Part 21 (1/2)

Lauren waves her phone at the girls in the queue behind us, who all agree, then she asks the same of a pa.s.sing boy, who barely glances at the phone, but tells both of them to come and find him in Three-Tree Field.

”You're outvoted, Ruby.”

I open my mouth to explain, but what's the point? Lauren doesn't listen and when she's with her, neither does Kaz.

We move round a corner of the queue that snakes around the barriers and I can see the band sitting at the table. The drummer looks bored, the guitarist is smiling at everyone, but he turns away briefly to ma.s.sage his jaw. The ba.s.sist next to him says something and they both laugh and look along to the end of the table where Adam Wexler is holding a bra handed to him by a fan. It takes a second for me to realize that it was the one she was actually wearing as security gently guide her away. ”That's for you to remember me by!” she shouts, before trying to lift her top an act stopped before it starts by the female security guard, who looks like she's done this a million times before.

Every stupid daydream I had about meeting the man I wors.h.i.+p seems even stupider now I'm actually here.

KAZ.

Lauren shakes her head as the girl at the front is led away and looks at Ruby. ”You're not going to do that, are you?” Ruby just stares at her until Lauren carries on the conversation herself. ”The way Lee was talking it sounded like me and Kaz might have to restrain you.”

”Just try it.” It's clear Ruby's not joking. It's equally clear that she's not talking about anything to do with Adam Wexler, either.

Lauren gives a little frown before turning back to me. The queue moves forward, jiggling us all around so that by the time we've stopped, Ruby's behind us.

I'm actually quite relieved.

RUBY.

Awesome. Now I can't even see the b.l.o.o.d.y band behind those two vertically gifted freaks.

I get my phone out for something to do and discover that Lee's sent me a photo of him and Owen and Parvati grinning at the camera, looking very sweaty and very happy. See how friends share! To stop myself telling him to f.u.c.k off, I scroll back through my camera roll, deleting some of the c.r.a.pper pictures until I catch one I didn't know I had on there. I tap back, trying to place when it was taken.

Last night. I can only a.s.sume my phone dropped out of my pocket and Stu was the one to find it. I wish he hadn't.

There's a series of them. The most recent is a selfie of Stu, with him looking broodily into the camera. He's smiling at something, which only makes sense when you scroll back one.

Him again. This time with a girl, identifiable as Stella by her pink hair, since the rest of her face is attached to Stu's in a full-on snog.

The one before is not of Stu. It's of me, running away, Kaz just coming into the frame as she chases after me.

I force myself to scroll back to the photo of him and Stella and I stare at it, until it stops meaning anything, until it's nothing but a set of pixels on a screen. But it isn't. It's a pain in my chest that won't go away.

He probably thought that was what my reaction in the Grundiiz crowd was about until he saw me later, over there, by the boards, next to that row of Little John tour posters. At that point he must have realized there was no way I'd seen this picture, or I'd never have touched him. He'd let me humiliate myself, knowing it would only get worse when I found this photo on my phone.

I hate him.

Or something. I'm so knotted up that I'm not sure what I feel.

If we were alone, I would show Kaz and she would tell me he's not worth the megabytes the pictures take up on my phone. Maybe I would find the words to tell her something close to the truth. That he is worth something to me, even if I don't know what.

But Lauren.

So I do something stupid. I text the picture to Stu. I know I shouldn't, but the number's there in my head. I stab out the words Thanks, f.u.c.khead and press send, regretting it immediately.

At the front of the queue, Lauren and Kaz have worked themselves into a frenzy of giggles and the first guy to sign their card looks as if he doubts their sanity. They move on, but I haven't anything to sign.

”Was I meant to pick up a card?” I ask.

”You were.” It's the drummer, whose name I have temporarily forgotten.

”What's the point of a signed card?” I ask and he shrugs, looking bored. ”Can you sign this, instead?”

I pull off my belt and hand it to him. It's a canvas one, yellow, plain. The drummer shrugs again, looking marginally less bored, and signs the belt with his black marker pen.

I push the belt along to the ba.s.sist, who doesn't comment, and then the guitarist, who does, his rictus grin still in place.

”Not signed a belt before.”

”You have now,” I say, thinking that there must be something wrong with me Adam Wexler isn't actually the only person I wors.h.i.+p in this band. I love all of them, one way or another. I can't move on because Lauren and Kaz are still with Adam Wexler and I see Lauren shove Kaz forwards so she's leaning over the table next to him, posing for a photo. He's smiling and polite, the perfect rock star in all his glory. Moving in close, he says something to Kaz and I see her blush a shade deeper.

Curiosity flickers in me, but the flame's extinguished when my phone goes and I see Stu's reply.

f.u.c.khead. s.h.i.+thead. Call me what you like. Doesn't change the fact that you want me...

The words are loaded with so much self-satisfaction that I feel sick and I dully step forwards, pus.h.i.+ng my belt towards Adam Wexler for signing.

”I can't use this.” I look up sharply, but he's turned away to someone behind him to ask if he could have a black pen for signing my belt instead of the gold one he's been using. When he turns back to me I feel a vague quiver of excitement.

Wexler is as s.e.xy in the flesh as he is on the posters taped to my wall. His eyes are Photoshop-filter blue and it's hard not to imagine what kind of gorgeous mess I'd make by running my fingers through his hair. The long-sleeved top he's wearing might hide that new tattoo of his, but it does nothing to disguise the shape of his body beneath.

I hadn't realized I was holding my breath.

”Cheer up, love. Whatever it is can't be that bad.” He crooks his mouth in the half-smile I've seen accompany every Gold'ntone interview, but the impact is lost in my indignation. There's nothing more patronizing than the whole ”cheer up, love” sentiment.

”Oh, really?” I wave my phone at him. ”How would you feel if your ex took a photo ON YOUR PHONE of them snogging someone else?”

Wexler frowns and catches the phone to actually look at what I'm showing him.

”I suppose I'd feel like snogging someone else in retaliation.” The look accompanying these words gives me all sorts of very wrong thoughts. Then he turns to take the pen from whichever a.s.sistant has found one and signs my belt before flipping it over and writing something the full length of it something that's hard to read upside-down.