“Literally, what the fuck?” I said. “Tying him up was one thing—we’re young and impressionable—but don’t you guys think we’re taking our stanning a little too far? I mean, people say all Strepurs are insane, and if we go through with this we’d be proving them right. We can still get out of this with minimal damage done. This probably happens to the boys all the time. I’m sure Rupert P. will understand that we let things get a little out of hand but that we’re really sorry. I mean, do you guys really want to go from crazy fangirls to literally crazy fangirls?”
I didn’t normally say so much at once. Usually I let Erin do all the talking. Most of the time I let other people convince me of something instead of me being the one to do the convincing. But this was important, and I could feel the gravitas of my statement as I looked around the room. I was the coach at halftime in every inspirational sports movie. My friends were the hapless team who didn’t know what the hell they were doing, but all they needed was one measly pep talk to turn things around and come out on top. People were actually listening to me. I’d never felt so much like a leader before. It was invigorating. No wonder Erin always took charge.
Their shadowed lids dropped low over their eyes as they got lost in thought, thinking this over. It was happening. I was getting through to them. This was working.
Isabel cleared her throat. “I’ve given it a lot of thought,” she said, “and I think this could be really great for my website.”
“Then it’s settled,” Erin said. “We keep him. For now.”
This was not the way inspirational sports movies went.
“This is some mechanical bullshit,” I said. “You guys can keep riding it; I’m out.”
I opened the door and walked out into the other room. Despite the blindfold, I knew Rupert P. could sense that I was there. He squirmed and squealed.
I really did want to do the right thing, but you have to understand who I was up against. Apple was never going to let Rupert P. go, Isabel was scary enough even when she wasn’t in full bull mode, and Erin was … Erin. I couldn’t turn on my best friend.
I didn’t know what else to do. So I left.
I now lived in a world where kidnapping a boy bander was as common as asking for his autograph. I always knew that Isabel and Apple were next-level crazy, but the fact that Erin still wanted in on this was the real shocker. And I just ran away, too scared to really do anything. Chickenshit, like Isabel said. But I wasn’t about to stay in that room, not when it required spending this much brainpower agonizing over the well-being of Rupert P. And the day I spent my time agonizing over the well-being of Rupert Pierpont was the day I officially couldn’t recognize myself anymore.
I needed to think. I went to the hotel bar.
I probably should have left the hotel (in hindsight, I definitely should have), but I stayed. I guess I was hoping that if I could find a place to cool down, the other girls would cool down too and we could talk about it like rational people. Or at least as rational as a pack of fangirls could get.
The bar didn’t have anyone posted at the lobby entrance to card me, unlike the street entrance, which I could see through the glass door was barricaded by a pair of buff bodyguards blocking the Strepurs outside from stampeding through. I’d never been in a bar before, and though I probably shouldn’t have been breaking any more laws that day, I couldn’t deny that I felt instantly cool perching myself on a bar stool while fancy people chatted around me. It was still early in the day, so the place was mostly empty, but I liked that. It felt less threatening somehow.
The new setting helped to clear my mind. I hooked a finger into the bracelet on my left wrist and pulled it tight until it snapped against my skin. It was one of those bracelets made of white alphabet beads strung on a skinny elastic string. I don’t know why snapping it like that always calmed me down, but it did. It was kind of fitting too, since I’d gotten the bracelet to sort of commemorate my dad. It was nice to think that he had a hand in helping me relax.
“How did you get in here?”
I let go of my bracelet and looked up. The bartender in front of me wore fingerless motorcycle gloves and a diamond stud in his left earlobe. And it took me a minute of awkwardly staring at him to realize that he was talking to me. “Oh, am I … not allowed to be here?” My cheeks were red. I did not need the mirrored wall behind him to tell me that, but it confirmed it anyway.
“You’re allowed. I just meant, how did you bypass security?” He pointed his chin to the street door and the fans outside. “Girls have been trying to get in here all day. One made it past the door, but she was quickly escorted out. She cried a lot.”
“I have a room here.”
He scrunched his hairy eyebrows and watched me. He was hairy all over, with the hair on his head slicked and parted at the side and a beard that was neat but full. He was clearly one of those hipster guys who thought passing as a Civil War soldier was the height of cool. I pictured him trading his black button-down shirt and margarita mixer at the end of the week for a Union uniform and musket to keep fighting on the weekends. He would probably be one of those soldiers who played a somber song on his fiddle outside of his tent at night and wrote long letters to his faithful wife back home, her frayed, sepia-toned portrait tucked safely away in his breast pocket.