17. THE ONE WITH THE YELLOW SUNDRESS
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE ONE WITH THE YELLOW SUNDRESS
Comment: Who’s going to West’s show in Portland, Maine tonight? *side eyes*
Comment reply: ME! Will have updates
Comment reply: Thank you for your service!
Okay, maybe I was a little judgmental.
Maybe I did the same thing everyone else does to West—judge him based on the things people who don’t know him say.
It’s his choice to portray himself the way he does, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t still a person outside his stage name.
I’ve watched Frankie play characters on stage her entire life.
Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Sandy in Grease, Elle in Legally Blonde, three of the seven Von Trapp children.
Or my personal favorite, Wednesday in The Addams Family.
And now she’s Frankie Lou—a tragic name picked by her label, but nonetheless, a star waiting to be discovered.
Point being, if Frankie can put on a face and be someone completely different off stage, why can’t West?
Isn’t that what I do when I put Hex’s mask on too?
Sound check goes as expected, although much quicker than Frankie’s with a full band. I get some videos and introduce myself to the club’s manager, the bartender, and a few of the crew members backstage.
I was told I’m free to go wherever I need, and invited to watch the show from the sound booth where I can film.
The boys are finishing setting up and getting things ready for the show, which gives me a moment to sneak away and change.
Making my way to the camper in the back parking lot—where I guess we’ll be sleeping the next couple nights—my phone rings with a FaceTime call. I truly hadn’t thought I’d be agreeing to sleep underneath West in a smaller-than-normal bunk bed, but here I am!
I answer on the third ring to Frankie’s up-close face, but don’t give her time to say anything before asking, “Did you know there was a third guy?”
“Kell? Yeah, Enzo told me about him when we went to get coff—oh, and I forgot to tell you.” She smiles with all her teeth, attempting to look innocent. “Sorry, is he weird?”
“No, he’s fine,” I reply with a shrug when I notice Frankie’s still in my apartment. “Are you—” I start.
“I decided to stay at your place,” Frankie divulges. “I have plans tomorrow night in the city, so if I go home, I’ll have to come back to feed Grim and then go back home. Plus, Hilda said she’s making cod tonight since you’re not here, and I don’t want to miss that.”
Frankie doesn’t eat a lot of meat, but she does love good seafood here and there, and I can appreciate that Hilda loves me enough not to stink up my apartment like fried fish while I’m there. “Open a window while she’s cooking.”
I grab my bag off the dinette bench and pop an earbud in, heading to the back for the first time. I manage to close the door, but I don’t think the lock works. I’ll have to change fast.
Zoning out on whatever Frankie’s talking about, I look around the room I’ll be sleeping in for two nights.
“What’s that look for? Is it filthy? Let me see.” She comes closer to the screen. “Oh, Jo, I’m sorry. This was a dumb—”
I shake my head, and she stops talking. “No, it’s not.”
Actually, it’s really fucking clean for three dudes. The top bunk isn’t made, but that gives Kell energy, and I barely know the guy. The bottom, West’s bunk, is made, but more thrown together than the queen-size bed in the middle of the small room.
Enzo’s bed looks like he spent twenty years in the military.
It’s not the smallest RV, but these three are also not the smallest men, each of them over six-feet tall. I prepare myself for a weekend with no privacy.
On West’s bunk, there’s a handwritten pastel purple sticky note on his pillow. Lavender is my favorite color, or it’s at least the one I like most next to black… but when you look like me, you can’t go around telling people your favorite color is black.
I reach down and grab it, showing the paper to Frankie before reading over it quickly.
Thanks for taking a chance on me. I promise not to fuck it up.
“What does it say?” Frankie whines.
I’m positive it’s from West even though I don’t know his handwriting. “Um,” I say, swallowing as I read it over again.
“Josette,” she barks.
“Sorry.” I chuckle, masking my genuine reaction to his note. “It just says that this is his bunk, and he promises there’s nothing weird on the sheets…”
I don’t need Frankie flipping this into a thing when it’s not. A little white lie won’t hurt her. I’ve had enough happen in the last twenty-four hours. I don’t need to add another told you so from Frankie.
I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to open any of Hex's social media or reply to the texts I’ve received from friends. I don’t know what to say, but mainly, I don’t know who to be now that people know who the real me is.
West and I have opposite issues.
“So, this dress you packed.” I need to distract Frankie from the shift in my mood. “It’s a little bright for fall, don’t you think?”
“Since when do I play by fashion’s rules?” Frankie asks, plopping down on my couch. I prop her up against my open bag, digging through to find the butter yellow sundress I never got to wear last spring. “Plus, you’ll autumn-ize it with your leather jacket and Vans.”
Don’t get me started on the whole vegetarian wearing leather thing… Leather is a byproduct of the meat industry, and I thrifted my favorite jacket fifteen years ago. It’s more ethical than buying and destroying many pleather pieces in my lifetime.
“Good one.” I smile at her made up word, stripping down to my underwear.
“Oh no.” Frankie chokes as I hold the dress up and turn around.
“What?” I look down and groan, “Frankie! You said you’d fix the button!”
The reason I didn’t wear this dress in spring is because there’s supposed to be a button that holds the dress around my neck… and that button broke off.
There’s enough fabric to tie at the top and make the dress work, but I can’t do it myself or the dress rises and ends up too high where I can’t clasp the clip under my boobs, leaving an open hole instead of cut outs that show off the tattoos on my ribcage.
“No, no we can do this. I’ll talk you through it. Turn around.” Frankie spins her finger, motioning for me to face my back to her.
For the next ten minutes I wrestle with the dress, Frankie directing in the background. “Little bit down.” I let the strap fall looser. “Up some.” Then I pull it up. “Too far.”
I drop the straps and shoot my arm around my chest to catch the dress before flashing Frankie. “I give up. My arms are sore from holding them up.” I stretch my neck, hoping it’ll help with the burning in my shoulders. “I’ll wear something else. I’m not the one going on stage.”
“Yeah, but people know who you are now too. The second they see you, there’s gonna be videos, pictures, and posts. Speaking of, have you checked your account yet? Your older videos are taking off again.”
I start to slip out of the dress when I hear the door to the camper open and then slam shut. The RV shifts under the person’s footsteps on their way towards me. I rush to the door, fumbling with the lock. Why won’t this stupid fucking thing turn?
Frankie’s still yapping even though I’m out of frame.
I feel the handle rotate and suddenly remember I can speak. “I’m chan—”
It’s too late. The door’s already swinging open, and West collides into me. I manage to stay on my feet, but not while also keeping the dress up. I wrap my arms around my boobs, and thankfully the dress doesn’t fall off my waist.
“Shit, Joey. I’m sorry.” West spins around.
“Oh my god. Did West just see your tits?” Frankie asks in my ear. I can hear the grin on her face without being near my phone to see it.
West retreats down the short hallway. “West, wait,” I call after him. “Goodbye, Frankie. I’ll talk to you later.” I end the call from my earbud before she responds.
He freezes by the half-size fridge.
I puff a breath. “Can you help me with this dress?” I don’t ask the question very loudly, but I know he hears me by the way he stiffens.
“It’s broken so I can’t get it on by myself right now.
” I clear my throat. “You know what, I actually don’t need to wear this.
” I laugh nervously, turning around to shuffle over to my bag. “I have something else. Ignore me.”
His voice is in the room with me when he responds. “No, I think you should wear that dress. You look fucking—” West stops himself. “The color is beautiful on you.”
I look over my bare shoulder, still shielding my breasts from his view like he hadn’t had my nipples in his mouth twelve hours ago.
He’s still wearing the same outfit as earlier—a black hoodie with the softest material I’ve ever felt that fits his arms too well and a pair of gym shorts with an inseam short enough to show off the woodsy thigh piece wrapping around the space above his right knee.
I noticed the scars on his left knee earlier today for the first time.
They’re faded, but I’ve been around enough athletes to know what the scars from an ACL surgery look like and assume that was his hockey career ender.
It makes me wonder if the few scars I remember seeing across his abdomen are from hockey too… Fuck, I don’t need to be thinking about West without a shirt on right now!
He ditched the hat during sound check, his caramel colored hair mused and untamed in a naturally easy way. “What do you need help with?” he asks, stepping beside me.
The braid exposes my neck, keeping my hair out of the way of the strap. I turn my head and look down, finding one strap at a time for West to take. “I’m going to line the front up where it needs to go, and you’re going to tie it.”
Easy peasy. Simple.
“Let me know when you’re ready.” West’s voice is strained, like he’s also trying his best to seem calm.
I distract myself from the shiver his breath on my neck causes with getting the top situated and clasped, then relax into my natural posture. “Okay, now cross those and pull until I say.”
West does, and when his fingers graze my skin, there’s nothing I can do to keep the goosebumps from forming, and I definitely can’t hide them from him either.
“Right there.” He stops when I say and ties it off.
“There’s not enough fabric left for a pretty bow,” he warns in his teasing tone I’m quickly becoming familiar with.
I breathe a laugh through my nose. “As if you could tie a pretty bow.”
“You caught me.” West admits casually, but when I turn to face him, casual flies out the window, and he loses the war I see waging in his eyes as he tries not to gawk at my tits in this dress.
He loses, and I flush underneath his stare.
I don’t have big boobs—nothing like the girls it seems West has been involved with in the past, but this dress makes them the center of attention. I only have a few tattoos near my collarbone, leaving the skin around my cleavage bare but for the dagger between.
Letting Frankie choose my attire for the weekend might have been risky…
West clears his throat and claps his hands together, forcing himself to look around the room aimlessly. “Okay, well, I’ll uh, see you before I stage. Backstage. I go. Stage—Jesus Christ.” He spins on his heels and marches for the door.
A smile creeps onto my lips as it slams, the camper shaking from the force.
He’s trying so hard to respect my wishes.
If only he knew what I really wished and not what my brain tells me needs to happen…
West wouldn’t have been helping me in my dress. It would be piled on the floor with his own clothes, and we’d be breaking the number one tour rule: no sex on the bus.