The Kiss Off

by Sarah Billington

  Dev wandered over to me as I closed the front door and he gave me a knowing, sad smile.

  “Hey,” he said, opening his arms.

  “Hey you too,” I said. I stepped into them for a sympathetic hug. Sympathy flowed from one of us to the other and back again in a continuous loop.

  “Heard about Ty,” Dev said, watching me grimace. It was true, the whole world really did know. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, Mads told me you two broke up,” I said back. “Sorry about you as well.”

  “Mmm. I’m feeling good,” he said with two sarcastic thumbs up. “How about you?”

  “Fan-freaking-tastic.”

  “I’ve got some vodka.”

  “Lead the way.”

  It was a small party tonight, maybe a dozen of us all up. Probably since it was a Wednesday with only a couple of hours’ notice, so everyone was pretty much in the living room. Dev and I retreated to the quiet of the den with two cups, a bottle of vodka, bowl of prawn crackers and a bag of chips. Neither of us were exactly in the mood for a party, but we were here.

  “I can’t believe you guys broke up,” I said as I took a shot of vodka. I screwed up my face as it burned my throat. Dev shot his and poured us both another one. “Again. You guys are so right for each other, why can’t you just accept it already and stop fucking it up.”

  “I know,” Dev groaned. That was a surprise. He took his next shot and poured himself another. “I really like her, Poppy,” he said. “I really do.”

  “Then why are you such an ass and keep dumping her?”

  “I feel kind of weird talking to you about this,” he said, giving me a sideways glance.

  I repeated my question. “If you like her so much why do you keep dumping her?”

  “You’re her best friend, how do I know you’re not going to-?”

  I thumped him on the leg. “Why do you keep dumping her, Dev?”

  “Because she doesn’t really like me, Poppy.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, taking a shot and holding my cup out for some more. I had some catching up to do. “How can you even possibly think that?”

  He stuffed his mouth full of chips, crumbs breaking off and sprinkling down his shirt as he chewed. I nudged him with my cup and he poured me another.

  “Mads is like, insanely into you,” I said. “She doesn’t want anyone else.”

  “But there are always guys around,” he said. “When we go out. There’s just always other guys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just around, staring at her, talking to her, wanting to dance, buy her drinks.”

  “That’s not exactly her fault,” I said. “You have a super fun girlfriend. And you’re just jealous.”

  “It’s not like she’s pushing them away,” he said.

  “Because she’s a nice person! And please, have you met Mads? She doesn’t know what to do when a boy likes her.”

  He thought about that and took another shot.

  “And who wouldn’t be flattered by all that?”

  I gave him a reassuring pat on the knee. “There might always be other guys around but she only wants you.”

  “Are you sure? Because…” he stopped.

  “Because what.”

  “Because…well…you can’t say anything to anyone, I swear if you tell anyone I will have no problem pantsing you in the middle of the cafeteria sometime.”

  “Jeez, Dev! What is it? I won’t tell, I swear.”

  “I think I…well…you know…”

  “Dev!”

  “Alright! I think I love her, okay?” he said. “I think I love her.”

  I grinned. “That’s really good, because – and I didn’t tell you this – but she loves you too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She tells me. All the time.” She would kick my ass if she knew I’d told him that. Whatever, I was doing her a favour.

  “Really?”

  “You guys better get your act together. For real,” I said and slammed my next shot. At that moment Ravi skipped into the room – literally skipped – and jumped on top of us. I ended up with his face and arms, but Dev wasn’t so lucky.

  “What’s up, you guys?” Ravi said.

  “Get off of me bro, seriously!” Dev said, slapping Ravi on the ass.

  “So how’s the pity party working out for you?” Ravi said. Dev shoved him off us and Ravi landed with a whump on the floor. He jumped up and shook his hair out of his face. “Come outside,” he said. “Come on, forget your drama for a bit. We’re gonna play some poker.”

  Dev and I exchanged grimaces. I shouldn’t have come. It was sweet of Ravi to invite me and everything, but the truth of the matter was I just didn’t want to be around people. And definitely not some of the people that were out there. I wondered if they had heard, if Nikki was laughing at me, if Cam felt sorry for me. I didn’t want his pity; I could not handle his pity. I had a feeling that Dev wasn’t feeling very people-friendly, either.

  Ravi rolled his eyes, as neither of us made a move to join the shenanigans. “You guys suck.” At that moment, my cell started vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw an unfamiliar cell number calling me. I stood up and took a couple of steps across the room.

  “Ah ha!” Ravi said. “Come on Dev, no excuse now.” He grabbed Dev by both forearms and hauled him to his feet.

  I pressed accept call. “Hello?”

  “Hi, it’s me,” I heard Ty say. I stiffened. I had been waiting for this call, but it still shocked me. It wasn’t his number, he was on a new phone, or someone else’s phone. Whatever – it was different.

  “Oh,” is what I said, how I replied, how I began the big important conversation with my boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend. Oh.

  “Yeah,” he said. He sounded cautious, like he was treading carefully with me. He was right, he should.

  “What’s with your cell? I couldn’t get through to you.”

  Ravi and Dev looked at me. It wouldn’t have been hard to work out who I was talking to. Ravi took Dev by the shoulders and pushed him out to the living room and people and life. I was alone, and closed the door behind them.

  “I can’t use it anymore,” Ty said. “It’s ringing all the time. Someone leaked my number and it’s completely jammed up. To be honest, I think it was Sasha. She’s been doing stupid shit like that.”

  “Oh,” I said again.

  “Sorry, this is Tommy’s number, if you want to save it.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “So…hi,” he said again. “It’s good to hear your voice, I’ve missed you.”

  “Do you have something you think you should say to me?” I asked, pacing around the room. “Something you want to tell me about, maybe?”

  He paused. “Oh, so you’ve seen them, huh?”

  I stopped walking and took a deep breath. “What. The fuck. Is going on,” I said slowly, spitting the words out in clumps.

  “I swear to you, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Ty said. Didn’t they all say that? Wasn’t that a standard in the cheating boyfriend list of lines to tell their girl? I paced faster, breathing faster, my heart beating faster. It felt like my ribs were closing in, tightening against my lungs, trapping them, constricting them. I had to keep the anger inside, I had to keep it civil. He probably had an excuse – not an excuse – an explanation. I had to hear him out, I wanted to hear the excuse, the alternative because the story those pictures told couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

  Listen to him, Poppy. Do it.

  “You always hear how tabloids make shit up, but I’d never realized just how-”

  “There are photos, Ty, tell me about the photos.”

  “Oh, that girl, ugh,” he made a noise like he was shuddering from the grossness of it all. “You’re talking about the blond in the pink dress, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, my voice tight. “Who is she, Ty? Who is she!” I froze, hearing my voice so shrill, so panicked. So…jealous. So untrusting. A wav
e of shame rolled through me.

  “She was some fan who was completely off her head and clearly looking for a good time for the night and she decided I was it. I don’t know how she did it, I didn’t see it happen, but she climbed over the barricade into the VIP section at this club – Seb saw the whole thing, and he says she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She was just…she stunk like a chimney and she kept getting right in my face and breathing all over me. She was so handsy!” he said. “Definitely not my favorite fan moment,” he said it more to himself than me, like he was lost in an unpleasant memory. The jealous girlfriend in me slithered down my insides and emptied out through my toes.

  “Oh,” I said. I was quite eloquent in a fight. “Ty, I-” there was some movement and Ty took the phone from his ear, or it was taken from him, and there was muffled conversation and then someone come back to the phone.

  “Hello, Poppy?” It wasn’t Ty.

  “Yeah…?”

  “Popster! It’s Archie!” I could feel the warmth of his grin through the line. “How you doing? How’s things at home? Listen, I just wanted to say that you don’t need to worry about your boy here, he’s a little bitch now.”

  I heard Ty protesting in the background. “Yeah,” Archie continued. “He’s completely lame and doesn’t like even hugging girl fans, and let me tell ya, there seem to be a lot of them, anyway Seb and TomTom don’t have a problem with it even though they’ve got lady friends but Ty gets all uncomfortable and stiff and like, pats the ladies on the back, he’s turned into that much of a pussy boy.” There was some grunting and it sounded like a fight for the cell phone back. “You know he’s completely whipped, right?” Archie continued. “There are so many smoking hot girls around but he-ow, stop it, I’m talking! Anyway, your boy’s not straying, Poppy, we’re keeping an eye out for you, cool?”

  A grin crept onto my face. He wasn’t cheating on me, it was all a lie, made to look like something it wasn’t. He wasn’t cheating. There was nothing wrong with me.

  “Um, yeah,” I said, relieved. “Cool.”

  “It’ll be so good to see you at the Throwdown show, you’re coming, right?”

  In the background I heard Ty with surprising clarity, “I haven’t told her about it yet!”

  “Why not?” Archie asked.

  “Because you…”

  There was a thump and Archie went “Ow!”

  “Stole my…” Thump.

  “Hey!”

  “Fucking phone.”

  “Dude, chill! Stop hitting me! Here, God. Bye, Poppy.” And Archie handed the phone back to Ty.

  “I-” Ty started, but he was cut off.

  “And FYI, it’s Seb’s ‘fucking phone’,” I heard Archie say.

  Ty growled and breathed out heavily. I was smiling. I couldn’t help it. “Sorry,” he said to me.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “And I’m sorry, about being angry before.”

  “It’s cool, I get it. The photos look pretty damning. But it was all her, I promise. The bouncer booted her out soon after that and I think she passed out on her friend’s shoulder.”

  “Lovely.”

  “So we’re cool? We’re alright?”

  “Yep, we’re cool,” I said. And I meant it. It was a good explanation, and all that stuff Archie had said. I may not have been able to keep an eye on him, but there were three other boys to slap him upside the head if he stepped out of line. I had no doubts they’d do it, either. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like I needed to worry about him. It was just the girls of America I needed to worry about.

  “So what’s this about a Throwdown show?”

  “Yes! Throwdown are coming to South Marlington next week during Spring Break.”

  “Yeah, I know. Mads and Dev tried to get tickets for it.”

  “Right, exactly, well Faux Hawk just asked us to open for them. It’s totally last minute, something happened with their original starting act, but we’re doing it. They have a forty thou’ sell-out crowd, can you believe that?”

  “Wow,” I said. “Forty thousand people…that’s so…so you’re coming home next week?”

  “Just for a couple of nights. I want to take you out on Thursday, okay? Just you and me. We’ll do normal stuff, go to a movie, hit up Down Town Records and Acoustic Heaven and then you can come watch the show from beside the stage on Friday.”

  “Yes. Definitely,” I said. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Except maybe I would miss it. Since I was stupid and had a meltdown in front of Dad, he wasn’t overly thrilled with the idea of it. Of any of it. And then, in the spirit of joint and supportive parenting, he went all tattle-tale on me and told Mom about the magazines and rumors.

  “No. Absolutely not,” Mom said as we all sat around the dining table. She stabbed her fork into her tortellini.

  “But Mom!”

  “He is obviously bad news,” she said. “Rock stars have bad reputations for a reason.”

  “He treated you appallingly,” Dad added.

  “He didn’t!”

  “Poppy!”

  “Can I go instead?” Rory said.

  “Shut up, Rory!”

  “How can you say that, honey? Do you let all your boyfriends cheat on you?” I bristled. If only she knew the truth.

  “Why can’t I go?” Rory said. “It’s not like he cheated on me.”

  “Shut up, Rory!” I dipped my fingers into my water glass and flicked droplets at his face. “He didn’t cheat on me, it was all this big misunderstanding.”

  “I like ponies,” Bex declared, opening her mouth wide and spooning her fork toward it. She dropped saucy pasta all over the table cloth.

  “He didn’t?” Dad said. “I guess he told you this, right?”

  “Yeah, he explained everything. The photos are way out of context.”

  “How can photographs be out of context?”

  “She was a skeezy drunk fan girl coming on to him. You should have heard him on the phone, he sounded a bit freaked. Said she was…‘handsy’,” I said, doing air quotes. I smiled, nearly giggled at that, but Mom and Dad weren’t laughing.

  “I’d like to talk to him on the phone, Poppy,”

  “Dad,” I groaned and put down my fork. “Look, I’ve forgiven him because he didn’t actually do anything wrong. I still like him, he likes me and-”

  “Don’t know why,” Rory said.

  I threw a piece of tortellini at him and continued. “And that’s really all you need to know.”

  So I was going, with or without their approval, but I knew it wasn’t going to be quite that easy when he came to pick me up next Thursday. So it was kind of awkward when Ty turned up and my dad stared him down, which was hard for him since Ty was half a head taller. Dad looked up at Ty to give him the protective father ‘if you break her heart I break your face’ evil eye and I took Ty by the hand, pulling him off the porch and toward his dad’s car. Guess he could afford one of his own now, not that he would have had any use for it what with touring and all.

  We slammed our car doors closed and looked at each other. He smiled, and I smiled and he pulled me in for a hug. I tried to kiss him but he pushed me back by the shoulders. “I’m not so sure the audience would approve,” he said, nodding his head ever so slightly behind me at the porch.

  “He’s still watching? Just drive, let’s get out of here.” It was annoying, but I figured I could kiss him later. We had plenty of time to be alone, right?

  “So, how’s it feel, Mr. Famous Rock Star?” I asked as he pulled out onto the main highway, heading for the strip mall.

  “Mr. Famous Rock Star, huh?” he said with a half-smile. “Hmm. It’s different to what I thought.”

  “How so?”

  “Well people are crazy, and the paparazzi are intense, pushing and shoving, and they call you names just to get a rise out of you. Did you see the paper about how Tommy nearly punched a pap in St Louis?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, he’s getting a rep for
being the bad boy, the angry one. The new tattoo he got probably doesn’t help.”

  “What sort of tattoo?”

  “It’s nothing really, just some pattern, he’s working his way up to a whole sleeve, you know? Anyway, he dyed his hair black and he’s just getting a rep as a bad ass. Anyway he wasn’t even really punching the guy, just wanted to surprise him and make him step off, so he faked a punch in the guy’s face and the idiot got such a surprise he fell over backward and broke his camera. He got the shot, though. Of Tommy looking seriously pissed, with his knuckles aimed at the camera.

  “I didn’t see it,” I said. “Wow.”

  “And the fans are insane, girls are asking for their tits to be signed, this one girl, she was kind of adorable, like a middle schooler or something. She could not stop screaming, until Seb gave her a hug and she fainted stone cold on the pavement, I’m not kidding.”

  “God,” I said. It sounded like a lot to deal with. So I said so.

  “Yeah, it is,” he said. “It can be. I hope some of it dies down, you know? It’s just been so much so fast. LA’s the worst for it that I’ve come across, cos there are so many tourists and paparazzi around, but some places it’s not so bad.” He smiled at me and squeezed my hand. “It’s nice to be home.”

  We pulled into a park on the street and Ty threw on some shades and pulled a baseball cap down over his face. He jumped out of the car and as I opened my door he scurried around to me and held it for me, with a bow. Taking my hand in his, we strolled along the storefronts, heading toward our first stop of the day, the burger joint.

  I felt giddy and tingly and so happy to be with him. Until that first fan noticed it was him, Ty from Academy of Lies. The girl came up for an autograph and Ty dropped my hand and complied. Then a handful of teenagers came up with their camera phones out and scraps of paper, of any paper, Chinese takeout menus and car wash flyers they’d pulled from car windshields.

  I stepped back as the crowd swelled around him, a dozen, two dozen people. I spotted a couple of girls from school. They didn’t see me, just joined the mob and squealed to each other, their faces going red with fluster. It was weird, he was just Ty. An elderly couple, a mom with her kid in a stroller and storeowners came outside to check out the commotion. I blinked twice when I heard a woman ask if he would marry her.