Wait … does she know …? But how …?
I shake my head to clear the half-formed questions, refusing to give them voice. Then Marcus’s voice reaches us. “Kendra? Everything alright?”
She gives him a happy smile and slips past me, moving through the crowd of sweaty fans, smiling and nodding to the ones who notice her. Marcus stands as she approaches, and she steps into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his mouth to hers in a kiss that borders on pornographic, like they don’t have a room full of people watching them.
A few wolf-whistles and cat-calls punctuate the dull roar of talking voices, and heads swivel in Marcus and Kendra’s direction. But when I glance around, Mason’s eyes are on me, his smile wider than ever. He glances at Marcus and Kendra for a second, gives an approving nod, and then resumes signing the T-shirt in front of him, his lips moving as he speaks to the teenager next to him.
I glance back at Marcus and Kendra and see them settle back on the couch where he’s holding court. She’s pressed up against his side, his arm around her as Marcus continues chatting with fans and signing whatever’s thrust in front of him. He disengages from Kendra for a few of the selfies, but many of the fans are happy to have her in the pictures too, having followed their romance in the tabloids and on the fan sites, they feel just as connected with her as they do with Marcus. And since she rarely appears at these kinds of things, they think it’s a special treat, not a ploy to get Marcus to end the night early.
With another look at Mason, who looks up and meets my eyes like he has some kind of sixth sense alerting him to my attention, I sigh and shake my head.
I’m about ninety percent convinced that he put Kendra up to this. But with exhaustion dragging at me combined with Mason’s potent stares, I can’t say I object too strongly to an early night either.
A yawn cracks my jaw as I hold my phone to my ear, waiting for Blaire to pick up. I’ve been staying up late with Mason again, but this time I’m having a lot more fun. He’s tried to get Marcus to cut short the post-show meet and greets a few times, but only managed that first time. Marcus caught on the next night, glared at Mason across the room, and shook his head.
It’s my usual nap time right now, but it’s also one of the few times of day I might actually be able to reach Blaire. And since they’re joining our tour soon, we need to coordinate.
“Hey!” her cheerful voice cuts through the background noise on her end.
“Hey,” I return her greeting. “Where are you?”
“We just got to the airport, and we’re about to board the plane. I’m so excited that we’re touring together for a little while. It’s going to be so much fun! I’ve booked everything for Beckett’s tour and coordinated with Chad for you guys. Don’t worry, though, I double checked to make sure it’s all good on your end too.”
A grin pulls at my lips. Blaire doesn’t trust Chad to do his job. She’s encouraged me to double check all the bookings at least a week in advance so that there’s time to fix any snafus ahead of time. So far there hasn’t been anything major to fix, but I do it anyway just so that when she texts me and asks how things are going, I can reassure her that all is well.
She might’ve given up her job here to be Beckett Stone’s tour manager, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still care about “her guys,” as she still calls the band.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m still new, or because she started off with them, but I don’t feel quite the same level of possessiveness toward Marcus, Danny, Aaron, and Mason that she does. I like them all, for sure. And I particularly enjoy my time with Mason, especially in the last week since I finally gave in to my attraction to him and have spent every night in his bed since. But …
Nothing about this feels permanent to me. Whereas Blaire’s plan was to stay with Cataclysm forever, at least going in. She told me on more than one occasion that she couldn’t see herself anywhere else.
The fact that she’s now working on another tour just goes to show how much things can change, how plans don’t always go the way you intend. Granted, she’s in love with her boss and that certainly doesn’t hurt anything for her, but she fell in love with him after going to work for him. Meaning she was open to something else already.
Blaire and I chat for a few more minutes about the specifics of merging our two tours for the next several weeks before we hang up. Since Beckett and Cataclysm collaborated on the single they launched on a live performance on SNL, fans have been clamoring for another live performance.
The fans in the upcoming shows are going to get just that—a double-billed performance with a shortened set for the opening acts and a long night of huge star power with Cataclysm and Beckett Stone performing separate sets, the SNL single, and apparently a few other surprise collaborations that will debut tomorrow night on stage.
This is one set of plans that I can’t afford to screw up, though, regardless of how my life plans have turned out so far.
But no matter how I try to shake my conflicted thoughts about my future, I can’t seem to, and I stare at the blank screen of my phone while my parents’s words from our video chat yesterday play back in my head.
“How long are you going to play at this,
