I turn toward my name, bending to retrieve my cap and pushing it back on my head.
“You’re Rhyson Gray, right?” The petite girl with short, cherry-red hair asks. “You’re looking for Kai?”
The chaos backstage fades to the periphery and I zero in on her face, rushing forward to grip her arms.
“You know where she is?” I demand. “Where? I need to know. I need to . . .”
My voice evaporates. I gulp back the panic, struggling to hold my shit together while the most important thing to me is on her way to some hospital alone. With God knows who, but not with me.
“Can you help me?” I will get down on my fucking knees if I have to. “Please? I need to get out of here. I need to find her.”
She nods, her eyes ping ponging from me to the people scurrying to get in place for the show.
“I’m Kai’s makeup artist.” She gives her head a quick shake and chews on her bottom lip. “I’m her friend, Ella.”
“Kai’s mentioned you. Do you know which hospital? Is your car here? Is it close?”
“Yeah, there’s a lot by the loading dock where some of us parked. They’ve taken her to Cedars Sinai.” She starts walking toward an exit, and for the first time I feel like I might be getting close. “I was on my way there. You can ride with me.”
Once we’re in the car, my mind starts ordering things, and I realize no one knows where I am or what’s going on. I dial the person who always knows what to do in a crisis and stops me from screwing up my life half the time.
“Rhys, hey.” There’s a smile in Grady’s voice. It seems to be there more than ever since his wedding.
“Kai collapsed.” I would ease in instead of air striking, but sometimes he’s the only one who finds a way to ease my mind. I need that right away. I need that now.
“She what? What do you mean?” Confusion and urgency build in his voice.
“I was at Kai’s concert, in the audience, and she collapsed.” I draw a deep breath. “I couldn’t get to her, Grady. They took her away. She’s at the hospital. She—”
“Slow down, son.” I can almost feel the staying hand Grady usually places on my shoulder to calm me. “What hospital?”
“Cedars.”
“Are you on your way there now?”
“Yeah.” I nod even though he can’t see me, my heart slowing a little. “Yeah, I’m almost there.”
“Em and I are on our way. We’ll meet you.”
I’ve no sooner hung up than my phone buzzes with a call from Marlon.
“Dude, twitter is blowing up about Kai,” he says. “What’s going on?”
“Whatever Twitter says is more than I know.”
Marlon and I haven’t talked much about Kai over the last few weeks. He’s been slammed with his album, in the studio every chance he gets, and I’ve been tight-lipped about my relationship. He knows that viral video wasn’t the end of us, though. He knew I was attending her concert tonight.
“You okay?” he asks after a beat or two.
“No.” I rest my temple against the cool glass window of Ella’s little car. “Not until I know she is.”
“Someone tweeted that she was taken to Cedars. You on your way there?”
“Yeah, and if it’s on Twitter, there’s probably already press waiting.”
“Probably. Bristol’s here. She wants to holla at you.”
“She’s there with you?”
“Yeah, we got business,” he says, sounding more guarded than I’m used to.
Any other time I would probe and tease him about Bristol, but not now. Not with that image of Kai crumpled in the middle of the stage still haunting me.
“Rhys,” Bristol says. “You okay?”
Everyone keeps asking me that. I want to scream at them, ask them how I can possibly be okay when the girl I love just collapsed.
“I’ll be better once I get there and know what’s going on.”
“What can I do?” Concern rounds the edges of Bristol’s normally brisk tone. “What do you need?”
“Um, I think there will be press when I arrive. I don’t give a fuck. I’m just going in. Whatever, but it might be good to have Gep with me later.”
“I’ll call him now. He’ll meet you there. What else?”
“Um, shit, Bris.” I squeeze the bridge of my nose. Trying to slow my heart. Trying to clear my head, but it’s like an entire symphony orchestra tuning before a concert. A dozen players in different keys with discordant notes. A cacophony of instruments and clanging symbols ringing in my ears, cluttering my mind.
“I don’t know,” I say, my voice as weary as my mind. “I just . . . I can’t think straight right now.”
“I can come think for you,” my sister says softly. “Want me to?”
Emotion crowds my throat because I so rarely see this side of her—the sister who would drop everything, not for her client, but for her twin brother.
“Yeah, that’d be great, Bris. Bring Marlon with you, okay?”
“We’re on our way.”
Now that I’ve called the tiny circle of people in my life who matter, I don’t know what to do with myself. Silence builds in the car, and I realize just how rude I’ve been to Ella. She must think I’m the asshat most people assume I am.