Free American Girl On Saturn by Nikki Godwin Page B

fend Emery off on their own. It ’s too early, she’s too fangirlish, and I have to deal with her year-round. They can have her during lockdown.
     
    An hour later, Emery hauls me back inside, away from the warmth of the morning sunshine. I follow her back to Dad’s game room. The guys are already in here. Aralie curls up in the corner of the sectional.
    “We’re all here,” Emery says with a proud smile. “Now we can watch the DVD.”
    “ What DVD?” I ask.
    “ Our live DVD,” Milo answers, nodding toward the flat screen. “You know how arrogant we are. We like to watch ourselves.”
    Noah looks over at me.
    “And you need to be here so you can tell me how awful my tour stylist is,” he says. “In fact, you should come sit on the other side of Milo. That way, you can lean around him and give me that disgusted look you gave me yesterday when you dissed my shorts.”
    If everyone in the room wasn ’t looking at me, I’d give Noah the best evil-eye possible, but with this audience, it’d possibly raise questions. If nothing else, it’d get comments. So I bite my tongue, crawl over Noah’s and Milo’s outstretched legs, and squeeze into the empty spot next to Milo. I smell his body wash from here. I have to stop sitting so close to this boy.
      Emery shushes everyone and starts the DVD. She spends more time glancing around to make sure we’re all paying attention than she does watching the TV herself. I feel like she’s going to give us a Spaceships Around Saturn pop quiz when it’s over. Maybe I should take note of what the guys are wearing, just in case she asks. Or maybe I should count the number of wardrobe changes. 
    We sit through the first two songs in silence. Then, in true-Emery-style, she ’s the first one to speak up in the middle of the third song. 
    “ Why is that girl crying?” she asks. “I would be happy at your show, not a stupid crybaby.”
      Benji answers, probably on impulse, since she’s usually grilling him.
    “ They just get emotional because we’re they’re favorite band,” he says.
    Emery studies the TV for a moment. “Why do all those people make posters?”
    “So we’ll notice them,” Benji says. “They want to stand out.”
    Noah cracks up, and dread rushes through my veins. I don’t know what he’s about to say, but I know it’s going to involve me.
    “Chloe would make one,” Noah says. “She likes to draw. It’d probably say, ‘I love Noah’s shorts!’”
    Milo elbows Noah in the ribs.
    “She wouldn’t waste a poster on your shorts,” Milo says. “It’d say, ‘Milo wasn’t dead. He was with me!’”
    “Ooh la la,” Tate pipes up. “Let the rumors begin. Chloe Branson – the girl who destroyed Tito. How dare you!”
    Milo shoots this sly grin my way, and I absolutely crumble to a million pieces. I can somewhat handle his flirtatiousness when we’re alone…in a dark tent…where he can’t see my face. But here, in my dad’s game room, with his four Saturn brothers and my two Earth sisters, I just can’t.
    “You know,” Milo says. “You’d have all kinds of juicy gossip about you. Destroying Tito, hanging out with the dead guy in Saturn…”
    Whatever else he was going to list is immediately cut off by Jules, who leaps up from the sectional and points at Aralie.
    “Dead guys are your thing!” he shouts. “You’re the one who likes that zombie band.”
    He spins around and looks to Benji for help.
    “Dude, you know the one,” Jules says, talking with his hands. “We always laugh at their contacts and weird hair colors, how they’re trying to be all rock star and trendy and sing about blood and all that shit.”
    “Language!” Milo shouts. “Emery’s in the room.”
    Jules sighs all dramatically, and I wonder how he even pulls off this whole bad boy vibe. Sure, he looks the part. Black hair, dark eyes, eyebrow piercing, tattoos, reeks of cigarettes. He’s stereotypical at best. At least One Direction’s “bad