Chapter Fifteen
If @PhillipMaan tells you I grabbed his Armani jacket to squash a spider with he is LYING. On a completely unrelated note, please recommend good dry cleaners. And bug spray or an electric bug zapper taser thing.
—Aspen Ray [@AspenRay]
After we pulled up to Club Z, Jake and Leon exited the car and went inside, but not before Jake told me it was probably best if I stayed in the car for this part, then exchanged a sly glance with Leon, who nodded in agreement.
It’d been ten minutes, and since then, I’d become increasingly suspicious about what felony those two were pulling inside. Looking for a distraction, I turned on the LUVR radio app again.
“Smooth Criminal” started playing.
I glanced down at my outfit. A tan-and-white vintage ringer tee I found at the Bargain Bin.
Platform Mary Jane’s I bought at a discount because the left heel was scuffed.
A gold sequin skirt I’d hand-sewn myself and had admittedly gotten the seams a bit jagged, but still looked good anyway.
At least if I got arrested, I’d look cute.
I started typing a text to Amber.
Me: Hey, if I went to prison, would you still visit me?
Amber: Of course. And I’d bring you a nice care package. You know, one with some moisturizer, conditioner, and a hollowed-out baguette with a shiv in it.
Me: That’s so sweet. I’m touched.
Amber: So why am I potentially bringing you gift baskets in the state penitentiary?
Me: I think I’m about to be an accessory to a kidnapping.
Amber: Excuse me?????
I glanced out the window in time to see Jake and Leon.
Who had a struggling and complaining redheaded boy sandwiched between them that they were all but dragging as they jogged toward the car.
Oh no.
Me: Sorry, I’ve got to start the getaway car rn.
Amber: Lucy????
Amber: There’s a Taylor Swift song where she specifically warns against this. Please listen to her timeless wisdom.
Leon got in the back first, then Jake threw Aspen into the middle seat and climbed in after him.
All three of them were dusted in paper confetti.
“Sorry we took so long,” Leon apologized, shaking his head and sending a shower of glitter flying into my face. “There was a slight complication.”
“We handled it,” Jake said ominously, brushing off his broad shoulders.
“You’re getting confetti all over the seats,” I said, too stunned to say anything else.
Inside, the entire car flashed neon green and yellow. Silently, Jake reached over and pressed the Off button on Aspen’s strobe necklace.
The freckled boy currently sitting between Jake and Leon looked absolutely nothing like the child-actor-turned-popstar Aspen Ray I saw on album covers and talk shows. There, he looked like the picture-perfect Captain America–type who delivered promotional snippets with a winning smile.
Now, he had a magenta lipstick stain on his cheek, wore at least six glowstick bracelets, had a neon mesh shirt over an equally loud basketball jersey, jean shorts, and—for some mind-boggling reason—a designer sports jacket with sleeves that came down a bit too long, like he’d been too impatient to find one that actually fit.
He was also currently letting out a string of swear words that would’ve gotten entirely bleeped out had he been on TV.
This was Aspen? The “Boy Scout”?
The only badges he was earning were Worst Dressed and Most Creative Use of Foul Language.
Four girls also covered in confetti and wearing glowstick bracelets stomped out of Club Z’s doors and started looking around angrily. I had a feeling they wanted their guest of honor back.
“You should probably start driving,” Leon said helpfully.
Right. Okay. I started the car, shaking myself out of my shock.
“Lucy, meet Aspen,” Jake said casually, as if we weren’t in the middle of an abduction and the boy next to him wasn’t yowling like an irate kitten being forced to take a bath.
“He’s the bandmate who once put pink Jell-O in the combat boots I had to do a quick change into during a concert, because he said—” Jake snapped his fingers and pointed at Aspen.
“It would be funny,” Aspen completed.
“Right,” Jake said dryly. “Funny.”
“And it was. Your boots never smelled better either. So fresh. So delicious. Like they belonged to Strawberry Shortcake.”
“Hilarious.”
“See? I told you you’d laugh about it one day.”
“Still waiting,” Jake said, before motioning toward me. “Aspen, meet the lovely Luciana. She’ll be our getaway driver today.”
I glanced in the mirror to see Aspen leaning forward, studying me with new interest. “Luciana?”
“I go by Lucy now,” I told him.
Aspen’s gaze jumped from me to Jake and Leon, then back again. “Hi, Lucy,” he said, his tone taking on some undecipherable tone, like he was in on a joke I didn’t know. In fact, they had all been acting that way. “How’s it going?”
“Uh, fine,” I replied. “You?”
“Oh, no complaints. Or, you know, none until these two idiots bandnapped me on vacation,” he replied, sulking and crossing his arms.
“You wouldn’t answer your phone,” Leon pointed out.
“Whatever, still can’t work that stupid thing. I should’ve taken the energy drink commercial instead,” Aspen muttered.
I eyed him in the mirror as he unwound a foil streamer from around his upper arm. “Didn’t you tell everyone you were connecting with nature?” I asked.
“I was connecting with my party animal instinct.” Aspen elbowed his bandmates. “You guys could’ve at least waited five more minutes to kidnap me. Chloe and I were hitting it off.” He sighed forlornly. “She had a tongue ring.”
“So sorry for your loss,” Jake deadpanned.
“I don’t think you’re missing out,” Leon inserted. “She literally said Phillip was her favorite.”
“That guy,” Aspen muttered under his breath. “Well, Phillip wasn’t there. And being second-favorite’s not bad.”
“How do you know you were her second favorite?” Leon asked curiously.
Aspen grunted, crossing his arms. “This is definitely my least favorite bandnapping.”
Excuse me? “You’ve been bandnapped before?”
“A girls basketball team in Duluth hijacked my limo after a concert,” he answered, his voice sounding wistful. “They all had on tiny fake mustaches and smelled like apples.”
“You were only bandnapped for five minutes,” Jake said. “Security found you when the girls couldn’t figure out how to properly corner a twenty-foot-long car and tipped over a taco stand.”
“It was seven minutes. And they were the best ones of my life.”
I genuinely couldn’t tell whether they were joking or not. “Are you guys always like this?”
“Like what?” Three eerily in-sync voices stopped mid-argument to ask.
“Like . . .” I shook my head, trying to find the right vibes to put into words. “Chaos. Hijinks city. Herding cats.”
“Oh. That. No.” Aspen shook his head. “Most of the time we’re worse.”
“There are four of us,” Leon reminded me. “And Phillip and Aspen are usually bickering.”
“Ugh,” Aspen said, wrinkling his nose, “don’t talk about Phillip.”
“Right, so, about that,” Jake began, while Aspen groaned, apparently already seeing where this was going. “We’re picking him up from the airport now.”
“You owe me,” Aspen groaned.
Jake shrugged. “Get in line.”
***
Phillip Maan looked even prettier in person than he did on-screen.
While most travelers stumbled out of the airport looking worse for wear, with tired eyes and comfy clothes, Phillip strode out the sliding glass doors and toward my car in an all-designer getup like the sidewalk was his own personal runway.
All right, fine. I could see why the What’s POPpin writers dubbed him the Real-Life Prince Charming.
But he didn’t just look like a Disney prince; he carried himself like a royal everyone had their eyes on.
And he knew it.
“Lucy, is that you?” Phillip questioned as he slid smoothly into the front passenger seat.
The scent of his decadent cologne filled the car.
I resisted the urge to lean forward and sniff him.
He smelled expensive. “Thank you for picking me up from the airport,” Phillip said courteously.
If his accent sounded good over the phone, it sounded even better in person directed right at me.
Perhaps even dreamier. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” I replied, going for a normal sentence instead of what I was really thinking, which went something like, Wow, you look exactly like the Ken doll I once had when I was seven, and now I feel kind of bad for letting the café cats chew on his plastic legs. “It’s the least I could do.”
“You look exquisite,” he gushed. “Even the ultra-HD cameras on my Maxbook Seven could not do you justice.”
Then he reached over, took my hand in his, raised it to his lips, and kissed the back of it.
Something snapped loudly in the back seat and I heard a slight yip of protest from Aspen. It might’ve been Jake breaking one of Aspen’s glowstick bracelets in half.
“You don’t have to say the specs when you’re not in public,” Leon reminded Phillip.
The sight of his bandmates seemed to jolt Phillip back to reality.
“Sorry,” he said, reaching up to run his hands over his face. “It just slipped out. I was up shooting adverts till about one in the morning last week. I’m still reciting the script in my dreams,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll snap out of it. Eventually.”
His honesty made him seem a little less polished and larger than life. For the first time, I caught a glimpse of the real boy beneath the charming veneer.
“Hi, Leon,” Phillip said, swiveling to look into the back seat. “Hi, Jake.”
“I thought I said to come in casual clothes,” Jake said.
“These are my casual clothes,” Phillip argued. “This is Louis Vuitton’s streetwear line.”
Aspen snickered. “Where’d you come from? Paris?”
“Yes, actually,” Phillip said, giving Aspen’s garish outfit and glowstick accessories a bombastic side-eye. “Where’d you come from? A Party Warehouse clearance sale?”
Aspen snorted. “It’s great to see you again, Phil,” he said sarcastically, making Phillip scowl. “Phillis. Philly. Pip. What’s up, man?”