Look for the Girl With the Broken Smile

Using her makeup brush, SJ dusted gold shimmer on her cheekbones. She cocked her head and examined herself in the mirror, which was situated next to Harry and Danny's bunk along with a vanity. Whoever designed the bus must have guessed that a girl would be coming along.

Huh. It looked kinda good. One time, she and Kelsey had taken one of those lame quizzes in magazines, and the result had been that gold was the true color of SJ's soul. Or some rubbish like that. SJ had never taken it seriously as she thought it would look a bit tacky. But the gold suited SJ's complexion better than she thought it would. And it brought out the gold flecks in her green eyes.

SJ dug through her messy makeup bag, searching to see if she had any gold eyeshadow. She probably did; she regularly went to Sephora in London and always ended up buying unnecessary stuff. She had enough makeup to last a drag queen a lifetime.

SJ's mobile rang. She paused in her search to check the caller ID. It was James.

SJ sat for a long minute, staring at the flashing screen, before pressing ignore. SJ had told Kelsey to tell James to stop calling her. He'd been ringing her all morning, but SJ hadn't answered once. After cheating on her in a drunk one-night stand and basically calling her the Whore of Babylon when he insinuated that she'd slept with all of McFly, he thought he could crawl back into her good graces? Yeah, right.

SJ didn't even know if they were officially broken up yet. She just knew that right then, she was still too mad and hurt to talk to him. She tossed the silent phone away from her to Harry's bed. As she did so, she caught Dougie, who was lying on his bunk, watching her. When their eyes met in the mirror, he almost blushed and looked away.

SJ was about to call him a creeper for staring at her through the mirror, but uncharacteristically held her tongue at the last second. Weirdly enough, she and Dougie were kinda getting along lately. That morning, she had worked some more on his portrait, and they'd actually had a nice conversation. SJ had found that when he wasn't acting like a complete arse, he could make her laugh.

They both heard someone thundering up the stairs and their eyes met again in the mirror. "That's definitely Danny," Dougie said.

Sure enough, a second later, Danny burst in. "Guess what—hey!" He sat himself down on Harry's bed. "You guys are in the same room and aren't fighting or chucking stuff at each other," he remarked.

SJ rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and?"

"Well, anyway." Danny couldn't contain his excitement. "Do you want the good news, or the good-er news?"

"Good-er." Dougie snickered. "You mean better."

Danny frowned, thinking. Before he could hurt himself or something, SJ said, "The good news would be nice."

"Okay, well, tomorrow we have an interview with GMTV," Danny said. "So that means we get to stay in a hotel overnight cause we have to meet them in the morning."

"Ace!!" SJ cheered. "I haven't had a proper shower in ages!" SJ was a girl who valued her shower time, okay. And she definitely was looking forward to fluffy hotel towels, decent shampoo, and hot water.

"So also," Danny continued, "cause we're staying the night, we're gonna take a break and go to a club."

"Alright!" SJ was excited now. One of the things SJ had learned after years of schooling in L'Ecole Français was that French people loved to party. And SJ seemed to have inherited that particular gene.

"After the concert, of course," Danny added. He seemed excited, too. It might be hard to believe, but SJ knew McFly rarely went out to clubs.

"Ace," SJ said again. She turned back to the mirror, already planning out what to wear. This could definitely help her take her mind off her scumbag boyfriend James, if only for one night.

"SJ, I'm serious," Harry said. They were in their rented car with the rest of McFly, heading to the club they had decided to go to. "We don't go out to clubs a lot, so this is a privilege—"

"Harry, you don't need to talk to me like I'm a little kid, I get it," SJ told him patiently. She understood Harry's concerns—he probably remembered her wild French school partying better than she did. Actually, she didn't doubt that, if the number of hangovers he had nursed her through was any indication. "I'm going to be calm, I'm not going to drink that much, and I won't go crazy," she recited back to him.

"Good," he said, but he still looked a little worried.

SJ rolled her eyes and looked down to adjust the pile of gold bracelets on her wrist. After their concert, they had given her barely fifteen minutes in the hotel room to get ready. They were all boys, none of them understood how long it took a girl to get ready to go out. SJ had made do with what she had, throwing on a pair of short white shorts from H&M and an old and worn vintage Rolling Stones t-shirt that fit nicely on her, and then slipping on a gorgeous pair of canary yellow Christian Louboutin pumps that she had gotten for free back when she worked at Vogue (the swag alone had been worth working in that hell). After getting dressed, she'd blow-dried her hair and tousled it so it didn't lie flat, and then she applied her makeup, including the gold shimmer she'd experimented with earlier. She had to say, after only fifteen minutes of getting ready, she looked quite good. As a last touch, SJ had sprayed her signature scent from L'Occitane, a mix of honey miel and lemon citrus, on her pulse points and behind her neck. She was ready to party hard, despite what she had told Harry.

Ten minutes later, they had arrived at the club. The bouncer let them in immediately, after leering and winking at SJ.

Harry was enraged. "He did not just wink at you."

"Harry, relax, I really don't care," SJ told him.

"Well, I do," Harry began. But before he could say anything else, a club remix of Love Is Gone by David Guetta and Chris Willis came on.

"Oooh, I love this song!" SJ exclaimed, and practically ran off to go dance to it, partly because she did love the song, but also to avoid Harry pulling his over-protective cousin act. Harry followed her anyway, and Tom went along, leaving Danny and Dougie to head to the bar alone.

"Two beers, please," Danny ordered for both of them once they were seated.

The beers arrived a minute later. Dougie drank from his absent-mindedly as he gazed around. It was a typical club scene—lots of fit girls, loads of people dancing and drinking, and flashing lights and loud music. Still, through it all, his eyes managed to find SJ right away. She was dancing and grinding with a dark-haired guy Dougie didn't know and who SJ probably didn't know either.

Dougie couldn't keep his eyes off her. Was it weird that he seemed to be looking at SJ in a different way now? He didn't know. The last couple of days had left him all confused.

"Doug, you're doing it again."

Dougie looked up quickly at Danny. "What?"

"You're staring at SJ," Danny pointed out.

Dougie felt himself turning slightly pink and looked down into his beer. "No, I'm not."

"Yeah, you are, mate. You were staring at her in the car, too," he added.

Now Dougie was really blushing. "No, I wasn't," he muttered.

"Yeah, you were, mate!" Danny laughed out loud, seeming to find the situation humorous.

Dougie ignored him, took another sip from his beer, and looked around again. Love Is Gone had ended, and SJ was now down the bar, sitting on the dark-haired guy's lap and downing a shot. Dougie touched his dirty blond hair unconsciously as he wondered if SJ was attracted to guys with dark hair. James had black hair, didn't he? Dougie had only seen him once or twice, and—

"Doug!" Danny practically shouted, cutting through Dougie's thoughts.

Dougie almost spilled his beer when he jumped. "What?"

Danny looked at him with a serious and calculated expression on his face. "You still fancy her, don't you?"

Dougie was taken aback at his choice of words. "I—what? I still fancy her?"

"Dude, you totally fancied her a couple of years ago, when we first met?" Danny told him.

Dougie stared at him, shocked. Yes, he did remember—he'd had an enormous crush on SJ when they were both fifteen. Before they started hating each other. But how did Danny know about that? Dougie hadn't told anyone. Had anyone else known?

"Don't worry, I think I'm the only one who knew," Danny reassured him, reading his mind. "I just figured, you know..."

Dougie was still staring at him. Most people thought Danny was the thick one in the band, but he was definitely smarter than people gave him credit for. "Yeah," Dougie responded finally, his beer forgotten. "Yeah, I..." He glanced over at her again. She was laughing, her hair rippling down her shoulders. Something about her smile made him feel dizzy. Dougie groaned, recognizing the feeling. Danny was right. "I think I do like her," he said quietly.

Danny grinned triumphantly. "Are you going to drink that?" he asked.

"No," Dougie said, still quiet. He pushed his beer toward Danny, who finished the rest of it in three gulps.

"So what are you gonna do?" Danny asked him.

"I dunno." He couldn't just go and tell SJ that he liked her. She'd probably laugh right in his face. She still hated him...or did she? He wasn't sure anymore. Also, there was her boyfriend. But were they even still together? After that conversation he'd accidentally overheard when he'd left the tourbus to have a cigarette, he kinda doubted it.

Maybe it wasn't a lost cause after all.

Dougie cheered up a bit. But still...she couldn't know. Danny was already losing focus, turning to look down the bar and eye a fit blond girl, who smiled back at him. Dougie grabbed his arm and pulled him back around to him.

"Ow—what?"

Dougie looked at him seriously and said urgently, "Danny, promise me you won't say anything to SJ. Or Tom or Harry...especially Harry. Please."

"Yeah, sure, mate." Danny patted Dougie's shoulder a little drunkenly. "I won't tell anyone. Don't worry about it."

"Thanks, Danny." Reassured, he turned back to the bar and ordered another beer.

He should have known. But at the time, he didn't doubt Danny.