Page 12 of Ticket to the Stars: Part One

It was like I walked into a movie set. It didn’t feel real. The entire lobby was wide, open, and spacious. At least three stories high, too, big chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings, sparkling in the daylight streaming through the front glass. The carpet that sprawled the floor was a rich, deep red color, designs of gold interspersed on it.

We went to the elevator, where I found another worker standing by all the buttons. He had the same uniform on as the man standing outside, and I realized it was the same color red as the carpet in the lobby. He had a tiny little hat on, and he tipped his head toward Ramona before hitting a certain button.

I guess that meant he knew who Ramona was.

Ramona was pretty much on her phone the whole ride up. The elevator played silly elevator music, which only made it feel like it lasted longer. The moment the elevator doors opened and we reached our floor, Ramona stepped out, all without even glancing at the elevator man. I gave him an awkward smile before hurrying after her, two bags strung around my shoulders. Ramona carried a single backpack stuffed to the brim with my things.

We didn’t have any actual luggage back home, so I had to make due with old backpacks from school. One of them was Cleo’s.

Ramona put away her phone only so she could pull out the key card to the room. It was one of three suites on the floor, and based on how large the building was, I’d say that meant the suites themselves were huge.

She pushed open the door and let me walk in first. “I told the guys to be scarce today, so you could get settled before meeting them. They should get back around five this afternoon, which gives you a few hours. I have to go, but I will be back to introduce you.” She set my bag down on the kitchen island—which, alone, had more cabinet space than the kitchen I grew up in.

Her dark eyes landed on me, and she gave me a smile. “Your room is the one in the back, without anything in it. Go check it out. The guys already moved in.” She said nothing else as she headed toward the door.

And then it hit me, what she’d said. I flipped around, hoping to catch her as I asked, “The guys already—” But when I turned around, I saw that she’d already stepped out into the hall and was gone.

The guys already moved in, meaning I’d be living with them? Crap. I wasn’t expecting that. That information made me a whole different kind of nervous.

Pretending to be their angel on stage and when we were in public together was one thing. Being around them while we were practicing and recording was another. But living with them, being with them at all hours of the day and night… that was another thing entirely.

The nervous excitement that had been building all morning now turned to dread. I had the feeling that living with them would make things a lot more complicated. Ramona had said she’d already talked to the guys about not coming onto me, but she wouldn’t be here all the time to keep them on their best behavior.

Knowing there was nothing I could do about it now, I grabbed my bag off the island and pushed deeper into the suite. The kitchen was attached to the living room, where a few couches sat facing a big flat-screen television hanging on the wall. A wall of windows overlooking the city was on the far side.

I went down a hall, finding it crawled on for what seemed like an eternity. I passed quite a few bedrooms, finding clothes on the floor, guitars strewn about, other things that told me the guys had indeed already moved in.

Oh, this wasn’t going to be fun.

My bedroom was the last in the hall, the one furthest in, and when I stepped inside, I gasped. The room alone was bigger than half mom’s house. A wide-open space with a king-sized bed with a wooden canopy over it. A sparkling chandelier that looked like a mini version of the ones in the lobby downstairs. It had its own flat-screen on the wall opposite the bed, along with multiple dressers, an entrance to a private bathroom, and another door that must hide a closet.

So much empty space. So much more wall space to put more furniture or hang more pictures. A few pictures already hung on the walls—canvas prints of flowers and pink designs. The bed was made, its sheets a mixture of fluffy white and fluffy pink with multiple throw pillows. It was obvious this room was meant for me.

It wasn’t really me, though. Don’t get me wrong, I liked pink fine, but right now, it was kind of bland and boring.

I set my bags on the bed, moving toward what I assumed was the door to the closet. What I imagined doing, taking a quick peek inside, was not what happened. Why? Oh, simply because, once I opened the door, I saw that it wasn’t a normal closet. No, nothing so silly.

It was a walk-in closet, completely empty, ready to be filled to the brim with clothes and shoes and even jewelry. Empty drawers, empty shelves for what must be shoes… the closet itself was as large as my room back home, and my jaw dropped when I stepped inside it. In the center, it even had its own pink chaise.

Like… damn.

I walked out of the closet and to the bathroom to check that out, and what I found made me even more speechless. The tile had to be some kind of white marble. It was everywhere. On the floor, on the wall of the shower—which had no curtain or anything separating it from the rest of the room. Just a showerhead on the wall and a drain in the floor, and a little lip to keep the water contained.

That’s… a little weird.

The giant bathroom also had a clawfoot tub and a double vanity, along with open shelving for towels and all that.

A beautiful space, for sure, but I didn’t like the lack of privacy the shower had. Of course, I knew I could lock my bedroom door and then the bathroom door too, give myself double protection when I was naked, but somehow, that didn’t feel like enough.

It was as I was walking out of the bathroom that I heard a door shut. My mind immediately went to Ramona, because she’d said she’d told the guys to give me some time here to myself—and it was nowhere near five o’clock in the afternoon.

“Ramona?” I asked as I walked out into the hall. “Ramona, I—”

What I wanted to do was ask her if I really needed to live with the guys, but when I rounded the end of the hall, turning into the kitchen, I found it wasn’t Ramona. No, it was one of the guys, and he was probably the hottest guy I’d ever seen in my life.

He looked up, his eyes a beautiful gray color. His hair was blond, similar to my natural color, and it hung messily over his forehead. A sloppy half smile formed on his face, and he strolled over to me as he flashed me his pearly whites. I spotted just the tips of a tattoo coming up from his V-neck.

God, the guy was tall, too. A few inches over six feet, I’d guess. I had to crane my neck back to look up at him, and I fought to resist gulping and taking a step back to put more space between us.

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