by Oli White
I suddenly felt like an icy fist was squeezing my heart.
“But there’s nothing between me and Sophia; what was she thinking?”
“Try telling her that after she saw all that ‘hot new couple’ crap online,” Ava said. “Look, Jack, it really isn’t your fault. I’m not yelling at you, honestly. I’m just upset because after all these years of being the girl nobody wanted to hang out with, I finally had a best friend and now she’s gone and it’ll probably be ages before we see her again.”
Ava started to cry, tears spilling out by the bucketload, so I put my arms around her and pulled her close. I’m not going to lie, I felt absolutely gutted, but at the same time I couldn’t stand to see Ava breaking her heart like that—it was awful. As Ava let it all out and I did my absolute best to hold it all in, we were joined by Sai, Austin and even Miles in a sort of weird GenNext group hug that seemed to go on for ages, while poor AJ just looked on, bewildered.
Ten minutes later, I left the others to fill Ava in on the news about LA and stumbled out of Austin’s house into the greyest of days, and it really was gray in every single way. I felt dizzy and for a while I thought the bacon roll was going to make a reappearance right there on the pavement in front of me. I took a few deep breaths and then I walked for a while, just trying to get my head around the fact that Ella was gone and as far as I could figure there was nothing I could do about it. Not right then, anyway, and maybe not ever. A hundred thoughts flashed through my mind, one morphing into another and then another until I couldn’t keep up with any of them. I mean, how was it possible for the universe to make so many bad things happen in such a short space of time? Could someone please answer me that?
As I reached the park and the spot where Ella and I had kissed just a few weeks before, my phone beeped and buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. It was a text.
THE THREAT
So what now? There seemed to be a lot of questions that needed answering and not very much time to answer them before we were due to jet off to America to interview one of its biggest pop stars. No one actually said it out loud, but the major question on everyone’s mind was, could GenNext even survive without its front woman? I mean, Ella had been the face of the whole thing; she’d been the one that everyone was talking about when we first took off—she was the star—and while Austin, Ava and Sai all seemed convinced that I could step up and take over, I wasn’t so sure. Any confidence I’d gathered in the last few months had been shredded in a matter of days to the point where I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. All the drama with the video leak, and then Mum’s terrible news, and now Ella . . . I’d sort of lost my way, to be honest. The only thing that didn’t seem to be going downhill was GenNext’s popularity.
After a few heated discussions with the management team at Metronome, it was decided that Austin and I would be the ones taking the trip across the pond, with AJ accompanying us to oversee everything. As much as Ava was dying to go to LA, she said she couldn’t even consider missing her dad’s fiftieth birthday party, which was that same weekend—particularly as she was taking Suki along and introducing her to the entire family. Poor Sai agreed to stay behind and hold the fort at HQ because his ridiculously strict parents weren’t happy about the idea of him going, even though there’d be a member of the family with him.
We were only going to be out there for four days, but I felt pretty indecisive about taking the trip right up to the last minute, what with everything going on at home. After a heart-to-heart with Mum and Dad, who insisted I get myself “on that bloody plane,” I eventually caved. They might have had some reservations about the speed with which GenNext had taken off, but even they recognized that this would be a massive opportunity for us—and one that might not come around again. Mum was due to go for her tests the day after I left, but she insisted that I’d be back before the results came in, and that she’d keep me up to date with everything via WhatsApp and FaceTime. In the end, I told Austin I was good to go. I made a deal with myself that I wouldn’t tell him—or the other GenNext members—about my mum until we got her results. I didn’t want to put a massive dampener on the trip . . . plus, saying it aloud to my friends would have made it feel even more real and frightening, you know?
The evening before we left for LA, Austin, Sai, Ava and I sat on the abandoned sofa on the roof of Sai’s building so we could put our heads together one last time and agree on the vibe of the interview and the kinds of questions Austin and I were going to ask Harriet Rushworth. Earlier that day we’d completely immersed ourselves in her YouTube channel, watching all her music videos plus a bunch of her interviews from American TV shows and a guest slot she did on Saturday Night Live. I had to admit, she was pretty amazing. I mean, apart from being a talented writer and performer who made great pop music, she was smart, quirky and emphatic about giving back to her fans and empowering girls and young women. She certainly wasn’t the type you could interview in a bath of chocolate milk. No, that wasn’t Harriet Rushworth at all.
“The one thing it can’t be is boring,” Ava said after we’d run over the questions for the thousandth time. She was frowning and waving her finger at us like a teacher reprimanding a class of naughty five-year-olds. “It’s still got to be us; it’s got to be edgy and quirky. Don’t go all Hollywood just because that’s where you are. At the end of the day it’s still got to be GenNext, OK?”
Austin and I both nodded, and I felt a whole swarm of butterflies crashing around in my stomach.
“We’ll keep it cool,” I said.
“And you are going to FaceTime or Skype with us every day, right?” Poor Sai looked like he was going to cry, and I felt crap about leaving him behind.
“Yes, Sai, how could I go a single day without seeing that cute little face?” Austin laughed.
Ava jumped up and stood in front of us, looking deadly serious and even more like a teacher.
“Joking aside, this might be make or break for us,” she said. “Yes, we were lucky to pull everything back after Jack’s little escapade—no offense, mate—but now we’ve got to withstand losing Ella and that might not be easy, because she was just . . .”
Nobody answered and nobody had to; we all knew what she meant. Everyone stayed quiet for a few seconds; all I could hear was the sound of birds and distant traffic. Then Ava made for the door.
“Right, I’m off to scope out a pressie for my dad’s birthday. Good luck, boys; you’ll kill it, I know you will.”
Austin followed suit and jumped off the sofa.
“Yeah, and I need to take Jess on a second date before I head off, just to make sure she realizes what an all-round amazing dude she’s landed.”
“Lucky Jess,” Ava laughed, rolling her eyes.
“Look, I need to leave her wanting more of this,” Austin said, lifting up his T-shirt and exposing what he clearly felt almost passed for a six-pack.
“Tell them what you’re actually doing with her, though,” Sai said.
Austin looked down at the floor sheepishly.
“My mum’s making us a lasagna and we’re watching Avengers Assemble on DVD with Miles.”
Ava and I laughed, and that felt good, you know? After everything that had happened in the past few weeks, I was determined to get my act together for this trip to LA. To make it the start of something great for GenNext.
We said our goodbyes and then I headed home. There was no question about what I was doing that night, aside from packing, of course. I was simply going to hang out with my mum. Yeah, I know it doesn’t sound very rock ’n’ roll, but that was all I wanted to do.
Just as I reached my house, a car blasted its horn and almost scared the crap out of me. I whipped my head around to see a white Beamer with blacked-out windows parked opposite my house. I scanned the area to see if there was anyone else around that the blast might have been aimed at—there wasn’t. Weird, right? Deciding to ignore it, I turned back and started walking toward the house, but then the car horn blasted ag
ain, only this time it was relentless, so I headed over to find out who the idiot was behind it. As I got closer, the driver’s seat window lowered slowly, and there it was . . . of course . . . Hunter. He was grinning like a maniac and doing this stupid little wave, like he was greeting a toddler.
“Hey there, pretty boy,” he said, just as I reached the side of the car.
“No Ferrari, Hunter? You must be slumming it,” I said.
“Must be, driving around this neighborhood,” he said.
I wasn’t in the mood to play games. “What do you want?”
“Not much,” he said, leaning out of the car. “I just wanted to see how you were getting on after that embarrassing little performance of yours leaked online. What an unlucky coincidence that someone just happened to have their iPhone camera on at the moment you were making a total mug of yourself.” He shook his head in mock disapproval.
I’d been right all along, of course. Who else would have gone to so much trouble to make me look like an idiot for all the world to see? Who else would want to screw everything up for me like that?
“Why did you do it?” I said. “Why does somebody like you even care about me and what I’m doing? You’ve got a big house, loads of money; what possible reason could there be for you to start messing around with my life?”
“As usual, you’re proving what I’ve always known about you, Penman: that you’ve got a very high opinion of yourself,” Hunter said lazily.
“Whatever,” I said. “Was there anything else I can help you with?”
“There is actually,” he said, his false smile falling fast as his jaw tightened. “I want to know if it’s true about Ella.”
“If what’s true?”
“That she’s gone; left the country or some rubbish.”
“You mean she didn’t tell you?” I gasped in mock surprise. “Isn’t that strange . . . Oh no, wait! She dumped you, didn’t she, Hunter? That’s right, she dumped you because she found out what a complete and utter loser you are.”
By the end of the sentence I was almost shouting, and Hunter had such fury in his eyes I had no idea what was going to happen next. I could only ever remember someone looking at me with that much hatred once before: the time those two idiots attacked me at the back of the bus, putting me in the hospital. It crossed my mind that Hunter might be about to try the same thing, but instead he just sat there in his car, fuming.
“It was your fault she finished with me,” he spat finally. “It’s your fault she’s gone, and don’t think for a minute I’m going to forget that.”
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself to help you sleep at night,” I said, turning to walk away.
I was over this now; I just wanted to get indoors, back to my family. As far as I was concerned, this chapter of my life—the chapter that contained Hunter and anything in his world—was closed.
“You can walk away with that smug grin on your face if you like, Penman, but trust me . . . it won’t last long.”
I stopped in my tracks and turned around to face him again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“You know me, Jack.” There was a sudden eerie calm in his voice. “Watch this space; the fun’s not over yet.”
He started the engine and I felt my blood run cold. Now I really did feel like I was back on that bus. Surely he was just spouting off, right? Surely all this crap was over now. Still, I wasn’t going to let him have the last word. Not this time.
“You’re no gangster, Hunter; you’re just a rich kid with too much time on his hands. Pathetic. Do everyone a favor and go drive that thing of a cliff, will you?”
This time there was no retaliation from Hunter; he just chuckled to himself and shook his head like I was some sort of idiot. He revved the car loudly and then pulled it into reverse so suddenly that I had to jump backward out of the way. I watched him speed off, following the car with my gaze until it was out of sight around the corner, leaving me standing in the middle of the road feeling extremely unnerved.
OK, so I was fazed for an hour or two by Hunter’s threats—wouldn’t you have been? By the next morning, though, after I’d thought about it with a clearer head, I realized how weak and pathetic it all was. I truly almost felt sorry for the guy; I mean, what was he going to do anyway? I certainly wasn’t going to put myself in a position to be caught up in any more of his scams to ruin GenNext. Hunter was over; he just didn’t want to admit it. In fact, as far as I was concerned, the minute the chauffeur-driven black Jag XJ pulled up outside my house at 7 a.m. to take me to the airport, it was a case of Hunter who?
“I like your style, AJ,” I said, climbing into the car after dumping my bag in the boot.
“I thought we should start as we mean to go on,” AJ laughed from the passenger seat.
Austin had been picked up first, and I scooted on to the back seat next to him. He looked a bit bleary-eyed and tired, but gave me a smile as if to say, yeah—this is actually happening, so I nodded like I’d read his mind.
As we headed along the motorway toward Heathrow, AJ took us through the details and schedule of the trip. It was just four nights, but pretty full on.
“First off, Harriet Rushworth is throwing a launch party tonight and we’ve been invited,” he said. “Now, you know LA is eight hours behind the UK, so by tonight you’ll be like zombies if you don’t get a few hours of shut-eye on the plane. That shouldn’t be a problem, though, because you’ll have a nice flat bed to sleep on.”
“Seriously?” Austin perked up.
“We’re being flown out Virgin Upper Class,” AJ said, grinning. “Now tomorrow morning, not too early, I’ve agreed to a meeting with a company called Herald Media. I’ve checked them out and they’re a very big deal out there, with a ton of money and an impressive client base. I’ve got an idea they want to talk about partnering with GenNext or something along those lines. I’m not certain that’s something we want at this stage, but I spoke to Angela Linford, the company president, and she seemed very keen to meet with the two of you. In fact she’s paying a pretty decent fee just for us to turn up at the flipping meeting. It seems like overkill if you ask me, but they’re enthusiastic—very enthusiastic—so I’ve agreed to go with a proviso that we don’t have to commit to anything, fee or not.”
This was a surprise to me, and not necessarily a good one. I’d already staved off one company with an interest in GenNext and now here was another one already. Still, instead of blowing AJ’s idea out of the water without at least hearing him out, I decided to bide my time and keep positive.
“I suppose the more people we get to know out there the better,” I said. “It can’t hurt to listen to what she’s got to say.”
Austin agreed, and I sank back into the warm leather of the Jag’s back seat, listening to AJ reel off the rest of the itinerary. For the next thirty minutes I sleepily watched the world whizz past me, wondering what would be in store for us when we got to LA, speculating how two young guys from Hertfordshire would cope in a situation with real superstars in actual Hollywood, worrying about my mum’s test results—although I tried not to dwell on that one for too long, as it scared the hell out of me—and yeah, you guessed it, thinking about Ella. What was she doing now? I wondered. Was she missing GenNext? Did she even know all this was happening? Was she thinking about me? And just how bloody far was it from Hollywood to Canada?
THE LA LIFESTYLE
Wow! What wasn’t there to like about Los Angeles? Everywhere I turned, I felt utterly dazzled. The glorious sunshine, the palm trees, the beachfront properties in Malibu, the crisscrossing freeways with four lines of traffic, and, of course, that iconic Hollywood sign, nestled up in the hills above. There was so much to take in, and when I looked over at Austin as we pulled into the underground parking lot of our hotel in West Hollywood, I knew he was feeling exactly the same.
That afternoon, AJ surprised the hell out of us when he announced that Harriet’s management had rented us a car so we
could do a spot of sightseeing before the party that evening—an actual Ferrari. As you can imagine, Austin and I didn’t need telling twice, and before long we were bombing around LA, taking in the sights, cruising past the swanky shops on Rodeo Drive, stopping for “Double-Doubles” at In-N-Out Burger, and then parking on Hollywood Boulevard so we could jump out and peruse the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I can tell you, sitting in that Ferrari in our Ray-Bans with the warm Californian wind in our faces felt totally incredible. If someone had told me six months ago that I’d be doing this during my summer holidays, there’s no way I’d have believed them, and of course I couldn’t resist taking a couple of pictures and uploading them to Instagram.
Just a couple of hours later we were walking into The Blind Dragon—the venue where Harriet Rushworth was throwing the launch party for her new single—and that was something else altogether. Austin and I strolled down a red carpet, roped off and lined with security guards who were holding back a growing crowd of eager fans, all dying to catch a glimpse or grab a photo of the star of the evening or one of their favorite celebs who might be in attendance. By the time I got inside, I had spots floating around in front of my eyes with all the camera flashes going off in my face, and Austin looked like he was about to faint. AJ was close behind us, and while Austin and I just stood in the foyer of the building, stunned and not quite knowing what to do next, he ushered us through quickly.
“Will we get to meet her today? Harriet, I mean,” Austin said breathlessly. “And will she even know who we are? Well, she might know who you are, Jack, because she’ll have seen you on GenNext, but she won’t know me, will she, the guy behind the scenes? Will you introduce me, AJ? Will you make sure you do that, because I don’t want to look an idiot, do I? And also I promised Miles I would, like, get a picture and something signed or . . .”
Austin was doing what he does best: talking. In fact he was positively babbling. I gave him a stern look as we left the foyer and entered the bustling main room.