Page 16 of Forbid It

I laugh. I’ve never had the maternal pull of wanting babies, and honestly, the idea of pregnancy has freaked me out ever since I found out it can make your teeth fall out. I’ve always preferred the idea of being the cool aunt or godmother, swanning in with gifts or taking the kids on vacation and then handing them back at the end of the trip. The best of both worlds.

Some of my fans skew younger and I love meeting them. They get so timid, tiny voices asking for an autograph or a picture. Or when they ask off-the-wall questions like ‘Do you have to brush your teeth too?’, unaware of how hilarious they are. I’m approached by a fan pretty much every time I leave my house. Today’s flight is a red eye, so I’ve managed to avoid being spotted so far.

“Look at this one,” Pip shows me her phone again to see the same picture of Olive, but this time from her left side instead of her right.

I roll my eyes before a notification drops at the top of the screen. “Who is ‘Devil Spawn’?”

Pip snatches her phone back, falling back in her seat with a pale face. “It’s no one.”

She hasn’t been speaking to Callum McBride again, right? Callum is Pip’s ex-boyfriend. Or ex-asshole, as Anya likes to call him. They’ve been broken up for years now, but I can’t think of anyone else who would be saved in her phone like that.

The last time any of us heard from Callum, he was shooting a movie with Danny and they got in a huge blowout fight in the middle of a scene. As far as any of us knew, Pip hadn't spoken to him since the New Year’s Eve before that, when he and Danny had another fight in the middle of my living room and smashed my coffee table. It took a week to pick all the broken glass out of my shag rug.

“Pip—” I start but she cuts me off with a sharp, “It’s no one, Cass.”

I sigh and take a sip of my champagne.

Pip and I have been friends for nearly two decades, but the time she spent with Callum was the hardest. It started off sweet. He would bring her gifts and take her to fancy restaurants, but eventually she started pulling away from me. We were living on opposite coasts, so we didn’t hang out much in person, but she started to take too long to reply to messages, or she’d be too busy for our reality show binge watching sessions. I had planned a New Years Eve party to finally meet this guy, and my first impression was he was a grade A sleaze-bag.

He kept his arm around her the whole night and didn’t let her get a word in during conversations with people he’d never met before but who Pip had known her whole life.

If Danny hadn’t punched him in the face, I might have.

Pip tucks her phone in her pocket before leaning back and shutting her eyes. I shift in my seat, tugging the sleeves of my sweatshirt up to my elbows as another uncomfortable thought enters my head.

“Is it your dad?” I ask quietly, leaning between the divider.

She flinches, but all she does is pull her eye mask over her eyes. I don’t want to leave it, I want to keep pressing to find out who is bothering my best friend, but someone taps me on the shoulder.

I turn in my seat to see a middle aged woman hovering over the aisle.

“Hi,” the lady says with a smile. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but would you mind if my daughter got your autograph? She’s such a big fan.”

I sit up straighter, doing a quick assessment of my appearance. My hair is in a messy bun, but still relatively clean, my blue sweat suit doesn’t have any visible stains on, and I reapplied my deodorant before I boarded. Not ideal, but could be worse.

“Sure thing.” The mother hands me a glittery pink notebook and a pen.

I turn my head to see a shy little girl hiding behind her, likely around eight or nine.

“Hi there,” I tell her. “What’s your name?”

“Wren,” she whispers, her small cheeks rosy.

“I love this book. Is it yours?”

Wren nods shyly. I love when they get like this, and I have to poke to get them out of their shells. I want to make sure every little kid I meet has a good memory of when they met me. The thought of disappointing my tiny fans makes me want to give the whole thing up altogether. What’s the point of making music to connect with people if I actually don’t connect?

“Are you on your vacation?”

Another nod. “We visited some family friends in London,” Wren’s Mom tells me.

I write Wren’s name on the top with a scrawl before adding my signature to the bottom of the page. “That’s crazy, so did I!”

Wren’s blush deepens.

“Here.” I hand her back her notebook, “What’s your favorite song?”

Wren beams as she takes it. “I love ‘Get Over It’.”