Chapter 29
Maddy
It’s dark out now, and I look at myself in the mirror before leaving my hotel room.
It’s funny, but the insecure girl that Ace Archer dumped, the one who pinched her tummy and worried how she looked in a swimsuit, the one who was jealous of a cute drummer?
I grin, knowing that she has officially left the building.
My baby cousin has done the Lord’s work today because I look absolutely fire. Burgundy velvet corset top, black leather mini skirt, black leather jacket, shiny burgundy high top Doc Martens, and a black velvet choker that has ‘Jett’s girl’ spelt out in jewel-encrusted letters to match my nails.
I grab a little red cherry-shaped purse to honor my boyfriend’s new song he’s debuting tonight, Cherry Darling.
I will admit my stomach did several backflips when he casually mentioned he’d binged Elite's Academy, where I played Cherry, more than once over the last eight years. I haven’t heard the song yet and have zero idea what to expect, but I know he wrote and recorded it in one day while convincing my family to approve of us.
Even if it epically sucks, I'm gonna love it. I check my phone to calm my nerves.
Gage: ‘Which day next week? Apology very much accepted.’
I grin at that. Boys are so easy sometimes.
Jett: ‘Sent a little gift over to apologise for not getting to see you yet. I promise I am yours, on stage tonight and every moment after.’
I float towards the door and open it just enough to jump when I see the concierge standing there, ready to knock.
“A gift from Mr. Raven.” He smiles and hands me a little black box, and I thank him. “May I escort you to the lobby, Ms. Morningstar?”
I nod. “Just one second.” I peek in the box and try not to squeak at the platinum tennis bracelet with mine spelt out in diamond letters. I toss the empty box in the room and close the door. I ask the concierge to help me fasten the bracelet and grin all the way downstairs.
“Oh, your car Mr. Raven sent just arrived, let me help you in.”
Not sure how I feel about being babied right now, but I know it’s just Jett trying to spoil me.
Blood red roses and a bottle of champagne on ice greet me as I slide onto the black leather seat, and my door is closed.
Not bad. I giggle at the note: ‘Please polish off the bottle before you arrive, it will make me sound better to your beautiful ears. Miss you, Baby.’
I text him: ‘I love the gift, I love being yours. I never want to take it off.’
Jude: ‘Don’t mean to be a dick, sister dearest, but you’ve gotta keep an eye on that drummer. Keeps posting pics hanging all over Jett like he is hers. Get passkey to his phone just in case there's something going on there?’
I groan, hating the way my stomach twists into knots, and the way the knots tighten as I pull up Lily’s IG and see the photos for myself.
Jett is affectionate with everyone, including his band, so his drummer hugging on him is no big deal.
It’s the way she looks at him that makes every internal alarm inside me blare.
I stare at the pictures until I understand two facts.
Lily is not gay, and acting insecure and jealous about her to Jett will drive him away.
I am not letting Jude and Lily ruin this night!
I swig down the champagne and try to counsel myself through it.
He’s wanted you for nearly eight years. Eight!
Just like his abs and inches of perfect dick.
Not her, you! If Jett wanted her, he’d already be dating her!
You’re the badass, rockstar girlfriend, not her.
I repeat that in my head over and over until the bottle is empty.
Once I’m inside the intimate venue, I’m one hundred percent that bitch.
I glance around the black box-style theatre where everyone is just on level with the artist. It’s dark with neon pink lighting and a full bar in the corner, stage lights illuminate the band.
I make sure to hug each musician, including Lily, and make air kisses in her direction like I don’t have a care in the world.
They go up to their instruments and pretend they are bored waiting around for Jett to show up.
It’s a cute schtick, and extra entertaining if you know Jett actually has every little thing that happens – whether he’s on stage or off – perfectly timed and organized.
Like Mickie said, he’s so in control, people think he’s out of it.
It’s all orchestrated in loud ideas shared once as a stream of consciousness, and then boom, it gets planned out immediately.
If his fans go crazy for something he does, he acts so pleased and excited as if he didn’t do that at that exact moment just to surprise them and win their hearts even more.
He isn’t a messy accident; he is a secret masterpiece.
A server spots me and brings me the Cherry Darling cocktail while I am chatting with Sid and Jennifer.
I can’t seem to convince them to come sit with me in the front row, and sometimes it blows my mind that these introverts made Jett.
They can’t stop talking about the calm, mature energy that Jett had when he took them out to dinner last night and how I had done that.
“Me? He is turning twenty-seven next month, maybe he’s just maturing on his own, and that’s what opened my eyes to him. I don’t want to take all the credit.”
They keep saying that he was always rash, wild, and insecure until we got together.
How he became a man the day he stood up for his decision to take our relationship public.
The day my dad nearly gave them a double heart attack with that sword, the day Jett decided to fight for his princess, as they call me, was the day he changed.
I’m not going to debate with them because they really fucking like me, and because the event photographer has come to take pictures of the three of us.
After we smile and pose, I quickly hug them before I get ushered back to my seat.
In true, orchestrating Jett fashion, he’d asked my cousin and auntie to fake having plans so I’d be surprised when they were sitting in the front row with me.
He also went stealth to secretly invite Kel.
I give her a tight squeeze and feel better immediately.
I am so excited to see her reactions tonight, since she’s been listening to him since his very first single.
I have Britta snap a selfie of the four of us, and when Jett comes out and everyone claps, I immediately drop my phone and it clatters on the floor.
Kel leans down to grab it, which she’s used to doing while I’m in the makeup chair.
I am in some sort of shock, and my hands are shaking, so I ask her to just keep a hold of it for me.
Seeing someone you’ve known for eight years and seen perform so many times come out on stage shouldn’t have this effect.
But this is like the distant, long-lost relative of the Jett I met back then.
Some extremely talented team of sorcerers had gotten hold of my boyfriend, and fuck if it feels like I’m seeing him for the first time all over again.
Auntie and Kel have to catch me as I nearly slip off my chair and fall literally at this man’s feet.
He isn’t an emo rappy pop rockstar anymore.
He’s a breathtaking, ethereal work of art and magic.
Jett is wearing all black but no leather, black suit pants and a button-up accentuated with black suspenders.
I don’t understand why they look so sexy on him, his hair whipped up high and out of his face, a silvery black liner only around his waterline, making his eyes look almost transparent under the stage lights.
I’ve seen him look hot, look pretty, look sexy, of course, but never this beautiful.
The band starts the new song immediately, and I melt into my auntie’s side.
He puts me in this trance, and if I wasn’t in love with him before, I would be now, no question.
Red lips like a fever dream
Chaos theory in ripped-up jeans
Auntie looks at me, then Jett, and back to me with a quiet gasp. “If that isn’t Jewels looking at your dad. Wow. Full circle déjà vu, Baby.” I can’t exactly speak, but I nod because what the hell am I right now if not history repeating itself?
Cherry Darling, you’re the poison in my veins
The perfect storm of pleasure and of pain
Where my character Cherry ends and I begin is a bit of a blurred line and I see that’s exactly how Jett saw me when we met. The song is clearly about both of us. Cherry and me, me and Cherry. The bratty sweetheart and the badass bitch. My alter ego and I melt into the swooniest puddle.
My head gets stuck on the ripped jeans lyric, and I get the clearest visual of looking at Jett that day at the Seventeen office.
Peering into the looking glass, like Jett and I were two sides of the mirror.
The rocker wannabe and the rockstar’s daughter, face-to-face.
I stared at him, mirroring me, in ripped jeans, a white tank, a gold chain, and bare feet.
Green eyes, pale skin, dark hair, eyes full of so much fucking hope.
And then I hear it clear as day, I like the way you shoot whiskey.
It’s like I can feel his hands squeezing my hips, feel his fingers against mine. Fuck. How could I not have known? Sure, he fucks with everyone. He flirts with everyone. But still! I should have fucking known. And that’s not the only time, not even close.
I snap out of my haze only because the crowd, while small and chill, is still going mental for that song.
“This next one’s a cover, a girl cover.”
I knit my brows together. What?