Chapter Nine. Mackenzie
chapter nine
MACKENZIE
Sevenpalooza: She was supposed to post last WEEK did someone kidnap her
AYCMUAJTBMLAP: seven if you can see this we are so hungry for your despair
I groan, resting my forehead into my guitar to get all the Tick Tune comments on my phone out of my line of sight. I’m used to struggling with my voice. But until now, I was lucky enough to never understand the concept of “writer’s block.”
Zero out of five stars, would not recommend.
The thing is, it was easy to write Seven’s song about Sam when he wasn’t in my life.
It’s another thing entirely to be seeing him every other day.
Watching his lean frame stretch when he tips his chair back in meetings.
Watching his jaw flex when he’s lost in a thought.
I keep observing him like an anthropologist, trying to understand what’s so damn compelling about him, only to get hit with one of those cheeky Sam Blaze winks when he catches me staring.
I keep reworking Seven’s last song so I can recapture that closure I thought I had. But after a week of fruitless writing and countless comments from impatient Seven listeners, I know that whatever it is I need to write, it’s a different song entirely.
The worst part is, it’s just as bad when he’s not around.
The man has a damn superpower for uncanny timing.
He’s sending me potential harmonies at midnight when I’m in a hot bath.
He’s sending me a chord pattern for the bridge when I’m half-naked in my room trying on Hannah’s new designs.
It’s like he has a sixth sense for when I’m going to get irrationally hot and bothered by listening to him pick a few strings and quietly say things like, “How does that feel, Sparkles?” and, “Let me know if that’s building right for you. ”
My phone buzzes, making me gasp. Damn it. Leave it to Sam to make me daydream about a damn voice memo .
Mercifully, the text is from Hannah: You mind getting here a bit early?
I’m so relieved for an excuse to quit writing that I all but leap from my couch to get to Lightning Strike, where Hannah is hosting her loungewear launch event.
By the time I reach the bar, it’s been converted into a makeshift runway, the low lights brought up for a poppier, daytime feel to match the aesthetic of her latest loungewear release.
Her family is already there, her parents taking pictures of anything and everything and her sisters helping the caterers arrange the mango sticky rice–inspired mini cocktails and the mini Thai chili sliders Hannah just added to Lightning Strike’s menu.
I give them all a quick hug and hello as I pass, grateful for the way her parents hug me for an extra beat the way they always do with me and Serena.
Even with the quick stop I end up beating all the other friends Hannah has modeling for the show to the back office, so I find the pale pink scalloped pajama set she set aside for me and pull it on.
“I didn’t know Grayson might be headed to the North Pole,” says Hannah wickedly.
I follow her gaze to my Rudolph-emblazoned granny panties. Yikes. I almost forgot I’d chosen today to run my trademark Christmas Underwear Test.
The test is simple to execute. One: purchase the most outlandish, holiday-themed underwear that the internet can offer. Two: identify That Date. The “you can take a joke and if you’ve murdered anyone, at least you were discreet—should I bring you home?” date. Three: don the underwear for That Date.
Four: well. Step four really depends on him.
“We got drinks the other night,” I tell Hannah.
“Just drinks again?” she says, handing me the evening’s call sheet.
“I was sabotaged.”
It was meant to be dinner, but we were interrupted by a call from Isla. It turns out that the couple on the boat weren’t the only ones who spotted me and Sam the other day. Someone got a video of us just after I lost my balance and practically clobbered Sam.
It was bad enough to look so “damsel in distress” that the internet was swooning over how Sam pulled me into him.
But it also inspired enough fans to play Sherlock Holmes that they discovered some truly cringeworthy trademarks had been taken out by the label for us, like “Thunder Shard” and “Candy Hearts.” The leak generated enough hype that the label decided to just cop to us working together.
“I hope you weren’t planning on sleeping anytime soon,” said Isla to me over the phone, “because now they want the six songs by the end of the month, and they want them all showcase-ready.”
At that point I ducked my head and walked toward the bathrooms so Grayson wouldn’t hear. “That will put me well above my ‘time spent in the same room as Sam Blaze’ threshold,” I reminded her.
“Think of it like—ripping off a Band-Aid,” said Isla. “A really hot, tall, edgy Band-Aid that you have excellent chemistry with. And need to get a photo with tonight, because they’re going live with the announcement tomorrow.”
“I’m on a date ,” I protested.
“I know. A fan tweeted the restaurant. I already sent a car. Chop-chop, girly pop!”
Between Grayson’s long hours and my newly chaotic ones, we haven’t seen each other since.
“We’re going to hang out after the show,” I tell Hannah. Grayson has to regroup with the rest of Hannah’s team when we wrap up, but then we’re going to pick a place and sit over an actual meal.
Hannah peers at herself in the mirror, adjusting the soft high bun she always pairs with a classic black minidress at smaller launch events. “Is that going to be weird with Sam here?”
I nearly trip pulling on the pretty pink sweatpants.
“Repeat the words that just came out of your mouth.”
Hannah casts her eyes at the office door. “Sam’s here.”
“You invited Sam ?” I ask.
She shakes her head, as confused as I am. “I thought you did. Twyla had me put him on the guest list. Something about this being one of the ‘haunts’ for your songs?”
We talked about the bar being one of the places we wrote about, but didn’t lock down a day yet.
I know we’re on a time crunch here, but what would possess Sam to attend what is basically a boozy corporate pajama party is beyond me.
If he thinks I’m going to ditch a date to write a song with him tonight, he’s got another thing coming.
“Oh. Hey?”
I startle at the sight of Serena in the door.
Her red bob is blown out with voluminous curls, and she’s looking effortlessly cool as ever in a pair of ankle jeans and a sleek white corset-style top.
She doesn’t look fragile like she did last week at the ball, but her expression is utterly bewildered.
“Serena,” I say, as surprised as she is. I’ve been calling and texting her nearly every day, only to get curt responses assuring me that she’s fine, or sent straight to voicemail. Never once did she mention she’d be on the runway today, too.
I take a step to hug her, but Serena’s too disoriented to notice, taking a step back.
“Wait,” she says, looking at Hannah and then back at me. “I thought you had to drop out. Do I not need to fill in?”
“No?” I say.
Hannah smiles sheepishly. “Sorry, hon. I knew I could only get you here if it looked like an emergency. You were dodging too many of my calls.”
Serena’s face burns red enough to match her hair. “Yeah,” she says, closing the door and lowering her voice. “Because I’m busy. Just like you two are.”
Whatever Serena’s been busy with, Hannah and I aren’t the only ones speculating. A quick search of her name is all it takes to see that her fans were just as stunned by her disappearing before a rumored tour extension as we were.
“We’ve been worried about you,” says Hannah. “I figured it was time to pull out the big guns.”
Hannah pulled out even more than that, since her whole family is here.
With Serena’s family so complicated and mine so distant, we always drifted toward Hannah’s as the grounding force when we were on the road.
It was Hannah’s mom who gave us business savvy and money talks we needed during our quick ascent, and Hannah’s dad who kept the mood light with bad puns and double-checked all the reservations to make sure we’d be safe.
If there’s a chance Serena will lower her guard, having them nearby can only help.
But Serena crosses her arms, the pointed look she aims in my direction a whole lot less subtle this time. “As far as I can see, I’m not the one we should be worried about.”
Anytime Serena’s having a hard time, she’ll deflect like it’s her second job, but it’s never targeted at someone. Especially not me.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
She pulls out her phone. It’s already open to Instagram, where the label just launched a new account for Mack & Sam.
There’s only one post so far. We’re sitting back-to-back on separate barstools, Sam tilting back to look at me while I avoid his eyes with an exasperated smile.
It was only a candid test shot, but it was the only one that captured the new dynamic—not rivals, not friends, but something compelling in between.
“When I told you to go for the duet, you didn’t tell me it was with him .”
My stomach drops. I wasn’t going to fully commit to the duet with Sam, but the day after the masquerade ball was the one and only time Serena texted me without prompting. She told me she meant what she said—that if I wanted to team up with someone, I should do it while the label was on board.
I didn’t anticipate there were exceptions, or that Sam would be one of them.
“You left pretty fast that night,” I say carefully. “And I haven’t gotten to talk with you since.”
Serena shoves her phone back into her purse. “You couldn’t drop it in a text?”
It didn’t even occur to me. I’ve been so focused on trying to talk to Serena about why she left the tour early that the Sam news fell to the wayside.
“I’m sorry,” I start. Hannah’s about to interject, too, but Serena beats her to it.