"You're way too beautiful, girl… That's why it'll never work…"
All four girls sang in unison, their voices overlapping as they belted the lyrics, completely lost in the moment. Laughter bubbled up between the lines, some of them dancing where they stood, others swaying from side to side with their arms dramatically extended like they were on stage.
Rachel threw her head back, laughing so hard she had to clutch her stomach. Jasmine, ever the diva, added a few unnecessary but hilarious riffs to her part, prompting Mariam to nudge her with a playful eye-roll. Jumana, clutching a throw pillow like a microphone, was singing the loudest—until she suddenly paused mid-line, her expression twisting in frustration.
"Ughhh, why hasn't he released this officially yet?" Jumana groaned dramatically, flopping back onto the couch like she'd been personally wronged. "I swear I'm going to lose my mind if this stays an unreleased gem!"
Mariam, who had been the one to queue the song straight from a private SoundCloud leak, chuckled as she waved her phone in the air like she held the holy grail. "Right? I just don't get it. Like—hello? We know it's him, we're not stupid. The vocals are so obviously Ethan. And the song is fire. So why keep it from us?" Her voice had a mix of playful irritation and genuine confusion as she adjusted the volume slightly.
"Yeah," Rachel chimed in, eyes sparkling as she tapped her fingers against the window to the beat. "It's because he apparently wants to use it for his next album!" Her voice lifted with excitement, practically bouncing in her seat now.
The bus, still glowing with multicolored LED lights and filled with the buzz of energy, carried the sound of their voices and music as if echoing their joy.
"New album?" Jasmine repeated, her voice rising an octave, eyes wide as she turned to Rachel with a look of total disbelief. "Hold up, what? What album?!"
The energy shifted as all the girls stopped dancing and turned to stare at Rachel. She blinked a few times, confused by their sudden halt. "What?" she said innocently.
"Don't 'what' us," Jumana said quickly, sitting upright, her expression comically serious now. "This is vital information, Rachel. Like life or death levels of importance. You can't just drop that and dance off into the sunset."
"Yes," Jasmine jumped in, crossing her legs dramatically. "Spill. How do you know this? Who told you? How long have you been keeping this from us?"
Rachel started to giggle but held her hands up in defense. "Okay, okay! Just relax—Mariam, please, some backup here?"
But Mariam just grinned and said, "Girls, girls—hold the interrogation. Let the poor girl explain herself!"
Rachel, grateful, took a breath and adjusted the oversized hoop earring that had started to dangle sideways. "So," she said, voice full of barely contained excitement, "I saw it on Ethans Fan page like two days ago. Apparently, Ethan wants to capitalize on the momentum from his tour, and he's been sitting on a bunch of written lyrics already some recorded down already, including 'Beautiful Girls.'"
Jasmine's jaw dropped. "Wait—so he's been hoarding hits?"
"Exactly," Rachel nodded enthusiastically. "But get this—the site said his team is already in talks with Benny Blanco and Marshmello to co-produce the whole album!"
The silence that followed was thick with shock. You could almost hear the sound of their brains processing.
Rachel blinked. "You guys didn't know this?"
As soon as Rachel finished speaking, Jasmine blinked in disbelief and blurted out, "No, we did not know that. How could someone even know all this?" Her voice carried a mix of suspicion and amazement, as though Rachel had just revealed a government secret.
"Exactly," Mariam added quickly, eyebrows raised. "Where are you even getting all this information from?"
Rachel, sensing her friends teetering on the edge of a full-on meltdown, simply smirked and delivered her answer like a plot twist in a soap opera. "It's Club Jones."
"Club Jones?" Jumana repeated slowly, her expression blank. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
Rachel leaned forward, lowering her voice with a flair of dramatic secrecy as if the walls themselves might be listening. "Okay, listen. So Club Jones started after EthanJonesSuperfan—you know, the biggest Ethan stan on the internet—real name Bella Tuner, mysteriously stopped posting. I mean, she just went dark. No updates, no tweets, no leaks… nothing."
The girls leaned in, eyes wide. Rachel's voice dropped even lower, her tone brimming with juicy detail.
"And then, like out of nowhere, her biggest rival back then—this other superfan called BadBitch—suddenly changed her name to Club Jones. Just like that. No warning. And then she posted this long thread about how she and Bella had made up and that Bella was stepping away from the fan page because, wait for it… she got offered a job with Ethan's team. Apparently, she actually met Jessica—you know, Jessica, the one who runs everything for Ethan—and Jessica liked her so much, she gave her an actual position. A real job. Like, she's working for them now." (Chapter 115 for the lore)
Jumana's jaw was already dropping, but Rachel wasn't done.
"And BadBitch—real name Funmi, by the way—she's this Nigerian girl who moved to the States a few years back. She and Bella had always been beefing until that moment. And now? Thanks to Bella's connection to Jessica, Funmi has access to all the real, behind-the-scenes stuff. All the exclusive tea, insider updates, even rehearsal snippets sometimes. That's how I found out about the album and the 'Beautiful Girls' leak. Club Jones is basically the Ethan fan universe CNN."
Rachel finished with a proud, gossipy grin, like she'd just dropped the mic in the group chat of the century.
Her friends were stunned. Like, physically stunned. They just stared at her, expressions frozen in disbelief.
"Wow," Mariam finally said, dragging the word out slowly, her voice low with awe. "That's… wow."
"I know, right?" Rachel beamed. "She made millions off that first Ethan fan book she published, and now she gets to work with him every single day? I swear, she's literally living the dream. Ugh, I wish it were me. Can you imagine? Waking up, sipping coffee with Ethan Jones in the same building—breathing the same air…"
Jasmine threw a cushion at her. "Not her wow—you! You're the wow."
"Seriously," Mariam agreed, laughing as she pointed at Rachel like she'd just uncovered something criminal. "I knew you liked Ethan more than the rest of us, but this? This is next-level. You're, like, obsessed obsessed."
Rachel gasped playfully. "Okay, first of all, rude. And second of all, it's not like I'm that into him. I just happen to think he's the best singer to have ever lived in the entire history of music—and maybe the entire human race. That's all."
The girls all burst out laughing, the tension melting away into another round of giggles, teasing, and playful nudges.
But then, while the laughter still echoed in the car, Jumana—who had been quietly on her phone—spoke up in a small voice.
"Aww, it's not here."
All their heads snapped toward her. "What's not there?" Jasmine asked, furrowing her brow.
Jumana glanced up, her expression oddly serious now. "Even the Club Jones lady doesn't know who the secret girl is."
Everything went quiet. Like pin-drop, freeze-frame movie-scene kind of quiet.
Because for them—and for anyone who considered themselves true Ethan Jones fans, from the casual listeners to the ride-or-die stans—that was the mystery. The one story that no one, no matter how hard they tried, could ever crack.
The Secret Girl.
The real inspiration behind "Beautiful Girls." The hidden muse.
Rachel groaned. "Oh Lord, don't even remind me," she said, throwing her head back. "Club Jones has been trying everything. Funmi said she used every connection she had—emails, anonymous sources, even background-check level digging—and still came up with nothing. No one knows who she is."
She leaned in again, whispering now like they were talking about a ghost story.
"There are, like, ten different blurry photos of her snapped with Ethan—usually late at night or sneaking out from some back exit. In every single one, she's covered. Sunglasses, hoodie, cap, you name it. They've only ever caught one or two clear details: she's blonde, somewhere between 5'2 and 5'5, and—get this—apparently she's obsessed with mac and cheese made with truffle oil and baked lobster. Like, what even is that? Who eats that? People think she might be in the entertainment industry too—like an up-and-coming actress or a model, maybe. But nothing confirmed. It's so frustrating."
Mariam stared at her, eyebrows raised. "How have I never noticed this before?"
"It's freaky, right?" Jasmine added. "Like, how can someone be that far away to Ethan and still be completely so like this?"
Another explosion of laughter followed as they all leaned back in their seats, caught somewhere between genuine disbelief and obsessive fan excitement.
"I bet it's Billie," Jumana said suddenly, with the air of someone who'd just cracked a case. "Did you see those photos? The way they were standing close? Their body language was giving secret romance."
The girls erupted again, throwing out names, theories, and even a few totally outlandish guesses. They were so deep into their spiral of fangirl speculation and gossip that they didn't even notice the car had slowed down—until finally, they pulled into a crowded, overly chaotic parking lot.
"Ugh, are you serious?" Jasmine groaned, peering out the window of the party bus. "Where are we even supposed to park in all this madness?"
It took fifteen full minutes of slow driving, missed turns, and chaotic back-and-forth instructions before the driver managed to find a decent spot.
"500 bucks?" Jumana asked, more surprised by the randomness than the amount.
"Please," Mariam scoffed. "Just pay it. It's not that deep."
They settled it in seconds without flinching, told the driver to come back in exactly two hours and thirty minutes, and finally stepped out of the bus.
The moment their heels hit the pavement, their eyes widened.
The crowd was insane—flashing lights, glimmering outfits, fans already screaming. Influencers with cameras, music execs in dark shades, girls in custom gowns—it was all buzzing like a livewire.
They glanced at each other—wide-eyed, grinning, practically vibrating with the electricity in the air.
Rachel spoke first, barely above a whisper. "This is going to be his year."
"And we," Jasmine added, looping her arm through Rachel's, "are so ready for it."
They laughed, all four of them, as they walked toward the entrance like they owned it.
They were about to have the time of their lives.