry with me at the time. Now, I was at home in the city, and I was going to set myself free. I knew Ben wanted to talk to me later tonight, and I was nervous about that. I was guessing he wanted to talk about Mother or about the incident with Ella. Whatever he wanted to talk about, I knew it was going to be something I didn’t want to hear.
***
I had just sat down for lunch in a little back-alley bistro when I got a text from Everett, asking to meet him. I knew he didn’t want to meet in public, rather in a secretive location. I was okay with this. I didn’t want anyone to know about us if they didn’t have to. Especially Ben, I really didn’t want him to know just yet. I didn’t know what to call the relationship between Everett and me, so how could I be okay with letting everyone else know if I didn’t have a clue?
I knew that the air of attraction was strong between Everett and me. It had been since I was sixteen. But I wasn’t sixteen anymore, and I definitely wasn’t the same person he found himself under the covers with for one night. Though that didn’t change how he felt about me. Maybe he hadn’t gotten the full taste of who I had become, or maybe he refused to acknowledge the change at all.
When I paid for my lunch and went on my way, I decided to call Everett to ask where he wanted to meet up.
“Hey,” I said when he picked up.
“What is it?” he said quickly.
“Where do you want to meet?” I asked with a nervous laugh.
“Oh, right. How about your apartment? Is it still yours?”
“I guess we’ll find out.” I wasn’t sure if Ben had been paying the landlord to keep a vacant apartment open for me. Once we got there and found that the locks hadn’t been changed and everything still looked the same, we knew that there had been some sort of deal to keep it open.
I didn’t have a single second to collect my thoughts once Everett kissed me. It was filled with a passion I never really knew he was capable of. His hands groped every curvature of my body, and soon enough clothes were coming off, leaving a trail to my bedroom. We fell back on the bed, which I hadn’t slept in for weeks.
It was almost odd doing this. Why was Everett all over me? I pulled away from his lips and pushed a hand against his chest.
“Everett, what are you doing?” I asked him, trying to catch my breath.
“What do you think?” He pressed another kiss to my lips as if to shut me up. I pushed him off of me and sat up, using my elbows for support against the bed.
“Everett, I thought we were supposed to—”
“I know what we were supposed to do, but I know how I feel, Frances. I love you. I don’t want to be without you.”
“Everett, I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”
I had never been in love, nor had I ever thought about what love would feel like. I always assumed that you would know it when you loved someone; it would come as a second nature, as an instinctual desire. I didn’t feel that way with Everett, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to tell him.
“You’re supposed to feel—dammit, I can’t tell you what you’re supposed to feel, Frances. Just tell me you love me too. Tell me you feel the same way.”
I stared at him, trying to imagine myself marrying him, having his kids, growing old together. I couldn’t do it. I knew I loved Everett—though, it wasn’t in the way I was supposed to. Not in the way he needed me to.
“Everett, I don’t feel the same way.”
He slowly pulled himself away from me, and I could see him unwinding from the inside out. His mind and his heart were unraveling from the words I had so carelessly spewed out of my mouth. I was his Femme Fatale. I knew that now, and I couldn’t believe that I had just broken his heart.
“Everett, please.” I wanted to stop him; in fact, I tried. He was too fast, and I was too slow when it came to redressing myself.
***
When I arrived back at the hotel, K.L. James was coming out of the elevator. Naturally, I ducked and hid from his view. He looked rather odd. When he was gone, I went back up to my room, where Ben was waiting for me.
“Where have you been?” he asked, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I’ve been out. Why?” He opened the door to my room and made me go inside. When I did, he shut the door behind him and let out an earful.
“How could you lie to me about K.L.? How could you not tell me about him trying to scout you? Frances Beatrice Morrison, I am beyond furious with you! How could you do this to me? To the band? I am in complete shock right now—I can’t—I can’t deal with this.”
“Don’t blame me for something I didn’t ask for! Don’t go around acting all hurt because I didn’t tell you! I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want the deal. I wanted nothing to do with him after what he put you through! I don’t know what he said to you. He eats bullshit for breakfast! Ben, you’re my brother, and I am tired of fighting with you. Can we please stop and pretend that everything is all right between us?”
There was a moment of silence between us then a knock on the door. There was a pregnant pause between Ben and me, and when a second knock disturbed the silence, Ben told me in a rigid tone, “Just answer it.”
I did as I was asked and opened the door to find Splinter standing awkwardly in the doorway.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped, using my tone of voice and hard facial expression to make it obvious that this wasn’t the best of times.
“I was trying to get a break from my family, and I was told to fetch Ben. There’s a problem he needs to take up with management. That’s all they told me.”
“We'll finish this later,” Ben said. He stormed out of the room, leaving me in a wind of guilt and frustration. This also left Splinter and me alone.
To make matters worse, I got another anonymous text. It was a picture of Everett and me back in the apartment. I couldn’t hide the shock from my face when I read it, and Splinter was quick to start asking questions.
“What’s the matter, Bea?”
I shook my head, trying to think. Why was this happening? Who was behind it? What could they possibly gain from this?
“Bea, what’s going on?” Splinter tried to grab my phone to see what had me so shocked. I snatched it away which led to being chased by Splinter around my room, trying to figure out why I was so freaked out.
“Something is going on, and it’s starting to show. What the hell is happening, Bea?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business, Splinter?”
I managed to dodge him and tried to exit the room. He squeezed in between me and the door and blocked me from escaping.
“Bea, tell me what you’re hiding.”
I went back to my suitcase where I decided to change for tonight’s show.
“Bea, you’re worrying me. Please tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m going to change for the shows tonight. Are you going to stick around for that?”
“When are you going to decide that it’s easier to let people in than it is to push them out, Bea?” he said. “You can’t do everything on your own. I know Mackynsie was your friend, but there are more people in this world than one pretty blonde girl who cared more about popularity than she did her best friend.”
I stared at him with tears in my eyes. “Get out!” I shouted. “Get out now, or I’ll call security!”
I physically pushed him out the door, and once it was locked and when I was sure he was gone, I resumed dressing myself, unable to stop the tears. However, the show had to go on.
The show at Mixed Records Shop was a success. I had to hide myself skillfully in order to avoid getting run over by the stampede of fans who had come to the in-store show and signing. I sti
ll wasn’t able to talk to Ben, and that was primarily due to the fact that in between the time we had been interrupted and the time it took to get ready for the show, there’d been no time available for us to continue our argument.
***
I was sitting in the back of a van with Splinter after the show. Rian and Grayson were in front of us, and Everett was sitting in the front with Ben. The tension surrounding Splinter and me was making me uncomfortable. He wanted to know what was going on with me, and at the same time, he wanted to be angry with me for not telling him. I couldn’t really tell him anything at this point. When we caught ourselves staring at each other during the silent ride to Madison Square Gardens, I thought of the words he spewed at me in the hotel room about Mackynsie. They hurt like a venomous bite to my being, and yet a part of me wondered if there was truth beyond the pain I sensed in his words.
Going to Madison Square Gardens had always been a dream of Ben’s, and now that he would be playing there for the last show on this leg of this tour, he was beyond happy. It was as if everything else that had happened tonight was irrelevant.
Watching the boys take the stage that night was different. They were filled with pride, with joy. They were going to close with “Femme Fatale,” and I knew that tonight I was that woman to more than one person in the band.
Every night they played was the same—screaming fans, sweaty boys, and pure joy emitting from each person. Tonight was no different. The fans reacted the same as they did in any other arena, and the boys left the stage with a feeling of accomplishment. There were parties, and there was booze, something I had learned was a staple in rock star life. Everything was going as it normally would, at least until I spotted Crosley. He had gotten a special pass from his friend’s uncle to come backstage. As much as I tried to avoid him, there was no hiding myself from him. He could spot me from a million miles away. I wanted nothing more than to duck and hide like I had with K.L., but there was nowhere to hide backstage.
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