Dreamspinner Press Year Seven Greatest Hits Page 21

  “No,” Sasha said. “If a boy has a girlfriend, they can always break up. The illusion of possibility is still intact. You see the difference?”

  Danny knew they weren’t going to win. It was in their contract. He’d been around big business people long enough to know that breach of contract wasn’t anything to screw around with. “I’ll do it. I’m sure you want to keep Elliot single. This girl will know it’s for publicity, right?”

  “Danny, no!”

  Danny reached over and put his hand on Elliot’s thigh. He shot him a look. Later.

  “You don’t have to do this, dude,” Reece muttered. “There’s gotta be another way.”

  “Yes, Danny. It’ll be for publicity purposes only, and she’ll be fully aware of that, although it’s best if that’s as far as her knowledge of the situation goes.” Sasha raised his eyebrows. Danny got it. Containment. Hide the gay. “Go on a few dates, get photographed at some events. It’ll suit our purposes here, and it’ll help her as well.”

  “You already have someone picked out?” Elliot glared stubbornly at Sasha. Gone was the shy, sweet guy they all knew.

  “We’ve contacted Chelsea Preston.”

  “Chelsea? From The Pixies?” Danny nearly sighed with relief. That was at least better than some stranger. It was going to be awkward to explain how their romance bloomed out of seeming thin air, though. “But we’re just friends, and I haven’t been seen with her since the last day of filming.”

  “That’s easy to fix,” Rebecca said quietly. “A few well-placed rumors and you two have been dating quietly for weeks. Months even.” She obviously didn’t like it any more than the rest of them, but she fell into place. It was her job to do what the label needed her to do.

  “I can help with that as well.” Leslie, who was going to engineer their “online presence,” spoke up. “I’ll need login information for all of your social networking sites. Mainly for promotion but to deal with this as well as any other publicity.”

  “Are you serious?” Tate asked. He rolled his eyes.

  The rest of the meeting didn’t go any better than the beginning. Rebecca and Leslie planned how “Chelsea and Danny the couple” would be launched. They talked to the rest of the boys about flirting with fans and giving them a good show, keeping it clean to a point but still making it fun. After the high of their number-one hit, it felt like getting slammed to the ground, crashing into hard cement, and crumbling into smithereens. It wasn’t just him and Elliot, it was everything. Static had become big business overnight—everything about Static had to be planned and manicured to sell them to the largest possible audience. Generic. Cold. Nothing was going to be as it was during those first heady months on the show when long hours in the recording studio and acting silly for the cameras were the worst things they had to deal with. Danny wasn’t sure if he was ready for the real world of the music business, but it was way too late to go back.

  “I FUCKING hate this.” Elliot slumped on their bed and raked his hands through his curls. “I don’t want you with Chelsea.”

  “El, we didn’t have a choice. It was either going to have to be me or you. I saw how hard it was for you to even act like you liked that girl for one video shoot. If nothing else, I can act.”

  Elliot sighed. “I don’t get it. Why is this necessary? Can’t we just not say anything? We don’t have to announce it to the world that we’re together.”

  Danny sighed. “I think we do. Every time we’re in the same damn zip code as each other we announce it. I guess the girlfriend is just… hiding what’s in plain sight.”

  “But you’ll be in public with her. People are going to see you with her and think you’re hers. I know it’s dumb, but I feel like I’m losing you.”

  Danny’s belly hurt, ached from the look on Elliot’s face, from how he wanted nothing to do with any of it. But they didn’t have a choice. Elliot might not understand that, although he was probably going to figure it out soon. Sasha cared about one thing only. Money. And if Danny had to take one for the team so Elliot didn’t have to? Well, then he would. He just hated how much it hurt.

  “Babe, you’re not losing me. I’m not really going to date Chelsea, and she’ll know it. This is just publicity. Business. I fucking hate it too, but it’s just the way things are.”

  “Because our single went to number one.” Elliot’s voice all of a sudden sounded like that was the worst thing that could’ve happened to them.

  “Yeah, and so our album can too.”

  Elliot flopped back onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I still fucking hate it.”

  “I know.”

  “And you’re not kissing her.”

  “No. I’m not going to kiss her.”

  Elliot turned and buried his face in the comforter. “I’m tired. Can we just go to sleep?”

  Danny reached out and ran his hand down Elliot’s side. “Yeah. Let’s go to sleep.”

  DANNY lay awake in the dark for hours that night, stomach aching, and tried to see a good way out of the mess they were about to enter—lies and publicity, real and fake, stress and love and being who they weren’t.

  There wasn’t one.

  “HEY, Chelsea.” Danny gave her a quick hug. It was awkward. It was really freaking awkward. And he hated that he had to do it, but he did, so he was going to do it gracefully. It wasn’t Chelsea’s fault after all. The Pixies’ management probably put her up to it just as much as their management had.

  “Hiya, D. This is a little weird, isn’t it?” Chelsea flipped her long blonde hair off her shoulder. “Gracie and Savannah are kind of on my case about all this, but it’s going to help us both out, right?”

  Danny nodded. Yeah. Help. “So. Ready for dinner?”

  “At The Ivy of all places.” Chelsea giggled. “Could they pick somewhere more obvious? It just screams ‘Look at us!’”

  “I guess that’s what making a scene is all about.” Danny smiled. “There wouldn’t be much of a scene if we ate here.” He gestured at Chelsea’s apartment.

  “True.”

  Danny held out his elbow and gestured at his car. When they got to the restaurant, they were greeted with prearranged flashes. Rebecca had made sure every moment was carefully documented for the eager public. The valet took Danny’s car, and he made his way into the restaurant holding hands with Chelsea and wishing he were at home. With Elliot. He wondered when this had become his life, cameras, fake dates, real boyfriends. Most guys his age would be sitting in the dorms drinking beer and worrying about upcoming exams or looking forward to going home for Thanksgiving, which was right around the corner. Danny hadn’t even thought about holidays or family or anything other than the crazy circus his life had become. He wondered what would happen in a week when the album came out.

  “Whatchya thinking about?” Chelsea asked. They’d just been seated at a very public, very visible table. Danny tried to smile intimately.

  “Just the album. It comes out next week. Yours is coming pretty soon too, right?”

  Chelsea nodded. “Right after Christmas. I’m nervous. Aren’t you?”

  “Are you kidding?” Danny laughed. “I seriously puke a little every time I think about it.”

  And then he remembered how nice Chelsea was, just like the rest of The Pixies. Sure, she wasn’t Elliot and the situation sucked a hell of a lot, but she was his friend. It didn’t have to be horrible.

  HE DROPPED Chelsea off two hours later. They hugged and he told her to tell the other girls hello. It hadn’t been horrible. He was right. Danny thought maybe he could do it—put up a convincing front and show the world he was with Chelsea. Too bad he didn’t want to. It was just… hard to know what he should do.

  It was even harder to know what was right when he came home to a snoring Elliot, lying on the couch, eyes puffy and red with tear tracks coursing down his face, half-empty bottle of vodka sitting on the coffee table. He was asleep, but he didn’t look comfortable. Jesus. Danny felt like shit.

 
“El? Babe?” He shook Elliot’s shoulder gently.

  Elliot woke slowly and sat up, weaving. “You’re here,” he said. His voice was more gravelly than usual. Danny hated himself for thinking it was sexy.

  “Why wouldn’t I be here?”

  “’Cause you’d be with Chelsea.” his tone turned sarcastic and he reached out for the bottle.

  “Don’t you think you’ve had enough of that? Where’d you get it anyway?”

  Elliot shrugged. “A few parts of being us don’t suck. Some chick got it for me. I slipped her cash. Pretty sure she wanted me to fuck her. I kinda thought about it.”

  “El. What’s wrong?”

  “What do you think’s wrong, Danny boy?” Elliot rose from the couch, only staggering a few times, and stumbled over to where his laptop was resting on the table.

  No… no, no, no.

  “Didn’t take long for the pap shots to show up online. You two look cute together. Happy. Don’t mind me.”

  Danny’s gut clenched. “Babe, it’s just acting. Why are you looking at those pictures, anyway? I love you. You know that.”

  “Do I?” Danny knew Elliot was just drunk. It was the alcohol talking, not him. They’d discussed the situation. Both of them had agreed to go along with their management’s wishes—for a little while at least. Danny had thought everything was settled. He clearly was wrong.

  “C’mon, love. Let’s go to bed.”

  “Don’t wanna… not tired.”

  Danny wrapped his arms around Elliot’s waist and struggle-walked him into their bedroom. “Yes you are. We’ll sleep it off, and everything will seem better in the morning, ’kay?”

  Danny put Elliot in bed, stripped his jeans and his T-shirt off because he knew Elliot would get all tangled in the shirt and annoyed by it. Then he went out and grabbed some water and a few pain relievers.

  “El. Sit up and take these. It’ll help.”

  Elliot swallowed the pills and flopped back down on their bed, groaning. Danny stripped quickly and laid down next to him.

  “You feel sick?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “You want to talk?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want, babe?”

  “Fuck me.”

  Danny drew in a sharp breath. Elliot never talked like that unless they were already in the middle of having sex, and even then his voice would be needy, sexy, and pleading. Not sharp and jealous and angry. “Elliot. Not like this. Not when you’re pissed off and drunk.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Elliot flopped over onto his stomach and ignored every attempt Danny made to talk to him. Soon, his soft snores broke the silence of the room.

  Danny didn’t fall asleep for hours.

  StaticBand @Official_Static

  Static’s first full length album hits stores today! Check out track samples and behind the scenes video at www.staticband.com. #Makestaticnumber1!

  “SORRY for being lame. You wanna take me home?” Elliot asked.

  He leaned against Chris’s car window. Elliot felt like a jerk for accepting the invitation to go see a new musician and then moping the whole time. Danny and Chelsea were out. Again. That made, what, ten dates in the last three weeks? Their management had wanted him to be seen out with her more since the album came out. Probably more still once The Pixies’ album dropped. Put that in with rehearsal, photo shoots, interviews to promote the new album, and everything else, and it felt like Elliot barely got to see Danny at all unless they were asleep.

  After that first night, when Elliot had acted like an ass and made a bad situation worse, they’d come to an uneasy understanding. Neither one of them wanted what was going on, and neither one of them wanted to lose each other. So Elliot pretended Danny and Chelsea didn’t exist as much as he could, and Danny tried to get as much time alone with Elliot as was possible. It wasn’t good, but they were doing their best. When Danny was with Chelsea, Elliot tried to get out and meet other friends. Pacing the apartment and waiting for Danny’s return only drove him insane.

  “I get it, man. It sucks what they’re making you do. I don’t see what difference it makes if you and D are together.” Chris shook his head.

  Elliot wished he could still be so idealistic. “It matters because we’re not selling our music. We’re selling sex to middle-school girls who fantasize that one of us is going to show up at their house and ravish them.”

  “Uh, gross….” Chris looked just about as disgusted as Elliot felt whenever he thought about it.

  “I know. But that’s our reality. I’d love to be you, dude. Just a guitar and the stage. Your fans respect you. They don’t scream and try to rip your clothes off. They don’t buy fucking fake nails with your fucking face on them.”

  Chris chuckled. “I’ll have you know I got two marriage proposals last night. I’m sexy too. And I could do with a manicure.”

  It worked. Elliot smiled a little. “Thanks, dude. It’s nice to laugh about things. That’s really all I can do at this point.”

  “Well, next time Danny’s gotta go out with Chelsea, give me a call. If I’m not working, I’ll be here.” Chris punched Elliot lightly in the arm.

  “Seriously? That’s really cool. Thank you.”

  “’Course.”

  CHRISTMAS came and went. So did New Year’s. None of them really noticed the holidays much in the blur of interviews, photo shoots, and events. The album was doing well. Really well, like scary well. Elliot didn’t know what to think. In a way it was good—amazing, actually, that so many people liked them and wanted to buy their music. But it also was getting intense, way more than it had been on their radio tour. More than it had been when they first got home.

  Real photographers, the kind that sold pictures to tabloids and gossip sites had been hounding him, when he was out with Chris, even when he’d taken Sara out to dinner so they could catch up. And every set of pictures came with rumors, gossip, people sure he was dating just about every female he’d ever known—even his damn mother had been a conquest until someone on their management team shut that one down.

  Elliot didn’t like people knowing about him or thinking they knew him, because really all of it was bullshit—the rumors, the fabricated press, even some of their music. None of it was what he’d thought it would be. He’d kind of expected the screaming girls and the autographs, in a not-in-your-wildest-dream kind of way, but all of the scrutiny? Nobody could ever know what that was like, how hard it was to have your life examined, picked apart, and then made up for you based on a few flimsy pictures. He’d have never guessed it was possible until he was stuck right in the middle of it. Was it really so impossible for him just to love Danny and sing with him and their three best friends? Was it?

  Elliot thought everything would be a lot easier if they’d just been allowed to do it their way. He was tired. Not even nineteen years old and tired. Even if he hadn’t exactly been dreaming of a life of fame since he was a kid, there had been that brief amazing time, when things were barely starting, when there was no album, no management team, and it was all perfect. Then he had dared to dream. Not anymore. Even though only few months had passed, not even half a year, it felt like another lifetime. One Elliot wished he had back.

  IS DELLY BEING REPLACED BY… CHELLY?

  A Candy Scoop Exclusive

  ELLIOT PRICE our favorite angel faced boybander was seen again with bro-pal musician CHRIS COLLINS last night in West Hollywood. Fans say they grabbed some sushi before catching a late night horror flick. Awwww how cute! But where was DANNY BRIGHT?

  DANNY and ELLIOT used to be inseparable, but our sources close to the Static boys tell us that poor ELLIOT feels bad taking time away from DANNY and his new love, songstress CHELSEA PRESTON from THE PIXIES.

  “Danny and Elliot just aren’t as close as they used to be,” our source says. “They’re still friends, but Danny says he wants to focus on his new relationship. He doesn’t really have time for Elliot right now.”

>   Oh no!! Candy Scoop wants DANNY to be happy but we hate when romance gets in the way of a good bromance. Looks like our hopes for kissing pics might be in vain. RIP Delly. We miss you already!

  —CS

  “So we’re barely even friends now? What the hell is this?”

  Elliot was pretty sure either Leslie or Rebecca were feeding stories to the tabloids and tips to the paparazzi, ’cause every time he so much as left the apartment with Chris or one of his old friends from high school the paps were all over him, but when he and Danny happened to be together? Nothing. He was shocked that anyone cared what some guy from a new pop group did. Honestly, they probably didn’t. It was all a game of buying the right kind of attention and burying the wrong kind, which Elliot was sure their management team also paid well for. He’d not known that at first, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. Especially when every article about him that surfaced was more of the same; Elliot as the fun-loving flirtatious party boy, a little too good with the girls, having a great time living it up. Couldn’t be further from the truth, but obviously that’s what Static’s management team and their busy publicity machine wanted everyone to believe about him.

  He guessed that careless party boy was a more sellable image than the somewhat shy and dorky gay kid in love with another boy. None of it made any sense to him.

  Danny sighed. “I don’t know why that’s necessary for them to think we don’t even see each other. And you know I didn’t say that, right?”

  “Of course I know that.” Elliot rolled his eyes. “How can you be focusing on a relationship that doesn’t exist?” It didn’t mean he liked it. The whole world thought Danny was with Chelsea. Elliot wanted to scream “Mine!” at the top of his lungs. Danny was his. His. It wasn’t fair.

  “You are with Chris a lot lately,” Danny said quietly. He looked like he didn’t even want to be saying it, but he couldn’t help it.