I laugh slightly. She looks so cute, sitting there with her hair hanging loose around her innocent face, that it takes me by surprise. Why am I even thinking about doing this to her? She doesn’t deserve this; I must be out of my mind. “That’s not the problem. I know what I want to say.” My feet stop pacing, coming to a gradual stop in front of her. “It’s how to say it that’s the issue.”
Kat peers at me for a moment before shaking her head. “I don’t get it. If you know what you want to say, then just say it.”
This... might be harder than I thought. I pinch the bridge of my nose, potential sentences whirring through my head. I’ve never been good at off-the-cuff stuff. I overprepare and overplan due to a colossal fear of failure — and also because I’m a Virgo. Not that I believe in any of that star sign crap — as if, hahahaha — but... if you did... you’d look at me and think 100 percent Grade-A Virgo.
Kat cocks her head to the side. “A proposal’s simple, right? You say what you want, and the other person says either yes or no.”
I grimace. “It’s trying to word it correctly that’s the trouble.”
Her eyebrows furrow. “Then you want me to do something that’s unpleasant — but you want to be nice about it? To make me say yes?”
“No. Well... No.”
She looks even more confused. “I don’t want to be tricked into doing something with a bunch of pretty words. Just say what it is.”
I sigh. “I’m not trying to trick you. It’s... I know it’s a big ask.”
“Then tell me.”
I run a hand through my hair. I feel like tearing it out in clumps. Am I really gonna go ahead with this?
“As a band... I’m sure you know... we’re in a difficult situation.” Okay, looks like I really am going through with it. The others better worship the ground I walk on for what I’m about to do for them.
Also? That’s the understatement of the century. We’re falling more to pieces every day.
Kat seems uncertain. “Is this about the scandal?”
It’s probably bad that the first thing out my mouth is, “Which one?”
If Kat notices the tragic hilarity of that question, she doesn’t say anything. “Well, just... the whole sex tape thing, the court case...”
“Yes, we’ve had a lot to contend with recently.” Understatement of the millennium now. “And even though it’s all in the past, we still feel the repercussions of it.”
“Can I ask about all that?”
I sigh, hoping she wouldn’t. But of course she’s curious — the press were as rabid for about six months. “What would you like to know?”
She shrugs a little. “I don’t care about the sex tape. It is what it is—”
“No. It isn’t.” The words are out my mouth before I can stop them.
Kat quirks an eyebrow. “You didn’t have sex with two high-class escorts who then blabbed about it online? Tarek didn’t helicopter-dick his way into bed with them? You didn’t kiss their feet for twenty minutes?”
I blanch at her account of that one damning night, the memories flooding back in a hazy whirl. “God, how much did you watch?”
She colors. “I didn’t watch it. I read about it online.”
Despite her indignant tone, I wonder how thoroughly she researched it... “Okay, yes, fine, we did all that stuff,” I tell her with a shrug. “And I’m not ashamed of it. At the time, it was fun. But it was suspect, looking back. Those women were not high-class escorts. I mean, they might well have been. But I was drunk and it was my birthday and it was Tarek’s idea and—” I feel like I’m losing her. “I think they were paid off. I think they were spies sent to ruin us.”
I can sense the sheer force it takes for Kat not to roll her eyes. Instead, she blinks at me, then flops backward onto the bed with a frustrated groan.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she mutters to the ceiling. She arches up again, and I admire the soft, kissable plane of her stomach. “Look, mister, seriously, all of you need to get over your all-women-are-spies thing. It is downright exasperating and frankly full of deep-rooted misogyny.”
Shaking my head, I tell her, “I know all women aren’t spies, but some women are. I know it sounds insane, but you don’t understand MCM the way we do. The way I do. They’re underhanded. They have no scruples about using people. Using women. They use money as a carrot and contracts as a stick.”
“Just admit you had sex with two women who wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. Like, if they weren’t high-class escorts then, I bet you’ve raised their profile so much that they are now.”
“No. Because that’s not what happened. MCM vets these women. They didn’t then.”
“Your record label vets who you fuck?”
“Have you seen how on edge we all are? They control every aspect of our lives, right down to when we go to bed — and who with.”
“Why would they do that?”
Sighing, I admit, “I don’t know. It’s fucked.”
Kat looks troubled. “I’m not a spy, if that’s your big proposal. I don’t want to sleep with you—” She breaks off suddenly, flushing. “I mean, I didn’t, until, well...”
I smirk slightly. “Five minutes ago, when I had my tongue inside you?”
She stares at anything but me and grips the blanket tightly. “I — uh... Yeah.” Her gaze darts to me. “Why did you do that?”
The truth isn’t exactly chivalrous, so I decide to humor her. “Because from the sounds you were making, it must have felt good?”
She gives me A Look. I sigh. “Because screw MCM!” My voice is unexpectedly loud in Kat’s small room. “They don’t get to say who I should sleep with anymore, they don’t get to bully me into damn celibacy.” In a low voice, I add, “And because everyone else on this bus was brave enough to defy them.”
“By being with me?”
I nod. It sounds kind of awful, now that it’s in the open like that.
Kat’s eyes shutter. “You’re all using me to get back at MCM?”
“No.” It’s out my mouth like a shot. “No. Don’t think that, not even for a moment.” It might be how it started, but it’s not how it’s continuing. I take a deep breath. “In fact, this... this is what my proposal is.”
Kat looks at me, her expression guarded.
“I think it’s safe to say we all like you. All of us.”
At this, Kat seems doubtful. I wonder why, and then I remember whatever weird encounter she had with Tarek.
“Even Tarek,” I assure her with a grimace. “Though he is an ass about it.”
“Oh, I know he does,” Kat mutters offhandedly to my surprise, “though he has strange ways of showing it.”
Interesting. I wonder who she’s referring to, then.
She looks up at me with those large, sweet green eyes. “Are you trying to say what I think you are?”
I decide to play it cool. “What do you think I’m trying to say?”
She smiles slightly. “I’m not going to do my own proposal. That’s pretty sad.”