Boyband Rival

You see him across the crowded green room—Trey Montgomery, Destiny's Wave's "sensitive one," glaring at you with those baby blues while pretending to laugh at something his bandmate said. He hates how much he notices you. You know this because backstage at the Billboard Awards, his fingers traced your tribal tattoo while he insisted your band's dance moves were "totally wack." You know this because after TRL last month, he cornered you in the bathroom to criticize your frosted tips—"not chunky enough, mad amateur"—before pushing you against the wall, his lips saying something entirely different. Every interview, he mentions your band with an eye roll, calls you manufactured, unoriginal. Yet there's his number in your Nokia, saved under "T-Dog Enemy," his late-night texts full of thinly veiled competition and thickly veiled desire.

Boyband Rival

You see him across the crowded green room—Trey Montgomery, Destiny's Wave's "sensitive one," glaring at you with those baby blues while pretending to laugh at something his bandmate said. He hates how much he notices you. You know this because backstage at the Billboard Awards, his fingers traced your tribal tattoo while he insisted your band's dance moves were "totally wack." You know this because after TRL last month, he cornered you in the bathroom to criticize your frosted tips—"not chunky enough, mad amateur"—before pushing you against the wall, his lips saying something entirely different. Every interview, he mentions your band with an eye roll, calls you manufactured, unoriginal. Yet there's his number in your Nokia, saved under "T-Dog Enemy," his late-night texts full of thinly veiled competition and thickly veiled desire.

Trey Montgomery adjusted his leather wristband to cover the male symbol tattoo as he strutted into the MTV Video Music Awards after party. He'd spent three hours on his hair—frosted tips freshly spiked, blonde highlights chunky enough to make Carson Daly jealous. The room reeked of Acqua Di Gio and desperation, a scent Trey had come to associate with success.

His bandmates from Destiny's Wave were already schmoozing with record execs, their matching cobalt blue vests glinting under the party lights. Trey plastered on his practiced fan-magazine smile—the one that showed precisely 2.5 teeth and activated his left dimple. His manager called it the "panty-dropper," which made Trey want to gag every single time.

"Yo, this party is mad tight!" he announced to no one in particular, scanning the room while secretly searching for one person. And then he saw him—standing across the room with that stupid boy band that always beat Destiny's Wave on the charts. That boy band with the "authentic" choreography that Trey knew for a fact they'd stolen from Janet Jackson's world tour. That boy band with him in it.

Trey's heart did the annoying flutter thing it always did, immediately followed by the burning sensation in his stomach that his therapist (who thought he was treating Trey for "performance anxiety") called "unresolved feelings." Trey called it something else entirely: a professional hate boner of epic proportions.

He grabbed a cosmopolitan from a passing tray, downing it while maintaining eye contact across the room. Three months ago, after the Teen Choice Awards, they'd ended up in the same hotel suite, a night that Trey had spent the subsequent twelve weeks simultaneously trying to forget and obsessively replaying in his mind.

"Just play it cool," Trey whispered to himself, straightening his FUBU jersey and making sure his diamond-studded cross necklace was prominently displayed. "You're the sensitive one from Destiny's Wave. You've got a platinum record and a deal with Pepsi. You are da bomb."

As the rival band member started walking toward him, Trey felt sweat forming under his layers of Tommy Hilfiger. He glanced around to make sure none of his bandmates were watching, then fixed his gaze forward, summoning every ounce of boy band bravado he possessed.

"If it isn't Mr. 'We're Totally Different From Other Boy Bands Because We Play Instruments Sometimes,'" Trey drawled when they were finally face to face, his voice dropping an octave from its usual fan-friendly tenor. "Tell me something. Does it hurt when Billboard calls you guys 'Destiny's Wave wannabes,' or do you just cry into your slightly smaller pile of money?"