“Mistletoe was just delivered.” Ella’s grin is secretive. “Right on time.”
I nod, an irrepressible grin all over my face, despite the achiness of my body. Despite the residual slime of my conversation with Malcolm. Last show. Rhyson didn’t miss one stop. I’m sleeping in his bed tonight. I don’t care what time we wrap. I don’t care if he’s in the studio and comes home to find me curled up on his front step. It’s happening. Even no closer to figuring out who is behind the sex tape, even knowing Rhyson wants to go public soon, even with the crap revelation Malcolm just dumped on me. All of that makes my life vastly complicated. I’ll figure it out. Maybe San made some headway. Maybe Drex will turn up. Maybe I’ll find a way to wiggle out of the contractual headlock Malcolm has me in, but tonight I get Rhyson. Right now I can’t see beyond that.
“You think he’ll come to the show tonight to see you perform?” Ella keeps pace with me, digging a lemon ginger lozenge out of her pocket and pressing it into my hand.
“Who?” I laugh at her “come on now” expression. Rhyson is an unspoken understanding between Ella and me. She’s the only one on tour who knows we’re together, even though I haven’t actually told her so. Besides Dub, of course. “If he comes, he knows not to tell me. I’d rather not know he’s out there.”
“He’d make you nervous?”
“Uh, yeah.” I shake my head, deriding myself. “I know it’s silly, but it is what it is.”
“I’ve really tried to play this cool and not be a total fangirl,” Ella says, obviously working up to something.
“I hear a ‘but’ in there.” I open my dressing room door and gesture for her to follow me in. “Go on. What is it?”
“He’s just so . . . amazing. I mean, obviously, he’s hot. Not that I noticed your boyfriend is hot or anything. And he’s so talented and mysterious. I just . . . how do you stand it?”
I knew Ella loved Rhyson’s music, but this is her first full on gush, and it’s something to behold.
“He is amazing.” I stretch out on the couch, grateful to finally surrender to the respite my body has been begging for. “But he’s also just a guy. I mean, he’s my guy.”
I can’t help but laugh thinking of our day at the beach. Him in his thick moustache singing “I Got You, Babe” by the beach.
“He’s a goofball. He’s a genius. He makes me laugh.”
My lips quirk to a wry angle, memories of our infamous video imprinting my mind.
“He makes me cry sometimes, too.” I shrug. “He’s not perfect, but then neither am I.”
“And all the drama between you two at the beginning of the tour?” Ella settles into the seat in front of the mirror, pulling spikes into her short hair. “All resolved?”
“I don’t know if ‘resolved’ is the right word,” I mumble, barely able to keep my eyes open as exhaustion takes me under. “But we’re working on it. I have no choice.”
“Why’s that?” Ella swivels the seat around to stare at me.
I see only a slice of her through sleep-slitted eyes.
“I’m in love with him.” My words slur, but I’m sure she heard them. The words I’ve only ever admitted to a handful of people.
“You’re a lucky girl.”
I barely manage a sleepy smile, my last conscious thought the truth that’s gonna get me through this last show, even though my body doesn’t seem able.
Don’t I know it.
AS A KID, I COULD BARELY make it through a performance without a healthy dose of Xanax. So much so that it became a crutch I couldn’t walk without. The anxiety, the pressure every time I stepped onto the stage overshadowed my early years of performing. So when I reinvented myself as a musician, I did it for me and me alone. Not for my parents or the money or the acclaim, but because I had, for whatever reason, been given a gift that not many people in the world had. I could play just about anything . . . really well.
And though my early life left me so cautious I only let a few people past the gate, only lowered my guard by inches, when I take the stage, I hold nothing back. I’m all heart and soul every time, and what the audience gives me in return is like nothing I’d ever imagined I’d experience as a musician. It’s a sonic freefall, and those people who love my music, who get it, are the net that catches me every time.
So nerves don’t really come into play for me anymore when I perform. But tonight, I’m in an arena packed with fans, the air vibrating with their anticipation. My foot bounces a frantic rhythm on the sticky floor. I’m sweating through my t-shirt. My stomach knots up. The nerves, man, the nerves before this performance are like old times. Like everything rides on this next set.