He reaches for my hand. “Ruben,” he says with a nervous laugh. “Breathe. Everything’s fine.”
I push those terrifying thoughts aside and try to refocus on the present situation. He wants to come out to his mom. Okay. What does he need from me, then? Does he need me to talk him out of it, and reassure him that he can wait a year to tell her if needed? Or does he need me to congratulate him and talk him through it?
At the best of times, I find it hard to tell if Zach’s doing something because he wants to or because he wants to make as few waves as possible. Now, with this new information, I feel less confident than ever I’m reading the situation right. He needs me to understand what he wants, but I don’t, I just don’t, and how can I help him if I can’t read him?
In the end, I just ask, “Do you need me there while you do it? For support?”
He shakes his head slowly. “I think I need to do this on my own. But thank you for offering. Seriously. That means a lot.”
We sit in silence, then Zach sucks in a deep breath. “Ruben?”
“Mm?”
“This is going to be okay, right?”
Screw personal space. It’s not like anyone in the room right now doesn’t know what’s going on, anyway. So I swivel around to kneel in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Hey. Yes. I promise it’ll be okay. No matter what happens, you have me. That’s not gonna change. Not as long as you still want me.”
His eyes are glassy, bringing out the shock of green that borders the irises, but he clenches his jaw to steady himself. “I’ll always want you.”
“Then you’ll always have me.”
The rest of the room blurs away, until he’s the only person sitting in it. I stay still, letting him steer us, unsure how comfortable he is with public affection in this situation. But then he leans forward with his head down, to—hug me? Just be close to me?—and I bend my own neck to meet him, and touch my forehead against his.
“Okay,” he whispers, his breath falling softly against my face.
Okay.
We rejoin Jon once Zach’s collected himself, falling into the stiff armchairs placed around a coffee table holding sliced fruit and bottles of expensive spring water and a selection of every Doritos flavor except for Cool Ranch (Angel’s request).
“Angel’s gone to the bathroom,” Jon says.
“Uh, thanks for the update,” Zach says, grabbing a water. All traces of vulnerability are gone, and he’s back to his lying smile.
“No,” Jon says. “He’s gone to the bathroom. For the second time in fifteen minutes.”
Ah. So, he plans on being high for another performance. Wonderful.
“Also,” Jon says. “I got a bunch of comments on the selfie we posted earlier.”
He’s referring to a shot of the four of us in the halls backstage we took after we’d been set free from the stylist’s chair. Ready for Round Two, Vienna!!!
“And they were all asking about the same few girls, so I googled us, and this went live today.”
He hands his phone over to me and I skim the article, Zach reading over my shoulder.
Romance Is in the Air! A Peek into the Past—and Present—Romances of the Boys from Saturday!
There’s a photo of Jon as a kid, alongside some girl I don’t recognize. God, he must be, what, fourteen here? Following this is a photo of him and Imani Peters, a childhood friend of his, walking on a street somewhere. From his haircut, I place the photo as somewhere shortly before our tour started back in America.
Not much is known about Jon and Imani Peters, although our source confirms they definitely had a fling a few months back. Could it be serious? We don’t know—but we’re sure thousands of girls around the world are praying it isn’t so!
Well, that would be a categorically shitty thing for Imani to read if she was with Jon. Which I’m damn sure she isn’t, given Jon’s brought her up exactly zero times in the last few months.
Next are a few photos of Angel and various girls. One is Rosie, a girl he dated for a month or two when he was sixteen—they’ve stolen a nauseatingly cute couple photo from her Instagram, which isn’t creepy at all—one is a girl I don’t recognize, and one is a blurry shot of Angel and Lina on the street during our confrontation in Berlin.
Sources tell us that Angel and Lina Weber have been inseparable for the last month, and that he’s flying across Europe for the second half of Saturday’s Months by Years tour! Could this be an endgame couple? Time will tell. But we sure haven’t seen Angel give heart eyes this obvious to anyone before! Sorry, ladies. He’s taken!
Those weren’t heart eyes, they were the over-dilated eyes of someone high, panicky, and paranoid. An easy mistake to make by all measures.
Next is a photo of Zach, out to lunch with—
“That’s my cousin,” he cries, aghast. “What the fuck?”
“Cousin, ‘mystery girl,’ potato, potahto, I guess,” I say, curling my lip.
“Which ‘sources’ say they saw us on a whirlwind date on a horse-drawn carriage?” Zach demands. “We caught up for lunch so she could show me her ultrasound photos. Because she’s pregnant. With her boyfriend’s baby.”
I’m too busy scrolling down to my section to reply, a brick sitting in the pit of my stomach. Yup, I’d thought as much—me and all my “girlfriends.” There’s a photo of Amaya, the girl who played Mimi alongside me as Roger in Rent a year before Saturday was formed. Me and Molly, a girl I’d been friends with at Camp Hollow Rock, who I’ve more or less fallen out of touch with. Me getting my hair “lovingly pushed back” by goddamn Penny, Penny, because apparently whoever wrote this article either didn’t bother to research who our hair and makeup artist is, or they simply didn’t care.
Angel rejoins us, buzzing with renewed energy. He has a bounce to his step and he’s running his tongue over his teeth. His eyeliner is already smudged. “Whatcha doin’ over here?” he asks, sitting on the back of my seat and reaching for Jon’s phone.