Page 9 of Spark

RUBY

A fter a bit of a crankiness and confusion at his door, our groggy-eyed front man, Savage, his dark hair askew, steps back from the doorframe and lets all four of his sleepy-eyed bandmates into his massive suite.

With Savage’s popstar wife, Laila, traveling with him—not as our opener this time, but simply for pleasure—and thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Savage having more money than God, due to their multi-year judging contract on Sing Your Heart Out , Savage has been booking insanely expensive suites for him and the missus throughout our entire tour, while the rest of us peons settle for the standard rooms supplied by our label.

Yawning, we all shuffle toward the various seating options in the large sitting room.

As he flops into an armchair, Savage murmurs, “Happy birthday, KC. Is this a dare?” He’s referring to Birthday Truth or Dare , the game that’s become a tradition for our band on every member’s birthday.

“Nope,” I interject. “Thanks to Kai, I’ve been forced to call an emergency band meeting.”

Savage scowls at Kai. “What’d you do? ”

Kai leans back in a chair. “Fuck if I know. I was minding my own business in my room when Ruby and her two goons here showed up at my door, talking about all three of them beating the shit out of me if I didn’t voluntarily come with them.”

Savage looks at me. “What’d he do?”

Before I get a word out, Laila emerges from a bedroom in silk pajamas, her blonde hair in a ponytail and her gorgeous face etched with confusion. “Is it already time to go to the airport?”

“Not yet, babe,” Savage says. “Go back to sleep. Ruby called an emergency band meeting for reasons yet unknown. All we know is it’s because of something Kai did.”

“Sorry to wake you,” I say. “Your room is the only one big enough for all of us to sit and talk.”

Laila yawns and flops onto her husband’s lap. “Is it okay if I stay? This sounds juicy.”

“I’d love for you to stay. When a certain lying sack of shit tries to gaslight me about his slander of me, I’m sure I’ll appreciate having another woman here for support.” I glare at Kai for emphasis, and he rolls his eyes.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kai says.

“I’m talking about the bald-faced lies you told Kendrick about what happened between you and me at my twentieth birthday party.”

Everyone except Kendrick, who already knows the purpose of this meeting, looks wide-eyed and highly intrigued.

“Hello?” I shout at Kai. “What about that, Kai? Do you deny lying about that to Kendrick or not?”

“You’d better start talking,” Titus says to Kai. “What really happened, and what did you say happened?”

When Kai says nothing, I address the group with my arms crossed over my chest. “Kai hit on me at my birthday party. That’s what happened. And then he went and told Kendrick the exact opposite happened—that I hit on him. ” I scoff. “As if.”

“As if?” Kai says indignantly, speaking for the first time during this inquisition.

“Careful, Ruby. You know there’s more to this story than what happened at your birthday party.

Honestly, given what happened years before that, I’m shocked you’re bringing this up with the whole band rather than coming to talk to me about it in private.

That would have saved you a whole lot of embarrassment. ”

“I have nothing to feel embarrassed about! I was sixteen and stupid, and I barely knew you. What was your excuse, all those years later?”

Kai shoots daggers at his brother. “I told you that stuff in confidence, KC. What the fuck?”

“This isn’t Kendrick’s fault,” I yell, as Kendrick mumbles something in defense of himself. “It’s yours and nobody else’s.”

“You tried to fuck my sister?” Titus booms. “Even though you’ve always said she’s like a sister to you?” He looks at Savage and Kendrick. “He’s always said that, right?”

Kendrick and Savage confirm that’s true.

“Has everybody tried to fuck my sister behind my back, or just Kai?”

“Just Kai,” Savage says with a yawn.

“Fucking hell, Kai,” Titus says, his face the color of a beet.

“Would you calm the fuck down?” Kai says, leaning back into his armchair. “This is being blown way out of proportion. I promise you, when you hear the full context of why I did what I did?—”

“So you don’t deny it, then?” I interject. “You don’t deny hitting on me, and then turning around and telling Kendrick the exact opposite story?”

“I don’t deny it, no. But context is everything.”

“Liar! ”

“Look, I had to tell Kendrick something, okay? When he came back from school, he was totally depressed and not himself. We all saw it. He wasn’t good.

And he was all over me about the band feeling weird.

The vibe being off. Especially between you and me.

He wouldn’t let it go. But he was feeling so down in the dumps, I didn’t feel like I could pile on and tell him the truth.

So, I switched things around to make it go down a bit easier for him. ”

“What are you talking about?” Kendrick asks, taking the words right out of my mouth.

Kai exhales. “You don’t know this, Ruby, but the three of us agreed, from day one, that you were off-limits, okay? Our honorary sister. So, I didn’t want Kendrick to be pissed at me for being a hypocrite and breaking that longstanding agreement.”

It’s a lightbulb moment for me.

Is that the reason Kendrick’s never once shown romantic interest in me?

Or would he have ignored that stupid agreement, regardless, if he’d been genuinely interested?

I mean, Savage has never shown interest in me, either, and that boy definitely would have broken their agreement if that’s what he’d wanted to do.

“So, let me get this straight,” I say to Kai. “You were scared of your brother finding out you’re a hypocrite, by your own admission, so you opted to tell a horrendous lie about me hitting on you, instead?”

Kai rolls his eyes. “I told a little white lie. One that was actually based in reality, if you think about it.”

“Ha!”

“Ruby, you know what I’m talking about.”

“I assure you, I don’t.”

Kai glares at me, like he thinks I’m lying, but I shrug, letting him know whatever he’s thinking about is a mystery to me .

His eyes narrowed, Kai says, “You’ve forced my hand, Ruby. I’ve never told this story to anyone, because, contrary to what you think, I’ve never wanted to embarrass you. But now that you’ve opened Pandora’s Box?—”

“Oh, I’m the one who did that?”

“I feel like I’ve got to tell it to defend myself. Unless, of course, you’d like to do the honors.”

“I already know you lied to Kendrick about all that prior stuff, too, Kai. Kendrick told me. So, let’s get everything out in the open.”

“I didn’t tell Kendrick a single lie about that part. The only lie I told was about your birthday party.”

“Not true. You told Kendrick I professed my desperate, undying love for you.”

“Because you did.”

“ What ? Are you delusional?”

Kai’s expression is smug and immovable. “Wow, look who’s lying now.”

I gasp. “I was never in love with you. Let alone desperately . ”

“Yes, you were.”

“I had a teeny-tiny crush on you—an older guy who seemed mysterious and knowledgeable about music—for a nano-second, back when I was a sixteen-year-old virgin with zero experience with boys. And you knew that, so you lured me to admit my crush on you?—”

“Lured you?”

“Yes, because you loved the ego boost of it all. I assure you, though, once I got to know you the tiniest bit, I quickly realized my so-called crush on you was stupid and not even about you as a person. That I’d sooner kiss a maggot-covered pile of shit than kiss you!”

Everyone chuckles. Everyone except, Kai, who’s looking damned furious at this point .

“You’re so full of shit,” Kai grits out, and everyone in the room shifts their gaze to him, like we’re watching a ping pong match. “We both know after I turned you down in that stairwell?—”

“You didn’t turn me down.”

“—you never stopped giving me puppy-dog eyes from across every room.”

“What? After our conversation in the stairwell, I was so embarrassed I’d said anything to you, I could barely look at you, let alone give you ‘puppy-dog eyes.’ And you didn’t turn me down, Kai.

Quite the opposite. You intentionally kept me hanging, because you wanted to keep me as an option for a later time.

Like, maybe, I don’t know, my twentieth birthday, perhaps? ”

Kai adamantly denies it, and I insist I’m right, with both of us shouting until, finally, Titus intervenes and screams, even more loudly, for both of us to shut the fuck up. When a charged silence ensues, Titus looks between both of us, his chest heaving.

“Ruby, you have the floor first,” Titus commands. “Tell us what happened in that stairwell, from your point of view. And, Kai, keep your mouth shut.”

I take a deep breath. “Thank you, T. Okay, so this was maybe a month after we’d joined the band.

After practice one night, Kai went out into the stairwell to smoke, while the rest of you party animals stayed behind to drink beer.

I followed Kai into the stairwell, because, yes, I had a little crush on him, and I was hoping to flirt with him a little bit and see if maybe he’d show any signs of interest.” I roll my eyes at my embarrassing admission.

“Well, we got to chatting out there, and, suddenly, with nobody else around, Kai started being super flirty with me. Like, it was really obvious, you guys.”

“Bullshit,” Kai murmurs .

“Let her speak,” Kendrick says, his large palm raised. “You’ll get your chance.”

“She was sixteen, ” Kai insists. “I knew better than to flirt with her.”

“No, you didn’t,” Titus pipes in. “You always looked at her like a hungry lion. Right from the start.”

“I did not.”

“You sure as fuck did. Honestly, you were my only reservation when we agreed to join the band. But I knew how excited Ruby was, and also that she’d kill me if I tried to ruin things for her by telling her to watch out for you. So, I kept my mouth shut while vowing to keep an eagle eye on you.”