Page 37 of Ticket to the Stars: Part One

But Angel…

Wait. No, she was also off-limits. Ramona had made that clear.

As if to change the subject, Angel sighed and said, “I wonder what I’ll look like up there on stage. Will I have to wear a mask and paint my body too?” She was right. No use lingering in what she’d said before. Better for both of us if we moved on.

“Probably, otherwise people might recognize you.”

“That’s what I don’t get. When you guys do interviews and stuff, does that mean you’re always dressed up like you’re about to go on stage?”

I nodded. “Yep. Anytime we’re in public as Black Sacrament, we have to look and act the part.”

That’s how it went for a while. Angel would ask me a question about Black Sacrament’s history or how we worked, what was normal for us, and I’d tell her. Eventually it got to the point where she stopped paying attention to the TV across from us and had turned her body toward mine on the couch, laser-focused on me.

It was while I was busy telling her how our first tour went that she yawned and rested her head on the back cushion of the couch. She was inches away now, something I hadn’t realized until that exact moment.

“I bet girls throw themselves at you guys all the time,” she whispered with another yawn. Her whole body curled into mine, so close and yet not touching me anywhere.

“I mean, I guess. When we’re Black Sacrament, yeah. Off it, the girls mainly flock to Priest. Sometimes Bishop, but mostly Priest.” I’d leaned back a while ago, so her head was only a few inches away from my shoulder.

Angel whispered, “Why not you? I bet if you smiled more, you could get more girls.”

I rolled my head to the side to glare at her, but that glare lessened when, in doing so, our noses practically touched. “I’m not like Priest. I don’t care about getting all the girls I can.” Bishop wasn’t like that either. Priest and my brother… well, those two were more alike in that respect.

She was quiet for a while, and then she said, “It’s a good thing I’m not your guys’ type.”

“What makes you say that?” I would’ve been hard-pressed to admit it before, but now… now I didn’t know a single guy that would ever say this girl wasn’t their type. She was gorgeous, her skin was soft as shit, and she was brave—she had to be, to do this.

“I saw the kinds of girls who go crazy when you’re up on stage. How they look, what they wear… I’m just—” She turned her face away from me, staring at the ceiling instead. She touched her white hair. “This isn’t me. I’m just a normal girl from a small town.”

She’d be surprised. Bishop was from a small town too, before his parents got divorced. Priest’s only type was breathing, and as for me…

Let’s just say, after tonight, I was starting to see the appeal of having this girl around. To say she’s not my type simply because of where she came from and what she wore would do her a great injustice.

“For the record,” I whispered, “if you weren’t off-limits, I think it’d be a battle royale.”

Angel smiled at that. “I appreciate you saying that.” The way she said it, I could tell she didn’t think I was being genuine. She thought I was being sarcastic or something, but I wasn’t. I meant it.

This girl. I wanted to hate her. I wanted her to be unlikeable, but that’s not what she was. She was everything she shouldn’t be, which meant this whole thing was going to be a lot harder than I’d thought.

This thing might just work.

Chapter Sixteen – Angel

Sometime during the night, I must’ve fallen asleep, because when I came to, the sound of the TV didn’t greet me, which told me it had shut off on its own. Smart TVs creeped me out for that reason specifically. I had that fuzzy blanket I’d brought from my bedroom, and I currently was curled up against the back cushion of the couch. A wall of heat was behind me, securing me in place.

Wait a minute.

What?

I opened my eyes to see the cushion before me, so close my vision blurred. Behind me, someone else stirred, their body pressed against mine from behind, also underneath my blanket. An arm was curled around my midsection, holding me to them.

I replayed last night. I’d felt terrible, so I came out to watch some TV and be miserable on the couch—it’s what I always did at home. Something about the couch always made me sleepy in a way my bed never could. Deacon had come out to make himself a late-night dinner since he’d skipped Chinese…

It had to be Deacon behind me. But how did we end up like this? We’d been sitting side by side with each other, talking—and I’d come to realize the guy wasn’t half as bad as I’d initially thought—but this… I mean, we were cuddling.Cuddling. That’s what we were doing. Cuddling while sleeping, because apparently he’d stayed out here with me.

My cheeks flushed with heat, and I wondered how I could get out of this particular position without waking him. If he woke up and found us like this, what would he think? Would he assume Iwantedto be this close to him? Regardless of what my sister wanted me to do, none of these guys were my type. I would not come out of this with a crush on any of them, let alone three boyfriends.

I could honestly say that I understood Deacon a lot more now than I had before. Why he was so angry, why he didn’t like me or trust me. If I was in his shoes, and someone tried to take my brother’s place in the band that he’d started, I’d be pissed too.

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