Fangirl by Ken Baker Read Free Book Online

her backseat.
    â€œSorry,” Josie said. “Speaking of late, did you make it to Peter’s hotel after?”
    Ashley hesitated.
    â€œWell?” Josie pressed. “Tell me!”
    â€œWhen we get to school. I will. Don’t worry. No big deal.”
    The car screeched to a stop at a red light. 7:49 a.m.
    â€œOkay, okay. Seriously, sorry I’m late,” Josie said. “I hate being late, but I had trouble falling asleep last night after the concert.”
    â€œWhat concert?” D asked.
    â€œPeter Maxx,” Ashley replied instantly.
    Josie cringed as D burst into laughter and let out a noise from her throat that could only be described as a wrenching sound of disgust. “Oh, man, you guys. I can’t believe you guys went to that lame-ass concert.”
    Ashley checked the time on her phone and exhaled nervously to no one in particular.
    Josie definitely wasn’t about to share the real reason she couldn’t fall asleep: because she was so inspired by Peter’s concert that she stayed up writing at her keyboard all night. As a matter of fact, it was a rush of creativity she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, and she wrote an entire song.
    She had already gotten into her shorts and a T-shirt, wiped off her makeup and was brushing her teeth when, just before midnight, the opening verse came to her out of nowhere.
    I could craft a song with a catchy rhyme
    But words can’t describe your committed crime
    You’ve stolen mine
    She spat out her toothpaste and ran to her notebook that almost always could be found resting on her bed like a second pillow.
    Texting hi, just because
    That’ll never happen
    â€™Cuz we never was
    Just twenty yards away you play
    You might as well be miles away
    She sat at her desk and turned on her Casio keyboard. And as she worked out a singsong melody in C, it was no longer a ballad, as she had hummed in the bathroom mirror. Instead, it was fast and it rocked.
    Feeling what I’ve only heard for so long
    There’s no sad, just glad
    No crime, but a gift
    Each strum, each note a lift
    D squeezed into a spot in the very back of the parking lot at exactly 7:51 a.m. “C’mon, Ash,” Josie prodded. “At least give me a little hint. Did you meet Peter or not?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œSo tell me!”
    â€œWhen we get to class. It’s a long story.”
    Josie’s friendship with Ashley often treaded the fragile border between love and hate, between mutual admiration andprofound jealousy, between being true friends and being, well, frenemies.
    The BFFs did have a storied history of on-and-off conflict, going back to the infamous The Wiz debacle, during auditions for the lead role of Dorothy (who wants to play a witch or a troll?).
    Ashley ended up getting the part. Ashley, objectively, was a great singer. She had serious pipes. Ever since she was a little kid, her parents had her in church choir, taking vocal lessons, grooming her to be a vocalist. Ashley, Josie believed, deserved to get the role and, while the two friends occasionally engaged in healthy competition with each other, Josie acknowledged that if she couldn’t stand up long enough to sing one song in a rehearsal, she probably wouldn’t make a very good Dorothy when the theatre was full, the lights were bright, and that scary-ass twister was coming.
    Instead, she decided then and there to focus exclusively on writing songs and became Ashley’s biggest fan, happy to sing from the pit, or to pop onstage as a background performer. Just as well. Writing songs, after all, was her first passion.
    As Josie sat on her bed after Peter’s concert, she flipped through one of her old, tattered notebooks. Just reading lyrics conjured the emotions she felt at the time.
    Angry . . .
    Who claims you can’t come in first
    Like that
    Who claims you can’t rhyme a verse
    Like that
    A fool who makes a claim
    Like that
    Is nothing but