Chapter Text
They were in fittings for their winter tour outfits when their stylist, Nick, told them he was sending Jessica along as their wardrobe consultant. Thomas and Ethan glanced over at Victoria, who frowned back at them. She mostly loved having friends who knew everything about her, but she wished they hadn’t figured out that she had a crush on Nick’s senior assistant.
The silence following Nick’s announcement was verging on awkward when Damiano, bless him, joked, “We need someone to babysit our clothes now?”
Nick took Damiano’s face in his hands and said, “You know I love you, but you came back from the last tour with eight shoes that had no match. Eight! What do you have against left shoes, Damiano? So yes, you need someone to babysit your clothes. Plus, she can fix anything you rip while twerking on stage.”
Thomas laughed, then sang, “Seamstress for the band.”
“Oh my god,” Victoria said, horrified. “If you call Jess a seamstress, she’ll rip your throat out.”
“That’s true!” Nick said cheerfully. “And if I hear that you gave her any shit, you will wear unflattering colors in photo shoots for the rest of the year.”
“Oh, we’re too scared of Jess to give her any shit,” Damiano said with a grin.
Jess had been newly hired as Nick’s assistant the first time the band worked with him, and she’d clearly had no idea why her boss was dressing four obnoxious teenagers. Damiano had asked her, “So did you watch X-Factor ?” and when Jess had replied, “Why on earth would I do that?” she’d briefly become his arch-nemesis.
She had dark hair and milk-white skin, and spoke Italian with an Irish accent. Damiano nicknamed her Snow White and she started calling him Dracula without missing a beat. But she was nothing but encouraging about their rock and roll dreams. “Oh, fuck anyone who tells you to get a ‘real career’,” she said one day while pulling outfits for their first tour. “When I was your age, everyone told me to be a nurse. No fucking imagination, the lot of them.” Jess was, at most, six or seven years older than them, but she spoke with the easy confidence of someone who’d known what she wanted and gone out and gotten it. Victoria, who was still fighting to get anyone to take her seriously, envied her.
Jess was also unfailingly charming and upbeat during exhausting fittings and long photo shoots. Ethan, Thomas, and Victoria loved her so much that eventually Damiano had to relent and take her off of his enemies list. They never stopped teasing each other, though, leading Victoria to finally complain, ”Why are you always such a brat to Jess?”
His expression went devilish as he said to her, “Listen, I’m doing you a favor. If I didn’t keep Jess’s attention, she might notice you mooning over her.”
“I do not!” she yelled back, probably with too much force to be a believable denial.
“Yes, you do,” all the boys chorused back at her. Goddammit, she had thought she was being subtle.
“You don’t talk when she’s around,” Ethan said. “We have to talk for you, which never happens anywhere else.”
“You don’t do your goofy dances either,” Thomas added. “Before we figured it out, we were guessing things like maybe the lights in Nick’s studio were hypnotizing you.”
Damiano had to take a moment to stop laughing before he said, “So you see, Vic, we know you like her because she’s the only person you won’t act like an idiot in front of.”
Victoria punched all of them and cursed the fact that they knew her so well.
That had been months ago, but Victoria’s embarrassing crush hadn’t gone away. The boys were right that, for reasons unknown, she went tongue-tied in Jess’s presence. Victoria did not usually have these sorts of confidence problems: she was hot and popular, and she knew it. But she had no idea how to even make conversation with Jess, nevermind flirt with her.
It might have been that technically Jess was her employee, but so was Leo and she had no problem oversharing her entire life with him. And, this tour excepted, she didn’t work with Jess more than three or four times a year anyway. No, Vic admitted to herself, there was something about Jess’s unflappability that Victoria found intimidating. Nothing ever seemed to impress her that much, and Victoria was not vain enough to think that she’d be the exception to the rule. And now Vic would be seeing her every day for six weeks.
“This is a problem,” she said grimly as they left Nick’s studio.
“No, no. This is an opportunity!” Damiano said, spreading his arms wide. “Since it’s clear that you’re never going to do anything about it, we are going to help you impress Jessica.”
Victoria put a hand over her face. “I’m doomed.”
*
Luckily for Victoria, her boys were not nearly as good at scheming as they were at songwriting. By the time the tour started, their plans amounted to, “Bump Victoria into Jessica whenever possible” and “Talk loudly about how Victoria is awesome.” The first was just annoying and the second didn’t work because they were physically incapable of going more than fifteen seconds without making fun of her. So Jess learned things like how Victoria broke her ankle falling out of a tree when she was twelve. Thanks, Thomas.
Meanwhile, their first few shows went by in a blur of power chords and adrenaline. Victoria couldn’t tell you what she wore if her life depended on it. She remembered Jess’s capable hands making sure Vic’s rings fit and her double-stick tape stuck, but that was about the extent of their interactions for the first week.
When they got to London, Victoria had a minor crisis when she compared her life now to their time there before--suddenly going through a global pandemic, getting a life-threatening disease, releasing an album, winning Eurovision, and becoming an international rock star seemed like too much to have gone through in just two years. She made it through sound check before giving in and telling Thomas that she was going to go hide in her hotel room. He gave her a hug and told her to take care of herself, and he’d make sure her gear got put away.
He let himself into her room a bit later and draped himself over Victoria as she lay in bed, curled up in a miserable ball. “You okay?” He mumbled.
“Maybe?” she said. “I’m anxious, but I feel stupid about being anxious.”
“Are you thinking about how the last time we were here, we spent all our time getting drunk and going to shows and no one knew who we were, but no one bothered us either? And now we all wear masks but we still get mobbed wherever we go?” Sometimes Thomas had the uncanny ability to look directly into Victoria’s brain and put all of her dumb anxiety into words.
“Yeah. I even miss our shitty little drafty apartment.” She sighed.
“It’s okay to miss things,” Thomas said, and she fought the urge to ask him which fortune cookie he’d read that in. She was trying to be less defensive. She was trying not to revert to acting like a 16-year-old whenever she had to mourn something. She teared up at the thought, and Thomas hugged her tighter.
There was a knock at the door and an Irish-accented, “Hello?”
“Oh no,” Victoria said, rubbing her eyes. “Thomas, how do I look?”
“Gorgeous,” Thomas said, fixing Victoria’s hair around her face.
He got up and walked to the front of the room, pointing back at her just before he opened the door and saying, “You definitely don’t look like a tomato with bangs.”
Victoria laughed in spite of herself as Jessica walked in, which was Thomas’s plan if his shit-eating grin was anything to go by.
“Hi Jess,” Victoria said, extremely proud of how normal she sounded. She noticed that Jess was holding a black and white minidress. “Is that for me?”
“No,” Jess said. “It’s for Damiano. You could never play on your back in this.” Jess smiled at her and Victoria was grateful that her tomato-face hid her blush. “I think he’s going to need leggings, though. This is shorter than I thought it was. Is he around?”
“He and Ethan are doing press,” Thomas said.
Victoria swore. She had totally forgotten that they all had been scheduled to talk to some radio stations. Thomas patted her knee and said, “We decided to split some of the interviews so we don’t get exhausted. You and I will do Ireland in a couple of days. I’ll try to talk more than I usually do.” Vic rested her head on his shoulder, so grateful to her boys for keeping things together and giving her space to have her little freakout.
“It’s so nice how you all look out for each other,” Jessica said, smiling at them. “I wish I’d had a crew like you when I was your age.”
“You talk like you’re an old lady, Jess,” Thomas teased. “But you look about sixteen.”
“Oh Christ, you’re a wonderful liar,” she laughed. “I’m twenty-eight, but that’s old enough to know how rare friendship like yours is.”
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Victoria said, trying not to tear up again.
“So our choices were ‘best friends’ or ‘murder’,” Thomas said, making Victoria snort-laugh.
Jess raised her eyebrows and said, “See, my relationships always seem to tilt over to the ‘murder’ side.”
Victoria opened her mouth to ask about that , but there was a clatter at the front of the room as Damiano and Ethan burst through the door.
“Bad news,” Damiano sing-songed. “I blacked out and told England that Måneskin means ‘asshole’ in Danish.”
“He did,” Ethan intoned. “But then he started laughing so hard that he fell off of his chair.”
“That did not happen,” Thomas said confidently.
“It didn’t,” Ethan agreed. “But nothing interesting happened, so we figured we should make something up. How are you feeling?” He asked Victoria.
“Better,” she said. “Still a little off-kilter, but better.”
“Extra hugs today, then,” Ethan said, sitting down next to her and wrapping his huge arms around her shoulders. Vic smiled and smelled his hair. It was citrusy, which meant he’d used the hotel shampoo.
Jessica, meanwhile, was chasing Damiano around the room yelling at him to try on the dress.
“No!” he yelled back. “You’ll stick me with pins!”
“I would never do that, you drama queen,” she said.
“Yes, you would! You poked me in the stomach once!”
“Oh, that,” Jess said, rolling her eyes. “You know why I did that?”
Damiano reached out and took the dress from Jessica’s hands. “I’m going to guess that I was running my mouth like an asshole,” he said agreeably.
“You said you could see down my shirt, and maybe I should consider wearing a bra,” Jess said, politely turning her back as Damiano stripped in the middle of the room. She continued, “I figured teaching you not to comment on the body of a woman holding sharp objects would be a good life lesson,” and Victoria fell a little bit more in love.
“Fair,” Damiano muttered, pulling on the hem of the dress. “Jess, I’m an exhibitionist, but I’m not sure I’m this much of an exhibitionist.”
“Hang on. I can let down the hem, and I have black leggings if you need them.” She walked over to her gigantic purse and rummaged around before pulling out a pointy little tool and beginning to yank at the hem of the dress. “Are you feeling alright, Victoria?” She asked.
“Just some anxiety.” Victoria sighed. “What a pain in the ass.”
Jess held out the pointy tool and the dress. “Would ripping out the hem of this dress help? It’s satisfyingly violent.”
“I want a cigarette,” Damiano said abruptly, like it was something he needed to announce to everyone. “Thomas? Ethan? Cigarette? Yes? Ok, we’ll be on the balcony.”
Vic was going to shove him right off that balcony. But it worked; she was suddenly alone in the room with Jessica. She cleared her throat. “I don’t actually know how to do this,” she said, cautiously taking the dress and pointy thing from Jess.
Jess, who had stared after the boys as they nearly created a smoke trail trying to get out of the room fastest, shook her head and said, “OK, do you see the stitches on the inside of the hem?”
Victoria flipped over the edge of the dress and said, “Yes.”
“Take the sharp bit there on the seam ripper and tuck it under one of the hem’s loops, flat against the fabric. Pick a loop a few down from the edge of the thread there. Yeah, that’s good. Now pull .”
Victoria did, and the thread slid out of the stitches with a delightful snik noise. “Oh, that was fun!” she said. “I kind of thought you were bullshitting me.”
Jess laughed and Victoria realized that this was probably the longest conversation they’d ever had, and it was going pretty well. Which, of course, caused her entire mind to go blank. So she just continued pulling seams.
“You’re a natural,” Jess said. “I’ll bring you all my seamwork from now on.”
Victoria looked up to smile at her, and promptly jabbed herself in the hand with the seam ripper. She shrieked and stuck her hand above her head, not wanting to get blood on the white dress.
“Oh Jesus, I jinxed you!” Jess said. “Hang on.” She rummaged through her bag again, coming out with an alcohol wipe and a bandaid.
The boys rushed in, having heard Victoria scream. Damiano saw Jess putting the bandaid on Victoria’s hand and threw up his arms. “We can’t leave you alone for one minute!” he said.
Jess finished with the bandaid and patted Victoria’s hand between hers. “It looked pretty shallow. Do you think it will affect your bass playing?” She looked worried. She was still holding Victoria’s hand. “Um,” Victoria replied eloquently. “What? No.” She paused to notice how pale Jess was, then added. “It doesn’t even hurt. No.”
Jess snatched up the dress and the tool and said, “Well, I’ve caused enough chaos around here for one day. I’ll see you all this evening.” She was out the door before Victoria even remembered to thank her for cleaning and dressing her wound.
Damiano pointed at Victoria and said, “I know clumsiness is a classic romance novel trait, but for God’s sake, don’t fuck up your hand!”
They bickered for the rest of the day, and Victoria was surprised and delighted to discover that between her misadventure with Jess and the boys’ teasing, she had managed to put her anxiety entirely out of her mind by showtime.
*
Victoria and Thomas did interviews the next morning in Dublin, then had lunch at a pub Jess had suggested. “Jess said she went to university in Dublin, but her family was from north of the city,” Thomas told Victoria helpfully. “She’s going to visit them today in what she called a ‘one donkey town.’”
Victoria snorted and said, “Yeah, she asked Leo for comp tickets for her brother and his girlfriend.” Damiano had mobilized the Måneskin network to give her regular updates on Jess’s every move. Victoria thought this might be a little creepy, but it was also useful and hilarious. She felt like a spy building a dossier whenever they came to her with a new tidbit of information.
“So have you thought about how you’re going to ask her out?” Thomas asked, like he hadn’t started dating his last girlfriend by falling asleep at her apartment and then just not leaving for a week.
“Not mid-tour, no,” Victoria said pointedly. “Plus I’d like to have at least one conversation with her that didn’t end in injury or embarrassment.” She realized that she significantly lowered her odds with this requirement.
“OK,” Thomas said, chuckling. Then his eyes went serious and he tilted his head. “You know we’ll stop bugging you if it really bothers you, right? I know we’re always in each others’ business, but none of us want to make you uncomfortable.”
Vic leaned over the pub table to give her best friend a kiss on the forehead. “Thank you Thomas, but when have you ever known me to be a woman who suffers in silence? If you were actually bothering me, I would have set you on fire by now.”
“Your willingness to set people on fire is my favorite thing about you,” Thomas said.
“Yes, our relationship is entirely based on violence,” Vic joked back. She raised her glass of beer and said, “To love and fire.”
Thomas clinked his glass against hers and said, “That’s a good line. You should make Damiano think he thought of it.”
*
Their show that night was less chaotic than prior concerts, but because it was a smaller venue than usual, Damiano decided to launch himself into the audience. Luckily he had shed his shirt beforehand, so Jess had very little reason to yell at him.
Leo, on the other hand, announced, “One of these times, someone is going to grab your junk, and I am not going to feel sorry for you at all.”
“Damia, do you want me to reinforce the crotch of all your pants?” Jess called from where she was accepting Thomas’ sweaty stagewear.
“I need the Måneskin entourage to be about 60% less obsessed with my genitalia,” Damiano yelled.
“Jess,” Thomas said. “Is there anywhere near here to go dancing?” He was dancing in the dressing room like they were still on stage. Vic related. She always had energy to burn after shows too.
“On a Monday night? None of the clubs, but maybe a pub or two,” she said.
“Great,” Thomas said, grabbing a jacket. “You should come with us.”
“Who’s us?” Jess asked, taking Damiano’s discarded shirt from a roadie.
“Vic and me,” Thomas said with a grin.
Victoria glared at him over Jess’s shoulder but couldn’t protest without unintentionally insulting Jess now that he had invited her.
“Ah, I couldn’t keep up with you two. I’d have one beer and fall asleep in a corner.”
“That’s probably what we’ll do too,” Thomas said easily. “Come on. Relive your recent youth with us.”
Jess glanced at Victoria, looking unsure. Vic grinned and gave her a thumbs up. “All right,” she said. “But you owe me coffee tomorrow morning.”
They looked online and found a pub having a 90s night that was a fifteen minute walk away. Victoria was full of confidence from the show, the roar of the audience still echoing in her head. So she took Jess’s arm and said, “You went to college in Dublin, yeah?”
“I did,” Jess said.
“What did you study?”
Jess sighed and said, “Theater and History, which sounds much more posh than it was. I wanted to be a costumer for high-brow BBC productions.”
“I could see you doing that,” Thomas said.
“Oh, thank you, but I think I would have been bored out of my skull. It was just the most respectable fashion-related job I could think of and sell my parents on. I wasn’t a very good student, anyway.”
“Me neither!” Victoria said. “I didn’t even graduate secondary school.”
“Because you got famous ,” Jess laughed. “You nearly won X-Factor. I got banned from six pubs and fucked half of my class. It’s not the same!”
“What?” Vic said in awe and horror. “No, I don’t believe it. You’re the most responsible person I know.”
Jess laughed even harder and said, “That says nothing good about the people you know, Vic. But I will grant you that Italy-Jess is very different from Ireland-Jess.”
Victoria tried to think of a polite way to ask Jess for an itemized list of the differences. Thomas bailed her out by asking, “So how did Ireland-Jess become Italy-Jess?”
“Well, the Italy-Jess answer is that I wanted to pursue my dream of working in the fashion industry, and the Ireland-Jess answer is that I ran off with a model I’d known for ten days.”
“I am going to make you tell me this entire story,” Victoria vowed as they reached the pub. She was giddy with the discovery that calm, cool Jess had once been a hot mess. It gave her hope for her future, frankly.
The pub was small and busy for a Monday night. The dance floor was full, but there wasn’t a wait at the bar. They danced for a while without any problems besides Jess not being prepared for Thomas’s enthusiastic arm dancing. After the third time he elbowed her, Jess took Victoria by the hips and physically placed Vic between her and Thomas. “He’s a menace,” she said in Victoria’s ear.
Vic took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Jess and dance up close to her. She smelled like vanilla, leather, and sweat. Jess put her hands back on Victoria’s hips and gave her an uncertain smile. Victoria opened her mouth to say how much she was enjoying herself when an unholy shriek came from the pub’s doorway.
They looked over and saw that Thomas was surrounded by pink-cheeked girls wearing lots of eyeliner and Måneskin gear. “Oh, they must have been at the concert,” Victoria said.
“You should sneak out the back, and I’ll get the bouncer to help Tom,” Jess said.
“No, I can’t leave him there alone,” Vic said. “He’d never let me hear the end of it. We’ll take selfies until you get the bouncer.”
“Ok,” Jess said. “Good luck!”
Victoria managed to sneak almost all the way to Thomas before being recognized, sending up another shriek from the group. Thomas grabbed her hand and pulled her to him and they smiled, nodded, hugged, and took pictures for what felt like forever before a broad-shouldered barman made his way over and said, “Come on, I’ve got a car out back for you.”
He hustled them through the kitchen and an alley and into a rideshare. Victoria took a deep breath and relaxed as the door closed. But her heart started pounding when she realized Jess wasn’t in the car. She scrambled to get her phone out of her pants as Thomas said, “Wait, where’s Jess?”
Victoria had a message waiting that said, “Back at the hotel. See you tomorrow.” She stared at it for a moment before telling Tom, “She left without us.” Victoria’s stomach went sour and her throat suddenly hurt. “Why would she leave without us?”
Thomas shrugged. “She was tired beforehand. Maybe she figured some extra sleep was a better idea than watching us sign autographs.”
Victoria sighed and tried to untangle her emotions. “We probably shouldn’t go out after shows anymore,” she said.
“Not within walking distance of the venue,” Thomas chuckled.
Victoria loved their fans, but losing control of her free time and privacy wasn’t getting any easier, especially now that she wanted to involve someone else in her ridiculous life. Jess leaving might have been a sign that she couldn’t deal with the more invasive aspects of Vic’s fame. “I guess I should apologize to Jess tomorrow,” she said.
Thomas patted her knee. “It’s fine,” he said. “I can’t imagine she’s mad about it.”
“No, that’s not what I’m worried about,” Victoria said unhappily. “It’s just.” She tried to put it into words. “A lot of trouble. She doesn’t just have to like me, she has to like me enough to be willing to put up with all the bullshit that comes along with me.” Victoria didn’t say it because Thomas would argue with her, but she wasn’t sure she was that likeable.
She rested her head against Thomas’s shoulder. He patted her hair. “Well,” he said. “At least this time you didn’t stab yourself.”