“Follow the food,” she suggested, putting her hand over the mouthpiece. “Try the green room.”
The green room was actually a large white tent set up behind the stage, air-conditioned by a huge whirring generator and outfitted with food tables and plenty of booze, no one checking if we were of age. I saw Alex almost immediately, along with the rest of Hurricane State, an R&B trio called Star Signs who were headlining the festival—and half a dozen girls with radio station contest winner badges around their necks. One of them, a leggy brunette in artfully tattered denim shorts, had her fingers curled around his upper arm as she leaned in and said something close to his ear.
Alex stood up as soon as he saw me, trotted over, and took both my hands. “You’re back,” he said, sounding surprised and happy and then worried. “Did I miss it?”
“You missed it,” I said, and Alex frowned.
“Shoot,” he said, “I’m sorry. How was it, how did it go?”
“It was good,” I said, squirming away as he moved to put an arm around me. I wasn’t a jealous person, generally, but seeing him with those girls unsettled me. Our connection felt tenuous all of a sudden, a thread that could easily be snapped.
“What’s wrong?” Alex asked. Then, following my gaze to the brunette, who was currently giving me stink-eye: “Oh,” he said, looking at me sheepishly. “That wasn’t—they didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I don’t blame them,” I said pointedly.
Alex nodded like, message received. “I didn’t mean anything by it, either,” he promised, leading me over to a quiet corner near a long buffet of food. “Really. I know that looked questionable. Guy likes us to do that kind of thing, you know? Talk to the contest winners and stuff. He thinks it’s good for sales.”
“Flirting with girls is good for your sales?” I asked skeptically.
“No,” Alex said immediately. Then: “Well—”
“Stop,” I interrupted, holding my hands up. “That’s not even . . .” I trailed off, trying to articulate what was bothering me about it, trying to understand it myself. It wasn’t about him missing my performance. And it wasn’t about him talking to some random girl. It was bigger than that. “It’s just, today I’m here, you know? So of course nothing was going to happen. But what if I hadn’t been?” I shrugged, and then I said it. “What’s going to happen to us if I get cut?”
Alex shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”
I frowned—that was his automatic response to everything, and I was tired of it. “What if it does, Alex?”
“It’s not,” Alex said again, putting a hand on either side of my face. “But even if it did, we’d work it out, you and me. I would never do . . . anything.”
“Anything.” I scoffed.
“Anything,” Alex reiterated, sounding hurt. “Dana. Come on, hey. It’s me.”
“I know,” I said quietly. It wasn’t like I thought Alex would cheat on me. He was right—he wasn’t the type. But now that I’d said it out loud, I couldn’t stop thinking about it: Alex out on the road with Hurricane State, and me back home at my mom’s. What would that possibly look like? How could it possibly work?
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I didn’t even want to think. “Come on,” I said, standing up abruptly and taking his hand then, pulling him through the crowded tent. “Let’s get a drink.”
That night I lay awake just like always, tossing and turning on the scratchy hotel sheets, headachey and out of it: I’d never slept alone in a hotel room in my life. Every time the AC kicked on or off, I startled. There wasn’t anything worth watching on TV. I remembered sharing the big hotel bed with Olivia the night of our auditions in Orlando, how lucky and content I’d felt as we flipped through the channels and chattered about nothing in particular. It felt like it had happened to someone else entirely.
I thought I’d get up and rehearse until I tired myself out, maybe, but there wasn’t enough floor space to do the routines. I’d seen a sign saying the hotel gym was open twenty-four hours, though, so finally I shoved my sneakers onto my feet and took the elevator down to the basement. At the very least, I could tell Charla I’d gotten a workout in. But when I got down there, Olivia was already on the treadmill in a pair of shorts and a tank top, running like she was being chased. I saw her before she saw me; when she noticed, she stumbled just the slightest bit, not quite a missed step. Good, I thought. I hoped she’d break her ankle, except for the part where I didn’t actually hope that at all.
Probably the smart thing to do would have been to turn around and walk right back out, but instead I put my chin up, a challenge. I had just as much of a right to be here as she did, after all, even if she didn’t think so. It was the first time we’d been alone together in weeks. “Hey,” I said, tucking my key card into the waistband of my shorts.
Olivia looked at me for a moment. “Hey,” she said. I couldn’t help noticing that her collarbones and elbows looked sharper than they had a couple of weeks ago; I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, or if her eyes seemed sunken in. I tried not to worry about the fact that she was exercising in the middle of the night, about whether she was eating. She’d made it clear she didn’t want my help.
I shook off the thought and walked over to the free weights, trying not to wonder what she was doing down here—if she couldn’t sleep like me, if something was bothering her. What it was that had her running so fast. I tried not to think about the dozen years we’d been best friends back in Jessell, how I’d felt like I could tell her anything and it would be okay. I missed her, badly. I wanted that not to be true.
Olivia slowed just a bit as I picked up a couple of fifteen-pound free weights, trying not to wince when they were way heavier than I thought. “You know what you’re doing with those?” Olivia asked.
“Yup,” I said, which wasn’t strictly the truth—I’d used them with Charla a few times back in Orlando, but never without her coaching me. Still, how hard could it possibly be? They were weights. You lifted them. “I’m good, thanks.”
Olivia wasn’t buying. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said.
“I’m fine,” I assured her, heaving a weight up in either hand. Fuck, who would have thought that thirty pounds was so much to lift at once? Not that I’d ever let Olivia see me put them down. Not now. I curled them a couple of times, the muscles in my arms crying out in protest.