- 5 -

Alcohol made me chatty.

Well, it depended on what kind of alcohol. Hennessy made me horny. Tequila made me aggressive. But pretty much any other kind of liquor made me talk too much.

That's how I ended up talking Noah Russo's ears off while we waited for Dustin to get back. It wasn't very long, but I had practically told him my life story in the ten minutes he was gone and Noah appeared visibly uncomfortable. I had no filter, unfortunately, so I just kept going.

Luckily, Dustin saved Noah from his misery when he came back with another glass of bubbly soft drink and a huge smile on his face.

"I just met into Casey Elliot," he breathed out, his voice higher from the excitement. "I'm gonna die."

"Hells yeah, brother," I said, giving him a fist bump. I loved the way he got so excited about these people. To me, they were just colleagues. It would have to be someone I'd idolized since I was young to make me fanboy like that.

We drank and chatted for the most of the night. Dustin and I's favorite game to play was Name That Boob Job, where we guessed who had and hadn't gotten plastic surgery. Noah even cracked a smile at a few of our antics, but he just sat there quietly. Gwen did come by and say hello, not even trying to hide her surprise at the sight of Noah, who just thanked her for having him without an invitation.

"Don't look now--" Dustin hissed, his eyes facing forward. I knew that look. He was star struck yet again. "Jax Mayfield is coming our way. This is not a fucking drill. I'm gonna piss myself."

The aforementioned lead singer of indie band Severe was walking towards us. Noah turned his head and met Jax with a bright smile, who reciprocated it easily. I eyed the newcomer curiously.

Jax was a good looking guy. I didn't know much about him other than the few songs I'd heard. I thought he may have been in the news for something recently. A scandal, maybe? He had nice eyes, a greenish shade, that caught my attention as soon as he was close enough. He hardly acknowledged me, which was fine, and focused solely on Noah. I found it strange, but it wasn't my business.

"Hey," Jax said.

Noah's cheeks were pink as he leaned a bit closer to the guy, his voice a bit timid. "Hi, Jax," he said softly. I was so confused.

"Didn't know you'd be here," Jax said. "It's good to see you."

Dustin cut in. "I'm so sorry, Jax, but I'm a huge fan and I would love to get a picture with you," he blurted. Jax looked amused as he nodded. I pulled out my phone to take the photo and raised an eyebrow when Jax pulled Noah in for the photo, too. They all smiled for the picture, both Dustin and Noah blushing for unbeknownst reasons.

"I love the new song," Noah said to Jax when they'd all pulled apart. "It reminds me of your old stuff."

Jax nodded coolly. "Thanks," he said, leaning in. "I actually wrote and produced it. You're gonna love the album."

My jaw almost dropped when Noah reached over and touched Jax's wrist, a familiar look in his eye. Holy shit, was he flirting? It then dawned on me that the scandal I thought I remembered about Jax wasn't a scandal at all, it was his coming out. I excused myself to get another drink and tried to process what I just learned.

So Noah was gay. Or bi. He liked men.

It shouldn't have came as much of a surprise since Hollywood was swarming with queers. More celebrities were bisexual, closeted or out, than not. But this wasn't just another celebrity. It was Noah.

After flirting mercilessly with the girl standing beside me at the bar, I made my way back with a refill for myself and also my company. Jax had just walked away when I got there and Noah looked rosy in the cheeks. I handed him the fresh Coke and he nodded at me in appreciation.

I wish I knew why finding that out about Noah made me see him differently. He was suddenly just different. I didn't care about his sexuality, of course. I couldn't give too shits who he wanted to fuck. I just saw him a different light, was all.

"You want to come to my show in LA?" I blurted before I could even think about it.

I could feel Dustin's eyes on me but I was focused on Noah's face. He looked surprised, glancing around to avoid my eyes before settling on just staring at his cup. I waited for his response eagerly. "When?" he asked.

"It's on Thursday," I said. "I'll reserve a seat for you next to Dustin or you can sit backstage? Then we can all hang out afterwards."

He bit at his bottom lip. "Okay."

I relaxed in my seat and looked out onto the crowd. There was a DJ playing popular music and, at one point, played a remixed version of one of my songs. Dustin freaked out and recorded a video for Snapchat, which was stupid. We heard my songs everywhere. I heard one played at the Urgent Care when I sprained my ankle at a show.

We stayed long enough to hear Gwen's birthday speech. It was mostly a publicity stunt to endorse her new brand of yoga clothes? I think?

Once she finished, I puffed out my cheeks and looked between Dustin and Noah. They looked properly bored to tears, both leaning forward on their elbows. Dustin was usually the life of these parties, shimmying his way onto the dance floor, demanding rounds of shots for groups of people he'd just met.

But everyone here seemed so pretentious. Nobody was dancing, even with the music deafening us. They were all just standing around and talking.

"I don't know about y'all," I said, "but I'm ready to leave."

"Yes, please," Noah said, though I'm not sure he meant for me to hear it. It must have been hard, watching us drink.

We all stood up to make our quiet escape. I texted my driver to bring the car around for us and we waited at the entrance. Dustin was practically yelling in my ear about a song idea he just had and that he desperately needed to borrow my phone to write it down because his died. I passed my phone to him and looked over his shoulder at the terrible drunken lyrics.

"Noah!"

Two out of the three of us, including myself, turned to see who the voice belonged to. I glanced at Noah when I saw Jax making his way back over to us. Maybe I should have went back to watching Dustin, but my curiosity got the best of me.

Noah smiled and faced Jax completely. "What's up?"

"You guys heading out early?" Jax asked. Noah nodded, looking over his shoulder to lock eyes with me very briefly before turning back. "I guess I could have Twitter DM'd you, but I wanted to ask you now. Could I get your number?"

I didn't like Jax.

Though I had no reason not to. He was nice enough, I guess, but there was just something about him. Even having just found out Noah was even into guys, which was purely an assumption anyways, I just didn't see him with a guy like Jax. He wore a leather jacket. Noah was not into leather.

In fact, I could clearly remember a conversation from when we were fifteen or so and Noah went on a rant about how leather jackets were 'tacky' and 'tasteless' and 'nobody should be allowed to wear leather except bikers.'

"Yeah, sure," Noah said and took Jax's phone from his hands to input his number. "You stay in LA?"

"Yep," Jax said with a smile.

"I'll be there later this week if you wanna get together."

Oh, wow.

So Noah was going to use my extremely courteous invitation to my show as a ploy to get close with Jax? I scoffed to myself. It wasn't my business, so I needed to mind my own.

I pretended to just scroll on my phone while listening to the remainder of their conversation. Honestly, I was creeping myself out. What (or who) Noah did was none of my concern. It was just settling weird with me. He didn't want to be in the public eye, but he wanted to flirt with one of the biggest singers of right now?

When I was notified that the driver was out front, I placed a hand on Noah's shoulder. He glanced at me. "Ride's here, do you want us to wait for you to head out?" I asked.

He looked at Jax and smiled softly. "I'm coming," he said to me before reverting his eyes back to the man in front of us. "I'll see you later, then?" Jax nodded eagerly, saying his goodbye quickly.

The three of us walked out, putting on fake faces for the cameras. I ushered Dustin in the backseat first and Noah walked around to get in the front again. I slid in and let out a relieved sigh. The silence was so comforting after having my own name shouted at me. The photos were sure to please Joey and Harriet.

I sat behind the driver and just stared at Noah's profile. There were no thoughts in my head. I just looked at the way the bridge of his nose sloped down elegantly and took note of things like how his bottom lip was bigger than his top, or he chewed on the inside of his mouth when Dustin wasn't talking to him.

I could see it.

Strangely enough, after going twenty-four years without having a single thought of the sort, I could see it. I could see the appeal. Jax seemed smitten with him. It made perfect sense. Noah was . . . kind of cute?

I shook my head, diverting my attention to my phone in my lap. The photos would probably start circulating in the middle of the night. The Internet was still reeling after our initial post together. My fans kept tweeting things like 'Neo 4ever' and 'My favorite ship' which amused me.

Dustin fell asleep on my shoulder on the drive back to Noah's place. He didn't say a word the entire drive, but before he got out he turned to me.

His voice was soft. "So what's up with the show? Are you flying me out?" he asked. I didn't detect any sense of greed or pretentiousness. "I can't get there otherwise."

"Yeah, I'll get Joey to work out the details for you and if you want to stay a couple days longer to hang out with Jax, we can put you in a hotel."

Noah's cheeks turned pink under the yellow light of the car's interior. He stumbled over his words for a moment before nodding curtly. "Okay," he said. "Tonight was kinda fun. I'll see you Thursday?"

I just nodded, bidding him a goodnight. The driver waited until he was safely in his home before we started driving. We rode back to soft music on the stereo and I felt the post-drinking nausea catching up to me.

Dustin woke up upon pulling into my driveway. He suggested we keep drinking.

So we did.

-

"When do you come to St. Louis again?"

"I think in two months," I said, phone pressed to my cheek as I finished packing the rest of my things back up.

My sister called about ten minutes ago. She was my rock, the best part of me. I missed her so much. Through all of the bullshit with our mom, Lina was there. Every day when I was feeling my worst, I had my sister in the back of my mind. She was part of what I kept doing this for.

"I can't wait," Lina said excitedly. "Ryan won't stop asking about you."

I chuckled. Ryan was Lina's boyfriend. They'd met in high school and after I thoroughly grilled him to make sure he wasn't using her for my fame, I decided he was a really chill guy. It'd been two years and they were still together, but I figured I didn't have much to do with that.

"Well, I made sure they scheduled the next show after that, like, two weeks later, so me and Dustin will be slumming it with you."

Lina pretended to groan. "You can't just get a hotel?"

"And miss my favorite sister's cooking? Not a chance," I said.

We chatted for a little while longer. I loved talking to Lina, since it wasn't very often. She always filled me in on stories from college and whatever one of my crazy fans did this time. I didn't like to blast her photos online because I knew people could be crazy, but my fans had gotten their hands on pictures that even I didn't have access too. So they knew Lina.

I heard her click her tongue on the other end. "So what's up with you and Noah Russo?" she asked. "Friends again?"

"It was all a publicity stunt at first, but I invited him to my show tomorrow," I said, mostly putting my thoughts into words. "I think we could be friends again. There's just something off with him, though, like he doesn't trust me or something."

"Do you blame him?" Lina asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," she sighed, "you and Noah were really close when you were younger. Like, best friend type shit for years. I don't know the details of what happened, but you guys just kinda stopped talking altogether. You got famous, he fell off. I don't know if I'd trust you straight away either."

I thought about that. She had a point. Lina was always right. While I inherited the art and talent genes, she got all the smarts.

"Not to mention knowing you were only doing it for money."

"In my defense, I didn't know they paid him until afterwards," I said, rolling my eyes. "And he's the one that took it. Maybe I shouldn't trust him."

Lina and I talked on the phone for another thirty minutes or so, since she was two hours ahead of me and needed to go to bed. I finished my packing and sat on my couch with a beer. Dustin had gone to his house for the night to spend time with his mom since they wouldn't see each other until the mid-tour break.

I got a text from Noah as I was starting to doze off watching the game.

Noah Russo
9:22PM

[ I have a question ]

[ What's up? ]

[ could I bring jax to ur concert ]

My heart flipped in my chest upon seeing his name on my phone screen. That was weird. I stared at his question for ages, not really knowing how to respond. I didn't want to be an asshole, but I didn't really want Jax at my show.

There was no logic to it. Noah shouldn't have to go somewhere alone if he didn't want to. I was sure the whole situation was a tad bit uncomfortable for him, anyways. Plus, Dustin was a massive fan, so I would really be the only one who didn't want him there.

So I sucked it up and told Noah yes.