29 Because Steve was the sexiest, of course

LJ

Hmph. I'm paying for lunch again? Ever since I did Rock Star, I always paid for lunch, what the eff.

No wait, ever since I did that music video with Antonia. Yes, it started then.

Antonia has always been Antonia for as long as I remember and when Mr. Barnes said she was going to do a dance collab with a boy from our label, and star in her video, there was a lot of expectation because she was Antonia. When she made the announcement that it was going to be me was I think the moment that my balls dropped for real. And because of that, the guys always made me pay for lunch.

Well, not always. Sometimes, Jamie paid secretly before I got a chance to pay, I think his way of telling me that he forgave me for being picked by Antonia instead of him.

Against The Wall was a heart-wrenching song about the end of a relationship and I was in every second of that MV, cuddling with Antonia in our bed, walking down the street and taking selfies, driving her around while she feeds me a cupcake, then later we're frigidly sitting in the car, unable to look at each other, I sit at the bed after my long day and she pretends to be asleep and when I get up to leave, she starts crying, then later, I have her against the wall, well, that's the title of the song, I didn't have anything to do with that, and I'm punching the wall in frustration.

When she performed it live, she used a remix version with a dance break and I would show up at her concerts to dance with her. We first performed that at the Music Awards and nearly caused a riot. And broke the internet.

"Awww, our baby is now a lady," Steve teased me when we first saw the MV and again when Ned told us that all the internet servers in the nation went down because everyone tried to stream our Music Awards performance at the same time. I never told Steve that I was simply channeling him, how I invoked my inner Steve: how he flirted with Antonia in front of us, how he was sweet and caring to all the girls in the label, how angry he would get at Mr. Barnes, how miserable he was when we found out that Missy was using their publicity for Baby I Need You to hide her new relationship with Connor. Yeah, best not to tell him that though it may be a compliment, if I told him that, he might kill me.

Why Steve? Because he's the sexiest of us, of course. I mean, come on, do I need to make a list of everyone he's slept with?

Pretending to be Steve really paid off, seriously. People started talking about how I suddenly grew up overnight, how I was no longer the boy next door, I was a man. A sexy man. Like Steve.

Antonia chided me that I got more publicity out of the buzz than she did and was higher than her in the search lists. I kept apologizing, but inside, I wanted to say, well your fault for choosing me instead of Jamie. And that was when I decided I could pull off Rock Star.

I finally got to my car, parked beside the fire escape, and found Kyle leaning against the hood, smoking up. Speaking of that list.

"Hey bro," Kyle straightened up, putting his pipe behind his back, as if I hadn't noticed it already. He looked around, as if expecting Steve or the other guys to be behind me. "Heading out?"

"Hey," I bowed and held out my hand for a slap. "Meeting day, huh?"

"So it is," he shrugged. "Everyone off too?"

"Yeah, Steve left already, we're meeting up someplace else for lunch."

"Cool," he said, nonchalantly, as if he didn't care. I do feel bad for him, I guess he was in love. But then, Steve was very easy to love, unless you were Missy. "Later, then."

I don't reply anymore and open my car door to slip inside. Man, I was hungry.