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He slid further back into his seat and leaned closer to Kevin, trying to get some space. His suit was bothering him, it felt constricting. He wished he could have kept his performance outfit on. At first the whole white satin suit thing had seemed like a good idea. But a few snarky text messages from Aisling and an uncomfortable hour or so later he was regretting the decision.

As Jordin Sparks strolled down the stairs next to John Legend, Taylor leaned closer to him. She hadn’t seemed to notice the way he kept leaning away from her. She was, perhaps, part of his discomfort. After his argument with Aisling, he’d begun to feel badly about the whole Taylor thing. Like he was, in part, responsible for the situation. He just wasn’t sure how to fix it.

Caught up in thinking about Aisling and Taylor, he only barely registered what Jordin was saying about promise rings. Taylor beamed a smile at him, broad enough to overtake her face, and he couldn’t help but smile back. She was beautiful when she smiled. He watched her lips as they began to form words but when the phone in his pocket vibrated his attention was instantly drawn away from her.

Without even looking he knew the text was from Aisling. She’d been texting sporadically all evening with random stuff: silly comments on people’s outfits (such as his own) or encouragement before his performance. Since he couldn’t share the experience with her, this felt like the next best thing. His smile grew as he reached into his pocket to tap the screen of his iPhone and retrieve her message, wondering what she’d say next. But as the words she’d written appeared in front of him the smile was wiped off his face.

–Is that wjat you relly think? That bcause I don’t shose to wait, Im a slut?

Something was off. It wasn’t like Aisling to make spelling errors in her text messages. She was a freak about proper punctuation and spelling in everything she wrote. It drove him insane, mostly because she was constantly correcting him.

And yet. The spelling errors were the least of his problems. His heart was pounding. He had no idea how to respond. He thought they’d put this conversation behind them the week previous, back in her apartment in New York. He’d hoped to never talk about it with her again. It hurt to think of her with other men. To think—no matter how foolish it was, given their status—that he would not be her first anything. That he would never mean to her what she meant to him. Talking about it only made him feel worse.

Logically, he knew he had to ignore the text message, at least for the time being. Even if he wanted to go there again, the VMAs were not the place for this discussion. And frankly, he hoped by ignoring the text message he could make it go away, just as he hoped he’d never have to talk about sex and purity with her again. He didn’t have an answer. Didn’t know what he thought or felt. What had always seemed simple before wasn’t so simple any longer. Aisling had changed that.

He glanced back up at Taylor who was still smiling warmly at him. His heart twinged. Things would be so much easier if he just liked her. She liked him; that much was more than clear. She was a musician, so she understood his profession. She was really smart, and super talented. And he knew her values aligned with his on pretty much everything. She’d been mentioning that fact often. His mother even liked her, and obviously so did his brothers, and their girlfriends. Taylor was safe, Taylor was easy.

When he flashed a smile at her she looked away shyly, returning her attention to the stage. He squeezed his eyes closed and took a deep breath. Leaning back in his seat, this time toward Taylor, he stretched an arm over the back of her chair.

***

The after party was loud. Nick and Kevin had taken off, both to spend time with their respective girlfriends, while he remained at the table alone with Taylor. She’d changed into another sparkly little dress and he was watching the way the sequins reflected candlelight along her jaw line as she spoke to a fan that had stopped by the table. While he watched Taylor, one hand on the back of her chair, he found himself absently twisting the purity ring around his finger with his thumb. It had been the focus of the night. It felt heavier than usual. Everything felt heavier than usual. He wasn’t enjoying himself in the least.

It was supposed to be a big night for the Jonas Brothers. A huge night. Their first VMAs. But things hadn’t exactly gone their way. And the tension between him and his brothers remained. Aisling’s final text message had added depth to the undercurrent of frustration and confusion running beneath his evening. He was so tired of everyone talking about sex. He was so tired of having to work so hard for everything.

When Taylor turned around to face him he decided to take action. He decided to change course, to take what was right in front of him. In his head, he knew it was the right thing. It was what everyone wanted.

“Dance with me?” he asked, standing and offering a hand.

“Of course,” she said, slipping her tiny hand into his.

They swung in slow circles to Colbie Caillat’s “Realize,” and he pushed thoughts of Aisling—who hated the song—to the back of his head, focusing instead on the glitter that was laced through Taylor’s hair. He wondered how she’d gotten the glitter in there, and why she’d chosen it. The dress seemed sparkly enough on its own. Taylor tightened her fingers in his and leaned closer to him. Instinctively he slid his arm further around her waist. When she looked up at him, lips slightly parted, he knew the moment had come.

Leaning down, he brought his mouth to hers, lightly cupping her upper lip between his. She responded by taking more of his lower lip into her mouth and he allowed her to deepen the kiss. Forcing his eyes to stay closed, he thought of what her lips felt like, the way the lip gloss has made them unpleasantly sticky, the way they kept pressing him ever-so-slightly for more. When he felt her teeth he backed off, suddenly feeling as though he’d gone too far. A tightness settled into his stomach. Her lips pressed forward as he pulled back. He wanted to want her. Again, she was making it clear she wanted him.

And yet, Aisling sprung into the back of his mind. Whose hair sparkled on its own.

“I can’t,” he gasped, pulling away forcefully and leaving her embrace completely.

“Joe, it’s just a kiss. I know you, I would never try…” she stammered, looking distraught, he felt terrible. He’d made it worse.

“It’s not that. It’s not. It’s not you. I’m sorry,” he said.

As she reached forward he pushed her arm away and turned on his heel, eyes searching desperately for an exit. As he left the dance floor he tried to ignore the painful image of Taylor, fingers to her lips, reaching for him. He swiped at his own lips, feeling the gloss that had stuck to his mouth, trying to erase the feeling of her.

Aisling was racing through his mind. He felt guilty. Like he had somehow betrayed her. But the instant he recognized that feeling, he became angry at himself for allowing Aisling’s memory to ruin what he knew, empirically, was the right choice for him to make. He could feel things for Taylor, if he just tried hard enough. If Aisling didn’t want him, if Aisling wasn’t right for him…why let her ruin his shot at happiness?

But Aisling remained. Her image. Her words. Every moment of every day. She was, for better or worse, who he wanted. Who he was chasing, always. He wondered if, like the words to a Hanson song she’d made him listen to over and over, he’d be chasing her the rest of his life. Some part of him held out hope.

–I don’t think the answer is that easy.

He typed nervously, sitting on a bench outside the party tent, before forcing himself to press send. It was almost no answer at all, but he knew it was the truth. He could not bring himself to honestly believe Aisling was a slut, but he did not agree with her choices. He knew why he wore his ring, why he’d made that commitment. He still believed in it. But lately he wasn’t sure if the answer was always so straight forward, so cut and dry.

He had made that commitment when he was no more than a child. When he understood so very little of sex and love and the ways they were entangled. Since then, no one in his life had ever questioned the values behind his ring, ever forced him to even consider his decision. Since then he’d never found himself in a situation that would make him question his commitment.

But Aisling was different, Aisling was the biggest question he’d ever encountered, and he did not know if he’d ever come to the answer. All he knew was that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to distinguish between his feelings for her and his beliefs and that was an unsettling notion.

***

–Sorry for the loaded text last night. It was really unfair of me to spring that on you like that. The girls failed me. Friends don’t let friends text drunk!

Splayed across his bed on his stomach, chin resting on a pillow, he stared at the text message. His sleep the night previous had been fitful and filled with dreams of Taylor and Aisling, the most discomfiting of which involved Aisling comforting a crying Taylor and telling her she could “do so much better than Joe Jonas.” Awoken by her text, he felt only marginally better about the whole situation. He appreciated the apology. He didn’t appreciate the fact that she would not let the topic die.

–Haha. NP, its cool. Like it never happened.

He wondered if he could push the entire situation off with a text message. If he could make it go away. He’d come to depend on Aisling. She was a stabilizing force in a world that was forever spiraling more out of his control. He couldn’t lose her. Not to something like this. Not in a text message.

When she didn’t respond he felt relieved.