The Star Kissed Collection

by Jamie Campbell

  Chapter Three

  No matter how many times I saw Two Dimension perform, the excitement never left me. I wondered how many times would make it boring. Fifty? A hundred? The European leg of their tour had thirty-four performances, I guessed I would find out.

  To me, Cole would always be the star of the show. His voice was strong and melodic, I could listen to him sing all day long. He rarely sung just for me, I think he was embarrassed to. I didn’t want to admit to him that it was my fantasy.

  They were up to the second last song of the night so it was time I made my move. I was standing at the back of the arena, behind the last row of chairs. If I didn’t slip out a door and make it backstage before the crowds let out, I wasn’t going to make it. I would be the fish swimming upstream and those tweens could be vicious.

  I exited stage right and tried to remember where the secret doors were. They were dotted around the place, all non-descript and leading directly to the back of the stage area. You had to know what you were looking for, or you’d walk right past them. Which was kind of the point.

  The Parisians had done too good a job of hiding them. I found myself walking around in circles. I ran out of time as the doors burst open and the audience started filing out like storming elephants.

  Putting my back against the wall, I tried to let them all pass me by. The last thing I wanted to do was get swept away and end up in the parking lot or underground station.

  I was joined by a girl, she wouldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen. She was smiling at me weirdly, I shuffled a little further along the wall.

  “I know you,” she said in a perfect British accent. I wondered if that was a threat or if she was just making conversation. “You’re Cole Newton’s girlfriend.”

  “You must have the wrong person,” I replied, hoping my American accent didn’t give me away. If I thought faster, I would have pretended not to speak English. That might have worked better in convincing her.

  “Nope, I don’t. Your name is Melrose Morgan. I know everything about Two Dimension.” She seemed pretty pleased with herself. Did I look that smug when I talked about my knowledge of the band? I hoped not. “Can you take me backstage to meet them? My favorite is Luke. Please?”

  The first thing that came to mind was why did everyone like Luke the best? He was like a flame to the girly moths. They couldn’t keep away.

  “Nobody’s allowed backstage, sorry,” I replied. I really wished the sea of bodies would disburse so I could make my escape.

  “But please? I just want to say hello. It will only take a second. I won’t be any trouble.”

  A few girls overheard our conversation and stepped out of the stream of people around me. They kept jostling me in the small space.

  “You’re Cole’s girlfriend,” one of the girls said happily. Apparently I had my own little fan club. “What’s it like kissing him?” And apparently they all wanted to know the gory details.

  “It’s, uh, not really-” They didn’t let me finish before firing off a barrage of questions in my direction.

  “Forget kissing, what’s he like in bed?”

  “Is his hair as soft as it looks?”

  “Does he sing, like all the time?”

  “Is Truly Beautiful written about you?”

  “Can I meet him?”

  “Can you give me his number?”

  “Will he do my voicemail message for me?”

  Now I knew what a squished bug felt like. I tried to take a few deep breaths. Don’t freak out, Melrose, don’t freak out. You’re bigger than them, you can push them away if you need to.

  “I really need to get going,” I said, wishing it sounded more stern than shaky. It didn’t, but a girl could wish. My words didn’t work so I needed to start using some force.

  “Let me through, I’ve got to go. Thank you for coming tonight, I know the boys all appreciate everyone being here.” I kept talking, making a small pathway for myself. In the time it took the girls to bail me up, the crowd had disbursed a little.

  I lost myself in the flow, frantically trying to locate one of the secret doors. Any door would have been fine – even if it was a fire door and set off all the alarms.

  Finally, a white door shone in front of me like a bright stairway to heaven. I turned the handle and burst through it, closing it just as quickly. I stood against the cold cement wall and let it settle my nerves.

  Only when I recovered did I really look around. The corridor stretched on forever, probably leading to a maze of hallways. I guessed there was no use standing around like a fool and headed off. Unless the arena had a secret torture chamber, I was going to be fine. Right?

  My phone beeped with a message in my pocket, scaring me half to death in the silence. It was from Cole, he was wondering where I was. I sent a message back that I was on my way. I hoped that wasn’t a lie and I would get back there eventually.

  Why did they have to make concert venues so confusing? I swore, even if I had a map, I wouldn’t have been able to make sense of the place. Tunnels seemed to go in every direction, probably all going around in circles to get you completely confounded.

  It was official, I was confounded. Their evil plan worked and I was doomed to roam the corridors of the Paris arena for all of eternity. They would probably discover my bones in two hundred years, my skeleton in the fetal position at the end of a dead end.

  “Hey, there you are.” Cole’s voice made me jump as he crept up behind me. I spun around, never happier to see him. “Is everything okay?” He asked. Now he was confounded too. We made a good pair.

  “I thought I was lost,” I admitted. “But you found me, thank goodness. I will be sure to thank you appropriately later.”

  He smirked, pulling me tighter against him. “I like the sound of that. You should get lost more often.”

  I didn’t want him to see me blushing so I pushed him toward the green room. Everything looked a little more familiar now I wasn’t freaking out.

  The rest of the band were relaxing around the place, coming down from the adrenalin of performing. One of the first things I noticed about the guys was how much they genuinely loved being on stage. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than standing up in front of thousands of people and singing. But they thrived off it, loving every single second.

  “Melrose, finally, I thought we’d lost you,” Luke said, giving me a hug in mock exaggeration. “We were this close to sending out a search party.”

  “Sorry, guys. I got caught up in the crowd. Bailed up, more accurately.”

  Reed gave me a cheeky smile. “Bailed up? That sounds like fun. Were they cute?”

  “If a bunch of thirteen year olds asking me if Cole kisses well is fun, then I guess I had a ball.” I flopped down on the lounge, Cole right beside me.

  “Ah, girls and their questions,” Dylan commented as he went back to his iPad.

  Cole looked at me seriously. “You’re all missing the biggest issue here. What did you tell them about my kissing?”

  My face relaxed into a smile before shrugging. “I said you were okay.” Which then started a tickling frenzy as Cole grabbed me.

  I couldn’t stop giggling as he attacked my ribs, making me laugh like there was no tomorrow. At that point, I didn’t care. My breath caught in my throat as I gasped for air.

  “Enough… stop…” I panted, only half-heartedly begging.

  “Say I’m a great kisser,” Cole teased. “Then I’ll stop.”

  I defiantly clamped my mouth shut until the giggles made their way through again. I couldn’t take his relentless tickling for much longer. “Okay… you’re a great kisser. The… best… in the world.”

  He stopped. I sat on his lap, panting and gasping for some oxygen. My head lolled backwards to rest on his shoulder as his arms snaked around my waist and pulled me closer toward him.

  “Are you ready to go?” He whispered in my ear. I wondered if my legs would be able to hold me up yet. At least if they didn’t, it would be a go
od excuse to get some more cuddle action from Cole.

  “If you’re ready,” I replied. He kissed my hair and pushed me to my feet. We said goodbye to the few guys that were left and headed for the back door where the drivers were waiting for us.

  Chapter Four

  My hotel room seemed empty as I turned on the lights. “Are you going to come in?” I asked Cole as he leant against the doorframe.

  “Do you want me to?” He shot straight back at me. Cole normally didn’t come into my room. I was pretty sure my father put the fear of death into him before we left Meadowbrook.

  I gestured emphatically like the girls who showcase the prizes on a game show. “Mr. Cole Newton, please come in and join me in this luxurious hotel room.”

  He bowed and crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him. “You keep your distance, Miss Morgan. I’m sure your father has spies everywhere.”

  I crossed the room and threw my arms around him, proving that nothing would keep us apart. I kissed his neck as it was all I could reach without standing on tiptoes. He swept me up into his arms, finally planting a lingering kiss on my lips.

  “I was so worried today when all those girls attacked you,” I confessed. He placed me back onto my feet and we walked over to the bed to sit on it. It was the only place in the room where we could sit together.

  “Those girls wouldn’t have hurt me,” he replied, brushing a stray strand of my hair back to behind my ear. His fingers left a trail of tingles across my skin. “They would have left me alone eventually.”

  “I don’t know. You’re pretty irresistible,” I said playfully, earning another lip-smacking kiss. I could have played that game all night long. We settled in closer, lying on the bed in each other’s arms and staring up at the ceiling.

  “When I couldn’t find you after the show tonight, I couldn’t breathe,” Cole whispered, so quietly I wasn’t sure if I heard correctly. “All these horrible thoughts came to mind, like you’d been hurt or someone had taken you. Or maybe you’d finally gotten sick of me and left.”

  I swatted his chest. “I wouldn’t do that. I would at least leave a note.” He held up a tickling hand in threat. I quickly added, “I’m joking. It was my own fault really, I was too busy daydreaming about you and didn’t notice the show was about to end.”

  “Really?” He sounded amused, I didn’t even have to see his face to know he would have a grin spread across his lips.

  “Really. But if you tell anyone that, I will kill you. I don’t care if you are Cole Newton or not.”

  He squeezed me tighter with the arm that was around my shoulder. “I daydream about you all the time. And I mean all… the… time.”

  My face heated a little with the thought. I knew what I dreamed about, but what on earth did he? My mind raced with all the possibilities.

  “So what were you thinking about?” Cole asked, bringing me out of my reverie.

  “About what?”

  “When you were watching the concert.”

  My face definitely blushed then. I shared with him the only part that didn’t make me want to die of embarrassment. “I was thinking how good a singer you are. And that you never sing to me.”

  He propped himself up on his elbow to stare down at me. “I didn’t think you’d want me to sing to you. I thought you might think it was cheesy.”

  “It is cheesy… on paper. But it would be sweet, I love listening to you.”

  Cole settled back down again, pulling me even closer again. If he did it once more, I would probably be lying on top of him. “I promise to sing to you sometime. But it won’t be any old song, it will be something special.”

  A warmth flooded through me. Because if there was anything I could bank on, it was a Cole Newton promise. He never went back on his word. Absolutely never.

  We talked into the night, despite our early morning wakeup call that was awaiting us before too long. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep with my head resting on Cole’s chest.

  I woke up before the alarm, still wrapped in his arms. It felt so perfect I didn’t want to get up. But I had to if I wanted a shower before we left.

  I extracted myself from Cole’s grip and found some clothes before heading for the bathroom. There was only a few minutes before the phone would ring with the wakeup, he wouldn’t be sleeping peacefully for too much longer.

  Three hours later we touched down at the Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport in Rome, Italy. I had always wanted to visit the ancient city and there I was, barreling down the highway in a fancy car with one fifth of the world’s biggest boy band beside me. Another two fifths were seated in front of us.

  I tried to take in everything, from the mopeds weaving through traffic to the old buildings standing alongside the new. Everything was shiny and bright, I wanted to remember every little thing.

  “This is awesome,” I said to no-one in particular. Cole squeezed my hand in reply.

  We went straight to the venue so the boys could do a sound check while our luggage went directly to the hotel. Hopefully anyway, I still wasn’t used to the touring system. Cole never cared where his luggage went, he told me if it didn’t turn up, he’d just buy more clothes. I was a little more attached to my stuff than he was – obviously.

  The concert stadium wasn’t in the Colosseum like I had secretly hoped. It was a normal, twenty-first century arena. It was also really cold with nobody but the crew inside.

  I sat in the empty audience seats and took a few photos to tweet, remembering my job. Cole thought he was really clever hiring me so I would agree to come with him on tour instead of working at Burger Nation to make ends meet all summer. I knew he only offered me the job because I needed to be working, but I was determined to do great work anyway. I doubted I could actually get fired but I wasn’t going to give Cole a reason to cop any flack.

  Two Dimension sounded great, I could never work out why they needed to spend so much time in rehearsals and sound checks. They could have gone out on stage and forgotten all their words and everybody would still love them. Their true fans wouldn’t even notice.

  Scott, the tour manager, stormed in from backstage. I averted my eyes, trying to be invisible. I didn’t need to add to his problems and he always seemed to have many of them.

  “Stop. Band meeting. Now,” he demanded, silencing the music. The boys jumped off the stage to stand around him. Looking closer, his face was beet red. My stomach clenched with what he could be so angry about.

  “What’s up?” Reed asked, probably the only one brave enough to. My eyes locked with Cole for just a moment before he turned his attention back to his manager.

  Scott scanned the area, eyeballing everyone in the gigantic room before finally settling on me. Now I really wished I was invisible. “Melrose, this involves you too. Get over here.”

  I didn’t dare dawdle. I practically jumped over the chairs to stand in their group. Not a word was going to escape from my mouth for fear of incurring any wrath.

  “Has anyone checked their phones this morning?” Scott started. The boys all looked around, shrugging.

  “No, we haven’t had a chance since the flight touched down. We came straight here and got into it.” Reed again, the informally elected leader of the pack.

  “Well, you should,” Scott continued. “Because we have a leak. Someone has been selling photos to the media. All your ugly mugs are everywhere this morning. I need to know who did this.”

  It could have been paranoia, but I’m sure everyone looked at me. Actually, it wasn’t paranoia, they were all looking at me. “It wasn’t me,” I said.

  “Who else has that kind of access to the boys?” Scott asked, drilling me in the eyes and not even blinking. I instantly felt like a two year old being scolded by her mother.

  “It wasn’t me. I wouldn’t do that,” I repeated.

  “It wasn’t Melrose,” Cole interjected. “She doesn’t have to leak photos, she puts them all over social media anyway. It’s her job.”

/>   Scott turned to face him slowly, scarily slow. “And she would make a whole lot more money by selling them to the media, now, wouldn’t she? She could earn enough money to put herself through college a dozen times over.”

  “It wasn’t her,” he said again, standing taller against Scott. At least one of them was defending me. I couldn’t believe they actually thought I could do that to them. I knew how much their privacy was worth to them, there was no way I would ever betray them like that.

  “And how can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know Melrose and it wasn’t her.”

  Scott wasn’t buying it, I could tell from the way he was clenching his jaw tighter by the second. He turned back to me. “If you hand over every photo you have in your possession, I will arrange a ticket home and we will not take legal action.”

  “You can’t talk to her like that,” Cole insisted. “Melrose isn’t going anywhere. If you send her home, you’ll have to send me too.”

  “Cole, don’t-” I was cut off.

  “How about we don’t jump to conclusions,” Luke said. “Nobody’s going anywhere until we know for sure who our leak is. Just because Melrose has a camera, doesn’t mean it was her. Right?” He looked around at the other band members and Scott. Nobody looked happy.

  I couldn’t take it any longer. I wasn’t going to stand there and be accused of something I didn’t – and would never – do. Especially without any evidence or witnesses, you needed that when accusing someone, right? Apparently not in Scott’s mind.

  “Mel, wait,” Cole called out but I wasn’t going to wait for anything. I couldn’t face them all knowing they could think I would do something to them like that.

  If there was one thing I knew about the boys it was that they never got any privacy. They lived with the fear that all their deepest, darkest, and naughtiest secrets would come to light for all the world to see. They regarded trust as their most prized possession and now they saw me as a traitor.

  I burst through the doors with tears stinging my eyes. The warm sun was blindingly bright as I hailed a cab. I needed to be as far away from there as possible. Their accusing faces replayed in my mind like a horror movie.