“How you feeling?” he says, and I spin around to see him standing there, always big and strong, always supporting me. I press a hand against his cheek and kiss him gently.
“My teeth are chattering, my knees feel like they’re made out of silly string, and I’m not sure if this new haircut makes me look incredibly hot, or like a preteen who found her mother’s hair product,” I say. “But I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my life.”
“You’re gonna knock ‘em dead. By the time you wake up tomorrow there won’t be a person in the country who doesn’t know your name.”
“Thanks,” I say, “that thought’s gonna do wonders for my nerves.”
Brando chuckles softly, gently brushing the back of his rough hand against my cheek.
“You’re not really nervous,” he smiles. “I can tell. You’re growing, Haley, coming into your own, turning into something amazing.”
The muscles in my face soften as I gaze at him.
“Brando Nash?!”
The voice comes from a weedy guy in the doorway. It takes a second call and another moment for Brando to turn and see him.
“What?” Brando says, curtly.
The weedy guy walks up to us and jabs his thumb at the door.
“You need to come with me, now!”
“What’s going on?” Brando says, instinctively resisting.
Weedy guy sighs before speaking.
“I’ve got a fifty-six page document covering your song’s copyright, usage rights, liability for the performance, and about a thousand other legal technicalities sitting unsigned on my desk. It should have been signed before today, but right this second will have to do. It also should have been signed by the artist herself, but she’s going out in a minute, so you’ll have to do it on her behalf.”
Brando waves him away, unconcerned. “Relax. I’ll sign it. Just give me a second with my client.”
“This is network television, Mr. Nash, not karaoke night at the surf n’ turf. If I don’t get ink on those papers in the next thirty seconds your girlfriend doesn’t play and we have to do an unrehearsed skit with one of the d-list guests – and nobody wants to see that.”
I press a hand on Brando’s shoulder and he looks at me.
“Go,” I say. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you after the show.”
Brando smiles at me and then follows weedy guy out of the green room. I watch him go, the feeling of something amazing about to happen between us hanging in the air like swirls of smoke. I smile and wonder if he’ll be there in the audience, right in my eye line once again.
Then someone walks into my eye line who is almost the polar opposite of Brando.
“There she is! The girl of the moment!”
He’s short and squat, with the kind of paunch even pregnancy clothes would struggle to hide. His face looks like it was constructed out of play-doh by a team of soda-injected toddlers, and his hairpiece looks like it was fished out of a plughole at a Turkish bath. Despite all this, he’s wearing the loudest, shiniest, most eye-catching Hawaiian shirt I think I’ve ever seen.
Still, I try not to judge on appearances – so I decide it’s the way his voice sounds like slime oozing down a gutter that creeps me out about him.
“Who are you?”
“Davis Crawford,” he says, offering me a hand with the texture of cold fish, “I’m a friend of Brando’s. Where is he?”
I narrow my eyes. This guy is way too sleazy to be friends with Brando. “He had to go do some business.”
“Ah,” Davis says, lopsided lips forming what I assume is a grin. “That sounds just like him. Always doing some kind of ‘business.’ Always neglecting the talent.”
I offer an unconvincing laugh in response, hoping it’ll bring the conversation to a close.
“Just look at you! You’ve come a long way from that open mic, that’s for sure! Who would have thought the mousy little girl down there would have made it all the way up here, am I right?”
“You saw me at the open mic?” I say, a second before I remember his face, the first time I ever met Brando.
“But of course! I’m the one who chose you!” Davis rasps out a sound that’s almost but not quite a laugh. “Needless to say, you can tell Brando he won the bet.”
“What bet?” I say, beginning to get frustrated with Davis’ condescending tone.
Realization, smugness, and mischief combine on Davis’ face to bring it to a whole new level of disgusting.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“What. Bet,” I repeat with venom, suddenly feeling irrationally angry. I need to go onstage in five minutes and this guy is standing here talking as if he knows something I don’t about the only two things I care about – Brando and my career.