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Chapter1
The Next Kurt and Courtney
My two suitcases lay open on my bedroom floor, both of them now unzippable due to the amount of clothes and other essentials stuffed inside them. I’d tried everything. I had sat on them, pushed them, jumped on them, repacked them, and still, they bulged at the seams. There was a weight limit to comply with, which I was already way over, but the idea of taking anything out made me want to cry. A girl can’t go away for over a month without taking everything she needs.
One more try.
I rose to my knees and pushed hard on the freshly washed and ironed clothes in the suitcase in front of me, a burst of sweet cherry blossom dispersing in the air around me. Pressing one arm firmly on the contents, I used my other hand to flip the lid of the case over, quickly yanking my arm out, then pushing down before everything sprang up again. I tugged at the zipper, holding my breath in the hopes that I’d win the battle with my luggage this time, but again, it defeated me. I growled in frustration and leaned back against my bed, wiping beads of sweat from my forehead.
“Do you need a hand?”
I snapped my head toward the doorway where my sister stood, trying to conceal a smile at my struggle. Of course,shenever had this problem. That girl was an expert at traveling light.
“Ellie, this is ridiculous! How am I supposed to fit everything in?”
She shook her head. “You can’t. You’ll have to suck it up and take out everything you don’t absolutely need.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you just said. Ineedeverything.”
Chuckling, Ellie stepped over the case I’d just fought with and gestured for me to shuffle over so she could sit. She took a hairband from her wrist and pulled back her mane of dark hair. She was ready to get down to business.
“I bet I can find at least ten things in this one suitcase you could live without.”
I raised an eyebrow at her challenge, then extended my hand for her to shake. “Loser buys dinner.”
“Done.”
Over the next thirty minutes, Ellie was like a whirlwind, yanking everything out of my cases and inspecting each item. Occasionally, she would throw out comments like, “Lucy, seriously? Ten bikinis? When do you think you’ll have time to wear them?” and “A box of five spare phone chargers? You’re going to Europe and the US, not a third-world country. You can buy replacementsifyou need them when you get there.”
As she sorted through my luggage, I thought about what was to come.
While many students spent the summer before going back to college at home, slaving away to earn some extra cash to get them through their second year, I was about to embark on the kind of adventure most music fans could only dream about.
Over the last year, Razes Hell’s increasing popularity had landed them a number-one single in the UK and a number-one album in several countries. Now they were about to embark on a month-long tour that would take them to France, Germany, and many cities in the US.
What did this have to do with me? Well, as a journalism student at Sheffield University, I’d been offered a chance to go along on tour as a sort of summer project. The idea was for me to report on the tour, plus experience life on the road. Technically, the ‘project’ had no real relevance to college. I’d gain no special credit for anything I wrote on my travels, but it would look cool on my CV.
It was an incredible opportunity, one I couldn’t pass up, especially since I’d known most of the band my whole life. Ellie and I had grown up living next door to Jason and Drew Brooks, who made up half of Razes Hell. Ellie had been best friends with both of them and had been fully loved-up with Drew for a year.
I knew I’d be safe with them. It was a no-risk, huge-gain kind of thing, and I couldn’t wait for the adventure to begin.
Well, when I say “no risk,” that wasn’t the whole truth. There were risks. Not to my physical safety but to that of my young, inexperienced heart, which had tied itself to the band’s lead singer, Jason Brooks.
Yeah. I wasn’t alone. Every woman who’d ever seen him on stage and heard that husky, sexy voice had fantasized about him. But none of them knew him. Maybe I didn’t really know him, either. He was Ellie’s best friend, not mine. But I liked what I knew. I liked his passion for music and his strength in overcoming the cocaine addiction that had almost killed him a year ago.
He’d changed since then. He was still crazy and willing to do almost anything to please a crowd, but he’d tidied himself up in more ways than one. His trademark long, multi-colored hair had been cut and mostly stayed black. Jason’s physical change didn’t dampen the legions of horny fans. In fact, for some reason, they seemed to like him more for it.
Women go crazy for a clean-cut guy with a dangerous sparkle in his eyes. And what girl doesn’t love a man with sexy stubble and a chiseled jaw?
“Luce?”
Ellie nudged me in the side, jolting me out of my thoughts before I got carried away—again—in my fantasies of Jason and me becoming the next Kurt and Courtney.
“Huh?”
My big sister gave me a knowing smile but said nothing. Instead, she nodded toward my suitcases which were now zipped up and no longer bulging at the seams. “I guess you owe me dinner.”
* * *
