Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
“I can’t believe we did it.” Darcy had said that exact statement multiple times in the last twenty-four hours. Hell, she’d said it multiple times in the last hour, since they’d arrived at the airport.
Their final show had been last night, wrapping in Houston. She, Blythe, and Emerson had gone back to Darcy’s hotel room, shared a bottle of champagne, and stared, dazedly, out from the balcony.
They did it.
They’d not only released Jukebox Calamity, but they’d completed their tour, and it… it had all been amazing. They weren’t a flop. They were a success.
Even after the last year, it hadn’t been possible for Darcy to feel hopeful.
So weighed down by all of the voices from her past, from all of her failures.
Starting right from her second-grade math teacher, right through the cliques in high school, and into all of the no’s at music competitions and festivals.
But We, The Romantics wasn’t some one-hit wonder. People wanted more of them.
Darcy was electrified by that feeling. No, she wasn’t about to start buckling down and writing or composing just yet, but very soon.
“I know.” Emerson sounded dazed, shaking her head. “We… we really did it.”
“Yes, we did. And now, we have to get to our terminal before we miss our flight home,” Blythe cut in, glancing down at her watch.
Blythe had been a lot softer and even a little emotional last night. But she was back to her typical self now, and Darcy wouldn’t change a thing about her.
They were all flying out within the next hour, but they weren’t flying to the same place.
“Are you sure I can’t interest either of you in a movie premiere?” Darcy asked, darting her eyes between her sister and best friend, wiggling her eyebrows.
Would it be more ideal for Nik Kosta’s movie premiere not to be within twenty-four hours of her nine-week nonstop tour ending? Absolutely.
Would Darcy love to be able to fly to L.A. and collapse into Juliet’s bed – into Juliet – for at least one full day? Not needing to get dressed up for anything, not needing to leave the house unless it was to sit outside in Juliet’s beautiful oasis of a backyard? More than anything.
But she wasn’t going to complain.
Because she was not only going to her first ever movie premiere, but she was going to it with Juliet.
She could see it so clearly in her mind’s eye.
No, she and Juliet wouldn’t be hand-in-hand or anything like that, but…
but they’d be together, publicly. They’d be seen at the premiere as a team, because they’d worked on the song together.
No one would blink twice at them being glued at the hip all night.
So what if the world didn’t know that Darcy’s heart would flutter at the way Juliet’s skin would brush against her own? So what if the world didn’t know that she’d feel like a livewire inside, just being able to stand so close to Juliet all night long, breathing her in?
She didn’t need the world to know that; she just needed to feel it.
They’d had their stylists connect, even, to discuss their wardrobes. They wanted to be deliberately complementary to one another.
Fuck, it made her shiver, those butterfly wings bursting to life in her stomach. They’d be surrounded by people tonight, but… it would also be just the two of them.
Darcy was going to be cutting it close, when it came to her schedule. Juliet was likely already heading to the hotel in Beverly Hills that Darcy would be immediately going to upon landing at LAX, their hair and makeup teams already waiting.
But she always needed Blythe and Emerson to know that even if Darcy’s name was the one on the soundtrack, her individual success was theirs. She wouldn’t be We, The Romantics without them. Any movie premiere she was going to was for all of them.
She’d made sure of that before she’d signed onto anything.
Blythe shook her head. “I’ve never been so happy to be excluded from something as I am right now, on the heels of the tour. I just want to go home to my own bed, to my own fiancé, and rot.”
“And I’m officially out of Ativan after our last show,” Emerson chimed in with a tight smile. “So, I’m not even looking forward to making it through this flight, let alone a movie premiere.”
Darcy couldn’t argue with that.
As soon as her flight took off, she excitedly took out her phone.
After Juliet had left New York, she’d had a hectic schedule to return to, not only including that rescheduled event with Robbie, but she’d also been a guest on the Press Tour podcast. Darcy wasn’t really a podcast person.
When it came to music, she was locked in.
When it came to listening to other things? A lot more difficult to focus.
Even though she wasn’t super knowledgeable about podcasts, though, she still knew what Press Tour was.
The two women who cohosted it were in their early twenties, and they’d started it a couple of years ago when they’d been in college together.
Interviewing different people around campus, starting as a project for some class, but it had taken off.
In the last few years, they’d hosted a ton of people of note: authors, actresses, politicians – musicians, with a focus on women in different industries.
Juliet had gotten the rough cut sent to her last night – as Press Tour was starting to release teasers on their social media – and Darcy had immediately asked for her to send it. She might not have an interest in listening or watching most podcasts, but she had an interest in Juliet doing one.
She settled back into her seat, put her headphones on, and played the video she’d downloaded from Juliet’s email.
Juliet was, unsurprisingly, great at being interviewed.
The funniest thing, in retrospect, was that the only time Juliet had really snapped during an interview had been regarding Darcy. Kind of flattering, really.
It was impressive, though, the way Juliet could remain totally unflappable but appeared so laidback.
She really gave the perfect impression, all cute and sweet and casual, and Darcy totally bought into it, grinning down at her phone like an idiot as she listened to Juliet go back and forth with the hosts – Kaitlyn and Mackenzie – about her last tour, what she was currently working on, her thoughts on burnout and the creative process.
If she wasn’t in public, she might even have kicked her feet up when Juliet mentioned her, in terms of the creative process. “Darcy, actually, has–”
“Darcy Kincaid?” Mackenzie clarified.
“The one and only,” Juliet confirmed, with the littlest hint of a smile.
That, right there, was what Juliet was so good at, in a way Darcy could not replicate. If she was talking in an interview about Juliet, she’d be smiling the way she was at her phone right now.
Juliet continued, “When we worked together for our last collaboration, it actually taught me a lot about how she approaches music. It, genuinely, has been really transformative.”
Darcy’s stomach fluttered more at that than when they hit turbulence.
“So, you two really have buried the hatchet. It’s not some elaborate scheme to calm the fervor after last summer,” Kaitlyn brought up, leaning in with obvious interest.
Juliet rolled her eyes, letting out a sweet, sprinkling laugh. “Ah, no. If it was a ‘scheme’ we wouldn’t have needed to take it this far. The hatchet has been buried, deeply. It’s swimming with the fishes. Excuse the mixed metaphors.”
They all laughed, including Darcy.
One of the final things they did on their show was a game, where Juliet had to spin a wheel and would have to partake in a dare.
“We’ve revamped the dare wheel,” Kaitlyn sang, as she placed it on the table in front of the couch they were sitting on.
This was the single moment Darcy could see Juliet was thrown off. And she could only tell by the slightest flinch because she knew Juliet; no one else would notice a thing, because everything was smoothed over in an instant.
Juliet leaned in to read the options, laughing. “Well. Let’s do it.”
As if Darcy was a part of the podcast herself, she leaned closer to her phone as Juliet spun the wheel, anticipating what it would land on. Juliet had given her a quick overview from the podcast after she’d recorded it, but they’d both been exhausted that night, and hadn’t talked for very long.
Which was okay; Darcy was excited to watch it play out for herself.
When the wheel stopped, Mackenzie leaned forward and picked it up, reading aloud, “Take your phone out and read the last text message you received.”
Oh, there it was again. The slightest tick in Juliet’s perfect smile, before she kept it rolling along. “I see I got one of the new dares.”
“You’re the guinea pig!” Kaitlyn laughed, as she shifted from where she was leaning against the arm of the couch, close in toward Juliet. Really close. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to read everything. I’m just making sure you’re playing honestly.”
This was a part of their podcast, Darcy knew that. The dares and the leaning in and the double-checking.
Still, she felt her heart skip a nervous beat in her chest, her own smile frozen. Had she been the last message in Juliet’s phone? With the way Juliet had reacted, she had to have been.
But they didn’t sext or say anything inappropriate; Juliet was careful about that. Hell, Juliet had ensured that they’d saved one another not even as their own names.
… Darcy supposed this was a clear reason for that sort of thing.
“Let’s do it,” Mackenzie urged, nudging Juliet with her knee.
Kaitlyn jokingly rubbed her hands together.
Juliet breathed out a laugh, unlocking her phone in her lap. Her body language looked casual and easy, but Darcy could see she was a little more wooden than she’d been before.
But if something came from this, Juliet would have said something to her. She was confident about that.