Chapter Nine. Mackenzie #2
“I understood that the timing was bad when I asked. I get it.” Her face isn’t just indignant, but incredulous. “But to pass on me and end up with him ? A guy who’s been nothing short of an asshole to you since the day you met?”
I’m not exactly on the Sam Blaze Defense Squad here, but even I can admit that he wasn’t an asshole. He avoided me on tour and baited me onstage, but if that made him an asshole, then I was every bit as much of one to him.
“It’s going to be different from what we were doing before,” I say. “We’re not playing up the rivalry anymore.”
“And I suppose we’re just playing down the times he made you cry like a baby while we’re at it,” Serena snaps back.
She knows the instant she says it that she’s gone too far. Serena may keep her guard up, but so do I. I’m not a crier. With a dating life as public and disastrous as mine, I couldn’t afford to be.
So I only ever cried about Sam twice—once over that interview before we met, and once after that last phone call we had. When the heartbreak was so stark and mortifying that Serena and Hannah were the only ones I could trust with it.
Maybe it’s for the best, that Serena’s throwing it in my face now. Maybe this will finally settle the score between us—calling me out on a moment of weakness the same way I did to her.
“That wasn’t his fault,” I say.
Serena draws in a sharp breath, but Hannah cuts her off. “Maybe we should take this to the Hole.”
She’s referring to the only part of the old bar that remains, a cramped, likely haunted space that smells like dust older than we are. Back in our younger days, the Hole was where you went to cry, hook up, duke it out, or, on particularly messy nights, do all three.
But Serena shakes her head, her curls shaking a beat behind. “I’m just going to go. I have a recording session tomorrow. I don’t want to mess up my vocal cords.”
“Well, the good news is you don’t need to say a word to walk that runway,” says Hannah. She holds up her own phone, flashing a text message thread. “And another model did just drop out, so either you put this on or I go out and start taking crowd volunteers.”
“Just have Mackenzie go twice,” says Serena. “She never had any trouble hamming it up onstage.”
Hannah frowns, jumping in to defend me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But Hannah’s phone starts to ring, so when Serena answers the question, she turns to me.
“We’d rehearse within an inch of our lives, but what did it matter? You and Sam stole the show every time. It’s like you were allergic to sticking to the plan.”
The last thing I want to do is kick up a fight with Serena, but that isn’t fair.
A huge part of those long rehearsals was the choreographers giving us specific moments they wanted us to throw new antics into the mix.
Choreographers Serena helped handpick and spent hours talking to, because she had to have a hand in every little thing.
We didn’t make a single move without Serena’s sign-off.
I turn back to Hannah, but she’s distracted, murmuring something into her phone.
“We were doing what we were told,” I say.
I’m expecting Serena to drop it, but she doubles down.
“And how do you think the rest of us felt about it?” she demands. “You got to be the fun, messy one that everyone loved. Mackenzie can do no wrong! If she goes off script, it’s adorable! If any of us did half the shit you got away with onstage or in interviews, we’d be hung out to dry.”
Serena’s breathing hard, and now so am I.
It’s true that I was never as polished as she was—always making herself scripts and practicing the tiniest of gestures and expressions in the mirror.
But working the crowd was my role in the band long before Sam was ever a part of the act.
The same way Serena thrived on order, I thrived on chaos—with Hannah splitting the middle, it was the perfect combination of hitting our usual marks and surprising people with new ones.
But when it came to any maneuvers that all three of us were involved in, I never once did anything to throw Serena or Hannah off. I was even more careful reading their energy than I was the crowd’s. She knows that. She wouldn’t have asked me to keep performing with her if she didn’t.
Maybe Serena is only doing this to keep the focus off whatever is going on with her. But that doesn’t mean I have to take it.
“Well, what a relief that you don’t have to worry about it anymore,” I say.
Serena’s expression hardens. “Yeah. What a relief.”
Hannah hangs up the phone, then puts a firm hand on both our shoulders, hustling us out. “Sorry, sorry, but we have to pause on this—we need to go over the new show order.”
Next thing I know we’re all lined up by the back entrance in our pajamas for the start of the show, Serena burying her face in her phone so she doesn’t have to talk to anybody.
She only looks up when the music starts, cueing her to kick us off.
It’s “Hype Girl,” one of Thunder Hearts’ earliest hits, and of course it starts out with the two of us locked in a powerful, belted harmony.
Serena straightens her shoulders, locks on her “I ate sunshine for breakfast” grin, and struts onto the runway cutting through the middle of Lightning Strike, hair bouncing and hips swishing in the nightdress.
The small audience cheers as Serena twists this way and that, gracefully showing off the matching scrunchie hidden in a slim pocket under the dress’s ruffles.
Despite all the tension, I can’t help but admire her. She never makes one wrong move. She may resent the way my antics worked the crowds we used to play, but it was her polish that launched her to superstardom.
“Girl, you’re up,” says one of the models, nudging me toward the catwalk.
Shit. The song changed to cue me while I was lost in thought. I stumble onto the catwalk, pulling a sheepish look as the light hits me. A few people in the audience laugh just as Serena passes me, rolling her eyes at me as if to say, See?
I collect myself, grinning with my head held high.
But within a second I realize I’m not just walking on the runway, but straight into an early 2000s YA novel love triangle.
Sitting right next to each other directly on the far edge of the catwalk, eyes locked on me, are none other than Grayson and Sam.
I glance at Hannah. Hannah raises her eyebrows gleefully. “This next look is one of my favorites, because with the reversible fabric, it’s double the fun.”
That’s one way of putting it. Another quick glance tells me that Grayson is leaning forward and smiling encouragingly in a clean-cut navy-blue suit and Sam is fully leaned back in his seat and smirking in a beaten-up leather jacket like this is a closed show just for him.
New nightmare unlocked: standing backlit from all sides in slumber party pajamas in the middle of a bar while my potential new boyfriend and past heartbreak sit shoulder to shoulder looking hotter than either of them has any right to, both of them clearly waiting for me to meet their gaze.
There’s a low, catcalling whistle I recognize too well not to scowl at it, which means Sam and his smug eyes win.
My fist curls in my sweatpant pocket. Not for long.
“As Mackenzie will demonstrate, these are deep, deep pockets, providing a cavernous hole for snacks.”
On cue I pull out a bag of Sour Patch Kids, Cheez-Its, and Milk Duds from the pocket the way Thunder Hearts used to do onstage during our longer sets.
Hannah holds out her hand expectantly without so much as turning around, and I dispense a Milk Dud for her, getting a cheer out of the crowd as she seamlessly tosses it into her mouth.
“For anyone who wants to snooze in style, there’s also a matching eye mask,” she adds.
I pull it out from my other pocket and hook my finger around it, spinning it mock seductively and earning a few more laughs.
“This isn’t just any sleep mask, though—it’s contoured so it won’t put pressure on the eyes, and made with a ridiculously soft memory foam for the most satisfying sleep of your life.”
At this point Hannah instructed me to offer it to any random person in the front row to feel.
I usually make Isla or one of Hannah’s sisters my victim in this kind of fashion shenanigan.
But today I lock eyes with Grayson, deliberately walk to the edge of the catwalk, and lean down to his level.
He’s watching me gamely, but Sam’s eyes on me from beside him burn hot enough to sear.
I slide the sleep mask over Grayson’s head and cover his eyes, then lean in and press a finger to the top of his nose.
“What do you think?” I ask, loud enough for the crowd to hear me, but low enough that it sounds intimate. “Is it as… satisfying as she says?”
“Sure,” he answers. “But the last thing I want to do now is sleep.”
The few people close enough to hear it let out a laugh, save Sam, who’s gone very still next to Grayson. Serves him right, showing up here out of the blue. I pull the sleep mask off Grayson’s eyes and blow him a kiss before heading back over to Hannah.
“And if your mood changes in the middle of the night—well,” says Hannah, gesturing for me to proceed.
I lift the shirt up just enough to flip it over and show the pale blue fabric on the other side of it.
I turn with every intention of giving Grayson a pointed wink, but my eyes snag on Sam’s first. They’re bright even in the low light of the audience, his whole body tilted toward the edge of the stage now, watching me as if in challenge. As if to say, Go ahead. Do it.
God dammit. I don’t.
Instead, I spin on my heel, giving the shirt a little flourish while Hannah explains how stain-resistant the fabric is, and manage to avoid both his and Grayson’s eyes for the rest of my time on the runway.