Page 73 of Spark

“The feeling’s mutual,” Cooper mutters.

“Good,” Kendrick says. “Because I don’t like being friends with whiny little clout-chasing bitches.”

As the room explodes, once again, I rub my forehead. So much for us focusing on our shared love of music. And so much for us not confirming we’re the muses for the song.

“Oooh, things are getting a bit heated between these boys,” Sunshine purrs. “My goodness, tempers are flaring, aren’t they?” She smiles sweetly at Cooper. “Why do you think you two aren’t friends, my dear?”

“It’s hard to be friends with a guy who pretends to be best friends with your girlfriend so he can steal her at his first opportunity.”

In response to Cooper’s comment, Kendrick does something that wakes up every hair follicle on my body: he slideshis big palm onto my thigh and leaves it there for everyone, including Cooper, to see. In context, the gesture feels like he’s saying, “Mine, mine, mine.”

“Nobodystoleme,” I choke out, placing my hand on Kendrick’s forearm as he continues holding onto my thigh. “I’m a person, not a pack of gum at 7-Eleven. But you know what? Let’s be real here. With both of these men sitting here, we can all plainly see one is a man, and the other is a toddler, so I don’t think anyone would blame me if I did what Cooper claims. I didn’t, by the way. My hand to God. But would you blame me if I did?”

As the crowd loses it, I search for Reed’s dark gaze at the back of the room again, and when I find it, he flashes me a wink that says, “Nailed it.”

There’s some more back-and-forth, during which Cooper seems shell-shocked, and Kendrick seems super-charged. But finally, Sunshine starts wrapping things up by extolling the exciting things to come this season.

“Excuse me,” I say, when Sunshine seems like she’s wrapping things up. “Sorry, but I don’t want this press conference to end without me thanking Kendrick for having my back here and everywhere else.” I smile at Kendrick. “Thank you, babe. I didn’t have this kind of unwavering support in my prior, extremely brief, relationship, so it means the world to me.”

With that, I lean in to kiss Kendrick’s cheek, but he turns his head and tenderly kisses my lips. It’s a brief smooch—one delivered with a gentle touch of his lips to mine, followed by the smallest hint of his warm tongue. But it rocks my world and makes me want to kiss him again and again. Only more passionately, like at his birthday party. And, for the first time ever, in private.

20

RUBY

“La la la la la . .Laila!Laila!”

I’m singing the famous hook from our global hit, “Hate Sex High,” alongside my two friends, Laila and Miranda. But I’m not onstage from behind my keyboard, as usual. No, this time, I’m bouncing around joyfully on a packed dance floor, as a group of top-tier, famous musicians, none of them members of my band, bang out this party favorite and make it their own.

It's the raucous after-party at Reed Rivers’ house. As he always does when he throws one of his famous parties, he’s got a stage set up in the massive main room of his mansion where all the A-list musicians in attendance can climb onstage, at their pleasure, with a random assortment of musicians and perform for the rowdy, mostly inebriated crowd.

As always, the performances tonight have been nothing short of epic. All night long, amazing River Records musicians, whether they’re in a band or known as a solo artist, have mixed and matched in random, impossible-to-predict combinations and brought us surprise covers of party favorites. The only rule of Reed’s game? Whatever the random group selectsto perform, it can’t be a song anyone onstage performs in their day job.

Yes, occasionally, I’ve seen musicians at Reed’s parties break this cardinal rule. For instance, when the raucous crowd demands it in no uncertain terms. But normally, what we get is exactly the kind of once-in-a-lifetime performance the partygoers are experiencing now: a breathtaking assemblage of musicians, including the legendary drummer, C-Bomb, of Red Card Riot, brilliantly performing another artist’s song.

Currently, the band onstage is barreling toward one of the most famous lines from “Hate Sex High”: the one Savage deadpans in a smug, spoken voice: “You came three times.” And the dance floor is buzzing with anticipation, ready to sing along when Dean Masterson, the lead singer of Red Card Riot, delivers the iconic line. But much to the thrill of the audience rocking out and watching with anticipation, when the time comes, Dean throws it over to C-Bomb, which then causes everyone in the entire party to lose their minds in a whole new way. I mean, come on.C-Bombdelivered “You came three times”?Somebody pinch me.

After C-Bomb says the famous words, I high-five Laila, since that line was written about her. I can’t even imagine how electrifying it must feel to be the person who inspired a song. A nice one, anyway, unlike what Cooper wrote about me. And then to have that song go on to become a global sensation, an iconic song that will be played at parties for decades to come, now that certain lines from it have reached singalong status. But on top of all that, Laila now gets to hear one of the sexiest, burliest, biggest bad boys in all of music perform the line written forher,while her husband can only look on helplessly from wherever he is at this party and watch his wife get aurally fucked by another man? If it were me, I’d need the crash cart.

After high-fiving lucky Laila, I high-five, Miranda,since she’s C-Bomb’s little sister, and I can easily see she’slovingthis wickedly fun moment for her big brother. From there, I look around for Savage and Kendrick, since I know they’re probably partying together, and I’m dying to see their reactions.

When I locate them, I’m surprised to find them standing at the side of the raised stage. Not surprisingly, both men look thrilled with the performance of our song. But even better than that, at least for me, is the fact that Savage and Kendrick are standing next to two musicians from two other bands, which can only mean one thing in the context of a Reed Rivers party: Our Fugitive Summer boys are waiting in the wings to climb onto that stage to perform some random song that’s decidedly not in our band’s catalog.

I swat Laila’s arm like a maniac and excitedly direct her attention to Kendrick and Savage, and Laila instantly screams and jumps up and down at the sight of them. In a frenzy, we both direct Miranda’s attention to the same spot, and our friend immediately shares our over-the-top reaction.

Miranda shouts something to Laila I can’t make out, thanks to the loud music, but I’m able to guess the gist of the comment when Laila shouts in reply, “I had no idea!” With a cackle of delight, Laila turns to me and bats my arm. “That man is definitely getting fucked tonight!” When I snicker with her, Laila shocks me by adding: “And so is Savage!”

As I gasp at her implication, Laila throws back her head and laughs from the depths of her soul. It’s not the first time Laila’s dropped a little hint about Kendrick and me getting together. All day long, she’s been making suggestive comments like that.

Why? That’s the question. Is she merely referring to the fake relationship we play-acted during the press conference? Or is she dead serious—as in, she can tell I’ve become increasingly Kendrick-curious over the past week? As in, perhaps shesees something I can’t see myself about Kendrick’s possible sexual interest in me? At this point, I’m fervently hoping that last option is the thing that’s been egging her on. But I can’t tell for sure, and I’ve been too afraid to ask.

Till now, that is.

Thanks to liquid courage, perhaps, and maybe also combined with the natural high of all this dancing and singing we’re doing, and maybe even thanks to C-Bomb making my panties damp with his delivery of the famous line from our song, I’m suddenly feeling empowered to throw caution to the wind and ask Laila why the hell she’s been brazenly shipping Kendrick and me today.

I pull Laila’s ear to my mouth. “Why do you keep joking about Kendrick and me getting together? Do you know something I don’t?”

Laila opens and closes her mouth, her expression like a kid caught with cookie crumbs all over her lips. But after a beat, Laila taps her ear and makes an “I can’t hear you!” face, right before abruptly turning toward the stage to glory in the remainder of the epic performance.

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