Free The Kiss Off by Sarah Billington Page B

breath. “It’s all bullshit though, you know that right?”
    “… What ?” I said.
    “The song. It’s not true.” I couldn’t believe he was saying this. I stood up to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist. “I didn’t cheat on you, Poppy,” he said. “And you know it.”
    I shook him off and strode back onto the dance floor, swallowed up by the crowd.
    A hand landed heavily on my shoulder, clearly Cam wasn’t finished and he was ready to lay into me some more.
    I spun around and faced him. “What do you want ?” But it wasn’t Cam, I found myself staring at a bemused-looking Vanya. “Oh, hey!” I said, giving her a hug. “Sorry!” She shook her head and shrugged, put an arm around my shoulders and her face next to mine. She pointed out a couple on the dance floor.
    “Is that Mads?” she yelled into my ear. I squinted, trying to see her better in the darkness. It was. It was Mads, hips swaying, legs parted, just about grinding against her dance partner. And her partner wasn’t Dev.
    “Is Dev here? What is she doing?”
    I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, but in the end, I simply grimaced and shrugged. I didn’t have an answer.
    ***

Chapter Nine
    The music stopped and my ears rang and when I said something to Vanya, my voice sounded hollow. Everyone had stopped dancing, Mads stopped kissing the boy, blinking and squinting around her. Her eyes settled on me and I gave her a very clear WTF look. She turned to the guy who was still draped all over her, and pushed him off before stumbling through the crowd toward the couches. Van and I managed to squeeze through and go and hang with the boys. Dev was looking pissed off as he swigged his beer. He gave me a tight smile. I decided not to pry. He watched Mads go, and after a couple of seconds followed after her. Ooooh boy.
    “Listen up listen up,” the DJ said, his voice reverberating around the room. The crowd closed in toward the stage. “Here we go, what you came here for, give it up for Academy of Liiiiiiieeeeees!”
    The crowd screamed, cheered, hollered, clapped and all around went sick as the band walked on stage casually, oh so cool like performing to a full club so wasn’t a big deal. Ty strolled out toward the microphone at the front of the stage, his Gibson hung around his neck. He took a sip of water and gave the club a wave. The three other boys from the table at Luigi’s Pizza found their places on stage, the one with the long orange hair sat behind the drum kit, twirling his sticks as he waited and the other two stood behind the other microphones, one with a guitar and the other on the bass. Nothing was said, they just waved, looked at each other, the drummer counted them in and they started the show. Can I officially say, on the record and everything, that I am now officially an Academy of Lies fan girl. As of that moment, that first song. Their music was so hot, you could jump around and scream and carry on, I didn’t think I had the energy but the crowd was writhing and jumping and dancing and shouting along with the music and it was 100 per cent infectious. We danced like complete maniacs. Drew was head banging with me and Cam looked like he wanted to join in but Nikki was acting like she was too cool for it and was the only person not jumping and dancing in the whole crowd so she made him make out with her instead.
    Anyway, they played heaps of songs, and then like half an hour into the show, my boy Ty, the lead singer of my new favorite band announced that they were singing a new song called ‘The Kiss Off’, which was written by Poppy Douglas.
    “Where is she? Poppy, you out there?” he asked, shielding his eyes from the bright lights that lit up the stage. Everyone who knew me started cheering and pointing, Drew even ruffled my hair (so not cool when you’ve spent hours styling it, by the way. Boys .). I went bright red, but it was dark so it wasn’t like it really mattered. Plus I was wearing makeup so you