JACKS

I've heard a lot of good news in my life—when I got my first studio contract, when my solo album went platinum, when N3XT won album of the year. But these three words may be the best I've ever heard: 'I'm fucking single'.

My nerves itch with the urge to jump into the air.

"Shit," Skye mumbles under her breath as she cringes.

"Hey Buttercup," I say with a grin.

"Heeyyy..." she says, her cheeks reddening by the minute. She walks over and leans against the wall. "What are you doing here?... with my brother?... in my kitchen?"

"Oh come on, Skye! I was nice, I promise." He looks to me for confirmation.

"Depends on your definition of nice," I say with a smirk.

"Okay, so maybe I messed with him a little. But I'm your big brother."

"We're the same age!" she protests, turning to me. "He thinks he's older because he's named 'Twin 1' on his birth certificate."

"I am older, but whatever—your brother's job is to screw around with every guy who shows up at your door." His eyes widen and he facepalms. "Okay, that didn't come out right. You know what I mean, I'm not... shit. I'm definitely talking too much."

"As you can see," Skye says, shaking her head, "the rambling runs in the family."

She laughs awkwardly and moves a strand of golden hair out of her eyes.

You want her. Tell her.

No. If ever a moment was too soon, this is it.

"No problem," I say, trying to fight back a stupid grin. I grab the magazine and hold it out for her. "I came to show you your big debut spread."

"Oh my god!" she hops forward and grabs it with a shocked look on her face. "It's the cover. My photo of you is on the cover. This... what??"

The cover is a photo of me from the waist up, pulling my shirt halfway up with the headline 'Jackson Ford: Anatomy of a Pop Idol'.

She frantically flips through the pages as Ollie gets up and walks over to take a look.

"You knew it was going to be on the cover, right?" I ask.

She stops on the first page, a double-page spread of me lying shirtless on the bed.

"Photos by Skye Kennedy..." she reads, tracing a finger across the page. She flips through about seven pages until she stops and looks up at me. "This is amazing!"

She leaps toward me and throws her arms around me in a big hug.

Note to self: surprise Skye more.

She releases me and steps back, blushing slightly.

"This is really cool, Jacks," she says in a soft voice. "Thank you... for the opportunity. Working with you I mean and... getting published."

"It was my pleasure."

Ollie takes the magazine from her hand and starts looking at it.

"Finally!" he says, flipping through. "I have been dying to see these photos!"

"You didn't show him?"

Skye shakes her head.

"It's important to protect my clients' privacy. Most people are not okay with these kinds of photos being seen by just anyone."

"I'm just anyone?" Ollie says mockingly. "That's hurtful."

"No, you're my brother, the total perv!" She flips him off and he returns the gesture.

"You're probably right." He holds the magazine sideways and looks it over. "These are some serious spank bank material. Good job!"

"Awwgghh!" Skye groans, smacking him lightly on the back of the head. "I am so sorry for him, he's disgusting."

"It's alright," I say with a laugh.

"Yeah, Skye," he says, rubbing the back of his head. "See, he's not a prude. I mean, he let a magazine post these thirst traps, didn't he?"

I wasn't sure what I planned to do with the photos at first, I was more concerned about the photographer at the time. But when I saw them, I knew I wanted to put them out somehow. They were sexy, artistic, playful... I liked what she brought out in me.

"Thank you for bringing this over," she says, grabbing her brother and pushing him into another room. "But I need to kill my brother right now. I'll uh... I'll see you in twelve-ish days I guess?"

Twelve days? No. That's too long.

Ask her out.

"Why don't we get together before then?"

"Sure," she says, smiling slightly.

"What are you doing tomorrow night?"

You desperate idiot.

"I uh... Nothing."

"Dinner?"

"Sure um... I know a great Indian place on Sunset."

I want to take her somewhere nice, really impress her, but paparazzi make it hard to do anything without an audience, and I'd prefer to keep them away from her as long as possible.

"It's actually a bit complicated for me to go out to a restaurant—the paparazzi circle me like vultures. We wouldn't want you ending up as my next tabloid affair," I say with a laugh.

She bites the inside of her cheek and her shoulders slump slightly.

Awkward, desperate idiot.

"Would you be cool with coming over to my place? I can order takeout," I say, trying to recover.

"Sure," she says with a soft smile.

Awkward, desperate fucking idiot.

SKYE

So I accidentally announced myself to Greg's uncle. And then I broke up with Greg. And then I got home and loudly declared my relationship status in front of Jackson Ford.

This is totally not a clusterfuck.

I guess I should probably stop shouting things without checking who's around. That seems to be a bad choice for me.

The door closes behind Jacks and I immediately turn to find Ollie. He's sitting cross-legged on the couch looking at the magazine.

"Alright, spill—what did you say to embarrass me?" I ask with a huff.

"Seemed like you were doing a good job of that on your own," he says with a laugh, setting down the magazine on the coffee table and leaning back.

"I hate you."

"No you don't."

"I really do."

I sit on the couch beside him.

"So, you want to tell me why a certain gorgeous pop god showed up at your doorstep just hours after your flight got in? I mean, obsessed much?"

"Oh shut up, Ols. He brought me the magazine, that's all."

"The magazine full of sexy photos that you took of him?"

"That's my job, remember?"

"He likes you. It's painfully obvious."

"So he's flirty, but you and I both know that people like Jackson Ford do not want regular girls like me. Have you seen the people he's dated? They're all pretty famous people with eight-pack abs and perfect eyeliner."

"I don't know what exactly he wants from you, but he definitely likes you. You just have to decide if you're interested in whatever he's offering."

"Like casual sex?"

"There are worse things than great sex with a flawless rockstar."

He's not wrong.

"Or you're totally wrong and he has no interest in me whatsoever."

"I'm not wrong, but you've gotta figure that out for yourself. Then decide if you're on the same page." I laugh. "And if he hurts you, I'll beat the shit out of Jackson Ford. Maybe it'll get me on TMZ."

I push his shoulder and he feigns falling to the side.

"You're an idiot. New subject, okay?"

"Well, a little birdy told me you broke up with Gregory. A pretty loud birdy actually," he says with a teasing smile. "Good for you. What happened?"

"I just..." I sigh, not really even knowing what I want to say. "Somewhere along the line he just lost interest in me. I hated having to fight for his attention all the time."

"He's a dumbass, Skye." He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his shoulder.

"When I met Greg, he acted like he liked me so much... it felt good. I don't know what I did wrong."

I feel a warm tear hit my cheek and I quickly wipe it away.

"Sometimes people just don't know what they have, Skye. It's not about you, it's about them."

"It's always me."

He sits up and turns, grabbing my shoulders so that we're both facing each other.

"Look at me, Skye," he says with a serious expression. "The way other people treat you isn't a reflection on you, it's a reflection on them."

"Dude, look at Beyoncé," he continues. "Jay-Z cheated on her with Becky with the good hair, and she's fuckin' Beyoncé. People are stupid. They will not know if they've got a Beyoncé right in front of them, okay?"

I chew the inside of my cheek as I contemplate his words.

"I just want to be the one that somebody chooses for once. Not because they feel obligated to or because they don't have any better options, I want to be someone's top choice."

"You're my top choice for twin sister." He smiles at me in an attempt to make me laugh, but it's not working.

"I'm just sick of being treated like junk that nobody wants. Even when I was a kid... it just sucks."

"So our bio parents abandoned you—fuck them!"

"Us," I say.

"Fuck us?" He tilts his head and raises a brow.

"No, our bio parents abandoned us. Not me."

His expression snaps to neutral, which I've recognized since we were kids as the face he makes when he's hiding something.

"Yeah, us," he says. "What I'm saying is th-"

"Hold on." I hold my hand up with my palm towards him. "Why are you being weird?"

"I'm not."

He is.

"They abandoned both of us. Why would you act weird about that?"

"I didn't."

He did.

"What are you keeping from me, Ols,?" I narrow my eyes.

"I promise it's for your own good, okay? Can we drop it?"

"No—you're being shady, and since when do we lie to each other?"

He looks at me with pleading eyes.

The only thing Ollie has kept secret between us is what really happened with our parents, because I didn't want to know. But...

"Did... but we were born at the same time to the same people... it's not like they put just one of us up for adoption. But wait, no, didn't mom say we were taken from their custody?"

"Shit," Ollie says, putting his head in his hands. "What do you want me to do, Skye? Do you want me to tell you?"

I contemplate for a moment. I can't tell if knowing would be better or worse.

Well, I can spend my whole life fighting with these feelings of inadequacy, or I can face them right here.

"Tell me."

He shakes his head and sighs.

"If I do, you have to promise that you'll keep in mind that these people are assholes and they are not a reflection on you or how great you are, okay?"

I nod and mime a cross over my heart with two fingers.

"You know how mom hates our bio parents and won't tell us why?" he asks, his voice almost pained.

"Yeah..." I narrow my eyes.

"Well it's because of what they did that got us taken away from them. You see... there are these places where you can drop off babies if you don't want to keep them, no questions asked. It's supposed to be for unplanned pregnancies so that there is a safe way to abandon a baby rather than dropping them on somebody's doorstep in a basket or worse."

"I don't understand... so they just surrendered us? But we were four when we were adopted. Can they do that to four-year-olds?"

He chewed on his lip and put his head back in his palms.

"No, that's illegal. People aren't supposed to just drop off four-year-olds in a McDonald's and walk away. But that's what they did."

"Jesus..."

I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying. Our parents left us at a fast food restaurant and... us? No, not us.

"Me," I say, staring at the carpet. "They just left me, didn't they?"

He nods, avoiding eye contact.

It stings. Maybe it shouldn't after all this time, but it does.

They got rid of me. Of course they wanted to keep Ollie.

"They got overwhelmed raising two kids they couldn't afford, so they thought... In their weird religious culture, boys were good and girls were bad so, they picked me to keep."

"What the fuck," I whisper.

"It's not you, Skye. It was just that I was a dude and they were big-time dickbags. It had nothing to do with you."

"How did you end up in the system with me?"

"Well, turns out, if you abandon a little girl, the cops will find you and arrest your asses. The courts determined them to be unfit parents—shocker—and brought us back together."

"I don't remember any of this."

"I don't either. We were pretty young. But I remember feeling protective of you when we were little and not wanting separate rooms."

"That's right..."

When we first moved in with Mom and Dad, they tried to give us separate bedrooms. They thought kids would want their own bedrooms. But Ollie would wake up and start screaming like a banshee until they would bring him to my room.

In a weird way, it kind of makes me feel better that Ollie had his baggage too. I just thought it was a twin thing, but he struggled with trauma too.

"The info I got was pretty bare-bones, but it seemed like they were shitty people. I know I was four and all, but I hate that I didn't protect you. Who knows what else those fuckers did to make you have your episodes."

He clenches both fists and his jaw tenses.

"Ols," I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. "It's not your fault."

"You don't know that," he says, shaking his head. He looks up at me and his eyes are glossy with tears that haven't yet fallen.

"Yes I do. You've always protected me, idiot." I give him a soft punch to the shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

I'm not sure. It's a hell of a bomb to drop, but it doesn't feel quite as bad as I feared it might.

"Yeah. I think so."

"Just do me a favor, okay?" He wipes tears from his eyes and looks at me. "Don't confuse not being valued with not being valuable."

"Okay. I'll try."

He pulls me into a hug.

"You are a Beyoncé.'

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