by Lauren Rowe
“Kai, you’re up first,” I say. “I dare you to fanboy over Aloha, until you get her to sing the theme song to ‘It’s Aloha!’ for the entire party. If you can’t convince her to sing it, then you have to do it.”
Our entire group, other than Kai, breaks into raucous laughter. As we all know, Kai doesn’t sing. At all. He’s a fantastic bass player. One of the best in the business. But God did not bless him with dulcet vocal cords. Which is why, fun fact, Kai is the only member of Fugitive Summer who never supplies background vocals on any of their songs. Not even the singalong “la la’s” in “Hate Sex High.”
Predictably, Kai looks tortured as the rest of us laugh with glee. Scowling, he says, “You’re girlfriend’s a savage, Savage.”
Savage smiles at me. “She sure is. It’s my favorite thing about her.”
In the end, though, as torturous as the dare sounds, it turns out to be a softball. Not surprisingly, Aloha wound up refusing to sing the theme song to her long-running Disney show—after ten years of hearing it everywhere the poor girl went, she now hates that song with the passion of a thousand suns. But when Kai finally dragged himself to standing on a chair, poised to sing the hideous song for the entire party, and Ruby turned off the blaring music and got everyone’s attention while I sat at the piano to accompany Kai, my victim didn’t get two words into the first verse before the entire party started singing loudly along with him. In fact, thanks to the iconic theme song being burned into our generation’s gray matter, everyone at the party couldn’t help singing along with Kai, the same way a knee can’t help kicking forward when batted by a doctor’s rubber hammer. In fact, by the song’s end, even Aloha had started singing along with Kai and the crowd, despite herself. Which tells me she’s drunk as hell or an awfully good sport.
When the singalong led by Kai finishes, the entire party applauds and whoops and asks for another singalong. And so, seeing as how I’m sitting at the piano, and 22 Goats is here at the party, I play one of my all-time favorite singalongs—“Fireflies”—the same one we performed at Reed’s party. The song I performed for Savage this morning, before he gave me some mighty fine birthday oral sex. And, immediately, it’s clear I’ve picked well. On the iconic line, “Girl, you made butterflies your bitch!” the crowd sings at the tops of their lungs. And in each easy, singalong chorus, the party practically blows the roof off our reality TV mansion.
When our collective performance ends, the crowd demands another song. But this time, I stand on the piano bench and tell everyone to put a cork in it because I’m playing my first ever game of “Birthday Truth or Dare” and won’t be distracted from it a moment longer.
“That performance from Kai kicked off our game,” I explain. “And now, it’s time for my dare for Kendrick!” The crowd cheers, apparently already feeling as invested in the game as I do. With a wide smile, I address Kendrick. “KC, I dare you to hit on Reed Rivers over there, to the very best of your abilities, stopping only after you’ve successfully made him smile.”
Everyone but Reed claps and hoots in response to my edict. Reed shouts, “Leave me out of this, Fitzgerald!” But his tone is playful.
“Aw, come on, Reed,” Savage yells. “It’s her birthday!”
The crowd goads Reed on, enthusiastically, until, finally, the music mogul relents.
“Okay, fine,” Reed says, and, in response, the crowd cheers like their team just scored a goal at the World Cup.
“Don’t go easy on him, Reed!” I shout across the room. “You have to make Kendrick work for that smile!”
“I know of no other way,” Reed deadpans.
And away we go. To the great pleasure of the crowd, Kendrick saunters over to Reed. But he doesn’t stop when he reaches him. He walks right on by. Immediately, though, Kendrick doubles back, looks Reed up and down lasciviously, and says, “Oh, hey there, baby. Do you believe in love at first sight . . . or should I walk past you again?”
Of course, the crowd loves it and reacts accordingly. But Reed doesn’t look even tempted to smile. In fact, Reed replies flatly, “No, you can keep on walking with a piss-poor line like that, motherfucker.”
Kendrick snorts. “It’s not gonna get much better than that, unfortunately.” As the crowd laughs and applauds, Kendrick puffs out his cheeks, contemplating his next attempt. But when it’s clear Kendrick is ready to try again, the crowd goes quiet with anticipation. “Hey, baby,” Kendrick says to Reed. “Do me a favor. Feel my shirt.”
“Because it’s made of ‘boyfriend material’?” Reed supplies. “Sorry, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”
“Fuck.”
Everyone in the room, other than Reed, guffaws again.
But Kendrick won’t be denied. Squaring his shoulders, Kendrick flashes Reed an incredibly hot smolder and says, “Hey there, sexy . . . I seem to have lost my phone number. Can I—”
“Have mine?” Reed interrupts. “No. Fuck off.”
There’s another round of laughter, before Kendrick swipes his thumb over his nose, winks at Reed, and says, “Hey, gorgeous, are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got—”
“Fine written all over me.” Reed shakes his head. “Amateur. Bush league. Weak. Try again.”
And on and on it goes, pretty much just like that, through four more rounds. Until, finally, Reed breaks. But not in response to anything Kendrick has said—but in response to something Reed himself has said. Kendrick asks, “Can I follow you wherever you’re going, Reed? Because my momma always told me to—”
“Follow your dreams,” Reed interjects, his expression set in stone. And then, he takes a step forward, getting into Kendrick’s handsome face, and says, “Do me a favor, KC. Tell your momma I said, ‘Fuck Kendrick. Fuck his dreams. And thanks for sucking my cock last night.’”
“Reed!” Georgina shouts, as the party explodes with shocked laughter. And that’s when Reed throws his head back and guffaws at his own inappropriate joke.
“That doesn’t count!” Kai shouts, as his brother raises his arms in victory. “Kendrick didn’t make Reed smile! Reed made Reed smile!”
But the rest of the party agrees it did, indeed, count. And, quickly, the group’s attention turns to Savage. My last victim.
Someone yells, “Make him show us his cock!”
“Just google him if you want to see that,” I fire back, and the party hoots with laughter.
“No more dick pics from Savage!” Rhoda, a producer from Sing Your Heart Out, yells.
I quickly assure Rhoda, and the boisterous crowd, I’ve got no desire to add to Savage’s online dick pic collection tonight. “Actually . . . ,” I say from my perch on the piano bench. I smile at Savage below me. “For Savage, I pick Truth.”
“Truth isn’t an option,” Savage says quickly. But his bandmates desert him instantly, with all of them saying I can pick any damned thing I want, since I’m the Birthday Queen.
“We never pick Truth because we know everything there is to know about you,” Kendrick explains to his best friend. “But as the Birthday Queen, Laila is all-powerful.”
I return to Savage and realize anything worth asking him, I’d want to hear his answer in private. Also, like Savage said to me this morning, there’s no need to “dare” the man to do a damned thing, since, one, he’d do any important thing I asked, whether it’s my birthday or not, and, two, any not-important thing I might dare him to do, in order to humiliate him in front of a crowd, wouldn’t be fun for me. I have no desire to humiliate my sweet boyfriend, even for fun. And even if I did have that urge, it wouldn’t outweigh my desire to ask Savage an important question and know, without a doubt, he felt required to tell me the whole truth, without spinning or half-truthing it.
“I tell you what,” I say. “I’ll pick Truth and a rain check. We’ll finish this game later, behind closed doors, when it’s just you and me, as long as you agree that Truth is an option.”
The crowd boos.
Ruby is beside herself.
The Cook brothers tell me that’s not allowed.
But I’m firm in my decision and can’t help noticing Savage looks deeply relieved.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Fitzy,” Savage says, his dark eyes sparkling.
The faux-angry crowd begins throwing napkins and empty Solo cups at me, but I don’t care. I hop off the piano bench, straight to the love of my life, and kiss his sensuous lips.
“Don’t think I’m letting you off easy,” I murmur. “Whatever I ask, you’ll need to tell me the whole truth, so help you God.”
“That’s the game,” he says. “All I can say, though, is be careful what you wish for.”
Thirty-Three
Laila
The house is finally empty. All partygoers have left. It’s the wee hours of the morning on the day after my twenty-fifth birthday—the best birthday of my life—and I’m presently sitting on my boyfriend’s face on our couch, having an intense orgasm.
When my body stops warping and rippling, and my groans come down, Savage guides me off him, flips me onto my hands and knees, and fucks me from behind like I’m nothing to him but a blow-up doll he purchased online. And I love it. He calls me his “dirty birthday girl” and grips my hair. He tells me I’m hot, and his, and that watching me dancing to “Hate Sex High” earlier tonight, and owning that shit like a boss, turned him on like crazy. Until finally, Savage is coming hard inside me, followed by him fingering me until I do, too.
When both our bodies are spent and we’re way too exhausted to keep going for now, we cuddle naked on the couch for a long moment, catching our breath. For a fleeting moment, I have the impulse to spring up from the couch and play him the song I’ve been writing for him. “Savage Love.” But I quickly decide, no. First off, I’m not finished tinkering with the song. But, more importantly, I’m not ready to say all that “infinite and everlasting” stuff to Savage, just yet.
When I spoke to Mimi in private, during those last days of her life, she explained that Savage has always suffered from extreme anxiety, though the world would never guess that about him, based on his swagger and showmanship. She told me the thing that helps him keep his anxieties in check is taking things one day at a time. Not making firm commitments about the future. Not feeling tied down.
“That’s why Savage proposing to you is especially wonderful,” Mimi said to me. “It’s a huge breakthrough, to know he loves you enough to be able to envision, and promise, forever to you.”
Obviously, it wasn’t true. Savage had promised no such thing to me. And the weight of that lie hit me like a ton of bricks at the time. But nonetheless, that conversation with Mimi has helped me understand Savage better, which has helped me keep my expectations about him in check. For now, the boy has agreed to move into my condo with me when the show is over in a couple weeks. Surely, if Mimi were here and somehow found out we aren’t actually engaged, she’d nonetheless feel Savage’s agreement to move in with me, on its own, was a huge breakthrough for him. A massive commitment, standing alone. And I’m determined to be satisfied with only that, without also dreaming about exchanging promises of “forever” with him, as well.
“So, what ‘Truth’ do you want to know, Fitzy?” Savage asks, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Hmm?”
“Birthday Truth or Dare,” he says. “What’s this all-important question you have that’s more important than getting to watch me make a fool of myself in front of all our friends?”
I pause, considering my options, and finally settle on the one thing that’s been nagging at me the most lately—actually, ever since the press conference, and then even more so after our conversation in Chicago, when Savage admitted he hasn’t slept with anyone else since first laying eyes on me at Reed’s. What’s the whole truth about what Savage said to that Instagrammer at Kai’s birthday party?
I haven’t talked to Savage about that, since those very first days when he swore, up and down, he didn’t mention my name to her, simply because I’ve been certain he wouldn’t give me a straight answer, even if I asked. Or maybe I haven’t asked Savage recently about this because I’ve been afraid the truth wouldn’t be as romantic as I’ve come to hope. If Savage did tell that woman he had to “lay low” for the show, and nothing more, I’d rather not hear that now. On the contrary, I’d rather continue fantasizing about a fairytale where my gorgeous Beast told that Instagrammer he couldn’t sleep with her that night because he had his sights set on someone named Laila.
I stroke Savage’s naked chest and the grooves in his abs for a moment, keeping him in suspense. And finally say, “Okay, here’s my question—and I want the whole truth. Tell me whatever you can remember about your conversation with the Instagrammer at Kai’s birthday party. I know you were drunk and don’t remember everything, especially now that so much time has passed, but—"
“I remember every word of that conversation. At least, every word I said to her.”
My breathing hitches. I look up from his chest and something in his moonlit expression makes me sit up, all the way on the couch, and brace myself for whatever is going to come out of his gorgeous mouth next.
Following my lead, Savage sits up, too. “You want the whole truth? Well, here it is. When I saw her video the next morning, and heard her tell the world I’d said your name twice, I was scared shitless she’d outed me—but also relieved as hell. I felt like I’d dodged a huge bullet. Because the full truth is that I said your name at least ten times to that woman during our short conversation.”
“What?” I whisper.
Savage’s dark eyes flicker with heat. “I was totally and completely obsessed with you by that point. Tortured you hadn’t answered any of my texts during the tour, or after it. Tormented you hadn’t come to my room in a single city, despite how much I’d begged you. I’d been dreaming about you, pretty much every night. Pulling out my hair, trying to understand how the night of the hot tub wasn’t as big a game-changer for you as it had been for me. So, when I saw that woman, and she looked so much like you—although, to be clear, you’re way hotter than her—I lost it. I told her she looked like you—that she reminded me of Laila. And finally saying your name out loud to someone broke the seal on my madness, so to speak. And, suddenly, I couldn’t stop myself from confessing everything. Laila, Laila, Laila. I poured my heart out to her. Told her how obsessed I was with you. How tortured I’d been. But I guess she didn’t hear most of it, due to the noise at the party. When she asked me to take her upstairs, I was shocked. I’d just told her, in no uncertain terms, that I only wanted you. And this bitch’s response was to think I’d fuck her as your stand-in? It pissed me off to think she, and the whole world, assume I’m that big a player. So, I told her no, I didn’t want to go upstairs with her or anyone else. I told her I’d made a promise to myself not to have sex with anyone but Laila, ever again. Until the end of time. And that she should feel free to tell the whole world I’d said so.”
I gasp.
“I knew who she was the whole time. I’m not stupid. She was constantly tagging me and the band in her posts and videos. So, I drunkenly told her to post a video outing me because I wanted you to see it. Because I wanted you to know how much I wanted you. Because I wanted you to finally put me out of my misery and contact me, even if only to tell me why you didn’t want me the way I wanted you.”
I can’t speak or breathe. My jaw feels like it’s resting in my naked lap. The world feels like it’s warping around me.
Savage says, “When I woke up the next morning, my sober brain realized how stupid and reckless my drunk brain had been. So, when Eli gave me a plausible interpretation of what I’d said the night before, I ran with it. But it was Eli who said I must have said I had to ‘lay low’ because of the show. Not me. I didn’t use the word ‘promise’ in relation to my contract with the show, Laila. I said everything that Instagrammer claimed I did and much more. I wanted you so badly, it physically hurt by then, and I couldn’t figure out, for the life of me, why you didn’t
want me, too.”
“Oh, Adrian.”
I kiss him, passionately. And when our kiss ends, he strokes my cheek and looks deeply into my eyes. “You want to hear a few more Truth bombs?” he asks, his dark eyes on fire. “Because now that I’m confessing the whole truth to you, I don’t want to stop.”
I nod furiously. “I’ll take as many Truth bombs as you’ve got.”
Savage drops his hands from my face and takes one of mine in his. “I watched your set every night during the tour. I sneaked into the wings and hid behind this huge speaker at stage right so you wouldn’t see me, and I watched every minute of every performance. Unless, of course, I left a little early to drag some random groupie into your dressing room at precisely the right time for you to walk in and find me.”
I bite my lip. “I did the same thing, basically—minus the groupies. I could have left the venue every night after my set was finished. But I never did. Half the time, I listened to your set in my dressing room, with a glass of wine. I’d touch myself and listen to your voice singing ‘Come with Me.’ And it never failed to make me come, no matter how much I hated you.”
“Oh, my God, Laila. That’s so hot.”
“Other times, I’d creep into the wings during your set and hide behind that same huge speaker at stage right, so you wouldn’t see me. And your performance never failed to blow me away. It’s how I knew, deep down, I didn’t hate you. If I did, you never could have given me goosebumps—which you did every time I watched you.”
Savage’s chest heaves. “The Video Music Awards. I bet you thought we got put together as presenters, by chance? Or maybe by the producers on purpose, thanks to that viral video of us fighting on the sidewalk in New York?”
I nod, as a mischievous grin spreads across Savage’s gorgeous face.
