Page 23 of Selling Out
Rose shakes her head right as I say, “Yeah.”
Mia’s gaze shifts between us, unsure who to listen to.
“I mean, you don’thaveto come,” I say, “but I think you should. Oh, and there’s a party in my bus afterward.”
Rose and Kelly high-five each other. The three of them confer for a minute and ultimately decide to join the meet-and-greet, if only for the food.
When I get to the room where it’s taking place, my arrival is heralded with cheers and Paul handing me a shirt—which elicits a chorus of boos—and a Sharpie from amongst the collection he’s holding.
The line wraps around the room and disappears out the door. Most of the fans are Czech, but there are some from Germany and Poland too. A lot of them are wearing shirts with lyrics or even my face. There’s something about coming face-to-face with your own head—or head-to-head with your own face?—especially when it’s five times as big as your real one that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to. It’s flattering and surreal and slightly disturbing, like the time my brother, Troy, slipped a cardboardcutout of me next to my bed. I nearly died of fright when I woke up.
The hands of everyone in the line are full of posters and phone cases and tickets for me to sign. Rose and Kelly post up near the refreshment table, and Mia follows, but she keeps darting curious glances in my direction. Rose and Kelly have both gone on tour before, but Mia’s never done an event like this.
Our gazes meet, and I jerk my head to signal to her to come over.
She hesitates, but I repeat my gesture, and she walks toward me, tugging on the bottom of her dress so that it covers more of her thighs. I force my gaze away from her legs and back to her face, which, honestly, is just as dangerous a focal point. Mia looks incredible tonight. It’s not just that she’s been styled and made up by a professional. She’s glowing from the same high I’m riding.
Paul invites the fan at the front of the line to come through. She’s visibly shaking as she approaches with that deer-in-the-headlights look and then puts her arms around me in a painfully slow and deliberate way. They’re just supposed to shake my hand, but that rarely happens. People want hugs, and I’m too much of a sucker to say no. These are the people who make music a career option for me. I want to please them.
Mia shows me raised brows as I work to free myself from a hug that’s feeling like it could go on as long as theLord of the Ringsextended edition. You’d think I was this girl’s long-lost husband or something.
I wriggle free and thank the girl for coming. She hands me her ticket, which I slash and dash the Sharpie across, then she takes out her phone.
“Selfie?” I ask.
She looks around, and her eyes land on Mia. She holds outthe phone in a pleading gesture that means “Would you mind?” in both Czech and English.
“This is one of my amazing backup vocalists,” I say to the fan. “Mia Sawyer.”
The fan just holds her phone out, waiting. Mia’s identity is apparently not a point of curiosity for her.
Mia takes the phone with a polite smile, and the girl slips her arm around me. Mia’s gaze flits to the hand gripping my waist as she gets the camera ready, then takes a couple shots.
The next fans come up—a group of three young women—and they immediately hand their phones to Mia.
“Oh,” I say. “I don’t think?—”
“It’s okay,” Mia says, juggling the devices. “May as well make myself useful.”
The three girls are going off in Czech, and I have no idea if they’re talking to each other or me, but there seems to be some dispute about which two get to stand next to me for the picture.
The problem is solved by taking a group picture and then three individuals after. The last girl—the one who didn’t get to stand by me in the group shot—turns her body toward me and places one of her hands on my chest.
Mia looks at the hand, then at me.
I twist my mouth to the side, admittedly not loving the contact, but also amused by Mia’s reaction to it.
“Here,” Mia says, stepping toward us. With a smile on her face, she gently takes the fan’s hand and relocates it to my arm, then pats it.
The girl says something in Czech that sounds annoyed, but she leaves her hand on my arm for the picture. Once it’s taken, she gives my bicep a little squeeze for good measure.
Mia opens her mouth to say something, then apparently decides against it and hands the girl her phone.
Her dodgy glances and brow-furrowing escalate as the linemoves, and before you know it, she’s embraced her role as meet-and-greet photographer slash personal bodyguard.
“Hey, hands where I can see them,” she says as two girls’ hands migrate toward my butt.
“Ever heard of #metoo?” she says to another girl, who goes in for a kiss on my cheek.
