It's Not Over Yet (the seventh book in the glee series)

Chapter 50: Take My Pain For Me

Tenesha: Of course he does. If he's the subject of Be Careful then he'd be telling everyone he's a big fat cheating scum. Nobody wants to be the one she wrote that about. Nobody.

Rob: Everyone watching at home, go ahead and tweet at us. What do you think is the truth? Were Carly and Derek involved? Or is it all just speculation? Tell us your real thoughts.

***

"I fucking hate Derek!" Julie exclaimed, storming into Adonis on Tuesday morning and heading straight for the bar. 

There, Ryder straightened up. He was standing next to Joyce, showing her something. Julie didn't seem to care much for her presence, as she didn't acknowledge her when she took a seat.

"Derek the singer..?" asked Ryder, confused.

"Yes," said Julie. "Except it's Derek the rapper considering he can't sing. Yet a song in which he's singing, poorly I might add, bitching and moaning about Kelly and whoever... has blocked me from number one."

Joyce couldn't help laughing, so Julie shot her a look and then turned back to Ryder, doing her best to ignore it. "I mean..." Ryder struggled with a way to make her feel better. "It's a fun song. With a viral dance craze that a lot of people enjoy."

Julie stared at him wide-eyed and said, "I just gave them a music video in which I'm half naked! It's sexy! John's in it. I'm seducing him. It's everything the fans have been wanting out of me. And I had the AMAs. Everything I did to get me that number one means nothing if some mediocre guy can just go viral and hit number one."

Ryder had nothing else to say. He just stared at her, an eyebrow half-raised. She stared at it and felt him judging her for caring so much.

"Ugh..." she sighed. "Okay, I know it's not that bad. I mean... I blocked that song from number one for a few weeks and then John came and blocked it so... It's only fair he gets to block our duet for a week. I mean, there's still next week, right? The music video's racking up views like crazy and it'll probably reach a hundred million by the end of the week. And then we can get number one. Right?"

"Right," Ryder told her, smiling sympathetically.

"Please give me something strong," she told him, putting her head down on the counter.

Ryder hesitated. "Uh... It's ten in the morning."

She glanced up at him.

"On a Monday," he added.

Julie turned to Joyce and said, "You don't care about my well-being. Please... Give me something. Big tip in it for you."

Joyce looked at Ryder, who just shrugged at her. "Coming right up," she smiled, preparing a drink for Julie.

As she did, Julie said, "By the way, Ryder, I'm really excited about this year's Halloween bash. Last year I had to spend the day doing promo overseas. The year before that I was filming that day. And well... We know what happened the year before that."

Joyce set the drink in front of her. She began to move away but Julie started talking to her.

"There's this bitch," she began. 

Joyce stopped on her tracks, surprised to be brought into the gossip. But Julie seemed eager to talk major smack.

"She hates me," Julie rolled her eyes. "I hate her. The whole world knows. It's fine. Anyway, so Halloween is my absolute favorite day of the year. Favorite holiday. Favorite everything. And everyone knows this. In '24 I was going to have this big birthday party and someone..." She shot a dirty look in Ryder's direction. "...decided it was okay to let this venue be rented out by my arch nemesis. She threw a big birthday bash here and half of my so-called friends decided to come. But I'm over it."