Merch Girl Read online

  “It’s okay, we’ll see you tomorrow,” she replied, kissing him on the cheek.

  We crashed as soon as we got into the room and woke up sometime the next afternoon. Trina and I were happy that we got to shower in a hotel room rather than a sketchy venue. I was absolutely dreading the day that would happen.

  “Let’s go to the mall. There’s a huge one down the street, we could walk over there,” Trina suggested.

  “Sure.”

  We threw on shorts, tank tops and flip flops and left the hotel.

  “I love summer,” Trina said, lifting her face up to the sun.

  “Me too.”

  We entered the highly air-conditioned mall, which sent a wave of goose bumps over my body. I rubbed my hands over my arms and noticed that my stomach was grumbling. “Let’s get something to eat, I’m starving.”

  We entered the first restaurant we could find and waited for a table.

  “Hey, look who’s here,” I said to Trina, nodding to the right.

  Jenna and Jeff were sitting suspiciously close to each other in a booth eating burgers. Most friends don’t sit side by side in a restaurant; even most couples wouldn’t sit that close.

  “Something is seriously up with them,” Trina said.

  I looked to the right again and turned my head back quickly.

  “Is she feeding him a french fry?” I asked, not believing what I had just seen.

  “Ugh, what a skank,” Trina replied after catching a glance at their flirtatious behavior.

  I couldn’t say I was surprised by Jenna’s ho-ish ways, but I really thought she liked Ryan a lot.

  “Should we do something?” I asked.

  It probably wasn’t our place to rat her out to Ryan, but I didn’t want her to be two-timing one of Logan’s best friends.

  “Let’s wait and see if it gets any worse before we tell anyone,” Trina suggested.

  It was a good plan. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions anyway. Jenna was a big, attention-seeking flirt, so this sneaky lunch didn’t necessarily mean she was cheating on Ryan. We sat down at a table and ordered our food. Jenna and Jeff left the restaurant without noticing us.

  “You know, I’m generally not an evil person, but I almost wish she was fooling around behind Ryan’s back so we could really get her,” Trina said.

  “I know what you mean.” It would feel great to take her down. She deserved payback for all the crap she’d put me through the past few years. She loved to put me down whenever she had the chance, making fun of me in class or posting nasty comments on Facebook. I always brushed it off, but not this time. She wasn’t going to take away my dream of being with Logan, and she certainly wasn’t going to ruin my summer tour experience.

  After we finished lunch we shopped in a few stores and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the show. I straightened my hair and Trina did my makeup; a smoky eye and a glossy lip – her specialty.

  “Griffin texted, he said they just got to the venue. Wanna leave soon?”

  “Sure. But first, how do I look?” I spun around the hotel room in a black skirt and white Lansdowne tank top.

  “You’re gonna win Logan over tonight for sure.”

  We grabbed our bags and strolled down the street to the venue. The buses were parked outside, and there had to be at least a hundred fans already in line. The doors didn’t open for another three hours!

  I walked past the crowd and knocked on the door to our bus. Robyn opened it up.

  “Please don’t get me involved in your high school drama,” she said, handing over the cash box while staring me down.

  “What are you talking about?” Trina asked.

  “Jenna came to talk to me this morning. She’s worried about your relationship with Griffin interfering with the tour. I’m not getting in the middle of anything. Please work it out amongst yourselves, I’ve got more important things to deal with,” she explained, throwing the merch boxes into Trina’s arms.

  If steam could blow out of Trina’s ears, it would be blasting out right now.

  “We need to rethink our strategy on the whole Jeff and Jenna thing,” I whispered.

  “That bitch! She’s going down!” Trina said, marching into the venue with her boxes.

  She dropped the merch on the ground inside the venue and headed straight towards the stage. I tried to stop her from doing anything drastic, but by the time I got to her side it was too late. She already found Jeff, and he didn’t know what was coming to him.

  “Where’s Jenna?” she asked, crossing her arms.

  “How should I know?” He walked backstage and Trina followed closely behind.

  “Tell me where she is, now.”

  “I told you, I don’t know.”

  He was such a liar. I shoved past him to find Jenna myself. I wasn’t going to let her ruin my summer either. If Trina was kicked off the tour I’d be devastated, and I’d feel bad enjoying myself while she was sitting at home. I couldn’t let it happen.

  I flashed my pass to the security guard and he let me backstage. Just my luck, I ran into Logan, who was chilling with Ryan and Jenna. How was I supposed to confront her with these two around? Jenna waved and smiled devilishly. I wanted to strangle her.

  “What’s wrong?” Logan asked. I lost my train of thought at the sight of him. His utter gorgeousness caught me off guard. Even in plain blue jeans and a white t-shirt, he was still stunning. It took me a moment to think of something to say.

  “What? Nothing,” I replied.

  “Your face is all red, and you look a little shaken up.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing, the merchandise boxes were just a little heavy.” I tried my best to brush it off.

  “You’ll have major guns by the end of the tour,” he joked, squeezing my upper arm. His large hand wrapped around my puny arm easily, and his touch sent a shiver down my spine.

  Trina ran into the room next. Her face wasn’t as red as mine felt, but she still looked pissed off. “Jenna, we need to talk, now.”

  “What’s going on?” Ryan asked, putting his arm around his girlfriend protectively.

  “Nothing, we can talk about it later,” I said, pulling Trina out of the room. “Let’s not stress out the guys before their show. We can handle this on our own.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said. “I just can’t get kicked off this tour. I’d never see Griffin again, I know it.”

  “Griffin would never let that happen. He would stand up for you.” I said, hugging her. “We’ll get Jenna back, don’t worry. Now is just not the right time.”

  She wiped her eyes and we walked back to our merchandise table to set up for the show. After what seemed like the longest wait of my life, the doors to the venue finally opened and the fans filed in. Most of them ran right by us to get up to the front of the stage like last night, but a few came to visit our booth.

  “Do you know them?” one fan asked me. I was taken aback; none of the girls had spoken to me at all last night.

  “Know who?”

  “Um, obviously, Lansdowne,” she said. The fan looked about fifteen or sixteen-years old.

  “Oh, yeah, I know them,” I said, not sure what she was getting at.

  “Do they have girlfriends?”

  “No.” I knew their publicist wanted us to keep our mouths shut about Jenna.

  “Well, my friend Stacey said she saw a blonde girl come out of the concert with Ryan last night. I know she was telling the truth because she sent me a photo. I put the picture up on my blog and it got tons of comments. And then I saw the same girl today when I went to lunch at the mall. She was with another guy. I snapped a picture with my phone, wanna see?”

  “What? Why would you do that?” I asked.

  “Well, I love Ryan, and I don’t want him to be with a cheater,” she explained, showing me the picture she took. It was a good photo, clearly showing Jenna cozying up to Jeff.

  I pulled Trina over after she finished with a sale. “This girl has photo evidence of Jenna and Jeff
at lunch today.”

  “Are you serious?”

  I nodded. Exposing them would be a piece of cake now.

  “Could you send that to my phone?” Trina asked.

  “It’s my picture, and I want to be the one to break the news,” the girl said, snapping her phone away from us. “I’ll put it up on my blog.”

  “That’s actually a better idea. Then the whole world would know Jenna’s a liar,” Trina whispered to me.

  “So it’s true? That girl in the picture is Ryan’s girlfriend?” the fan asked.

  “We can’t confirm or deny anything,” I said. I didn’t want to get the guys in trouble with Holly, but they needed to know the truth about Jenna.

  “What’s the name of your blog?” Trina asked.

  “Lansdowne Lovers.”

  “Cute, we’ll check it out,” I said.

  The girl ran off to catch up with her friends in the crowd and Lansdowne took the stage. I so was busy envisioning busting Jenna that it was hard to concentrate on the show. But, as soon as Logan began to sing, my attention was fully drawn to him. His soulful voice poured through the microphone right into my heart. I danced around with Trina in our little booth as we sang to each other and acted like fools. It was easier to have fun tonight now that our first-night jitters were gone.

  The show went by too fast, and soon the crowd was bombarding us for t-shirts and stickers. We ended up making even more money than we did in Boston. Lansdowne was definitely doing something right.

  Trina and I packed up the boxes with whatever merchandise was left over and took it back to the bus. I was shocked to see almost the whole venue standing outside.

  As we finished loading the bus I heard the now familiar sound of high-pitched screams from the swarm of adoring fans standing around us. The guys walked out of the venue with some security guards. We sat near the window in our bus and watched the fan frenzy through the shades. I couldn’t believe that they took pictures with every fan out there who wanted one.

  “It’s been an hour already, are they going to stay out there all night?” I asked.

  “Of course they are, they’re building a fan base,” Jenna snapped.

  I forgot she was on the bus with us. Ryan probably made her get on before the show ended so he wouldn’t get yelled at again.

  “Why don’t you go back to the hotel, Jenna? You don’t look too happy,” Trina said.

  “I don’t want to walk back by myself at night.”

  “I’m sure Jeff would walk with you,” Trina said, raising an eyebrow.

  Jenna stood up from her seat and stared down at Trina. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, forget it. He’s still filming the crowd outside anyway.”

  I watched as Logan’s fans stood close to him, talked with him, and leaned in for hugs. A few girls even kissed him on the cheek for their photos. I knew they were just fans and he probably didn’t think anything of it, but I couldn’t help feeling jealous. I hadn’t even kissed him on the cheek yet, and here were complete strangers doing it.

  “Those girls seriously need to ease up,” Trina said. Griffin was surrounded by a couple of college-aged looking fans.

  “He’s just being nice because he has to,” I said, reassuring Trina and myself as well.

  The guys finished meeting their fans and Jeff came back onto our bus while the guys went on theirs. We had a quick, quiet ride back to the hotel.

  “Let’s order some pizzas,” Griffin suggested, as we all walked into the hotel together.

  “Sounds good, we’ll meet you in a few,” Trina said.

  Running up to our room, we quickly showered, changed, and beautified ourselves again before going to the guys’ room. Logan welcomed us into the pepperoni-smelling hotel suite. He handed me a slice and I took it happily.

  “Can you believe all those fans?” Griffin said.

  “It was impressive,” Jeff replied. “I got some great footage for the site.”

  Trina and I were quiet. It was hard to be excited about girls throwing themselves after the guys we liked.

  “What’s wrong?” Griffin asked Trina.

  “Nothing,” she said quietly.

  He lifted her chin up and kissed her, on the lips. I looked away quickly, trying to give them some sort of privacy. She was so lucky!

  Logan sat down on the couch next to me as I finished my pizza.

  “Thanks again for the encouragement the other night.”

  My heart pounded loudly through my chest as he moved closer.

  “No problem,” I responded.

  I hoped my pizza breath didn’t smell too awful. Logan looked amazing, as always. His ripped jeans and tight black V-neck tee clung to his body.

  “When we get to New York I want to take you to one of my favorite places,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  I hated surprises, but I didn’t care. He could take me anywhere he wanted, even a dirty alley, and I’d be in heaven.

  “So, how do you like touring so far?” he asked.

  I’d love to tell him that hearing his voice and seeing his face every night was everything I could have ever dreamed of, but that might freak him out a little.

  “It’s a lot of fun, and you guys sound really great.”

  “Thanks, I try,” he said, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling. “I’ve been in so many bands, ever since middle school, but this is the first one that’s ever gotten any attention.”

  “Well, you definitely deserve it.”

  He smiled and turned to face me. “I think I better get some sleep, I need to be well-rested for more interviews and another show tomorrow.”

  I looked at the clock and noticed it was almost three in the morning.

  “Okay,” I replied, hoping for something to happen, but not sure what. He stared at me awkwardly for a moment.

  “What?” I asked, touching my face to make sure there wasn’t pizza cheese hanging anywhere.

  “Nothing, nothing.” His gaze left my face and he stood up to open the door. He looked over at Griffin and nodded for him to let Trina leave as well.

  Griffin gave Trina another kiss and we left their room.

  Trina looked at me with wide eyes as we walked down the hallway. I think we were both in shock. I wanted to stay up all night and discuss what had happened in that hotel room, but as soon as my head hit my pillow I passed out, and didn’t wake up until an hour before we had to get back on the bus and drive to Hartford.

  Chapter 6 – Hartford

  I was still reeling from last night. I wanted to share every detail with Trina, but there wasn’t much privacy on the bus, and I really just wanted to nap a little more. Crawling into my bunk, I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep.

  As soon as I started to drift off, Trina opened my curtain. “Where’s your iPad?”

  I slowly exited my bunk and grabbed it from my bag. Trina took a seat next to me at the front of the bus as I turned it on.

  “Come on, I want to see if the photo of ‘you know who’ and’ you know who else’ was posted,” she whispered, looking around to make sure Jenna and Jeff were out of sight.

  I almost forgot about the fan and her photo evidence of Jenna and Jeff. I searched for the Lansdowne Lovers blog and brought up the page. We didn’t have to scroll down too far; it was right there on the top of the first page.

  The photo of Jenna leaving the club in Boston with Ryan and the photo of her and Jeff were side by side.

  “It seems like Ryan’s blonde is up to no good with the band’s web guy,” the caption read. Holly was going to have a fit over this.

  “Wow,” Trina said, pointing at the number of comments the post had received. I scrolled through the hundreds of comments posted since last night.

  What a slutbag.

  She’s not Ryan’s girlfriend, just a groupie!

  The fans didn’t seem to like her too much. Awesome.

  “This is great,” I
whispered. “Should we show her now?”

  Trina walked to the back of the bus to find her.

  “What do you losers want?” Jenna asked, clearly upset that we ruined her hang out time with Jeff.

  I shoved the iPad in her face. Her eyes widened for a second, and then narrowed.

  “Big deal, so Jeff and I went to lunch yesterday.”

  “Don’t you think Ryan would be upset if he knew how close you were sitting to your ex-boyfriend?” Trina asked. “Your shoulders are touching!”

  “Maybe, but he wouldn’t break up with me over it,” she stated.

  “Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t let Jeff stay on the tour,” I pointed out.

  She was quiet for a minute, and twisted her face.

  “If you don’t want us to tell Ryan about this picture, then stop spreading lies about me and Griffin,” Trina said.

  “It wasn’t a lie; I am genuinely concerned about Griffin’s performance.”

  “Well, it’s none of your concern, so please don’t go tattling on me like a preschooler.”

  “Fine, I’ll mind my business if you mind yours,” Jenna agreed, and ran back to the lounge.

  “He’s going to find out about the picture sooner or later,” I said to Trina.

  “I know, but at least we have Jenna off our backs for a little while.”

  We pulled up to the venue and Trina and I rushed outside to see our guys. Okay, Logan wasn’t actually my guy, but I was feeling really good after the conversation we had the other night. I stretched, breathing in the fresh Connecticut air, and turned to see the small theater on the other side of the street. Lansdowne’s name was written across the marquee in capital letters.

  A van from the local radio station pulled up next to the band’s bus, and a guy and girl got out of the van with microphones and recording equipment. I guess the guys had another interview. Trina knocked on their bus door and Griffin opened up.

  “Good morning,” Griffin said as I walked up the steps behind Trina.

  “You do realize that it’s two in the afternoon,” I replied.

  “You’re on tour time now, two PM is really nine AM,” he explained. “You’ll learn.”