Hammers, Strings, and Beautiful Things

by Morgan Lee Miller

“That’s cute, though I’m not surprised you didn’t ask her.”

  I tickled her side. “Hey, I initiated the serious conversation at Thanksgiving that got us into this relationship, so, where’s my credit?”

  “Okay, you’re right. You get credit for that. I don’t know what I would do if I saw you in that jacket and boob tape, and I wasn’t allowed to kiss you.” She kissed my neck.

  “Don’t worry about high school prom. Touring and a record deal and going to the Grammys is significantly cooler.”

  “I think the reason why I was bummed about not going to prom was because it’s this whole dramatic thing. You dress up, your date gets you flowers, you go to a nice restaurant and feel really fancy. It’s just the romance of it that I wish I experienced. Come to think of it, I’ve never been romanced like that, which is kinda sad. I feel like everyone should be romanced at least one time in their life, and my shitty exes never did that.”

  Come to think of it, I’d never felt romanced, either; not like I ever craved it. The girl who was the most romantic was Alanna. She wanted all the romance in our relationship, and it was only looking back, when I was in bed with Reagan, that I realized Alanna basically romanced herself, and I was along for the ride. Our only Valentine’s Day together, she made us reservations at this restaurant in Santa Monica, making sure we got a table that overlooked the ocean right as the sun set, and we shared a bottle of red wine that I didn’t feel fancy enough to drink, and we ate the best lobster both of us had ever had.

  But then I imagined going to that same beautiful restaurant with Reagan, and it didn’t seem as schmaltzy as the memory was with Alanna. I saw us at the exact same table, drinking wine, watching the sunset, and chatting long into the night like we usually did, until the servers had to kick as out, and then I would tell her I wanted to dig my feet into the sand, listen to the white capped waves crash onto the shore, and kiss her while blanketed by night. Now if any girl of my past told me, in those exact words, that that was their perfect date, my eyes would ache from rolling them so hard. But if Reagan told me, I’m pretty sure my heart would flutter right out of my chest.

  I had to give her that romantic date, even if I had no idea how to plan one. Maybe Mom could help me. She sure loved romance.

  * * *

  Two days later, Miles and I flew out to Oklahoma City, meeting Reagan after she did a late show appearance. When we landed at the airport, I flipped my phone off airplane mode, hoping I had romantic text messages from Reagan.

  But what I got instead was text after text after text from Reagan, Corbin, and even my mom. Eighteen unread text messages that seemed too much for being out of pocket for a three-hour flight.

  When I opened the text from Corbin, my heart plummeted so hard and quickly, I almost threw up.

  “Blair, come on,” Miles said in the middle of the aisle.

  I couldn’t really focus on anything. The air on the plane disappeared and my knees forgot how to support my legs. Not as if air would have done me any good, because what I saw on my phone caused me to forget how to breathe. All the energy from the great weekend was left in the Hollywood Hills because what greeted us in Oklahoma City was something that came straight out of my nightmares.

  “Blair, what’s wrong?” Miles said. “Your face is all white.”

  I had clicked on the link Corbin sent me. In big, bold, black font on the website for the entire world to see.

  Reagan Moore’s Racy Text Messages with Blair Bennett Revealed in Mass Celebrity Phone Hacking.

  Chapter Ten

  All the Celebrity Victims of Recent Phone Hacking Rocking Hollywood.

  Bristol Perri Disables Social Media After Nude Photos Leak in Phone Hacking.

  Reagan Moore’s Text Messages Confirm Relationships with Jessie Byrd, Blair Bennett.

  There was a whole list. At least thirty celebrities involved in the hacking. The worst part about it was that my texts with Reagan were nowhere near as damaging as Bristol Perri’s nudes. But in the mix of leaked photos was a video of Reagan and me making out in Greenville, in what I thought was an abandoned hallway, which meant whoever took that video of us decided that right after the hacking would be a great time to leak it.

  Because Reagan never took sexy selfies of herself, her worst photo was of her in a red-and-white striped bikini on a beach with Jessie Byrd, who was in an all-black bikini, both of them sitting on beach towels with Reagan’s head on Jessie’s shoulder. I was too traumatized to look at what else was leaked. Plus, since I was sucked into the club of victims, there was no way I was going to intrude on their private stuff. Miles avoided all the articles, but without opening one, he came across that Reagan picture. He claimed that the photo of Reagan and Jessie would have seemed platonic if it weren’t for screenshots of her text messages complaining to Bristol Perri about their breakup. The conversation when she came back to LA after touring Europe and said she wanted to see my face? That was out there. The conversation we had in New York City when she told me to come to her room, and she said she wished I was coming? That was out there. Asking her to be my date for Thanksgiving? That was out there too. The texts she sent me while she was in Asia about how she missed my face and body and my tattoos and my mouth? Yup, the most incriminating text conversation out there for everyone to read. I pulled it up on my phone to make sure it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.

  Reagan: Ugh, God, I really miss your face.

  Reagan: Like, what was I thinking bringing on another band for the Europe/Asia leg? If I knew how magical your mouth was back when we planned this, I’d totally just bring you.

  Me: Oh, wow, this was an amazing text to wake up to.

  Me: Ditch your tour and get in my bed. ASAP.

  Reagan: I really need you right now. I’m deprived. I miss your face and your body and your tattoos. God, the things I’d do to see your tattoos.

  Me: What sort of things would you do?!

  Reagan: Riskier things than sneaking into a pool after hours.

  Me: Why are we not together right now? Damn it!

  Reagan: Can we make a deal that, once we see each other again in Greenville, we lock ourselves in my green room or bus and just devour each other?

  Me: I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make it for another few weeks now.

  Reagan: Just think of me when you do yourself, okay?

  Me: You don’t need to ask me twice.

  So, it was even worse than I originally remembered. I couldn’t believe that conversation was out there. A conversation about us fucking each other and masturbating. I could have just run myself through a wall.

  The only way I could handle everything on the internet was the vodka I bought from the liquor store closest to our Oklahoma City hotel. As Miles filled me in on everything, I drank to the point that I almost forgot about it, and when I got to that point, Reagan finally made it to our room. The second she came in, I threw my arms out, and she sobbed into my chest. I’d never seen her cry before, and I didn’t realize how lucky I was that I hadn’t until her sobs sliced through me. I could feel her pain when she cried. I tried so hard not to let my own emotions burst out, but she needed a rock.

  I brushed strands of hair out of her face, tucking them behind her ears as she sobbed into my shoulder. She was so upset that she didn’t seem to notice that I reeked of alcohol and was really drunk. And if she did, then it didn’t matter to her as much as her whole private life up on the internet. There were moments when she stopped and we lay there in silence, and then she started crying again. The fabric of my sweatshirt collected her tears, and I hugged her tighter, occasionally kissing her damp cheek and rubbing her back even after my arm needed a rest, but it didn’t deserve a rest until she stopped crying.

  “We’ll get through this,” I said and kissed her forehead as another round of tears ensued. “You won’t be alone.”

  “This is…this is…” She stuttered through gasps of air in between cries. “This is why—”

  I grabbed her hand. “I kno
w. I know.” And then I pulled her back into me, and her quivering resumed.

  “I’m so p…private,” she finished. “This is exactly why. It’s all out there. It’s all…that’s…that’s my whole life out there. Those texts I sent in Asia!” Her cries became harder. And when the conversation played in my head, the tears started in my eyes too.

  I continued to rub her hands and kiss her tearstained cheeks. I felt so hopeless trying to console her because there was nothing to say or do that would take it all back. Whoever hacked into her phone did it effortlessly. Seeing Reagan come apart, crying hysterically, made me so angry. She didn’t deserve it at all.

  No one did.

  I ordered room service, drew her a bubble bath, let her eat during her bath, then cuddled her to sleep. We didn’t talk much. I don’t even know what we could have said except crying and complaining how this really sucked. She spoke to Bristol Perri on the phone for a little bit after her bath, and I think she got some comfort talking to a good friend, someone who was going through the same stuff as she was. I hated how she went out of her way to protect her private life, made sure she didn’t do anything stupid that the media would blow up the internet with, and no matter how hard she tried, it still bit her in the ass.

  It was as if Reagan had nowhere to hide. And I felt it too.

  * * *

  I only had about thirty seconds left until I had to meet the rest of the tour to head over to the venue. So, I snorted the very last line I could squeeze out of the eight ball I got before the start of the tour, and then I was pissed when there was nothing left in the bag at the time I really needed it the most. I felt so hopeless that the only thing that I knew would guarantee me just a little break was this powdery concoction.

  The line would just be a little encouragement for the evening and would be over by the time we arrived and sound checked. But when I met Miles in the elevator and stepped inside the lobby, I realized that leaving the hotel to get to the bus was a chore in itself. Despite the fact that Reagan used a pseudonym to book hotels, her most fanatical fans still found out the hotel we were staying at and waited for us in the lobby. There was a group of probably twenty, and once they saw Miles and me, their eyes went wide, and their phones snapped out of their pockets and purses, and what started as a brisk walk turned into a sprint as we beelined for the buses. One girl got a nice tug on the back of my shirt, all in the midst of yelling and begging. I almost tripped, but security finally reached us by the time we got to the garage.

  And they acted like that just for the openers.

  Or Reagan Moore’s girlfriend. It was probably that.

  As my heart rate calmed down, we got to the venue, and things weren’t much different. A group of a hundred something fans and press waited for us to arrive, and I felt like a fish in an aquarium as the fans darted for the bus and pounded on the windows.

  “This is fucking crazy,” Corbin said as he pulled out his phone. I assumed he was going to notify Finn. He and Reagan were still a few minutes behind us.

  “I guess this is what happens when you date the biggest celebrity in the world, right?” Miles said and nudged my arm.

  I sank in my seat. Well, there went the rest of that super-short buzz with nothing else to replenish it with. So, I took two extra pregame shots because it was better than nothing.

  I decided to use this lively and aggressive Oklahoma City crowd to my advantage. I moved around the stage a little more than other shows, added some extra improved guitar licks to the songs, and jumped on the ledge to entice the audience to push closer to the stage so we could be in one massive heap of crazy. They reached out their hands, I shook some of them and collected some scratches as if a cat clawed me.

  They were definitely ready for Reagan Moore that night.

  Reagan said that we weren’t going to perform our single until the talk about us on the internet died down a little, and I was okay with that. Whatever she needed to gain her security back after that awful breach.

  Miles and I drank our way to Wichita while she stayed behind to do her meet and greets—more like I drank my way to Wichita, and Miles tapped out after two beers. Gulp after gulp, I felt the whiskey as it slowly burned its way down my throat, and the discomfort of its potency brought me instant satisfaction. It made my pulse twitch faster, feigning complacency for what was actual discontentment.

  A breath from it all.

  “Remember in high school when I found that mockup of a yearbook page Brad Politch made with my text messages to him all over?” Miles said as we chilled in his hotel room. I was waiting for Reagan to arrive. Despite what was going on and how rowdy everyone seemed to be, Reagan still insisted to continue the meet and greets after the show. Meanwhile, I lay in Miles’s hotel bed, becoming one with the duvet and feeling my head become weightless. “I’m having major flashbacks of that.”

  I opened my sixth beer, finishing the whole pack I bought before we left for Wichita. “Haven’t thought about that scumbag in a while,” I said and pulled a large gulp from the bottle.

  “I have. He made my life hell. You know how many panic attacks I had when I saw that mockup?”

  It was a lot. Brad Politch was the son of Rodger Politch, a big director in the film industry who made many summer blockbusters. That meant he came from tons of money. There was a rumor our freshman year that his bed was stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Of course, no one believed it, but it became a thing we said whenever we spoke about Brad. He was the first guy Miles ever hooked up with. They made out all the time in the film editing room after school, along with a few hookups here and there. This lasted a whole year, but no one knew about it because those two weren’t out. Brad kept insisting he wasn’t gay after Miles said that he came out to his family and wanted to date him. Brad got offended by this, got bored in his yearbook class, made a mockup of a yearbook page that had screenshots of all of Miles’s texts saying how he came out as bi to his family, telling him he wanted to date Brad, saying he couldn’t stop thinking about him, and a few other detailed descriptions of what he wanted to do to him. Brad slipped that mockup in Miles’s locker and threatened that if he told anyone about them, he’d print it in the yearbook. For two weeks, Miles kept having panic attacks at school, and I had to pretend to go to the bathroom during my classes to comfort him.

  So, one day, I dragged that little asshole out back, slammed him against the brick building, and threatened to break his precious fancy camera his daddy gave him for Christmas if he ever outed Miles. I think that scared him because the page wasn’t printed, and anytime Brad saw me in the hallway, his stare flitted in the other direction.

  “Too many to count,” I answered. “I still get mad when I think about that asshole.”

  “I get that Reagan’s situation is on a way different scale than mine, but the feelings are probably similar, you know? It sucks. More than sucks. I totally feel for her right now. Just wish I could help, that’s all.”

  “Who has nothing better to do than hack people’s phones? What do they even get out of it?”

  Miles shrugged. “I don’t have an answer for you. Brad Politch might know that.”

  I surveyed my beer that was already halfway done. “I need more. Wanna run out with me?”

  Miles laughed. “Blair, you just had a whole six-pack.”

  “And I have screenshots of a detailed sext conversation all over the internet right now. What’s your point?”

  “You had six beers in two and a half hours. Plus some whiskey.”

  “Yeah? And now I need more. There has to be a place somewhere I can grab some.” I pulled out my phone to check. “Ah, there’s a store two blocks away. Okay, so you want anything?”

  “No. I still have the rest of my beers in the fridge.”

  “Well, drink them. Catch up.”

  “But you’re already wasted. You have your drunk eyes.”

  “Yeah? I wanna keep it going.”

  He rolled his eyes and grunted as he got out of bed, grabbing a beer
for himself and handing me another one. “Cheers.”

  By the time Reagan sent me a text that she’d arrived at the hotel, I was eight beers and five shots in and wobbled my way over to her suite. In my defense, I was just following the movements of the earth. That’s when I really regretted everything I drank. The sick taste of alcohol hung in my throat, and I could feel all the liquid slushing around in my stomach. A rush of heat consumed my body and gave me this urge to strip off all my clothes to sweat it out. By the time I pounded on the door, I was gagging, and surveying the hallway to find a spot to puke my guts out if Reagan didn’t open this door faster. Once it opened, I bolted straight to the bathroom and threw up in the toilet.

  “God, Blair!” she said as she walked into the bathroom. I clung to the toilet as if it were a life preserver. I started salivating, and another rush of sweat stuck to my skin. “How much have you had?”

  I threw up again and then about three more times. Reagan stayed with me and held my hair back the whole time.

  The rest of the night was fuzzy.

  * * *

  No Duet with Midnight Konfusion after Video of Hookup Leaked to Internet.

  Reagan Moore Keeps Quiet on the Racy Blair Bennett Texts.

  Fans Think Jessie Byrd’s New Song “She Knows You’re on My Mind” is About Benmoore Romance.

  Miles, Corbin, and I listened to that new Jessie Byrd song on our way to St. Louis multiple times to make sure that it was really about me. I only needed to listen to the first verse and bridge of the sensuous, upbeat song to know it was indeed about me.

  Did Miles and Corbin need to listen to it five more times? She referenced my sleeve and the lyrics to “Patience, Love,” the song I collaborated with Reagan on. I’m pretty sure Jessie Byrd was now out to get me with those threatening lyrics. Knowing what I knew from Reagan, she liked a challenge and a chase, and she seemed so confident that she could win Reagan back. I had no idea why. They’d dated for seven months? Cool. Reagan and I had been flirting nonstop for ten months. Get over yourself, Jessie Byrd.