Page 61 of Ticket to the Stars: Part Two

“Oh,” her mom said, waving us off, “I’m sure there’s a lot more than just a poster.”

And there was. After the guys and I traveled down the short hall, we turned into Cleo’s room, and what we saw was nothing short of a shrine. Multiple posters of us—including a new one with Angel, though many were from older merch releases, with Pope on them. She had placed sticky notes on Pope’s face to block him out, even drawn a frowny-face with X’s for eyes on them, my guess as to not damage the actual poster itself.

On her walls, on the inside of her door. The girl had Black Sacrament stuff upeverywhere.

“Yeah,” Cleo said as she hopped up onto her bed. “I kind of asked for a bunch of stuff for Christmas. I’m probably your guys’ biggest fan, huh?”

“You definitely are,” Priest spoke with a smirk. “Now, where’s a marker?”

Cleo had to race out of her room to grab a marker from another room, and when she came back, she handed it to me so I could sign everything first.

It took a while. Of course it did. The girl’s room was filled with Black Sacrament stuff, and I couldn’t sign one thing without signing a whole bunch of others. While I went from item to item, poster to poster, signing my fake-signature, Cleo rattled off a list of her favorite songs. It seemed the girl could talk and talk and never get tired.

By the time I handed over the marker to Deacon, my wrist ached—and that was saying something, since I was used to holding a guitar. Priest was busy amusing Cleo by answering all the questions she threw at him, so while Deacon started signing his name, I took the opportunity to slip out of her room and find Angel’s room.

It wasn’t a long hall like the Redborne. Angel’s room was literally right across the hall, and when I stepped inside, I was met with a neat, tidy room that looked like your average teen girl’s room. A fraction of the size of the rooms at the Redborne. A fluffy bedspread, pictures hanging on the wall with Angel, Cleo, and their mom huddled together, smiling. On her dresser sat a few pictures of her and afriend, my guess this Alexa girl. They looked happy together.

I picked one of the small frames up and brought it closer to my face to study her. Based on the braces Angel wore in the picture, I’d say this was taken a few years back. She had a pimple on the left side of her nose too, big and red and angry. I chuckled once I noticed. They were at some festival, sitting at a wooden picnic table, their hands covered in something white. The remnants of whatever they’d finished eating, if the empty, grease-covered paper plate near them was any indication.

“Uh, excuse me, sir,” Angel’s voice filled the room, “but I don’t think you were invited here.”

I grinned, turning around to watch Angel step into the room, holding her hands behind her back. Her white hair was free, tumbling over her shoulders in messy waves, her blue eyes so big and mesmerizing. “I was just looking at this picture,” I told her, offering it to her once she got closer.

She took it from me, smiling softly as she studied it. “This is a terrible picture,” she said. “Alexa’s mom took us to the county fair, and she just had to take a picture of us while we were eating a funnel cake.” She brought the picture closer to her face, and then made a disgusted sound. “Ugh, I have a pimple, too. Just,” she paused as she returned the picture to its rightful place on her dresser, “pretend you didn’t see that.”

“Why would I pretend?” I asked, moving behind her. She still faced her dresser, so her back was to me, and I setmy hands on her hips and made her lean back against my chest. “This happened during the years I missed.”

She hummed against me. “Trust me, you didn’t miss much. It was all braces and acne. It’s good you skipped those years.”

“No,” I told her, leaning my head forward so I could kiss her cheek from the side. “I’d give anything to go back and spend all those years with you.”

“I wouldn’t.” Angel turned around so she was facing me, a gentle smile tugging at her lips. “Because if things were different back then, we wouldn’t be here now… and I wouldn’t trade this away for anything.”

She lifted a hand, setting it on my cheek and dragging those soft fingers down my jaw, igniting a fire within me just from that one tender touch. Just like that, I wished we were back at the Redborne and not here, if only so I could feel that hand everywhere on my body.

She had that power over me. I couldn’t say it was a power any other girl ever had.

Things couldn’t exactly get hot and heavy since we were at her house, where her mom and sister were—with her bedroom door open, let’s not forget—but I couldn’t stand there and not do anything. So, I leaned my head down and brushed my lips against hers, kissing her softly, slowly, with the same kind of tenderness her touch had instilled in me.

God, I could kiss these lips forever. Kissing her was like coming home. Wherever we went, as long as we weretogether, I was home. She was absolutely everything to me, and I couldn’t picture any sort of future without her.

“Whoa there, Nelly,” Priest joked, causing Angel and I to pull apart and turn to watch him and Deacon enter her bedroom. With the four of us in here, it felt crowded, not at all like the Redborne rooms. Heck, her bed couldn’t fit the four of us, let alone three. “Now’s not the time for secret smoochies.”

“Smoochies?” Angel repeated with a chuckle. “I think my sister rubbed off on you already.”

Priest threw a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to Cleo’s room across the hall. “Are you kidding? That girl is certifiable. Do you know she threatened to kill us? After coming into our rooms and taping us while we’re snoring, that is. Now, I tried to tell her I don’t snore, that Deacon’s the only one—”

Deacon glared, his scowl intensifying as he muttered, “I don’t snore.”

“But,” Priest went on, “she didn’t believe me. Such a precocious little girl. I don’t get how you’re related. You two are like opposites.”

Angel opened her mouth to say something back, but her mom poked her head in from the hall. “Are you four going to stay for dinner? Because I’ll cook, if so. The last dish I’ve mastered is meatloaf. I’m pretty proud.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world” was Priest’s response, while I nodded and told her, “Yeah, we’ll stay.”

As her mom smiled and disappeared from view, Angel sighed and whispered under her breath, “Meatloaf. Hopefully it’s good. My mom never really learned to cook since she was always working. It was always whatever I could make Cleo and me. This should be interesting.”

And, what would you know, it was. The only thing was their table couldn’t sit six, so we had to crowd around the living room to eat. Angel sat on the couch with Priest and Cleo, while Deacon and I sat on the floor, using the coffee table as a, you know, table. Her mother sat on the reclining chair.

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