Without even taking a breath after violating me so thoroughly, Stephen unwrapped the envelope. “And the winner is . . .”

Even after we’d disappeared offstage, I was fighting back tears. Our performance was soon, so I wasn’t planning to return to my seat, and I tried to find a quiet corner amid all the draperies and pulleys to compose myself.

A voice hissed out of the darkness. “There you are.” It was Rose, in her outfit already. “You’re not dressed. Come on.”

I felt my resolve crumble. I pulled her to me—backstage, there with everyone around us and yet enveloped in privacy in between velvet curtains—and placed my mouth on hers. I needed the last pair of lips on mine to not be his.

Plush, sticky with gloss, that peep of tongue that I loved. I almost lost myself in her.

She pushed me off and hissed, “Are you completely forgetting where we are?” She pointed in the direction of the dressing area. “Go change,” she said perfunctorily. “We have less than five minutes before we go on.”

Fog. Lots of fog. The recognizable four beats. Then red lights swirling around as the backup dancers writhed and jittered. Beats again. Now yellow lights, then spotlights on Tasty and Rosy, visible on twin metal staircase structures on the stage. Then Cherry and Sassy, emerging from cages on hovering platforms, sang the next lines and struck poses as the platforms transported them to the metal staircases. The harmony. The chorus. They danced down the staircases, tossing hair, shaking asses. The choreography with the backup dancers was so tight, they looked like they were in the military. Aerialists strapped into harnesses were lowered on trapezes over the stage and performed. Then, the much-talked about finale: amid the spectacle of fireworks and a light show, trained dancers strapped the girls into harnesses, from which giant, iridescent wings made with feathers tipped in fine glitter unfurled and flourished. A still from the performance that was shown the next day on all the entertainment news sites was a wide shot of the stage, the girls at various heights as they were hauled toward the rafters, bookended by trapeze artists, backlit and glowing.

It was a great performance. One for the ages. And in a sweep that surprised no one, “Prime” won Best Cinematography, Best Direction, Best Pop Video, and Best Music Video. We juggled our trophy statuettes during the acceptance speeches, smiling widely. Rose was the spokesperson for us on the first win, but every subsequent announcement, someone else took the microphone.

Merry thanked everyone but the director when it was her turn at the mike, something that Yumi corrected when she was next at the podium.

WE QUICKLY SEPARATED after the show, as Yumi opted to go to a flashy after-party and Merry claimed she was too tired to stay out any later. Rose, however, climbed into the SUV with me. “What a high, right?” she said, adjusting her dress as we began to move. I was surprised that she would join me but I didn’t open my mouth for fear that she would leap out again.

The tension in the back seat was so taut, I felt my breaths come in shallowly. The driver accepted her directions without comment, completing the short distance from the theater to Rose’s house in Sunset Strip, a shorter drive than finding our way to the Hills. “Do you know how scared I was in that harness? That I would fall and break my back again?”

My heart was zinging in my chest after everything that had happened, and everything that could happen. We weren’t touching, but our hands were close enough on the back seat that I felt her energy radiating out toward me, my pinky twitching with the urge to caress hers. But no. We had to be careful.

“Grab a nightcap with me,” Rose said when we reached her house. It was an all-glass monstrosity with most of the living space on the second floor. Giant windows could open up the house to 360-degree views from one corner to the other, a corridor of air and light bisecting the rooms unless doors were closed. Giant blinds could come down at the touch of a button to seal off the occupants from the outside world, which is what Rose did as we entered the house, slipping off our shoes.

It was the first time I had been invited in, and the occasion was not lost on me as I took a quick visual tour of the house, just from standing in one place, before she was on me, hands slithering under my clothes, mouth on mine. I responded immediately, allowing her to take off my dress, which pooled around my feet in a chiffon puddle.

“This is what I love about you,” she purred into my ear, kissing the lobe. “Your perfect ears, your delicious neck.”

Love. I knew it was love. But did she mean love the way that I did?

“Wait.” I disentangled myself from her hands and took a step away. “Does this mean we can be together on tour? Because . . .” I swallowed. “I was dreading the tour, but if you say we’re good, that . . . that changes so much.”

She swept back in with her fingers in my hair, murmuring against my mouth. “We can talk about that later.”

I wouldn’t let her drag me along again. “No, we’re going to talk about this now.”

She groaned, throwing her hands up in annoyance and backing away. She fell back on her sleek modern couch and dug into a box on the glass coffee table. “Fuck, Cass! You’re always asking me to do things I can’t do.”

“Why can’t you? Why can’t we—”

“Because!” she exploded.

I squinted at her and glanced down at the table. “Wait, what are you doing? Is that coke?”

“Just bringing back the good mood since you’re making me sag.” She leaned over and quickly inhaled one of the three lines she had made on the table.

“You’re fine with drugs but not me?”

“This isn’t about you!” Rose shouted, rising quickly from the couch. “It was never about you. It was about Gloss! I’m doing what is best for Gloss!”

I stepped back into my dress and buttoned it roughly, unevenly. I could feel anger in my trembling fingers. “You realize that someday we will not be Gloss. And you will look back on this moment and wonder why you decided to choose Gloss over any happiness.”

She laughed gutturally. “I’ll never be happy. Especially not with you. Not truly.”

“And why is that?” I expected to hear more bullshit about her mother or her upbringing.

But Rose leveled a look at me. It pierced through one side of my body and went through the other, skewering me whole. “Because,” she said simply, “I can never be happy with anyone who loves me back.” And I could see it was true. It would always be true for Rose. She always wanted what she couldn’t have, and rejected anything that came to her easily. Gloss’s success, Gloss’s tour schedule, Gloss’s everything.

And then the penny dropped. “You sold me out to the tabloids.”

She rubbed at her nose, playing coy. “What?”

I knew her well enough to understand her admission. It made sense. Yumi, concerned that I was in love with an abuser, gossiped with Veronica and then had the sense to talk to management and Rose, because they knew how to handle these things. And instead of asking me for the real story, Rose told the gossip rags a lie, betting that an average person like Alex wouldn’t have the means or know-how to deny it fast enough before it spread like wildfire. And look at what happened: Gloss was on everyone’s lips, Gloss was on the cover of every magazine. Alex had paid the price for our astronomical fame, and I knew exactly why Rose did it.