Girl in Love(3)

Now she wanted to glare at her friend, but Jean Claude was working on the other eye and one-eyed glaring wouldn’t have quite the same effect.

“Incase you haven’t noticed, I’ve been a little busy.” She waved a hand around to remind Mia where they were. Backstage at the CMAs. Where she was about to perform. And be recognized as a nominee in the New Artist of the Year category. In the past year, she’d spent more time in the studio than the people who worked there. She had two hit singles to show for it. Not a Nice Girl was up for Song of the Year and Heartbreak Town was up for Video of the Year.

“Exactly. You’ve been busy working twenty-four damn seven. It’s time to loosen up already.” Mia shook her head and stepped aside to let the makeup artist coat her in one more layer of shimmery powder.

She should’ve been happy-dancing around the dressing room like a maniac. It had been an amazing year.

She’d cried the first time she heard herself on the radio. She’d cried again when she sang an original song of hers for the first time and saw people in the audience singing along. Because they’d already known the words. Her words. She’d been bombarded with messages from fans saying that they loved her and loved her songs.

For some artists, this was a hassle to deal with. But for her, her fans were literally her family. Her only supporters. Everything she did, she did for them.

Tears of joy, she told herself each time she broke down. But deep in the core of her being, there was always that voice. The dark, ugly, honest one.

You’re crying because he’s not here to share this with you. Because all you want is to tell him about it. And for him to kiss you, congratulate you, and be proud of you.

She closed her eyes and focused on picturing nothing and no one. No one’s face with boyish dimples that appeared when he grinned. No one’s tan forearms under rolled-up shirtsleeves. No one’s muscular back. No one’s ass in jeans so tight it should be illegal. Just blackness. Nothingness.

In her twenty years, she’d loved two men. Loved them deeply. Her daddy, who’d died right after her eighteenth birthday in a freak accident at the factory where he worked. And another. One whose name she tried not to even think, much less say out loud. Because that was the past. And she was focusing on the future.

Music was her future. Nothing else really mattered.

“I like working,” she said, hopping out of the chair.

Her friend smirked. “Yeah, I get that. So do I. But I also like having a life. And living that life.”

“I have a life,” Kylie argued as they walked toward her stage entrance.

“Oh yeah? So what are you doing after this show?”

“Stopping by the studio to do one more run-through of—”

“No.” Mia shook her head. “I mean it. I’m done watching robot-Ryans work herself to death. You’re coming out with us tonight if I have to hogtie your ass.”

“Like you actually know how to hogtie anything,” Kylie said with a short sarcastic laugh. “You don’t understand and I don’t need you to. This is me. I’m doing what I love. Just because you would rather—”

Mia put a hand up to stop her. “See what I’m doing here? I’m cutting you off before you say something you’ll regret. Because here’s the thing. I’ve been as kind and gentle as I can with you. But I’ve been talking to Lily and to Olivia and—”

“You talked to Lulu?” Kylie was bursting with excitement about the latest news from her best friend. On the next tour she went on, Lulu was coming along as her personal stylist. But she was kind of pissed that the girls were obviously talking about her behind her back. She could feel an ambush coming on.

“Yeah. And the general consensus is we’re all worried about you.”

Kylie aimed a pointed look at the stage she was about to perform on in front of several thousand people.

“Not about your career. About you.”

Is there a difference?

“So stop it. I’m fine.” She raised her arms as two stagehands came to clip her mics onto her dress.

“Kylie, I need you to listen to me, okay? You’re not fine. And even if you were, you should be so much more than fine. Your dreams are coming true and you’re fine. Wow. I’m underwhelmed.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at but—”

Mia cut her off once more. “But nothing. Grief is like your favorite pair of old sweats. You get comfortable in them. So comfortable you don’t want to take them off even to shower. They’re worn in and fit just right and you never want to let them go, even when they’re stained and gross and have holes all in them.”