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Kayla felt like she was five years old and getting dropped off at another friend’s house for a sleepover so that she wouldn’t find out her parents had an early marriage counseling appointment every other Saturday morning.
At least now it was Wednesday instead of Friday, and her parents’ divorce was over a decade behind her. Still, having everything important crammed into the backpack on her shoulders made her feel so incomprehensibly small, like she could curl herself into a ball so tight that she would disappear completely.
Her Uber driver didn’t wait to make sure she was able to get buzzed into the building - he wasn’t a caring father who wanted to make sure she was safe in an unfamiliar city, nor was he a suddenly-famous brother who cared so much about himself that he couldn’t take twenty minutes out of his day to driver her across the city. Kayla hit the buzzer again, and squinted her eyes at the smeared, smudged writing on the buzzer. Did that say Lou next to 5A or 3D? Had these name cards even been swapped out within the last century?
The door finally unlocked without a word, and Kayla hurried inside before it could lock once more. She pulled out her phone as she went to the elevator, not wanting to show up outside the wrong apartment, but when the elevator doors slid open, Lou stepped out in front of her.
Her arms were wrapped around Kayla’s shoulders before either of them could say a word.
“I’m sorry your brother’s such a piece of shit,” Lou told her, then tugged Kayla into the elevator before the doors could close on them.
“I don’t want to complain,” Kayla said, equal parts truth and lie. “I don’t want to be the guy that crashes your whole day and then makes you listen to the same stuff over and over again.”
Lou shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind. I know I desperately needed someone to vent to about those two when we were working on the first album. Poor Cecil the sound mixer couldn’t run away from me fast enough.”
“Seriously, what is their fucking deal?” Kayla grumbled, and followed Lou out of the elevator once the doors opened. “I mean, they’re the problem, right? It’s not just us being too close to the situation?”
Lou snorted. “Trust me - they’re the problem.” She pulled out a set of keys and stopped outside one door - Kayla’s first guess of 5A had been correct, it would appear - and turned the lock. She turned back to Kayla before stepping inside. “I hope you don’t mind, but I have company.”
Kayla winced. “Shit, I’m sorry. You didn’t have to let me stay over - I could’ve figured something out.”
“And let you stay in that house while they’re screaming at each other? I don’t think so,” Lou replied. “Besides, she’s only here because I told her you were coming over.”
“Huh?”
Lou pushed open the door and led the way inside. As soon as Kayla stepped into the apartment’s living room, she froze.
Piper, lounging across the couch, looked up from her phone, smiled, and waved.
“Oh my god,” Kayla whispered. She grabbed Lou by the arm and turned her back to the living room, as if that would keep Piper from noticing that they were having a private conversation. “Lou, I can’t do this. I have a huge crush on her!”
Lou grinned. “I know. Should keep your mind off your dumbass brother, right?” She stepped back out of Kayla’s hold, kicking off her shoes and making her way into the living room.
“Lou!” Kayla hissed, but had no choice but to follow.
To make matters worse, Piper got up to hug her as soon as Kayla was close. “I’m sorry to hear that Nico and Will are fighting again,” she said, one of her thumbs making quick strokes over Kayla’s spine. “If it helps, they always find a way to work it out. Shitty of them to keep getting into it right in front of you, though.” Piper moved back, her hands on Kayla’s shoulders. “Nothing a sleepover can’t help, at least for a night, right?” She grinned, and Kayla’s heart stopped.
“You’re staying over?” Her eyes flickered to Lou for confirmation, and Lou shot her two thumbs-up over Piper’s shoulder.
“Of course!” Piper dropped back onto the couch, nodding for Kayla to take the space on the opposite end. “I’ve been touring with the guys since we were fifteen - I can’t remember ever being at a girls-only sleepover. So, what’s on the agenda? Please tell me pillow fights aren’t actually a thing.”
Lou rolled her eyes. “Only if you’re twelve. I was thinking we’d get dinner and hang out. We can watch a movie if you guys want to. I don’t really have a plan outside of being as far away from Nico and Will as possible.”
“Cheers to that,” Piper said, holding up an imaginary glass. She turned to Kayla. “Anything you had in mind?”
Any plans that Kayla had had of complaining until her face turned blue or getting so angry at her brother that she started ugly crying went out the window. What did people do at sleepovers that was cool and normal and wouldn’t embarrass anybody in front of any particular crushes?
“Um.” She choked on her spit and coughed into her elbow. This wasn’t going well. Kayla looked to Lou for help, and received nothing but Lou’s stifled laughter. “I, uh, need to figure out what I’m going to wear to the release party tomorrow.”
“The Heavenly Bodies party? You’re going?” Piper asked.
Kayla nodded. “I’m Lou’s plus-one, since Will and Nico are technically each others’. But I didn’t know about it until I got here, so I didn’t pack anything nice enough to wear.”
Piper waved a hand. “You don’t really need to dress nice. Some of these people show up looking like real freaks sometimes. As long as you’re not wearing a t-shirt and shorts, you should be fine.”
Kayla tried not to glance down at her current outfit, or think about any of the clothes stuffed into her backpack, or in her suitcase back at Nico’s. “Um.”
Piper’s eyes widened. “Not that there’s anything wrong with what you’re wearing right now! I mean, throw on pants and a blazer, and you’d fit right in. Or, uh-- Lou, what’s in your closet?”
Piper jumped up faster than Lou could say, “Huh? What are you--”
Lou chased after her, Kayla bringing up the rear, and they found Piper throwing open Lou’s closet doors. “Wow,” she said, taking a step back and looking into the closet appraisingly, “Hot Topic threw up in here.”
“Shut up.” Lou gave her a shove, and Piper laughed as she jumped onto the edge of Lou’s bed, laying sideways across the mattress with her feet hanging down.
“You guys look for an outfit, and I’ll find us someplace to eat with good vegetarian options,” Piper said, and shot them each a look when they only stared back at her. “What? It’s like a fashion show. That’s girly-sleepover-y, right?”
Kayla sighed. “She’s not wrong.” She suppressed a shudder at the memory of every scratchy Disney costume dress she’d been shoved into as a child. Just because she was a redhead who had a fondness for archery as a kid did not mean she wanted to play Merida in everyone’s Disney crossover fanfiction.
“So, um, what are you wearing?”
Lou reached into the closet and pulled out a drycleaning bag on a hanger. She unzipped it, revealing a strapless silver cocktail dress. “Hey,” Piper said, “that’s the one you wore to your release party.”
“And I will wear it to every party for the rest of my life,” Lou replied, resealing the bag and hanging it back on the rack. “For a dress that expensive, I have vowed to wear it until I’m old and gray.”
“You’ll be the hottest eighty-year-old in the room,” Kayla commented, and Lou shot her a grin. She wasn’t sure why those words had come out of her mouth, but she was glad they did. Lou had a nice smile that Kayla hadn’t seen enough of on this trip.
Lou started pulling out clothes, random pieces one by one, and then multiples that she layered together into outfits. Every so often, Piper would call out the name of a restaurant with some of their top rated dishes, which made Kayla hungrier and hungrier with each outfit she tried on over her clothes.
“What’s this?” Kayla asked, reaching into the far corner for something shiny that had been tucked so far back it was like someone had wanted it to get lost.
Lou let out a huff. “I was dating this girl once who was really into clubbing, and insisted that none of my clothes were clubbing material, so I went out and bought the first thing I found. We broke up before I ever wore it, but it was too late to return it. If it fits and you like it, you can keep it, seriously.”
The dress was a shimmery gold, and fitted without seeming like it would be suction cupped to the body. Piper eyed it from across the room. “You have to try that one on without your t-shirt on under it. I think it’s going to look great on you.”
Lou pointed her toward the bathroom, and Kayla went to change, even dropping her shorts to prevent any unnecessary bulk under the skirt. And Piper was right - she did look great.
“Ooh,” Piper said when she emerged. “That’s definitely the one. We just need to find you some shoes.”
Kayla kicked out one foot. “You don’t like my fuzzy socks?”
Lou snorted. “I don’t know how you can wear those when it’s so hot outside.”
“My feet get cold,” Kayla shot back defensively.
“I have these black wedge heels,” Piper said, and then: “Can you walk in heels? What size shoe do you wear?”
“Nine,” Kayla answered, “and yes.”
“Ugh, finally a woman in LA with normal sized feet,” Piper said. “We can swing by my place before the party tomorrow, and you can borrow something of mine. Wait, this is so fun - dressing up in each others’ clothes. This is shaping up to be way better than sleepovers with the guys.”
Lou started hanging discarded clothes back inside her clothes. “If you wanted this to be really obnoxiously girly, I could invite Drew.”
Piper’s nose scrunched up. “Listen, I love her, but no thanks.”
Kayla, on her way back to the bathroom to change, stopped in the doorway. “Who’s Drew?”
“She’s a gossip columnist,” Lou answered. “She’s banned from DOA because she kept breaking bad stories about some of the musicians. Nothing crazy, as far as I know, but bad PR all the same.”
“If you ever meet her, make sure you’re sober before you open your mouth,” Piper added with wince. “If she was here, she’d be getting us all hammered and convincing us to spill all our secrets.”
Lou paused in her cleaning, staring off in the distance in consideration. “We could still get hammered. It’s not like any of our secrets are going anywhere, right?”
Piper grinned. “Dinner first. Then, I say we put on some shitty show and make a drinking game out of it.”
The reality show they’d put on quickly became background noise by the end of the first episode, their drinks refilled and cheeks pleasantly flushed.
“They’re both fucking liars,” Kayla complained, throwing her arms out wildly despite the drink in her hand - luckily she’d opted to drink straight from the can rather than pouring herself a glass, so at least the spillage was minimal.
Lou, laying across the couch behind her, hummed in agreement as she twirled a lock of Kayla’s hair around a finger. “You get used to it after a while.”
“Right, they’re always like, I’m not in love with him, and I’m like, you’re an idiot, you’re in love with him,” Piper said. She’d gathered a chunk of hair in front of her face, quickly twisting pieces into a braid. “And then they start dating, and it’s like, if you hadn’t spent the last couple of years lying to yourselves, we could’ve been way past this.”
“Couple of years?” Lou frowned. “You lost me. Who are you talking about?”
Piper dropped her thin braid, and tried to blow it out of her face, but it landed back on her nose. “Jason and Leo. Who are you talking about?”
“Nico and Will.”
“And how every time I talk to either of them about joining the band, they’re like, well I think it’s a great idea,” Kayla continued. “But clearly, somebody’s a lying liar piece of shit.”
Behind her, Lou let out a sigh. “God, I hate being put in the middle,” she grumbled.
Kayla shot her a look of hurt. “You said it was okay for me to complain. I know they’re your band mates, and Will’s, like, your best friend or whatever, but you said--”
“That’s not what I meant,” Lou cut in, leaning closer and wrapping her arms around Kayla’s shoulders, resting just too much weight against her. “Will told me something in secret.”
“Siblings don’t keep secrets,” Kayla said quickly. “He would be okay with it if you told me.”
Lou dropped her head against Kayla’s, shaking it slowly like she was trying to fight against the words that wanted to burst from her. “He doesn’t want you in the band.”
“Oh, shit,” Piper said.
Kayla knocked Lou away, and whipped around. “What? But he told me--”
“Of course he wouldn’t say it to your face,” Lou said. “He doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Kayla blamed the alcohol on the way her eyes started to well up with tears, but she knew the hurt she was feeling was strong enough without any help. “Nico, too?”
“Nico does want you in the band,” Lou answered. “He knows how talented you are, and he’s seen that you’re great on stage. He’s been fighting for you since we met.”
“I’d vouch for you,” Piper added, now working on pulling apart her braid. “You are so fucking good.”
It was a sad day when even a compliment from Piper McLean didn’t do anything to lighten Kayla’s mood.
She took a heavy drink. “Did he say why?”
“Will?” Lou clarified, then shook her head. “No, he wouldn’t tell me. It seemed… personal. And I think he was trying to keep me out of the middle - before he and Nico got together, I was in the middle of every argument, and he’s been trying not to put me in that position so much. It hasn’t really been working.”
“Personal?” Kayla muttered to herself. “So, what, he doesn’t want me to fucking upstage him? He’s the only one in the family who gets to live their dream? Fuck him!”
“Yeah!” Piper cheered. “Fuck him!”
“Maybe talk to him, first,” Lou suggested. “Maybe he has a good reason that he just couldn’t share with me. Or maybe he’s a huge asshole - but we won’t know until you talk to him. If you want, I can go over there with you before the party tomorrow--”
“No,” Kayla cut in quickly. “You said I could stay here until the party. I don’t want to go back over there any sooner than I have to.”
Lou took a breath. “That’s fine. You can talk to him after the party, then.”
Kayla dropped her gaze to the floor.
“I can make sure to keep Nico distracted, in case you’re worried about starting a fight,” Lou offered. When Kayla didn’t respond, Lou added, “Or, if you’re that uncomfortable staying with them, you might want to think about moving up your flight back to school.”
Kayla ran her hands over her face. “That is an option, isn’t it.”
“We can also go egg Nico’s house,” Piper offered, and when Lou and Kayla glanced over at her, she had a bunch of tiny braids throughout her hair. “What? That’s a thing they do at sleepovers on TV. Is that not normal?”
Piper, it turned out, was a cuddly drunk, once she reached a certain number of drinks. Lou managed to expertly dodge her every advance, slipping Kayla in the middle over and over again before finally insisting that they all switch to water. And when Piper passed out on the couch, Kayla covered her with a blanket while Lou pulled the trash can out of the bathroom to place on the ground by Piper’s head.
“C’mon,” Lou said softly before Kayla had a chance to start setting herself up on the floor for the night. She led Kayla into her bedroom and pulled back the covers on her bed, staying to one side as she climbed in.
Kayla hesitated at the other edge, so Lou reached out for one of her hands.
“It’ll work out, you know,” Lou assured her. “Even if this band isn’t what works, you’ll find something else. You’re cool, and talented, and you could get signed anywhere you wanted. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that happens.”
Kayla crawled onto the bed and pulled Lou into a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered, then pulled away and added, “Um. Good night.”
“Night,” Lou replied, and laid back against her pillow.
Kayla laid beside her, tucking herself under the covers and waiting for sleep to find her. She stared up toward the ceiling through the darkness, and listened to the distant sounds of traffic outside, followed soon after by soft, steady breathing that told her that Lou had fallen asleep.
Sometime later, seconds or minutes or hours, an arm fell over Kayla’s stomach as Lou rolled onto her side and cuddled up to Kayla in her sleep, a quiet noise of contentment falling from her mouth.
Kayla’s heart skipped a beat.