Chapter 21
Kai
We didn’t go back to the studio for two days. Food poisoning had gotten the best of Noah, along with Tiff’s teasing that that’s what he gets for eating food not cooked by her.
Jonah and I didn’t talk about the beach. I think I did a pretty good job of playing it off as a weird moment of trust between friends, but that was untrue. It wasn’t just a weird moment. It sparked something in me. It made me reconsider years of sheltering. Nothing more than a few odd minutes, and my mind was sent running rampant. It’s not that I was suddenly in love with him or anything—that would’ve been totally fucking weird—but I realized I didn’t quite hate getting close to him. Which, let’s be real, was also totally fucking weird.
At least my work was a distraction. I had some nice clips and pictures of the guys already accumulated on my phone, so even though we didn’t go back to the studio, I could start on content for the band. Justin had offered me the job over a week ago, and I hadn’t done a thing yet. He was weird like that.He just kept saying we’d talk about it so I had a good starting place, and we never did. Then, suddenly, while we were all home due to Noah’s sickness, he texted and asked me to put some stuff together.
The boys sent me old Instagram stories, Tiff and June sent me random snippets they had, and I was able to create enough posts to fill the two days and save up some drafts for later. Nothing extravagant, but based on Justin’s text in the band group chat that Jonah showed me, he was content.
When we finally got into the studio, I was able to enjoy my first official day on the job, in person. I got some good stuff, too. Jonah singing behind the glass, Oli using his drum stick as a mustache, and Noah pretending to play his bass with his tongue.
During a break in the session, I lined the three boys up on the couch for a video and stood in front of them with June and Tiff on either side of me. Noah’s pink T-shirt and Oliver’s red checkered flannel contrasted heavily with the charcoal T-shirt Jonah refused to ever take off. The latter crossed his arms and sank into the couch, looking at his black sneakers, one of which bounced rapidly. In the center sat Noah, leaning forward with his elbows propped on his knees. His long, blonde hair fell around his shoulders, and he smiled brightly, amused by a piece of content that hadn’t even been created yet. Oli sat to the right, his ankle placed over his thigh and his arm up on the back of the couch behind Noah. He gave me a smug look like he already knew this video was going to be a shit show.
“Tell us something nice,” I said, holding the camera up to them. “Something sweet about the band. Or something top secret.”
“Top secret?” Oli asked, ready to kick off the shit show with a bang. “Noah doesn’t actually play bass. He just rips ass in the booth, and we put a little reverb on it.”
Noah laughed loudly, boasting a wide, toothy smile as Jonah’s forehead fell into his hand without so much as a smirk. Grumpy boy.
“Oh, and Oli’s drum sticks are actually specially made and sent in because regular sticks look like toothpicks compared to him,” Noah said, biting down on his bottom lip to hold in his goofy giggles.
I laughed along before turning my attention to the stoic man on the left. “Your turn, Jonah. Don’t you have anything to say?”
Jonah peeled his face up from the palm in which it leaned, looking not at the camera but at me. The edges of his lips twitched. He couldn’t keep that grin from me if he tried but, still, he said nothing.
“Another thing that’s top secret,” Oli continued, “is that Jonah is just, like, way too fucking loud. He never stops talking. Really. He loves small talk, so everyone go message him and bring up something casual like politics.”
“Do not. Thank you,” Jonah finally said, pressing a flat-lipped look to the camera with a small wave of his hand. “I will not respond.”
“Don’t worry, fans…” Noah smacked Jonah on the arm with the same foolish grin he wore constantly. “It took him a while to come around to me, too. He’s not rude, just antisocial.”
“I believe the term is asocial,” Jonah corrected quietly.
“Isn’t he fun?” Oli asked, pointing his thumb toward Jonah and sending a complacent smirk to the camera.
It was perfect. I couldn’t have imagined a better representation of their personalities in a single video. I clicked the red button to cut it there and decided I wanted to post it as is, with permission from all three. Before they stood, we snapped a few pictures of them smushed onto the couch and thought up a caption about behind-the-scenes shenanigans. One of the pictures and the video went up to the band account.
Oli and Noah stood and moved to their respective partners, and I sat down with mine. My hips sank into the seat as I let my legs fly up and land on Jonah’s lap. He received me with a hand on my knee, staring down at it as I got comfortable.
“What’s eatin’ ya, Jojo?” I was hardly being serious. I smiled as I tucked the front strand of his hair behind his ear.
He pulled his eyes away from his hand and looked at me. My expression fell as I peered into those green pools, realizing something truly was bothering him. He just shook his head and looked back down.
“Jojo,” I whispered.
He breathed deeply. Two seconds in, two seconds out. “It’s hard, sometimes, to be a person like me with a career like this.”
“Does that video bother you? We can take it down.”
“No, no.” He shook his head. His answer was convincing enough. “It’s not that. I was just thinking about what Oli said. People come up to me on the street and it makes me very uncomfortable. They ask me questions they have no right knowing the answers to. And I’m meant to be friendly to everyone, because if I’m even the slightest bit off, all three of us get a bad rap. I’m always off, Kai. I’m not friendly like they are.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline. Did he really think so little of himself? “Jonah, you are friendly. Just because you’re a bit selective doesn’t mean you aren’t friendly.”
He tilted his head toward me, letting his eyeballs roll up to his lids skeptically in answer.
“I’m serious. Look how far you’ve gotten. You have five whole friends in this very room. For as long as I can remember, you only ever had two.”
“Before seventh-grade Spanish class, I only had one.” He smiled at me falsely, his gaze deepening somehow. I could practically see the very memory he was replaying in his head. I watched it from my own point of view, remembering the way he and Oli passed notes and how nervous I felt at the prospect of simply engaging in conversation with them.
“Can I tell you something super lame?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Ever since the day I met you, you’ve thought I was, like, the greatest person on the planet—”
He interrupted me quickly to say, “You are.”
“Jo, hush. You think I’m the greatest no matter what I do. And you’ve created a safe place, an entire world, for me to fuck up and learn and grow and know that, whatever happens, you’re not going anywhere. You’ve made me feel so cared for that my sharp edges have started to smooth over. Do you know how much that means to me?”
He observed me more closely than I think he ever had, exploring every inch of my face as the soft, genuine curve of his lips let me know that he believed me.
“My point is that whatever you are, Jo, transcends friendly. And not just that. I think you’re the greatest, too, whatever happens. So be rude, be nice, be whatever you need to be. And when you feel really bad about it, we’ll go home, watch a movie, and wait until it blows over. I’ll still be here. Not every part of this job is easy, but I’m really proud of you. You’re very good at what you do.”
Jonah’s hand lifted from my knee and wrapped the back of my head, his thumb grazing over my cheek as he stared into me. “I believe what you’ve just described is love, Kai.”
I chuckled softly. He almost looked like he was about to kiss me or something. Weirdo. “I wouldn’t know.”
He pressed his lips together and nodded as if he understood.
I suddenly got the strangest feeling. Those damn bubbles that I’d noticed popping up inside my gut as of late were back, and I was oddly aware of them.
My attention drew to his mouth as he whispered, “I want to go home and watch a movie now.”
Actually, that didn’t sound like such a bad idea…
“Nope!” A loud, obnoxious voice cut the thread of focus between us. “Can’t go home just yet! We’ve got a lot more work to do. Kai, baby, did you get some good shots?”
I turned to Justin reluctantly, sliding my legs off Jonah’s lap and sticking on a social smile. “I did. We got some good stuff of them recording, joking, and just hanging out.”
“Excellent, sweetheart. I love it. Love you. You’re amazing.” He held his hand down to me for a high five, and I reciprocated. As my palm slapped his, he wrapped his grip around my fingers and yanked me up into a hug. I yelped as I was forced to my feet and crashed right into him. “What an amazing addition to the team. Don’t you think, Jonah?”
I looked down at Jonah from my awkward embrace. He just stared at me. He stared at me in a way that… In a way that made me feel…something.