Page 72 of #Moonstruck

I gave a half-hearted wave and hurried offstage as quickly as I could. My brothers were no longer waiting in the wings, for which I was grateful.

Fox stood outside Ryan’s dressing room. He nodded. “Maisy.”

“Hey, Fox.”

“That was some kiss.”

“What? How do you know that?” It had just happened, and Fox was backstage. How could he possibly know about it already?

“I get alerts on Ryan. Just to keep an eye out for crazies. My phone about exploded a minute ago.” He turned the screen toward me. There was a video of Ryan and me kissing. And it was almost as hot watching it as it had been experiencing it.

It bothered me that, thanks to technology, everybody would see our first kiss. But, to be fair, I was the one who had chosen to go out onstage and kiss a world-famous pop star with tens of thousands of witnesses.

“He is my boyfriend” was my weak response. I got the feeling, though, that Fox didn’t miss a thing and knew exactly what was going on.

I went into the dressing room, ignoring his smirk. Fitz was going to kill me. He’d just gotten through lecturing me about how I’d put things in jeopardy, and now I’d kissed Ryan De Luna, and the entire internet knew.

Forget Fitz. The Luna-tics would be worse. If they were throwing eggs before, what would they throw at me now? Anvils?

As the endorphins and riled-up hormones began to wear off, I had a good forty-five minutes to completely freak out. What had I just done with Ryan?

Kissed him in front of the whole world?

I walked around the room, trying to distract myself. I found a large jar that was halfway full of red gummy bears. It seemed weird, considering Ryan didn’t really eat sugar. I picked it up just as the dressing-room door opened.

Ryan.

I held the gummy-bear jar against my stomach, as if that would keep him at bay. Something in my eyes must have told him to keep his distance because he sat down on a couch, rubbing a towel over his sweaty hair.

“Why do you have a jar of red gummy bears?”

“It’s part of my rider. I ask for a single red gummy bear at every performance, and then I add it to the jar.”

I blinked. “Why?”

“Sometimes artists put extravagant things in riders because they’re divas. Sometimes it’s for comfort. And sometimes it’s to make sure the venue is reading the fine print. Because if they’re not, given a highly physical show like mine, it could cause safety issues. No red gummy bear, then we have a problem because we know they weren’t paying attention.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But do you really want to talk about riders or gummy bears right now?”

“Honestly, I don’t really want to talk at all right now.” I wanted to escape and not face the choice I had made.

“I don’t want to talk, either.” He flashed me a wolfish grin that made even my toenails blush. “But we probably should, right?”

“I still can’t believe I did that.”

“There’s video if you need proof.” He held up his phone.

“I’ve seen it.” And relived it about a thousand times, thanks.

“Are you worried about what people are saying online?”

“No. I’ll start caring about internet trolls’ opinions when I can start paying bills with them.”

“Did you not like the kiss?”

“Not like ...” Had he not been there? “You mean besides the fact that I saw through space and time?”

Another predatory grin. “Then I’m not sure why you’re cowering over there instead of coming over here to enjoy round two.”

I wasn’t cowering! Okay, I might have been cowering a tad.

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