Chapter 11 #2
I scream and storm off, my specialty. My feet thud hard on each step as I stomp up the staircase, slamming the door to my suite behind me.
Full. Baby Morningstar. Tantrum mode. I lock the door and whack my right fist against it, then my left, right, left, right, left …
once again, like a toddler. Being locked up in my princess room makes me even angrier despite doing this to myself.
My blush pink walls that match my flowing pink silk canopy above my bed feel like they’re closing in on me.
I remove each and every blush colored throw pillow from my bed one at a time by picking it up, screaming into it, and chucking it against the wall.
The only thing left on my bed now is the little black rectangle that fills me with dread just looking at it.
I hear the subtle knock of my mum at the door. “Baby?”
“NO!” I throw myself down on the bed in a huff.
“Honey, we’re just trying to protect you!”
“Maybe you should go check my God damn driver’s license, mum, because I’m not sixteen anymore!” I have literally never regretted staying here with them until this very moment. She has me sounding like I’m too young to even drive. Absolutely infuriating.
“You’ll always be that age to us, Baby! That’s just how parents are! We’re sorry we couldn’t protect you from Ace, and I think protecting you from Jett is the correct move right now. He’s a great friend, sweetie, just a terrible boyfriend. We love him, Baby, just… not for you. Not right now.”
I shove my AirPods in my ears, like a teenager, and blast angry metal so I pretend she’s not there, saying the stupidest shit only an actual teen should have to listen to.
I glare at my phone for several minutes before my brain says I might as well rip the fucking Band-Aid off, and I pick it up with a shaky, pathetic exhale.
Jett: ‘Baby plz tell me I get to hold you against me again?’
Jett: ‘I’m harder than steel just thinking about how you’ll taste’
Jett: ‘Pretty girl! What did they say?’
Jett: ‘Baby? I’m gettin’ … concerned’
Tears prick the corner of my eyes, and my throat aches with a caught sob.
Earlier, alone with him by the pool, I couldn’t think, and all I could do was feel.
All I could feel was lust. But if I just wanted Jett’s dick, why would I be crying like this?
I’m so confused, more angry, salty tears flow down my cheeks, dragging my eye makeup along with them.
Fuck it, Jett’s not a person I hide things from, so I send a few bawling emojis along with…
Me: ‘They’re a hard no, currently’
Jett: ‘Oh fuck, serious?’
And then right as I go to press a different key, Jett starts face-timing, and I accidentally press accept. I immediately tilt the screen away from my face.
“Jett! I—” I say, followed by a sad little hiccup, “didn’t want you to actually see me looking like that emoji!”
“Don’t hide from me, Baby, please? Let me see you.”
“Like this?” I turn the camera back on myself begrudgingly. Why has Jett always had the power to make me agree to anything he asks? Does that mean if he had asked me out at any point, I would have said yes? My brain won’t even let me go there.
“You’re beautiful,” he drawls. I swear, just hearing that come out of his mouth, with his letter T allergy, is enough to melt my brain completely.
“Hot goth girl in a pink princess palace with your mascara runnin’ all sexy like that, Mads.
It’s a bloody contrast, but it’s hot as hell, yeah?
I’d tell you just how hot, but … you’re breaking my heart with those tears! What happened?”
“Jett.” I wipe a tear with my knuckle. “What the fuck does we love him but just not for you even mean?”
“They said that?” Jett shakes his head and his jaw tightens.
“Ah, I see, I’m good enough to get a spot on the fucking Christmas card photo!
But heaven forbid I put a hand on their daughter, now suddenly I’m a piece of shit.
Real great, thanks Jewels! Thanks a fucking ton, Max!
” he practically growls, loudly, and lets out a ragged exhale.
His fingers curl into his glossy dark hair, raking the stray strands back and tugging, hard.
The camera shakes as he gets up and starts pacing around what appears to be an enormous bedroom painted, no shit, jet fucking black, with lyrics scrawled across the walls in dripping silver paint.
I see a black leather headboard and red satin sheets.
Jesus, this is where he’s fucked everyone.
Everyone but me! My family is acting like they’re refusing to approve of a marriage proposal when I’ve never even been in this boy’s fucking house!
Annoyance and rage practically ooze from my pores.
“They shut me down like I was a god damn child! All of them! My siblings … they say you’re going to give me a STD and that dating me would ruin your relationship with dad.
That you can't keep it in your pants, especially not on tour. I mean, my whole family thinks that. Literally, I just mention casually dating you and suddenly we’re already exclusive and you’re cheating on me in a tour bus and surprising me with a gift of Chlamydia! ”
“That’s cute you think there’d be anything casual about dating me, Mads, but their behaviour? Really not fucking cute! How dare they assume I’d fuck you over while they tell reporters how I’m family to them. Like how fucking dare they!”
How dare my body react like this to Jett being mad at my parents! A flush spreads across my skin like wildfire. Wait, did he just say there’d be nothing casual about us dating and WTF does that mean?
Jett, still shirtless, pulls his leather jacket into the frame. “I should come over right now and tell them off!”
“Jett.” I wipe at my eyes again. “I don’t think anyone in the household is changing their mind right now. Can you hold off for tonight? I’m so tired.”
He sets down his jacket, and his little pout makes my chest ache.
“I really don’t get to take you out tomorrow?
” I shake my head no and blink the blur of tears out of my eyes to find a wide grin spreading across Jett’s face.
“I can’t believe they really think they’re going to be able to stop me!
They are so fucking wrong I’d laugh if you weren’t cryin’ like that.
Might not be tomorrow or the next, but it will happen, and I will make up for every man that forgot to spoil you, Baby Morningstar.
” His face softens. “Not being allowed to date me really makes you cry like that, Mads?”
“Apparently!” I blubber.
“I quite like that, it means you might really fancy me. All of a sudden. Fucking finally.” His phone shifts, and I yell at him because I can tell he’s taking a screenshot. “Sorry, I want a picture to remind me of exactly what I’m on a mission to fix, all right?”
I shake my head. “Goodnight, Jett!”
“Goodnight, Beautiful. Don’t worry, baby girl, Jett will handle it. I’ve got you.” He sticks out those big lips and sends me an air kiss that rattles me so far down to my core that I drop my phone on my face. Thankfully right as the call ends.
“Fuck!” I groan and squish my ruined face into the pillow because I don’t even have the energy to grab a makeup wipe.
Why am I crying like I’m thirteen? The longer I lie here and the wetter my pillowcase gets, the reason I’m being treated like a teenager and why I’m acting just like one becomes pretty clear.
I should’ve seen Jett like this when we were teenagers, and the amount of time I’ve wasted makes me sick.
Makes me crazy like I just got a fresh wave of puberty hormones, and I can’t be angry with anyone but myself.
Obviously, I could drive to Jett’s place and go fuck him right now because I’m not a tween, so why don’t I?
Would he even let me? They need to approve, Jett had said.
Why? I’m a god damn adult that should have my own house to fuck a rockstar in!
I resolve to find a real estate agent tomorrow and let myself drift off to sleep.
My dreams are, unlike my current reality, heavenly, with sweeping, lush green hills of the United Kingdom as far as the eye can see.
And there’s my rockstar, dressed like the highlander or something, riding this huge, white stallion across the expanse, just to find me.
It’s as glorious as it is hot. Until I am startled awake by a loud thud against my wall, the one I share with the front of the house, followed by a distinct, “Shit! Ow!”