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the vanity. “I had a bad night. I made poor decisions. But I swore off drinking, and you can trust that I’m paying for it enough without you coming down on me, okay?”
    â€œOkay,” he says simply. And leaves.
    My styling team files back in quietly, but it’s pretty apparent that they heard everything we said after Dylan opened the door. Stella is the last back in, and when I see her, I say, “Can you believe him?”
    She surprises me when she picks up a handheld steamer and shrugs noncommittally. “Well, you
are
the boss now.”
    I gape at her, but she doesn’t meet my gaze. She sided with Dylan. They’ve been hanging out for, like, three or four weeks, and she sided with Dylan. I thought they were just friends—I was
hoping
they were just becoming better friends—but she has always had my back until now. She likes my brother, and she sold me out.
    â€œUnbelievable,” I mutter. I pull out my earbuds and iPhone and blast my Now Is Not a Good Time playlist, determined to block out everybody else.
    Okay, yeah, I am the boss. Except I’m not. I still have to answer to my parents, my label, and my fans. Oh, and
I’m
the bad guy, but they were both there
partying with their boss
last night. Unbe-freaking-lievable.
    I close my eyes and quietly fume. Dylan and Stella may be right, but they don’t have any idea what it’s like to be me.

6

    â€œB IRD ?” S TELLA CALLS outside my door. The bus is making its way over to Salt Lake City, and I’m trying to hold tree pose without toppling.
    â€œCome in,” I call.
    She slides open the divider and holds up a DVD. “Want to watch
Pitch Perfect
?” she asks. I can see from her expression that she’s trying to smooth things over.
    I give in to the rhythm of the bus and let my foot fall to the floor. “You sure you want to mix business with pleasure?” I ask a little snidely. “Hanging out with the boss can get pretty tricky.”
    â€œDon’t be like that, Bird,” Dylan says, squeezing past Stella to sit on my bed. “Listen, we were all hungover and we all acted dumb. Can we just agree to that and move on?”
    I chew my lip and consider.
    â€œBird?”
    â€œYeah, fine,” I finally say. “But Dylan, we can’t fight like that in front of everybody.”
    â€œI know. I should’ve kept my cool.”
    I sigh heavily. “And I shouldn’t have been acting so ridiculous. I do take this seriously, and now everybody probably thinks I’m losing it.”
    â€œNah,” he says. “You just have to have boundaries.”
    â€œOh, like you?” I retort. “One minute you want me to be the boss of the tour and keep it all together, and then the next minute you want to be my overprotective big brother who doesn’t let me make out with hot, rich guys.”
    Stella laughs and sits by Dylan. “That’s true.”
    He just shrugs.
    â€œHey, Colton was there last night in the front row,” Stella says to me now. “Did you see him?”
    â€œYes, I saw him and his
two
dates.”
    â€œSee?” Dylan says. “It’s sleazebags like that dude that make me act all ‘overprotective’ or whatever. And I’m not sorry for playing the big brother card at the casino the other night.” He stands up and holds out his hand. “But I do promise to dial it back otherwise, okay?”
    â€œAnd I’ll do better at treating you like a respected member of my band instead of the annoying nerd that you are,” I say, shaking on it. “Deal?”
    â€œDeal.”
    Dylan leads us out to the living room area and crashes on the couch as Stella loads the movie. I grab some snacks from the kitchenette, relieved that we’re putting the stupid spat behind us. With three of us cramped on the same bus all the time and working together, too, we are bound to have a few tiffs, but I’m glad