Chapter 11
Maddy
It’s nearing midnight, the best time to have deep conversations in my household, when everyone non-related has finally left.
As soon as Jett went home, I kinda had to force him to, I opened my phone and stared at the photo I took of us in the pool house so long my eyes began to blur.
I made myself put the device in time out, left it on my bed, and closed the door, picturing myself happily running up to text him after the talk with my family.
I head downstairs and throw myself on the couch between Lola and Mum. Jude’s on the floor wrestling his boxer puppy, Jimmy, named after his second favorite guitar player, and Dad, our first favorite, is perfectly zen, lying back in his black leather La-Z-Boy throne.
The only emotions I should be feeling are lust and nerves, nervous and horny.
But I can’t help playing the scene from my and Lola’s favorite movie, Clueless, over and over in my head.
When the trumpets sound and the lights flash through the mist of the fountain, you can practically see a light bulb turn on over Cher’s head when she proclaims her sudden realization that she is, in fact, in love with her ex-stepbrother.
I keep replacing the name Josh with Jett, and I can’t stop doing it. Obsessively. On a loop. How could I be in love with Jett? That’s absolutely insane! I just discovered we’re even attracted to each other ten hours ago.
An hour earlier, I got so tired of feeling hysterical that I took Dad up on his offer of a Xanax, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. The desire for Jett bubbling through my veins like molten lava is so foreign, so unsettling, that I want to scream and cry and call a therapist.
“Baby,” Lola whines, “why did you feel the need to drive away that beautiful boy with your fake ass stomach-ache story?”
I fidget with the faux fur blanket on my legs. “How do you know it was fake?”
She rolls her eyes. “Because I’ve known you your entire life? Because you’re only good at lying when you’re getting paid for it? Because you were magically better when he left? Swimming ‘round with Jett for hours like nothing was wrong!”
“Fine,” I huff. “My stomach didn’t really hurt. Um, I actually wanted to talk with you guys about that reason…”
My mum sniffs dramatically. “It better be a good reason, Baby! He’s our favourite boy witch on telly, I hated that he had to leave so soon!”
My dad grabs a red stress ball that says ‘keep calm and carry on’ and begins squeezing it harder than necessary.
“Warlock, Jewels! A boy witch is called a warlock! And he makes a damn good one, plus, he was handsome and polite and didn’t have a stick up his arse or look like a bloody blonde Ken doll for a change!
So what the fuck was wrong with him, Baby? ”
I start chewing on a fingernail, and my mum slaps my hand away from my mouth. “Well…”
“Out with it, Baby!” Jude shouts, and Jimmy barks at me.
“It’s not that there was anything wrong with him, that’s the thing. I didn’t realize it till he was already here.”
“Christ, Baby! Realise what?” My mum starts jiggling her knee, which is never a great sign. I toss my blanket over her legs.
I walk over to my dad’s giant skull-shaped liquor cabinet, pour a double whiskey, and shoot half.
“BABY!” my family shouts, and Luci howls from the next room.
I sit again and exhale for what feels like an hour. “That I … might want to be with someone else.”
My dad eyes his expensive whiskey in my hand, but doesn’t mention it.
“You figured that out in the middle of the party? Oh God. Please tell me it’s not Jude’s friend Zach you’re suddenly interested in! He’s quite possibly the most boring wanker I’ve ever met!”
“Dad!” Jude shouts, but Dad’s totally right.
I finish the rest of my glass and Lola takes it for me. “More like, the least boring person at the party, Dad. Other than you, I mean. I’d like to talk about … the idea … the concept of um, me dating Jett.”
I’ve never seen four people’s eyes fly wide open in unison quite like that before.
“Jett? Our Jett?” Mum’s face drains of color like she’s going into shock.
“Baby! You’re fucking mental!” Jude throws Jimmy’s toy into the other room.
“Are you on drugs, Baby?” Lola asks, as if I’m her.
“Why would I need to be on drugs to want to date Jett? I’ve known him for eight years, and you’d rather have me date some random stranger from an app?!”
The stress ball bursts in Dad’s grip, and fine grains of sand fly everywhere, which he chooses to ignore completely. Everyone turns to look at him with bated breath.
“Baby, there are so many things I want to say right now, I don’t even know where to fucking start.”
Lola starts pacing the living room like it’s a situation room. “You should start with, he’s a fucking manwhore! Baby, do you realize how many people Jett’s fucked? You would catch half an STD just from kissing him!”
Jude laughs. “What’s half an STD?”
Mum throws a pillow at him. “Lola’s not wrong, Baby! He’s slept with more people than Dad at that age! It’s fucking dangerous to get in that boy’s pants!”
My dad chokes on his scotch, and Jude continues to find this hilarious until my dad chucks his slipper at him.
Jude sobers a bit and says, “Baby, when Jett dumps you, do you understand how fucked up his relationship with Dad would be? The relationship they did a fucking hour-and-a-half special about on ABC last year, if you don’t recall!
I get it, Jett’s hot now, but is it really worth the risk?
The whole STD thing doesn’t matter; I can have a full blood work write-up from his manager in a week or probably less.
Unless he cheats on you and picks something up and—”
Dad stamps his foot. “Jude, I love you, but shut the fuck up!”
I glare at my brother, then get up and sit on the armrest of Dad’s chair, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and touching my head to his, just like I always have when I really want something. “Daddy…”
He sighs, and everyone in the room groans. “Baby, please just listen to an old man, humour me, all right?”
I nod, and he turns to look me in the eyes. I attempt to make mine as puppy-dog-adorable as I can. The way Jett looks all the time.
“Where Jett’s about to be in a handful of months, his first real earth-shattering, rock ‘n roll album, it’s …
it’s going to hit number one and turn his life upside down.
The press, the travelling, the world tour, literally, from New York to Japan, Australia, fucking everywhere.
I’m concerned he won’t be able to make enough time for you.
And I know this from experience, the horniest women, or women and men, in Jett’s case, because we all know he swings every which way, will be throwing themselves at him every night.
His middle name certainly isn’t monogamy.
I love Jett, I do, but you’re my little girl, and you have to see why this could be the worst possible time to be with him. ”
I hold my face in my hands and try not to cry because I know he’s right, but my freakin’ brain won’t let up. Just date him for a few months and agree to be friends again when he leaves for tour. You’ll probably be busy filming season three while he’s touring anyway. It’s worth the risk.
“God, I’m so stupid!” I mumble into my hands, knowing my brain is completely full of shit.
“You just got your heart broken, Baby. Do you really want to go right into another inevitable heartbreak? Risk getting your feelings crushed so you can, what, have a one-nighter with Jett? You’re smarter than this, sweetie.”
“I know, Mum! Fuck!”
“He hasn’t been able to keep it in his pants with any girlfriend so far, Baby.” Jude rubs his temples. “What makes you think he’s gonna start with you?”
Lola shakes her head at me like she thinks I need a straightjacket. “Baby, Jesus fucking Christ! This morning, you were perfectly excited to use that glistening, gorgeous Gage as a rebound, and now Jett’s the love of your life? I fucking can’t with you!”
Even though they’re right, I want to scream at them, especially Jude and Lola, tell him he’s an asshole and tell her she’s a bitch, that it’s not like she hasn’t changed her mind on a dime before. So, I do.
Then I scream at my parents like a bratty pre-teen that was just told she can’t attend the popular girls’ sleepover or something. “I can’t believe you would shut me down like this!”
Dad rises from his chair and grips the top of the leather lounger like it owes him money. “I can’t believe you would risk tearing down what we’ve built as a family, Baby!”
“Maybe I was building something with Jett, too!”
“Then why would it take you eight bloody years to notice that? I think you’re depressed and lonely and confused!
You’re an adult, and you have needs, and I get that, but hell, why couldn’t you have them met by someone we’re not so interconnected with?
Someday we plan to make an entire album together, Baby.
It would be awkward as fuck to spend eight hours a day in the studio with the fucker that broke my Baby’s heart! You don’t get that?”
“Break my heart? God fucking damn it, Dad! Can’t a girl date? I’m not asking for a ring, okay, I just wanna spend some time with him. Is that a bloody crime?”
“Oh, it’s gonna be bloody all right! Ugly, too! Our boy is no saint, and despite your efforts to be on your best behaviour all these years neither are you, dear!”