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“Definite way.” He shrugs with a tight-lipped smile. “It was so fucking crazy. So fucking crazy.”
A young girl comes up with her dad and asks me for a picture and, of course, I oblige. She’s sweet, probably not older than six or seven, with long pigtails and a gapped-tooth smile. “You’re my hero,” she says shyly, and my heart seizes in my chest.
“Lydia wants to be you when she grows up.” Her dad beams, looking from me to her. “She was even you for Halloween.”
Heat rise in my cheeks. Even after the past few years of being recognized everywhere I go and the insane amount of time being in the public eye, this feeling never comes naturally to me. The feeling of someone truly thinking I’m special, like I’m someone to dress up as for Halloween—it’s so foreign and strange and makes my insides twist.
“Lydia, that’s so cool.” I look down at her, and she smirks timidly. “It’s such an honor that you thought of me. Do you guys have any pictures?” I ask the two of them, curious to see how she dressed up as me.
I look over at Spence, and his eyes meet mine. He winks at me, and butterflies take flight in my chest. It’s like no time has passed at all, like we’ve fallen right back into place, and that’s both amazing and terrifying at the same time.
Lydia’s dad scrolls through about ten pictures of her on Halloween, and I gasp when I realize she even spray painted her long blonde hair black for the occasion. She’s wearing a long flannel with a black shirt underneath, a knockoff of one of my signature looks. I doubt her parents wanted her wearing a crop top, so it makes sense. I smile as he flips through the photos.
“You look so cool!” I tell her, my excitement evident. I learned once that girls her age don’t like to be called cute anymore, and cool is the word of choice. “I’m so honored. I hope you always follow your dreams, Lydia. There are a lot of times I wanted to give up—”
“Your girl isn’t kidding.” Spence smiles and widens his eyes.
“Hey!” I playfully swat in his direction. “It’s true, though. Giving up crossed my mind more times than I’d like to admit. But just remember, no matter what your dream is, whether it’s to play bass in a rock band or become a lawyer or a linebacker in the NFL…” I look at Lydia’s dad and he laughs. “No matter what, you have to believe in yourself. That’s step one, and that’s the most important step of all.”
After we say our goodbyes and take one more photo together—this time Spence and Lydia’s dad both crowd in and make funny faces—Spence and I are alone in the booth again.
“You know, you’re really good with your fans,” Spence says, his head tilting to the side. “I always knew you would be, but it’s crazy actually seeing it in person.”
I shake my head and point a finger at him. “Don’t even think you’re getting out of talking about the fact that you were in a cult, Spence Reid. Come on. I need all the dirty details. How the hell did that happen?”
I lean back and take a sip of my drink as Spence tells me all about the cult he was in for nearly six months while out on the road.
“I met a really beautiful woman in a bar in San Antonio. I went home with her, and I just never left.” He laughs and my stomach sinks. I know I need to tame the old feelings I still have for him, but it’s easier said than done—especially while drinking. Damn alcohol amplifies every single feeling. “At first, I thought she was just this wild child, hippieesque woman who was overly health conscious. Once I got back to where she lived with her family”—he holds air quotes up when he says the word family—“I thought things seemed a bit weird, but she was hot and it had been a long time since I had any female companionship, if you know what I’m saying.” Spence wiggles his eyebrows, and I roll my eyes.
“So you’re telling me that a hot woman in a cult lured you into said cult, and you stayed for six months?” I sit back and cross my arms. “You couldn’t find a woman to have sex with that wasn’t part of a cult?”
“Jesus Christ, Dec.” Spence chuckles and shakes his head. “It got a little deeper than that. I’m just telling you how it started.”
“So tell me what the cult was all about, then. Color me intrigued. I want to know,” I demand with a grin.
“Well, I didn’t know it at the time, but the group used women to lure men and other women in. They basically used their bodies to grab the attention of unsuspecting people and got them all infatuated and heart-eyed over them. Then they brought them into the cult and made them believe that they were all part of a divine, mystical, otherworldly mission.”
I stare at Spence like he’s suddenly grown two heads.
“Don’t worry, I never got brainwashed, luckily. But it was close. Do you know they used to sell a mixture of water and lemon juice and claim that it had the ability to dissolve negative energy and had purification properties that would heal all sickness in the human body, including things like cancer?” He tosses his head back before letting out a long sigh. “It was wild. And a lot of them truly believed it.”
“How’d you get out?” I’ve always thought of cults to be kind of a you’re in until death type of thing. “Wait… when did you get out?”
“It’s been almost two years now. Packed up all my shit—which wasn’t much—in the middle of the night and bounced,” he quips. “It was a pretty big deal, but it’s not like they gave a shit if I left. They knew I was never super invested. I also wasn’t supposed to know about that little lemon water secret of theirs. I overheard them talking when they thought I was asleep one night. They probably assumed I wasn’t much of a loss.” Spence takes a swig of his gin. “Thank God, because one of the guys was killed for trying to run.”
My jaw drops as one hand inadvertently covers my mouth.
“I told you it was some pretty messed-up shit,” Spence admits. “I was looking over my shoulder for quite a while, but I realized they clearly didn’t care that I left. The other guy was called Father and was quite a big deal. I was just a peon.”
Somehow, we settle back into conversation about our families. After that conversation, I’m still reeling. A cult; the kind of stuff you hear about in movies. If it wasn’t Spence telling me about it, I wouldn’t believe a word of it.
Spence talks about how he hasn’t seen my mom in years, but I change the subject because that’s a conversation for a different night. I don’t want to talk about Mom right now. So instead, I tell Spence that I actually just spoke to his sister on social media a few months ago. I reached out to her when I found out one of her childhood friends was really sick.
A group of young guys, definitely teenagers, sit in a booth to our left and catch my attention. They’re doing a real bang-up job of making me uncomfortable with their incessant stares and not-so-discreet photos of me. They laugh, and I want to invite them over for a photo to get it over with so I can once again concentrate on Spence, but part of me feels like it would be a bit pretentious.
Spence relaxes backward in the booth, tilting his chin up before biting his bottom lip. Jesus Christ. “I see you’re still very much the head-turner in any room, Declan Rothschild.” Spence grins and I roll my eyes.
“I’m in a famous rock band, Spence.” I shrug. “It comes with the territory.”
