I watch her walk down the long hall of the backstage area, my chest heaving, every bone in my body feeling like it’s just been thrown around in a washing machine. She pushes through the exit doors, and I feel a hole in my chest.
“I wonder if you ever watched me walk away like that.”
I spin around and see her leaning casually against the wall.
“Lexi.”
“You were probably just watching her ass though, right?” she laughs.
I’m not amused. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Why? Did I miss the best part?” she says, pushing herself away from the wall and stepping out onto the stage, where there are roughly twenty people now waiting for her to soundcheck.
I push a hand through my hair, emotions running and striking inside of me like a storm. I start striding in the opposite direction, head down, fists clenched. I can barely tell whether I’m angry at Lexi’s snooping, at having disappointed Haley so deeply, or whether I’m just so fucking hot for her that it’s making me aggressive. Either way, it’s a bad time to bump into her guitarist.
Which is exactly what happens.
He nods a greeting at me, quickening his pace to glide right by, but I put a hand on his chest to stop him, and he almost flails onto my palm like he just walked into a lamppost.
“Oh, hey!” he says, with frightened enthusiasm.
“Brian? Is it?”
“Yeah! You’re Brando, right?”
“Tell me: Do you like Haley?”
“Uh…of course! She’s awesome. Best singer I’ve played fo—”
“I mean,” I snarl, slower this time, “do you like Haley?”
I takes a second for understanding to appear in his glazed eyes.
“Oh! No! No, man, come on! No.”
Suddenly I realize how ridiculous this is, how crazy I’m being. The last thing I need right now is to turn into a paranoid maniac who gets into jealous fights with my client’s back-up musicians. I drop my palm and shake my head like a dog shaking off a bad scent.
“Sorry,” I mumble, as if I just woke up. “Forget about it.”
Chapter 6
Haley
I can’t think. Somebody has pressed fast-forward on everything around me, and my mind just can’t catch up.
The green room’s big and comfortable, but it only makes me feel smaller and more out of place. Paula’s on the couch, tapping out rhythms on her knees as if she’s already out there, in front of the thousands of fans screaming so loudly we can still hear them through the thick walls of the backstage area. Aaron’s beside her, his eyes closed, hands folded, meditating. Brian’s leaning against the wall, re-tuning his guitar for the twentieth time. They look more or less poised, professional. Ready to go.
Me, I’m pacing around the room like a rat looking for the exit of the maze.
The runner knocks on the door, opens it, and leans in.
“It’s time,” she says.
Everyone gets up – except for me. I take a step back.
“Time? But you just said we had ten more minutes?”
The runner looks at me with a mixture of confusion and sympathy.
“That was over ten minutes ago.”
“Come on,” Brian says, putting an arm around my shoulders. “It’s going to be fine.”
I let him walk me out of the green room, along the hallway that leads to the side of the stage, until suddenly he leaves my side and runs ahead. For a second it almost seems like he’s abandoning me. But then I look up, and see Brando standing in front of me.
He might be a liar. He might have hurt me. I might hate him.
But right now, there’s nobody else I’d rather see.
I look into his cocksure eyes, waiting for him to say something, pleading with him to use that deep, reassuring voice and that commanding presence he has on me. Right now, I need something solid to hold on to, to ground me, and it doesn’t get more solid than Brando.
He steps toward me and cups my cheeks in his strong hands.
“Everything you’re feeling will disappear the second you hit the first chord,” he says, somehow making it sound like the most truthful thing in the world.
“What if I choke? I can’t even remember the first song. I’m nervous just hearing those people out there, what about when I see them? I can’t do it,” I say, raising my hand. “Look, I’m shaking. I can’t play guitar. Tell them I can’t do it—”
“Haley,” Brando says, leaning in so close I can taste his breath, “you’ve dreamed of this moment since you were a kid. Lived it over and over again in your head. I know you have. The big venue, the screaming fans, the flashing lights, you’ve dreamed it all, right?”
I nod, my skin brushing against his rough palms.
“Do you choke or forget the words in the dream?”
“No.”
“This is just like that. Just like your dream. A little bit louder. A little bit realer. But just the same.”
He strokes my hair away from my face and I hear the screaming rise a full twenty decibels as my band makes it on stage. Brando pulls away and steps aside.
I cast one last look at the firm belief in his eyes, gathering the last bit of strength I can from them, and then walk down the hallway and step out onto the stage.