Remix. Part 24

"You know you're staring?" Wexler says in a voice that I have to inch closer to hear.

"You know you're an incredibly famous rock star?" I whisper back. "Staring is kind of the law."

Wexler laughs then, leaning back in his chair, looking at me as if I'm something he was surprised to find. Or maybe it's a move. I've had a lot of practice playing this kind of game with Stu, but he was my equal. Wexler is not, in any way shape or form, my equal.

But he does appear to be playing down at my level. For now. "Is that all I am to you? An incredibly famous rock star?"

It's clear he's mocking himself, not me.

"Are you meant to be anything else?"

"I thought we were bonding here. Becoming friends. Exchanging revenge stories, revealing devastating ways we've broken hearts..."

"I think you might have broken more than me," I say.

Wexler narrows his eyes and I see a flash of white as he bites his lower lip. His eyes are so piercing it's as if he's looking right into my fantasies.

"It's quality, Ruby, not quant.i.ty." Then he goes to get up, pausing as he stoops near. "And something tells me you're quality through and through." He stays close, letting me hear him breathe. I'm aware that his mouth is getting closer to my ear and then he gives my earlobe not a kiss but a gentle pinch of teeth and a light tug. A fraction of a second later, he flashes me an entirely wicked grin that makes my insides quiver as he gets up to go to the bar. "We've time for one more..."

Once I'm alone, I hold my hand out flat. Or at least I try to it's more than a little bit shaky. As is the rest of me.

I can't believe this is happening. He is so very s.e.xy.

Watching him come back with two pints of beer, my heart plummets between my legs and thumps there insistently. Wexler puts the drinks down and runs a finger along my wrist as if getting my attention, then presses my unspent tenner into my palm.

"My stage call's in fifteen minutes." How is that the time? "No one's allowed stage-side."

As if I thought that was on the cards. A nibble on the earlobe might be five-star flirting, but it's not a promotion from fan to entourage.

"I'll be fine watching the normal way, at the front of the stage," I say.

Wexler drinks some of his beer. I drink some of mine. I'm feeling a little woozy. I drink some more.

"So you won't be coming backstage afterwards?" he asks.

I drink again, because it's easier than using actual words when he's looking at me like that.

"Because I'd like it if you were." Seriously, is this actually happening? "I feel like I'm the one doing all the talking here."

And he comes closer, moving his chair forwards until his leg is between mine, his face filling my vision with his s.e.xy eyes and lips.

And then I lose my mind, because I, Ruby Kalinski, go in for a kiss. WITH ADAM f.u.c.kING WEXLER.

26 * FIND MY WAY BACK

RUBY.

I feel like one of those wooden donkeys with tubes for legs held straight by taut strings that collapse when you press a b.u.t.ton. Taut, loose, taut, loose. If I wasn't concentrating so hard on walking, I'd probably slide sideways and fall right over.

That last beer hit me hard. Or that kiss.

I can't work out which I find harder to believe: that I went in for a snog with a rock G.o.d or that he actually kissed me back.

Adam Wexler. Kissed me.

Suddenly my legs are very loose and I have to stop for a second.

With tongues.

Now my whole body appears to have gone floppy.

Such a hot kiss.

It barely seems real given how many times I've fantasized about it, but I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and run my tongue across the most tender part, where his tooth scored the skin.

Definitely real.

I've come over all fuggy. Beer? Suns.h.i.+ne? l.u.s.t?

My brain is incapable of sensible thought. My mouth incapable of sensible action.

I am all over incapable of sensible anything.

But then I've never been the sensible one.

I need to find Kaz...

KAZ.

"Where's Ruby?" Lauren asks when I tell her it's time to go. "I thought Gold'ntone was going to be the highlight of her year?"

When we tell the others where we're going, Ferris rolls his eyes and Nick comes out with, "Blinded by your v.a.g.i.n.as, like everyone else." Which earns him a punch on the arm from Eve.

"Don't be a d.i.c.k." Eve smiles at me. "Some men feel threatened by hotness."

"Who says I'm threatened?" Nick looks outraged. "I know I'm hot. I wouldn't have landed a girl as gorgeous as you otherwise."

He puts an arm around Eve and kisses her cheek, his nose mas.h.i.+ng into the side of her head as she tries to push him off. Lauren looks uncomfortable about this whatever she feels for Tom, it hasn't stopped her attention from wandering first Stu, now Nick... Guilt punches me in the lungs and I'm winded by my own hypocrisy.

"I take it you guys are staying here, then?" Sebastian says, sliding off the table to stand next to me. Another of those glances pa.s.s between Nick and Ferris, and Eve tells him they're going to wake the guitarist and catch the band headlining the Mellow Tent later.

"We'll see you by the van at midnight if we don't hear from you before." This time it's Eve who's giving me a funny look and I feel myself burning up under the scrutiny. As Sebastian nods his agreement, Eve reaches over to give me a hug. "It was nice to meet you," she says, before halving the volume to add, "He likes you. This doesn't happen often, so be gentle with him."

It's exactly the sort of thing that Ruby would say to Sebastian.

Where is she?

I call her on our way to the exit.

"Where are you?" I say.

"Bins."

"Which bins?" And why?

"Ones opposite the bar, near the gate."

I tap Lauren on the arm and point in that direction, before brus.h.i.+ng my fingers down Sebastian's arm to guide him. Or just as an excuse to touch him.

Still on the phone to Ruby, I say, "We're heading over. Are you OK?"

"Not sure."

"What about this hot boy you promised me?"

"Not sure."

"Are you drunk?"

"Not sure."

"For G.o.d's sake, Ruby!" I'm not in the mood for cryptic. She's been awkward all day and I've run out of patience ... and that's when I see her, leaning heavily on an overflowing bin. She's resting her head on one hand, holding the phone to her face with the other, even though I've just hung up.

Lauren's seen her too. "Is Ruby drunk?"

Lauren's mouth is open, eyebrows puckered together in a perfect depiction of what Ruby would call Scandalized Face. For the first time today, I suspect that Ruby's right to think that Lauren doesn't like her although after last night, I'm hardly enamoured of Drunk Ruby either.

"Not sure," I say to Lauren.

RUBY.

We plunge into the crowd together, me at the front of our little snake, Lauren following, Kaz behind her with Sebastian. I asked where the rest of the band went, but now I can't remember what the answer was. I push forwards, careless of the people I'm trampling in my haste.

The first thing Kaz said was, "You're drunk." Which I probably am but is not the point.

And then Lauren asked me where my fabled hot boy was.

Fabled.

"I sent Kaz a photo."

Lauren laughed a "HA!" with such a sharp little yap that it made me wince. Then Kaz told me it didn't matter and that we'd be late for Gold'ntone, and the beautiful-but-not Sebastian was looking at me like I was something to pity and I couldn't bear it...

"Wait up, Ruby!" Lauren catches hold of my sleeve and I yank it from her grasp.

"Don't touch me!" I yell, loud enough that Kaz and Sebastian and the twenty people crushed into a two-metre radius hear me.

"No need to bite my head off!" Lauren looks offended and Kaz puts a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Ruby..." It's her telling-me-off voice. Kaz has decided that I am drunk and everything I do from now on is entirely unreasonable.

I HAVEN'T EVEN DRUNK THAT MUCH.

I probably HAVEN'T EVEN DRUNK THAT MUCH.

Kaz is supposed to be the person I can trust to see straight through all my bulls.h.i.+t. When did the pair of us get so f.u.c.king blind that we couldn't even read the truth in each other?

I turn away. "I want to get closer."

As I storm on, ignoring the tuts and squeals and "watch where you're going"s, I b.u.mp my chin on someone's elbow and bite through the sore spot on my lip. The pain is sharp and welcome and sobering, but it doesn't last long enough to distract me from how upset I am about Kaz.

The only other thing to think about is the band. The music. The man making it.

It's stupid in a crowd this size to hope that he'll find me, but I don't stop until we're as near to the stage as we're likely to get.

"Ruby!" Lauren holds me back as a bottle of suspiciously yellow fluid flies from above and plummets to the ground. The p.i.s.sile explodes, but I'm clear.

"We should move further back," Lauren's saying to Kaz, who's nodding.

"It's a pretty intense crowd," adds Sebastian. But Kaz looks at me and I forget that I'm hurt, because my best friend is not immediately doing whatever pleases Lauren.