Dreamspinner Press Year Seven Greatest Hits Page 18

  “That was crazy,” Tate finally whispered. “What… was that?”

  Elliot didn’t know how to answer. That had honestly been the most intense five minutes he’d ever spent in his life. He had no description.

  “I think that’s going to be what life is like for a while,” Webb finally answered quietly. “I just… wow.”

  STATIC INCITES RIOT!

  A Candy Scoop Exclusive

  Our five favorite boybanders sure know how to cause a ruckus! DANNY, TATE, WEBB, ELLIOT, and REECE, left a photographer’s studio in West Hollywood late yesterday afternoon only to find a huge group of screaming fans waiting for them.

  The police were called, tears were shed, but a few lucky fans got to get autographs. One even got a hug from ELLIOT!

  “It was the best thing that has ever happened to me!” enthused Sabrina Wills, 15. “Elliot gave me a big hug and told me he loved me. He was soooo sweet!”

  Sounds like our little flirtatious ELLIOT is on the prowl. SAVANNAH from THE PIXIES better watch out if she wants to keep her man.

  — CS

  “THIS crap is getting more and more ridiculous,” Elliot grumbled. He slammed his laptop shut and dumped it onto the carpeted floor. “Now they’re making me out to be some sort of horndog, hitting on all the underage fans.” The rumors were annoying. The fact that most people assumed he was available for the taking was even more annoying.

  “Why are you reading that junk?” Danny mumbled from the pillow where his face was squished. “Even better question, why are you awake?” He hooked his arm around Elliot’s midsection and dragged him back down under the covers.

  Elliot giggled and wriggled the rest of the way under the blankets. “Just am. What are we doing today?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” Danny’s arm tightened and he pulled his blankets up and over both of them. “For the first time in who knows how long, we don’t have any meetings, no photo shoots, no interviews. We are going to spend the entire day right here.”

  “Doing… absolutely nothing?” Elliot asked. He smiled into Danny’s chest.

  Danny chuckled to cover the fact that his breath hitched in his throat. “Well, maybe not all day.”

  “Good,” Elliot mumbled. Then he looked up at Danny with those honey-brown eyes, the look Danny still wasn’t used to. The look he wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to. “Hi.”

  “Hello there.” Danny tangled his hands in Elliot’s curls and tugged, just enough to elicit a moan. He’d figured out how much Elliot liked to have his hair pulled a few nights before. Elliot groaned into their kiss.

  “EL. CHECK this out.” Danny flipped the laptop around to show Elliot the listing he’d just found online. It was for an apartment. A perfect apartment. Just what they needed.

  Elliot ambled in from the bathroom with a towel slung low on his waist. Even though Danny had seen his body, and touched and tasted it too, the tease of that pale stripe of skin under his tan line, the cut of his hips, the slight trail of hair disappearing into the towel, was enough to make Danny’s mouth go dry.

  “What is it?” He caught a glance of Danny’s face and chuckled. His towel dropped and he crawled back into bed, sliding his long, smooth body up against Danny’s. All of a sudden, Danny wasn’t so interested in the apartment. He was more intent on sliding his hands down the expanse of Elliot’s back, onto his round little ass, over his hip to cup rapidly hardening flesh.

  Elliot giggled and leaned forward to suck yet another mark onto Danny’s neck. Danny gasped from the bite of pleasure and pain.

  “What did you want to show me?” Elliot asked. He slid his thigh between Danny’s and rolled his hips.

  “Um, I’m not going to show you much of anything if you keep doing that.”

  “Okay, okay.” Elliot grinned but he stopped. “I’ll be good.” Still, he kissed Danny’s neck, licked at the spot that was sure to be turning purple already.

  “I think I found us a place,” Danny said. He was about to drop the subject and spend the rest of the day making Elliot lose his mind when Elliot froze and his head popped up.

  “You did?” They’d talked about waiting until they got back from their radio tour, but they’d also talked about how it would be nice to have somewhere that was theirs to come home to when they returned. “Let me see.”

  Danny was torn between the apartment he’d been so stoked about and the fact that he had one very naked, warm, silky Elliot snuggled up against him. Elliot took the choice away from him, though, when he plucked Danny’s laptop from his hands and sat up to look at the screen. He scrolled through the pictures, smile growing.

  “This place is awesome,” he said.

  “Yeah, and the complex is gated and locked. It’s in a really nice neighborhood, but nowhere flashy. I think it’s perfect for us.”

  “You want to call the number and see if they can show us today?” Elliot asked.

  Danny pouted for a second. “What happened to not doing anything?”

  Elliot bounced. “C’mon. I want to go look.”

  Like he was going to say no.

  “ARE you bringing both pairs of khakis?” Danny called from where he had a suitcase open on his bed. Their bed, really, but officially it was Danny’s room. They’d been in their new place for less than a week, but already it was slowly turning into home.

  Elliot looked at the pants in his hand and the three pairs of jeans strewn on the bed he’d never slept in. Their stylist Brenna had shoved them into clothes somewhat like their own but not. Elliot still got khakis, T-shirts, and polos, but instead of baggy cargo pants, they were fitted and expensive. And the polos were topped with preppy sweaters and jackets instead of his trusty old hoodies. It wasn’t awful. It just wasn’t quite him. He figured he’d work on it. Elliot walked across the hall to where Danny was staring at an open suitcase with most of his closet on the floor. Elliot laughed at him, then wrapped Danny in his unnaturally long monkey arms and kissed the back of his neck.

  “Stressing much?”

  Danny cuddled back into his embrace. “Yeah. I don’t know how much of this Brenna expected us to bring.” He held up a shirt that had been draped over the side of the bed. “And plaid button-downs? I’ve never even owned a plaid button-down.”

  Elliot bit softly at his neck. “You look hot in it.”

  “Yeah?” Danny turned his head for a kiss. Elliot was happy to oblige him. He didn’t know how much time they’d have for kissing when they’d be with the guys on a cramped bus for nearly a month, sleeping in tiny bunks and hotel rooms. It would be back to sneaking and stealing time where they could. Danny’s fingers tangled in his hair, and what started as a soft brush of the lips turned deep and breathless. It happened that way with them a lot.

  “I’m gonna hate sleeping without you,” Danny murmured.

  Just the thought of it sucked. “Yeah, how long did we last when we tried to stay at our parents’ places right after the show?”

  “Was that even a week?”

  “Felt like ten.”

  Danny turned in his arms. “So maybe if the band partners up for hotel rooms we make sure we’re together. The guys will help. You know they will.”

  “And if we don’t partner up?”

  Danny rolled his eyes. “You gonna lock me out?”

  “Nooooo.” Elliot giggled when Danny nuzzled the ticklish spot on his neck. He let Danny walk them backward until they were flopped on top of the pile of clothes he had shoved on the bed. “Your stuff’s going to get all wrinkled.”

  “I don’t care. Kiss me.”

  Elliot pulled Danny down for a kiss, smiling against his lips. “Okay.”

  StaticBand @Official_Static

  OMG our boys’ single is out Static Clingers!! Time to make some Static history! #MakeStaticNumber1 #Clingers

  “I’M RED in the morning, and you’re listening to 106.1 The Hits Radio. Lemme just say, you wouldn’t believe the screaming outside! I think it might even be louder than it was when Justin Bieber
was in the studio last year. We have some special guests today, and I think a few people might already know who they are.” The DJ paused at the swell of noise from outside and laughed. “Do you want to introduce yourselves?”

  Danny leaned forward. “Hi, I’m Danny Bright and we’re Static.” The screaming intensified out in the radio station’s parking lot. Someone must’ve been playing the interview out loud. The other four guys introduced themselves one at a time to the soundtrack of screams and cheers through the window.

  “So, this is crazy. And it happened so fast. How long have you known each other?”

  Webb leaned forward. “Danny, Tate, Reece, and I met in June at a call down at Blue Horizon records. We were all there hoping for a solo contract, but Sasha Pulaski decided to put us together. Elliot came almost a month later. We’ve only been together a few months, but I feel like I’ve known these four my whole life.”

  “Do you ever wish you’d gotten a solo contract?”

  Reece answered that one. “Not at all. None of us could’ve asked for a better group to be put in. These boys are my brothers, and I wouldn’t want to be doing any of this without them.”

  The other four grinned and mumbled similar answers. As much as he’d wanted a solo contract way back at the beginning, Danny felt sorry for people who were in it alone. He didn’t know if he could stand any of it without the rest of them by his side, and he knew what they’d experienced so far had to be nothing compared to the way it got for some people. He’d never want to do it by himself. He was glad he’d never have to.

  “So I hear you’re gonna sing for all the girls out there?”

  Elliot smiled at Danny and spoke. “Yep! We’re going to sing a clip from our new single ‘Fool for Love’. Ready?” He looked at the other four who all gave a short nod. Danny reached out and put an encouraging hand on Elliot’s lower back as Reece counted them in with a beat on his guitar.

  Singing live was quickly becoming Danny’s favorite part of what they did. Blending with the others, proving their voices and their skill, watching people’s faces go from indulgent and a bit condescending to impressed.

  Yeah, he liked that.

  SOMETIMES it was hard to tell one day from another. Screaming fans and flashing lights, the same questions over and over and over from people whose faces all started to blend together. Danny felt as if he was being ungrateful every once in a while, when he was tired or didn’t feel like going to one more interview that was exactly the same as the rest. It was as if all this amazing, wonderful stuff was happening to him, and he could barely slow down enough to appreciate it. They’d been all over the country on buses and planes and in vans with shaded windows. Little sleep became even less as time went on, and at each stop there were more girls crying and screaming their names, the women got more flirtatious, security got tighter—Elliot’s eyes got more droopy and worried and stressed.

  Danny knew none of it was easy for Elliot. He threw on a big smile and gave the interviewers polite handshakes and kisses on the cheek, but he really did hate being in the spotlight. Unless they were singing. That was when the Elliot who Danny knew came out. He’d grin his cheeky, sweet grin and light up the entire room. More than one DJ swooned just a bit when they heard him sing.

  Danny was so damn proud of him. He hated it all the same when he couldn’t put a protective arm around Elliot’s shoulder and glower at whoever wanted a piece of him. Danny knew it would call unwanted attention to the two of them. Sometimes he did it anyway.

  Every day their online followers grew, YouTube videos of their interviews and mini-concerts got hundreds of comments, and they were watched. Constantly. All of them. But Elliot was watched the most and they all knew it. So, when Danny wanted to kiss him but remembered there was a camera, when Elliot leaned closer and it looked like maybe he wanted to kiss Danny too, Tate or Webb or sometimes even Reece (although he didn’t seem to want to bother with the hiding shit) would have to remind them. No. You can’t do that here. People are watching.

  It was so tempting to forget on purpose.

  He couldn’t say how many times he’d wanted to just lean over and kiss Elliot until they were out of breath and damn the stupid cameras. Sure the interviewer’s eyes would go wide and their manager Peter or their brand new publicist Rebecca would probably kill them—and pass out from lack of warning—but it would be nice. To actually be with the guy he wanted to be with, to not just be near him until they were behind closed doors.

  The nights were better. The guys didn’t mind if they slept in the same bunk on the bus “as long as there’s no freaky shit,” Webb said the first night with his eyebrows raised. Tate and Reece agreed. They shared hotel rooms anyway whenever they spent the night in a place, to save on costs. Danny and Elliot were an obvious choice; none of the other three would even think about being the third wheel. So at night they got to hold each other, and kiss, and touch, and whisper all the things they’d wanted to say during the day. At night they got to be themselves.

  That wasn’t to say they were amazing at hiding things. Because they weren’t. Danny caught himself staring at Elliot all the time, most likely with a dopey grin on his face. And Elliot touched him way more than was necessary—at least as far as most people would be concerned. For Danny it was nowhere near enough. That month between the show and their radio tour, he’d gotten used to constant touches whenever he wanted. Not having them after that was worse than if he’d never gotten them at all.

  The girls online, the ones who’d started to whisper that maybe Delly wasn’t just a bromance, they noticed everything, every touch, every look, every intimate whisper played off as just between friends. It was unnerving how much they saw, how the love in Danny’s eyes was so damn obvious, and how Elliot caught himself almost touching him constantly. It wouldn’t be good for Danny and Elliot if too many more people noticed what was between them. Danny knew that. He assumed it anyway, what with all the questions about dating fans, all the photo shoots where they were posed to hover on that very fine line between cute and innocent and blatantly suggestive. Danny wondered if they might as well have gotten into porn. At least the sex was out in the open there and not thinly veiled with preppy outfits and radio singles about falling in love. Yeah. It would never do for the fans to know two of the boys were off the market in a big way. Still, he wanted to tell them. Elliot did too. As much as they tried to hide, clearly they weren’t very good at it, and they really didn’t want to be.

  So the days and nights and places and weeks all blended together into one big confusing, tiring, fast-paced mix where the only thing that was real, the only thing Danny or any of them could count on was each other—five solid rocks in the middle of a swirling maelstrom. Sometimes he wondered when it would suck them under.

  StaticBand @Official_Static

  We’re in the top ten! Thank you so much everyone. Big Love!!

  StaticFan#1 @Rateisgreat

  @Official_Static Congrats to the boys!! We love you :) #Clingers

  “CAN you believe you have a top-ten single?” the DJ asked.

  She was female this time, although after a while it was hard for Elliot to tell them apart aside from an accent here and there. They were still reeling at the fact that “Fool for Love” had sold so well or sold at all. Elliot couldn’t believe that anyone cared enough to buy the music he and his friends made. Sometimes he thought that none of that even mattered. If it was just him with Danny and the guys sitting in someone’s garage and making music nobody would ever hear, he’d still be happy doing it. But people were buying their song and looking forward to the rest of the album. They cared. It blew Elliot’s mind.

  “Okay, boys. We have some questions here that our listeners would love to know the answers to. You ready?”

  “Of course.” Reece flipped her a sly smile and leaned forward. He was genius at flirting with the press. Elliot wished he could do half as well.

  “Jenna from Lawrenceville wants to know if you were a girl, which member of the ban
d would you date?” The DJ turned to him.

  Elliot’s belly fluttered. He felt heat rise in his face. If I was a girl… relax. It’s just a question. “If I was a girl I’d definitely date Danny,” he said. I shouldn’t have said Danny. I should’ve said Reece. Or Webb or Tate. Anything other than—

  “Ouch!” Tate joked with a mock pout, saving Elliot from his awkward inner stumbling. “And here I was gonna say I’d pick Elliot. Maybe I have to date Reece then if I’m going to get rejected like that.”

  “We are dating,” Reece corrected him. “Quit denying it. Right, Webb?”

  Webb only laughed. “I think I’d have to pick Danny too. He’s my partner in crime, after all. Sorry, you two.”

  The DJ laughed. “Keisha in Plum Borough asked what each of you is looking for in a girl.”

  Tate took that one. “I have a girlfriend,” he rolled his eyes, “other than Reece, of course. I love her sense of humor and her smile. It’s important to smile.”

  “I like a girl with little bit of mystery,” Webb said. “Don’t tell me everything about you all at once.”

  “A girl who’s a good cook,” Reece said with a grin. “And if she beats me at video games, I’ll buy her a ring.”

  “I… I like someone who’s funny,” Elliot said. “And a little sarcastic, and obviously if I can talk to him—uh, her, um, yeah, that’s what’s really important.”

  I’m such an idiot. Elliot seriously thought his life had flashed in front of his eyes there for a moment. Danny shot him a concerned look and jumped in quickly. “I like a girl you can have fun with,” he said. “And I really like big brown eyes. They get me every time.”

  “Kind of like Elliot’s?” the DJ asked.

  Danny laughed casually and slung an arm around Elliot’s shoulders. “You got me there,” he joked. “Elliot’s eyes are awfully pretty.” He fluttered his own lashes in Elliot’s direction and got a laugh from the radio-station staff.