Princess and the Popstar

Blonde boys with pretty eyes

The month passed like lightening, in a blur of meet-and-greets, interviews, concerts, tour dates, television appearances, birthday parties for the Kardashians, bigger parties, weddings, Taylor Swift and front-row seats, Lady Gaga requesting a duet, him having to turn her down because his mother said it didn't fit his aesthetic, the media going completely crazy, speculations of him dating no less than five girls, and some influencer's thoughts that he was in love with Linh.

Linh told them that she was literally aro-ace, in response.

That made them back off of that topic, a little. They speculated that it was a cover. Keefe openly called her a sister in every interview that questioned him about it. By the end of the month, it had shut them up.

You'd think that being part of the 1% of the population that didn't have a soulmate, Keefe would have been exempt from romantic questions. Absolutely not, they thought he was a player, a semi-permanent tattoo, that would hang around for a couple weeks, kiss you, then forget you. Keefe sometimes felt like people were trying to coat him in different colors of wrong and slap him against a brick wall like a weird DIY-texture-print-paint brush over and over again. He'd seen that done with a bunch of lavender once.

His mother said that he was too sensitive, and needed to grow up. "Get over it," she'd scolded. "You're, what, sixteen? Seventeen? I can never remember. But you've never dated? You're a walking fixture for the paparazzi to say you're having one-night-stands and kisses and telling. Honestly, it helps your image. You need a little of that romance-spice in your rep, and if you're not going to date, well, you may as well just use everyone around you. It's not like you don't do that, anyway."

Tam had watched his face crumble when his mother had said that. Tam had said Keefe was the most loyal person he'd ever known. Keefe wasn't sure he believed that. But it had made him want to cry.

But yeah. It had been a ridiculously fast paced long month.

But this plane ride was great, honestly, Keefe thought. The service was spectacular, nobody asked for his autograph. There was a little squealing among the younger flight attendants, but, well, that was what happened everywhere he went. He was used to it.

Tam had rolled his eyes.

"You're just jelly, New Tamsterdam," Keefe had said, nonchalantly. "All the ladies want a piece of the Keefester."

Tam had hit him over the head with his book, titled, "This Story Is A Lie," which, as Tam had woken him up once on the overnight, trans-atlantic flight to explain, was apparently a story about a math genius who got really bad panic attacks and whose mom nearly gets assassinated in front of him. Tam had started it in the airport, and he had about five pages left, his eyes wide, pouring over each word, completely swept up in the bookish world.

Keefe wasn't big on reading.

If he'd had to pick between reading a book and doing crack, he'd probably pick reading the book, since his mom would have his head if he ever behaved that irresponsibly, even though she encouraged his drinking and occasional dose of knock-out drugs, since he "needed to work harder" or "needed to sleep better" or something else.

Keefe pursed his lips, watching Linh, in the seat next to Tam, sleep, drooling spit onto her brother's shoulder.

The plane rumbled a little, and Tam's wide eyes looked up for the briefest of seconds, but then shot back down to the book.

Someone on the plane was singing. Probably in economy.

Keefe was in First Class. After all, he had the money. And the airline miles.