If This Gets Out(117)

I grin. “Probably.”

He starts blushing, and it drives me wild. I start kissing down his chest, each kiss going lower. He brings a hand up, running it through his hair, and closes his eyes. He’s turned on, and it’s making me want to tear off his boxers.

“And she … oh fuck, who cares. Don’t stop.”

“There we go.”

I kiss back up, until my lips meet his.

A little while later, we’re in the shower. He has his back to me, and I’m using the new loofah he got to wash his back.

“What do you think this means?” I ask.

He looks back at me. “In what way?”

“Well, our numbers must be incredible to chart without much radio support.”

“Yeah. It’s all streaming and pure sales. Our fans are the best.”

“Plus ‘Overdrive’ is still number one. So Geoff’s big worry about us coming out hurting our numbers is certifiable bullshit, and we can prove it. It puts us in a pretty strong position.”

He turns around. “What are you saying?”

“I just think, maybe this could be good, if we ever want to make more music as Saturday.”

We know from the meetings our parents have held that we don’t really have an option of getting rid of Chorus until our contract is done, and no management company will take us on when Chorus still gets paid. But given our earnings at the moment, maybe, if nothing else, it’ll give Chorus an extra incentive to keep pushing us. After all, the more money we make, the more money they make. Even if they despise us right now.

Ruben puts his arms around me and smiles.

“Can you imagine if we could be in Saturday,” I say, “but without Chorus controlling us so much?”

“You could finally write a song.”

“That’d be sweet.” I lift the loofah. “A song about loofahs would be cool, yeah?”

He slaps me in the chest. “If your first song is about loofahs and not about me, I swear to god.”

I grin. “I have a feeling it will be.”

After our shower, we get dressed and go down the hall, to the living room.

Mom’s sitting on the sofa, reading on her tablet. “I take it you’ve seen the news?” she says. “It’s all Twitter is talking about. And nice work hanging up on Veronica.”

“She told you?” I ask.

“She demanded I break your door down and make you call her back.” She grins. “I left her on read.”

Mom’s already made three coffees, one for each of us. She’s learned exactly how Ruben likes his—with just a tiny amount of creamer and one sweetener to cover up the bitter taste. I grab mine, which is straight black. Ruben said like your soul once, which made me giddy.

“What does the rest of the squad think?” I ask.

“They’re pretty excited. You boys have real power now.”

“And how about you?”

“I just wish those bastards at Chorus weren’t getting rewarded for this. Save Saturday has shirts now, by the way, with all the proceeds going to GLSEN. I bought three.”

Ruben’s face quirks. “That’s great. But hey, I’m going to grab my phone.” He runs his hand down my arm. “I’m not calling her back, I promise.”

“Okay.”

I give him a peck, and then he goes down the hall. I go and sit down across from Mom.

“So, things are going well?” she asks, her semi-smirk horrifyingly making it seem like she somehow knows what we did twice last night. And then again this morning.

“Yeah, he’s the best.”

“Oh, young love,” she says. “There’s nothing like it.”

There are fireworks in my brain.

Young love.

There’s a song there. I know it. I just need to get my notebook and write it. It all starts clicking into place, the melody coming out of nowhere. I think this is what I’ve been waiting for this whole time. It’ll actually be from me, the perfect blend of what I want to write about and what our audience will like. I pull out my phone and start writing.

Ruben appears from down the hall. Looking at him, it’s easy to know why this song came to me easily.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he says.

“What?”

“Geoff requested a call with us,” he says, and the excitement in his voice is unmissable. “He wants to, quote unquote, ‘work things out.’”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. But there’s more. Monarch Management wants to meet with us. Apparently they know about our situation, but were so moved by our story they are interested in a meeting.”

Right. Spending time with Ruben must be rubbing off on me; I don’t buy that for a second. From his raised eyebrow, I get the impression he doesn’t, either. This isn’t for charity—they’ll take the loss now to make more money in the future. And apparently, with us charting like we’ve never done before, this is an attractive enough deal for them that they think it’ll pay off in the long run.

Even for us, with all our success … never in a million years did I expect a management team to take us on for free. For two albums.

But here is one, offering us a meeting.

If this works out … it could get us away from Chorus. For good.