Jude: ‘Don’t mean to be a dick, sister dearest, but you’ve gotta keep an eye on that drummer. Keeps posting pics hanging all over Jett like he is hers. Get passkey to his phone just in case there's something going on there?’
I groan, hating the way my stomach twists into knots, and the way the knots tighten as Ipull up Lily’s IG and see the photos for myself. Jett is affectionate with everyone, including his band, so his drummer hugging on him is no big deal. It’s thewayshe looks at him that makes every internal alarm inside me blare. Istare at the pictures until Iunderstand two facts. Lily isnotgay, and acting insecure and jealous about her to Jett will drive him away.
I am not letting Jude and Lily ruin this night! Iswig down the champagne and try to counsel myself through it.He’s wanted you for nearly eight years. Eight! Just like his abs and inches of perfect dick. Not her, you! If Jett wanted her, he’d already be dating her! You’re the badass, rockstar girlfriend, not her.
I repeat that in my head over and over until the bottle is empty. Once I’m inside the intimate venue, I’m one hundred percent that bitch. Iglance around the black box-style theatre where everyone is just on level with the artist. It’s dark with neon pink lighting and a full bar in the corner, stage lights illuminate the band. Imake sure to hug each musician, including Lily, and make air kisses in her direction like Idon’t have a care in the world. They go up to their instruments and pretend they are bored waiting around for Jett to show up.
It’s a cute schtick, and extra entertaining if you know Jett actually has every little thing that happens – whether he’s on stage or off – perfectly timed and organized. Like Mickie said, he’s so in control, people think he’s out of it. It’s all orchestrated in loud ideas shared once as a stream of consciousness, and then boom, it gets planned out immediately. If his fans go crazy for something he does, he acts so pleased and excited as if he didn’t do that at that exact moment just to surprise them and win their hearts even more. He isn’t a messy accident; he is a secret masterpiece.
A server spots me and brings me theCherry Darlingcocktail while Iam chatting with Sid and Jennifer. Ican’t seem to convince them to come sit with me in the front row, and sometimes it blows my mind that theseintrovertsmade Jett. They can’t stop talking about the calm, mature energy that Jett had when he took them out to dinner last night and howIhad done that.
“Me? Heisturning twenty-seven next month, maybe he’s just maturing on his own, and that’s what openedmyeyes to him. Idon’t want to take all the credit.”
They keep saying that he was always rash, wild, and insecure until we got together. How he became a man the day he stood up for his decision to take our relationship public. The day my dad nearly gave them a double heart attack with that sword, the day Jett decided to fight forhis princess,as they call me, was the day he changed. I’m not going to debate with them because theyreally fucking like me,and because the event photographer has come to take pictures of the three of us.
After we smile and pose, Iquickly hug them before Iget ushered back to my seat.
In true, orchestrating Jett fashion, he’d asked my cousin and auntie to fake having plans so I’d be surprised when they were sitting in the front row with me. He also went stealth to secretly invite Kel. Igive her a tight squeeze and feel better immediately. Iam so excited to see her reactions tonight, since she’s been listening to him since his very first single.
Ihave Britta snap a selfie of the four of us, and when Jett comes out and everyone claps, Iimmediately drop my phone and it clatters on the floor. Kel leans down to grab it, which she’s used to doing while I’m inthe makeup chair. Iam in some sort of shock, and my hands are shaking, so Iask her to just keep a hold of it for me.
Seeing someone you’ve known for eight years and seen perform so many times come out on stage shouldn’t have this effect. But this is like the distant, long-lost relative of the Jett Imet back then. Some extremely talented team of sorcerers had gotten hold of my boyfriend, and fuck if it feels like I’m seeing him for the first time all over again. Auntie and Kel have to catch me as Inearly slip off my chair and fall literally at this man’s feet.
He isn’t an emo rappy pop rockstar anymore. He’s a breathtaking, ethereal work of art and magic. Jett is wearing all black but no leather, black suit pants and a button-up accentuated with black suspenders. Idon’t understand why they look so sexy on him, his hair whipped up high and out of his face, a silvery black liner only around his waterline, making his eyes look almost transparent under the stage lights. I’ve seen him look hot, look pretty, looksexy,of course, but never thisbeautiful.The band starts the new song immediately, and Imelt into my auntie’s side.
He puts me in this trance, and if Iwasn’t in love with him before, Iwould be now, no question.
Red lips like a fever dream
Chaos theory in ripped-up jeans
Auntie looks at me, then Jett, and back to me with a quiet gasp. “If that isn’t Jewels looking at your dad. Wow. Full circle déjà vu, Baby.” Ican’t exactly speak, but Inod because what the hell am Iright now if not history repeating itself?
Cherry Darling, you’re the poison in my veins
The perfect storm of pleasure and of pain
Where my character Cherry ends and Ibegin is a bit of a blurred line and Isee that’s exactly how Jett saw me when we met. The song is clearly aboutbothof us. Cherry and me, me and Cherry. The bratty sweetheart and the badass bitch. My alter ego and Imelt into the swooniest puddle.
My head gets stuck on the ripped jeans lyric, and Iget the clearest visual of looking at Jett that day at the Seventeen office. Peering into the looking glass, like Jett and Iwere two sides of the mirror. The rocker wannabe and the rockstar’s daughter, face-to-face. Istared at him, mirroring me, in rippedjeans, a white tank, a gold chain, and bare feet. Green eyes, pale skin, dark hair, eyes full of so much fucking hope. And then Ihear it clear as day,Ilike the way you shoot whiskey.
It’s like Ican feel his hands squeezing my hips, feel his fingers against mine.Fuck.How could Inot have known? Sure, he fucks with everyone. He flirts with everyone. But still! Ishould have fucking known. And that’s not the only time, not even close.
I snap out of my haze only because the crowd, while small and chill, is still going mental for that song.
“This next one’s a cover, a girl cover.”
I knit my brows together. What?
“I quite like those. Girl songs, girls in general, girls in … particular.” The crowd does a cute, collective soft chuckle. “Let’s just say Iwas enamoured with one, for quite a long time, and Igot the chance to play for her while she was in a ball gown, in a ballroom, in the North of England, after she’d been away for half a year too long. Ithought, this is the song she, since she was five years old, always dreamed of a boy whisking her across a dance floor to. But Ithink she forgot she told me that one night because shelikesher whiskey. Iwas foolish, Ithought, ‘if Ijust sing it to her, she’ll fall in love!’ Unfortunately, Iwas right, but it wasn’t me she fell in love with.”
The crowd goes, “Aww,” and Kel wasthere,so she looks at me with giant puppy dog eyes waiting for my reaction. Ican’t believe Itold Jett that and forgot, Ireally want to slap myself in the face right now.
“I think I’ll sing it to her once more, just to see if it works this time.”
I feel a lot of eyes on me which is not surprising after what he slipped into our interview. He wraps his tattooed fingers around the microphone stand and leans towards me, just as he did in the North that night. Everyone else in the room disappears. Jett stares that hole right through me again, but without the mask this time. He sings as smooth and soft and hypnotizing as he did that nightin that mask.
If he hadn’t had it on when he last sang this to me, Iwould have seen. Imean, seeing the look now,holy shit.I’m in love already, you cheeky boy. Now you’re just torching my insides for sport. Do Iremember his eyes looking at me so deep, dark, and full of yearning? Imean, Idon’t think Iever failed tonotice them, but now Isee what was lurking there, what Iignored because Iwasn’t ready.
