He kisses me quickly and fiercely, his hands flying to my neck, his fingers pressing into my hair. Then he pulls away to kiss my jaw, and he runs his lips down my neck, warm as he kisses me, followed by a shock of ice as air hits my skin in his wake. Then, just as my knees start to give out, he straightens and pulls back. “Sorry for the ambush,” he whispers. “I’ve just been wanting to do that for hours.”
I’m speechless for the next full thirty seconds. For once, it’s me following him out the door, adjusting my jeans as well as I can, and praying we don’t run into anyone before I can get my blood pressure back under control.
He checks the women’s bathroom—also negative—then we swing past to peek at the stage again just in case Angel returned while we were, ah, preoccupied. Still no luck. I send him a text, and even try calling him, but he doesn’t respond.
“Maybe we should ask the guards if he went out somewhere?” I suggest uncertainly as we hover in the empty hallway.
“Maybe…” Zach shrugs. “Give him a minute, though. He hasn’t even been gone for ten. I don’t want to get him in trouble over nothing if he’s just gone to take a look outside.”
“You think he’s outside?” I ask skeptically. “There’s no way he could’ve gotten past Keegan.”
Then it hits me. Of course. Zach and I aren’t the only ones who know how to work a fire exit.
We find it in less than a minute: follow a stark white hallway with a concrete floor, then open a second door, letting the midafternoon sun stream in.
“Wait-wait-wait, hold it open!” yells a familiar voice. I pull the door back a little more to find Angel on the other side. “That thing shut behind me—I couldn’t get back in!”
He has sunglasses on and his hood pulled up, at least, but it’s still a small miracle he wasn’t mobbed. Although, now that I peek outside, there’s no one around. Just some guy I don’t recognize in sweatpants and a T-shirt, walking briskly away from us.
“What were you doing out there?” Zach chides. “Erin would’ve murdered you.”
“Nothing important,” Angel says, which makes me think it probably is something important. “Come on. Let’s get back before Jon starts doing Hail Marys in penance for touching his thighs in public.”
He takes off his sunglasses and shoves them into his pocket.
I can’t help but notice he leaves his hand over those sunglasses very protectively as we walk back to the stage.
* * *
We’re about halfway into that night’s performance when I become quite certain that Angel was outside meeting a dealer. He is, fairly obviously, high off his face.
Luckily for us, I don’t think it’s noticeable to the audience. They probably just think he’s really, really into the songs. But up as close as I am, I can see the manic look in his too-open eyes, the way he’s chewing on his lower lip, and the restless trembling of his legs.
As soon as we get a break between songs, I make my way over to Zach, and duck my head in. “Keep an eye on Angel. I think he’s taken something.”
Zach’s face clouds as I pull away, and in the back of my mind I can already see the headlines. What insult did Ruben whisper to Zach onstage last night? Inside source gives us the catty details on the latest in their dramatic feud.
It’s time for us to perform “Guilty,” complete with Jon’s updated choreo. Impressively, even though Jon was only taught the new moves a few hours ago, he nails them, and injects them with enough passion and charisma that I’m sure Valeria is side stage somewhere beaming. Jon’s like all of us in that way. He’ll resist where he can, but, ultimately, he jumps when and how he’s told to jump. I guess he can reconcile this with his morals by reasoning that he was forced, and that he’s doing it for everyone’s good.
I can relate to that.
I’m so busy focusing on my own moves, and glancing at Jon to admire his new set, that it takes me several seconds to notice Angel has changed up the way he’s dancing. He’s supposed to be in time with Zach and me—a symmetrical unit at the back of Jon’s front-and-center dance solo—but tonight he’s adding in … stuff. More than just the usual flair he pushes boundaries with. I catch a pause and a wink at the crowd, then a pop of his collar when our hands are meant to be down, then a lip bite and a kick out when we’re meant to be standing still with our heads to one side.
Is this how he’s decided to prove his “I’m actually the sexiest one here” case to Valeria? Or is he so out of it that he’s doing this without an ulterior motive at all?
It’s a good thing I’m not trying to pull off new moves tonight, because I’m so distracted I’m relying completely on muscle memory to make it through. I plaster a smile on my face and start praying—to Jon’s god, out of convenience, because I figure He knows enough about us by now to not need extra context—that Angel makes it through this performance without doing anything he can’t take back.
By the end of the concert I’m relieved to say it could have been worse. He doesn’t stage-dive, or hurt himself, or yell anything inappropriate that could get us in headlines. But, still, I’m so tense I can barely breathe right up until the moment we say goodbye to Cologne and run off the side stage, plunged out of the laser lighting and into the darkness.
Erin’s there to greet us, as usual, but this time, so is Valeria.
“Great job,” Valeria says to Jon, squeezing his shoulder. “No notes. I knew you could do this. It wasn’t so bad, was it?”
He gives her a tight smile in reply. Personally, I’m just glad that look isn’t being directed at me. He’s only just started warming to me again since my tantrum earlier this week, despite saying we were cool after I pulled him aside to apologize to him the next morning.
I catch Jon’s eye and mouth “you okay?” He goes purposely cross-eyed in response. Yup. That about sums it up.
Valeria turns to Angel now. From Angel, she receives an enormous, sloppy grin. He’s apparently very pleased with himself.
“Next time,” she says icily, “stick to the choreo. You made everyone look bad tonight. You looked like you didn’t know what was going on.”
“I knew what was going on,” he says. “I was dancing Jon’s part with him.”
“Dance your part.”