Chapter 3
Maddy
“Jett!” I shout without needing to look, but I look anyway, that bugger is getting his cute little nose powdered.
His crazy orange hair is gone, replaced with a prettier, deep blue.
His roots are still my exact shade of practically black.
He sticks his tongue out at me and yep, tongue stud.
Ouch! This boy is mad. He lights a cigarette and his stylist immediately puts it out.
“I’m bored! Entertain me, Miss Serious Actress!”
My stylist comes at me with a hot curling iron. “You want me to throw this at your head next?”
“Yes! Please! Anything to get me out of this bloody chair!”
“Can someone stick an Adderall in Jett’s mouth, please? For the sake of my sanity!”
The room chuckles, and next a wine gum goes flying. It barely misses my head. Hey! I would’ve eaten that!
“That shit stifles my creativity!” The way that word sounds in his accent makes me snort. I think Jett is allergic to the sound the letter T makes.
I’m whisked away to get dressed and come back to the big mirror to check for mascara specs, but I end up with a jump scare. Jett’s behind me, “Boo!” He squeezes my hips playfully, in the most ticklish way possible, and I whip around to face him.
I don’t ask the obvious why you are touching me because I don’t mind it; I come from an affectionate family. But what the fuck is he wearing?
“Jett, why the hell are we matching?”
He laughs, “Mads, I swear, you are so myopic, this obsession you have with me. It’s like you don’t see anyone else in the room. Look around you!”
Jett spreads his arms wide, and I plan to smack him, but I peek around the corner and he follows me. I see the twenty-three others dressed the same as Jett and me: white ribbed tank top, baby blue distressed jeans, gold chain, and bare feet.
“Fuck,” I sigh. “You’re right, I must be your latest fangirl. I liked the lyrics to Kill Me Maybe, does that make me your stalker now? What should I say? Please, Jett, date me! Please!”
His cheeks blush slightly, but he acts nonplussed. He casually picks up a strand of my dark hair and places it above his lip like a moustache as if that’s something normal people do.
“Hmm, interesting proposal. You know, I’d consider it, Mads. But I thought you said you don't date?”
“You're right!” I huff in annoyance and head to my solo portrait session. Did he not know I was joking? Of course he did. Why am I letting an emo boy get under my skin like this?
When I return, I’ve chilled out, but only for about two seconds and then I see my mum.
The one and only Julia ‘Jewels’ Morningstar.
I expected to see her, since she had just finished an interview about her new book down the street and wanted to come here afterward to make sure I don’t say anything too stupid or crazy in my interview.
As if everything she says isn’t a bit wackadoo.
No, seeing her isn’t what surprises me, but the fact she’s sitting in Jett’s lap does. “Mum!” I shout.
“I’m sorry, Mads!” Jett wraps his arms tighter around my mother as if he has magically staked some claim on her. “It’s just – your mum is so young and gorgeous, I thought she was here for me!”
Mum, who is beautiful but certainly not young, especially compared to who she's sitting on, turns pink and bats her eyelash extensions at him. She fixes her black and platinum streaked hair that’s piled up on top of her head while I shake mine.
“You want my dad to pummel you? Here, I’m gonna snap a pic and send it to him!”
Jett genuinely looks worried at the prospect of pissing off my dad. I know he’s a fanboy, I know he wants his approval. And this is how he chooses to go about it?
“Oh, he won’t mind!” Mum says with a schoolgirl giggle, “Why didn’t you tell me Jett was like a clone of your dad? It’s uncanny how alike they are. Come look at this, Baby!”
She doesn’t mean physically a clone, tongue studs and hair dye weren’t a thing when my dad was young.
Must be the matching accents or the similar rocker energy and insanity.
I sigh and walk towards mum holding out Jett’s arm for me to read.
‘Blackened earth and a sky of grey, still love persists, come what may.’
Dad’s lyrics tattooed on Jett’s arm? A much better way to impress him, I must admit. His eyes are trained on mine. I nod thoughtfully, not sure what to say, but I don’t need to say anything because the editors and photographers come grab us for the big photoshoot.
Everyone is rushing around, and I grab Mickie’s arm for support.
I think she’s quickly becoming my BFF since we spent hours dancing together that night and have texted every day since.
I’d left school at sixteen when I landed my TV gig and earned my diploma early thanks to an on set tutor, leaving all my old friends in the process.
I could really use one now, considering the girls I'm surrounded by on set just glare at me like I'm competition.
Could Mickie be what I've needed so badly?
“Girl, why does Jett keep looking at you like that?”
I don’t bother turning my head to see what that look is. “Mickie, he’s in love with my dad, his music, his persona, but definitely not with me. He’s probably just … confused.”
“Uh-huh,” she says, snapping a selfie of the two of us twinning. I mean, we’re all twinning, except for Jett’s pink Stratocaster slung over his shoulder.
“Wanna hear what my brain brewed up last night?” she asks.
“Yes…” The makeup artists touch up shiny faces, but the photographers look ready. “Quickly!”
She takes a deep breath and then goes zero to sixty.
“A fantasy series about an evil princess who kills her family so she can become queen, but then a wizard casts a spell on her so she doesn’t remember that she’s evil!
She just thinks she’s this good, innocent young royal that would never hurt her family, so the wizard puts her through all these crazy trials to prove she really can be trusted to rule the kingdom!
They’d make it into a big HBO show, and you’d be the star! What do you think?”
“Even if Tubi makes it, I’d say yes!” I laugh, right as a photographer snaps us.
We’re told to pose this way and that way, and suddenly we’re shuffling spots, and I’m between the new Seahawks quarterback, who’s six foot a thousand, and that soon-to-be supermodel, Alessandra.
I have no shoes on to even help me get a slight leg up on her outrageous height, what is she, five eleven?
Since I’m five foot three on a good day, I don’t want her making me look squat.
The cameras click, and I sneak behind her and a few others, popping back into the line right next to, of course, Jett.
He’s the same height as Alessandra, ugh.
I need my heels! I try to sneak back behind the row and find a new spot, but Jett’s hand splays firmly across my lower back, and he tugs me back in the lineup, our sides practically glued together.
“It’s like I’m a magnet and you’re steel,” he gives another explosive grin with all his teeth, and there’s that ridiculous tongue. Why is he sticking it out at me? It’s easily the length of the palm of my hand, if not longer. Like a cow. Why doesn’t he idolize Gene Simmons instead of Dad?
Cameras click, and I sigh. “Shut up, please!”
He does, momentarily, then slings his guitar over me, leaning in to do a chord, and I pretend to strum cutely.
The assistant editor eats that up and sends a second photographer over.
It is my favorite color other than black, after all.
An assistant makes the guitar disappear after several more snaps of the camera.
Everyone gets momentarily distracted by the demands of a singer-songwriter girl who thinks she’s the next Taylor, and I feel steel, all right, pressing against my back, right at my beltline.
I feel blindly behind me, finding Jett’s hand holding a cool flask. Our fingers brush as he puts it in my hand, ignoring the static that tingles between our fingertips. Just nerves from today, that’s all.
“I like the way you shoot whiskey,” he whispers, grinning at me like the Cheshire cat. I guess that means I gotta drink some, wondering why I like the idea of Jett thinking I'm a badass when I want everyone else thinking I'm some sort of angel.
I duck behind his back and take a swig, sliding it in his back pocket and popping back up like I’d merely sipped water. He scratches my back playfully but says nothing. It’s like, one second, he’s annoying as all hell, and the next, he’s decidedly sweet. I can’t keep up.
Next, we have to lie down on the floor in some crazy circular configuration with cameras above us. I try to move over to innocent, actually angelic, blue-eyed Mickie, but the assistant pulls me back to lie next to Jett, the troublemaker. What’s with this?
“You just look so cute together; it’s a vibe,” the assistant says, hovering over us and blending my raven hair with Jett’s crazy black and blue puffs.
It’s just the hair, I tell myself, and ignore that my mother is slyly snapping photos on her phone and looking at me like she might know something I don’t.
After the interview, Mum's taken off to some record label meeting with dad and I get a text telling me Leah is waiting downstairs. As I’m leaving, I give Mickie a big hug and sparks fly through my chest. What do I call this?
FriendChem? I haven’t felt like someone understands me like this in a long time.
One week as friends, and she’s already offering me dream roles she has zero authority to offer, and I love her for that.
“I’ve really needed a friend like you,” I admit.
“Aw, Maddy! Me too! Can I take you under my wing, lil bestie?”
“Yes!” I hug her again, feeling like I've won the friend lottery. “I’m on set all day tomorrow. Can we meet for lunch, maybe Wednesday?”
“Of course! I’ll make reservations!” She blows kisses as she runs off to catch the lift.
I still have to grab my wardrobe bag, and as I wander over to the dressing room, I wonder if I should hug Jett goodbye, too.
He’s obnoxious, yeah, but an adorable obnoxious, I guess.
I round a corner, suddenly feeling as if someone stomped on my toes and kneed me in the solar plexus.
Physical discomfort at the sight of Jett like this?
Why? Why would this scene possibly surprise me, let alone upset me?
Jett has two of the hottest up-and-coming musicians in our crew of twenty-five pinned seductively against an abandoned hallway wall.
Well, I mean, practically pinned. He’s got soulful singer Xaden and pop powerhouse Jenna with their backs against the wall, where Jett has both hands firmly planted above their heads.
He leans into them with this hungry look in his glossy green eyes.
Starving. His puffy bottom lip firmly stuck between his teeth, the lethal gaze he gives them igniting a strange fire in my stomach.
I roll my eyes at Xaden and Jenna, at the strange sensations in my body, at myself.
But especially at Jett, as I turn and storm off towards the elevator alone.