The Kiss Off (20 page)

“You’re dating this boy?” Dad asked. He pointed at the screen. “That one? That guy right there?”

“Yes,” I said.

“
That
one?”

“
Yes!
”

“How…I don’t…” I think my dad’s head nearly exploded. “How do you even know him?”

“He’s from here, Dad. He’s the one who pulled Poo Bum off me when he was just a stray dog who attacked me in the street,” I said. “Local boy made good and all that.”

Dad thought for a moment. “And
my daughter
wrote that song? I’ve heard it on the radio, Poppy,” he said. “I’ve sung along to it in the car. And
you
wrote it?”

I nodded.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me? Why don’t I know these things? I’m so proud of you honey,” he beamed at me and stroked my cheek. I tried to smile, but wiped the tears from under my eyes instead. “And you’re going out with this boy from the biggest band on the planet right now?”

“They’re not the biggest-”

“That’s what Mickey J said on the Top 40 show. ‘Biggest band on the planet’.”

“Yes dad – I’m going out with him. Except…” I handed him today’s magazines and watched as he flipped through the significant pages.

“That penis,” Dad said.

My head jerked back in shock. “Pardon?”

He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. I’m going to kill him. He may be some heart throb or whatever but he has no right to treat my daughter like that!”

“Dad-”

He threw the magazines at the wall. “No right at all! What’s his phone number, Poppy? I want to talk to this little punk.”

“Dad, no!” I said. “God, this is why I don’t tell you things, you’re turning into a crazy person.”

“Of course I am! He is disrespecting my daughter, Poppy, and he’s not getting away with that.”

“It’s not like I know for sure he’s cheating on me,” I said. “People say that half of what magazines report is actually bull.”

“Those photos didn’t look like bull.”

“But you can’t actually
see
them kissing. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe she was just a drunk girl all over him and he didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe the picture’s completely out of context.”

Dad crossed his arms and shook his head, his lips pursed together. “I don’t like it, Poppy.”

“I don’t like it either!” I said. “But maybe…”

“What?”

“It’s got to be hard for him, screaming girls, groupies and all that. Throwing themselves at him. They might be doing that. I mean, they do gigs at clubs – I bet there are heaps of slutty girls throwing themselves at him,” I said. I had a mental image of girls in tiny dresses stroking his arm, dirty dancing up on him, grabbing at him. I nearly gagged.

“If he’s my daughter’s boyfriend he better
not
be doing anything …any of that stuff. I mean it, I want to talk to him.”

“His cell’s broken at the moment,” I said. It was technically true. I mean, it
could
have been true, I might not have been lying.

Dad swore and growled which was a big deal because dad was like, he was usually super mellow. And he never swore, at least not that I ever heard. Yes, when he was watching a basketball game but that was different.

“So, Dad?”

“Mmm?”

“Can I have some ice cream? And some movies?”

He frowned at me. He didn’t approve of me skipping out on school so he said, “Just don’t tell your mother.”

***

Chapter Sixteen

I sat on the couch watching action movies and cartoons (definitely not in the mood for anything with love in it) and constantly checking my cell. He wasn’t calling me, why wasn’t he calling me? He was somewhere in the country (who knew where he was today?), and I couldn’t reach him. I needed to reach him; I needed to know one way or the other. But instead, I watched cartoons and ate double chocolate fudge ice cream from the carton.

Right as the big pink dinosaur lumbered out of the house before it exploded, my cell phone chirruped that I had a text. I grabbed it and read, my breath caught in my throat.

But it was from Ravi.

Dude, seen the mags. Don’t sweat it. Sure there’s an explanation
, he wrote.
Parents out, so party at mine tonight. Come be with your peeps
.

So I decided to go. Van couldn’t because she likes to get through at least three hours of study on a school night and she had hockey then violin on top of it, and Mads wasn’t going because she didn’t want to run into Dev, so I wouldn’t be with
all
my peeps. But there’d be a couple.

When I arrived, the very first thing I saw was Cam sitting on the couch with a bunch of people, and Nikki perched on the arm, holding his hand. What was that about? Didn’t Van say they had broken up? Since when did breaking up look like that? Maybe holding hands with your ex is the new thing, I mean, he held my hand at the movies that time Ugh, I shouldn’t be here. Not with them all smug and together and me all gullible and publicly cheated on.

Dev wandered over to me as I closed the front door and he gave me a knowing, sad smile.

“Hey,” he said, opening his arms.

“Hey you too,” I said. I stepped into them for a sympathetic hug. Sympathy flowed from one of us to the other and back again in a continuous loop.

“Heard about Ty,” Dev said, watching me grimace. It was true, the whole world really did know. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, Mads told me you two broke up,” I said back. “Sorry about you as well.”

“Mmm. I’m feeling good,” he said with two sarcastic thumbs up. “How about you?”

“Fan-freaking-tastic.”

“I’ve got some vodka.”

“Lead the way.”

It was a small party tonight, maybe a dozen of us all up. Probably since it was a Wednesday with only a couple of hours’ notice, so everyone was pretty much in the living room. Dev and I retreated to the quiet of the den with two cups, a bottle of vodka, bowl of prawn crackers and a bag of chips. Neither of us were exactly in the mood for a party, but we were here.

“I can’t believe you guys broke up,” I said as I took a shot of vodka. I screwed up my face as it burned my throat. Dev shot his and poured us both another one. “
Again
. You guys are so right for each other, why can’t you just accept it already and stop fucking it up.”

“I know,” Dev groaned. That was a surprise. He took his next shot and poured himself another. “I really like her, Poppy,” he said. “I really do.”

“Then why are you such an ass and keep dumping her?”

“I feel kind of weird talking to you about this,” he said, giving me a sideways glance.

I repeated my question. “If you like her so much why do you keep dumping her?”

“You’re her best friend, how do I know you’re not going to-?”

I thumped him on the leg. “Why do you keep dumping her, Dev?”

“Because she doesn’t really like me, Poppy.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said, taking a shot and holding my cup out for some more. I had some catching up to do. “How can you even possibly think that?”

He stuffed his mouth full of chips, crumbs breaking off and sprinkling down his shirt as he chewed. I nudged him with my cup and he poured me another.

“Mads is like, insanely into you,” I said. “She doesn’t want anyone else.”

“But there are always guys around,” he said. “When we go out. There’s just always other guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just around, staring at her, talking to her, wanting to dance, buy her drinks.”

“That’s not exactly
her
fault,” I said. “You have a super fun girlfriend. And you’re just jealous.”

“It’s not like she’s pushing them away,” he said.

“Because she’s a nice person! And please, have you met Mads? She doesn’t know what to do when a boy likes her.”

He thought about that and took another shot.

“And who wouldn’t be flattered by all that?”

I gave him a reassuring pat on the knee. “There might always be other guys around but she only wants
you
.”

“Are you sure? Because…” he stopped.

“Because what.”

“Because…well…you can’t say anything to anyone, I swear if you tell anyone I will have no problem pantsing you in the middle of the cafeteria sometime.”

“Jeez, Dev! What is it? I won’t tell, I swear.”

“I think I…well…you know…”

“Dev!”

“Alright! I think I love her, okay?” he said. “I think I love her.”

I grinned. “That’s really good, because – and I didn’t tell you this – but she loves you too.”

“How do you know?”

“She tells me.
All
the time.” She would kick my ass if she knew I’d told him that. Whatever, I was doing her a favour.

“Really?”

“You guys better get your act together. For real,” I said and slammed my next shot. At that moment Ravi skipped into the room – literally skipped – and jumped on top of us. I ended up with his face and arms, but Dev wasn’t so lucky.

“What’s up, you guys?” Ravi said.

“Get off of me bro, seriously!” Dev said, slapping Ravi on the ass.

“So how’s the pity party working out for you?” Ravi said. Dev shoved him off us and Ravi landed with a
whump
on the floor. He jumped up and shook his hair out of his face. “Come outside,” he said. “Come on, forget your drama for a bit. We’re gonna play some poker.”

Dev and I exchanged grimaces. I shouldn’t have come. It was sweet of Ravi to invite me and everything, but the truth of the matter was I just didn’t want to be around people. And definitely not some of the people that were out there. I wondered if they had heard, if Nikki was laughing at me, if Cam felt sorry for me. I didn’t want his pity; I could not handle his pity. I had a feeling that Dev wasn’t feeling very people-friendly, either.

Ravi rolled his eyes, as neither of us made a move to join the shenanigans. “You guys
suck
.” At that moment, my cell started vibrating in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw an unfamiliar cell number calling me. I stood up and took a couple of steps across the room.

“Ah ha!” Ravi said. “Come on Dev, no excuse now.” He grabbed Dev by both forearms and hauled him to his feet.

I pressed accept call. “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me,” I heard Ty say. I stiffened. I had been waiting for this call, but it still shocked me. It wasn’t his number, he was on a new phone, or someone else’s phone. Whatever – it was different.

“Oh,” is what I said, how I replied, how I began the big important conversation with my boyfriend. Or ex-boyfriend.
Oh
.

“Yeah,” he said. He sounded cautious, like he was treading carefully with me. He was right, he should.

“What’s with your cell? I couldn’t get through to you.”

Ravi and Dev looked at me. It wouldn’t have been hard to work out who I was talking to. Ravi took Dev by the shoulders and pushed him out to the living room and people and life. I was alone, and closed the door behind them.

“I can’t use it anymore,” Ty said. “It’s ringing all the time. Someone leaked my number and it’s completely jammed up. To be honest, I think it was Sasha. She’s been doing stupid shit like that.”

“Oh,” I said again.

“Sorry, this is Tommy’s number, if you want to save it.”

“Okay,” I said.

“So…hi,” he said again. “It’s good to hear your voice, I’ve missed you.”

“Do you have something you think you should say to me?” I asked, pacing around the room. “Something you want to tell me about, maybe?”

He paused. “Oh, so you’ve seen them, huh?”

I stopped walking and took a deep breath. “What. The fuck. Is going on,” I said slowly, spitting the words out in clumps.

“I swear to you, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Ty said. Didn’t they all say that? Wasn’t that a standard in the cheating boyfriend list of lines to tell their girl? I paced faster, breathing faster, my heart beating faster. It felt like my ribs were closing in, tightening against my lungs, trapping them, constricting them. I had to keep the anger inside, I had to keep it civil. He probably had an excuse – not an excuse – an explanation. I had to hear him out, I wanted to hear the excuse, the alternative because the story those pictures told couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.

Listen
to him, Poppy. Do it.

“You always hear how tabloids make shit up, but I’d never realized just how-”

“There are photos, Ty, tell me about the photos.”

“Oh, that girl, ugh,” he made a noise like he was shuddering from the grossness of it all. “You’re talking about the blond in the pink dress, right?”