“What did you do?” Oakley growls at his publicist.
Her flushed cheeks and guilty look say it all.
“Goddammit!” Oakley yells. Then he takes a breath as if trying to calm himself, but his voice is colder than ice when he addresses Claudia again. “The text from Vaughn...how did you do that?”
Claudia looks down at her expensive high heels. “We swapped out her number on your phone. Amy sent it.”
I gape at her. “Why?” I burst out. “Why would you make us think we broke up with each other?”
“Why else?” she shoots back, her voice dangerously high again. “You torpedoed his image, Vaughn! All the work we put into this, all the time we spent to make your relationship seem sweet and wholesome—you destroyed it with one stupid mistake! You cheated on him with his bassist!” Her breathing grows heavy. “Jim and I were doing damage control—”
“Jim?” Oak interrupts. His eyes are on fire. “He was in on this, too?”
Claudia huffs. “We were trying to protect you, Oak. We needed your fans to focus on your tour, not on your girlfriend scandal. We made a PR decision.”
“Screw your PR!” Oak glares at her. “You crossed the line, Claud. Both of you. You’re lucky I’m not firing you on the spot.”
Frankly, I don’t know why he isn’t. I can’t believe Jim and Claudia orchestrated a breakup behind our backs. I can’t believe I’ve spent four days cursing Oak and imagining sticking pins in his eyes when this whole time he thought I was the one who broke up with him.
“Go downstairs,” Oak barks at Claudia. “I can’t deal with you right now.”
Her face goes stricken. “Oakley,” she says softly.
“I mean it. We’ll talk about this later. And you better call Jim and prepare him, too.” He rakes both hands through his gelled hair, messing it up a little. “You crossed a line,” he repeats.
After a long, awkward moment, Claudia spins on her fancy heels and disappears down the staircase.
With another breath, Oak slowly turns back to me. “You didn’t break up with me,” he says, and there’s a note of awe in his voice.
“You didn’t break up with me,” I say, equally amazed.
Our eyes lock. I’m acutely aware of the crowd beyond the wings. From the wave of grumbles and screams, it sounds like they’re getting impatient. But Oakley makes no move to return to the stage.
“I’m sorry I was such an ass to you after the birthday party,” he says softly. “I know you were just trying to do something nice for me.”
“I’m sorry I invited your dad, Oak. I honestly didn’t think he’d act like that.”
“I know.” He pauses, still eyeing me, and then his expression blazes with emotion. “I missed you. So freaking much.”
And suddenly I know that I was right to come here. To see this moment of exhilaration on his face directed toward me? It doesn’t matter what the tabloids write about tomorrow. The thousands of mean Tweets telling me that I’m not pretty enough, smart enough, talented enough, for Oakley Ford...it all burns to ash under his smile.
I might not be able to play the guitar or sing a note. My future is cloudy for me. I don’t know what lies ahead. But what I do know is that I want to face the future with Oakley’s hand in mine.
I let my palm slide down his arm to grasp his hand. And then, in front of a dozen people I don’t know—including one who I think must be a journalist by the way she’s typing furiously into her phone—I tell him all the things I’ve been afraid to give voice to.
“I missed you, too. I was miserable without you. And I...” I swallow. “I...” Argh, why can’t I get the words out?
“You what?” he teases.
He’s not making this easy on me. But isn’t anything worth having worth an effort? Oakley is worth the effort. He’s worth everything and he doesn’t always know it.
“I’m glad we terminated the—” I lower my voice, because there are people all around us “—contract. You said that everything in your life was fake, but we’re not fake, Oak. We’re real. We’re so real.”
A smile lifts his lips.
Beyond him, the crowd is restless. I hear his name chanted in a discordant rhythm as if the crowd’s confused and can’t get it together. Sort of like me in this moment, searching for the right words to explain to him how I feel.
“I don’t know when it happened, but I’m not pretending anymore,” I say fiercely. “I can’t pretend that I don’t love you. That you don’t make my heart sing. That I don’t look forward to seeing you every day or reading a text from you or hearing your amazing voice say baby.” He grins and I feel my own smile stretch across my face. Maybe it isn’t so hard to be open, after all. “I know I’d be fine without you. I’d live a perfectly good life. But I don’t want a perfectly good life. I want a messy, exciting, happy, sad, emotion-filled, loud life with you.”
The screaming fans are starting to shout together, as one body. Everyone seems to hear it but him. In the near pitch-black of the side of the stage, his eyes burn into mine.
“Then that’s what you’re going to have, baby.”
“Oak, your fans...you need to get out there,” a brave lady murmurs in his ear.
“Go on. Sing for me,” I urge.
He hesitates as if he’s afraid I’m going to disappear.
“I’ll be right here,” I reassure him.
“Promise?”
“Forever.”
With a beaming smile, he runs back toward the front of the stage, grabbing his guitar from one of the roadies.
Ty comes up behind me and places a hand on my shoulder. “Damn, girl. You’re inspiring me.”
“I hope so,” I say without taking my eyes off Oak. “Because if you aren’t as brave as my sister, you don’t deserve her.”
“I hear you. But that means I can’t body for Oak anymore. Conflict of interest.”
“You’re his friend, though, right? That’s all he wants.” I watch as Oak settles onto a stool and adjusts the microphone.
Ty squeezes my shoulder. “I’m always going to be his friend.”
“Think of it this way—you and Oak can play on the winning side of Ladder Golf now, as one of the Bennetts.”
“Why do you think I’m giving in? I hate losing.”
My laughter dies out as Oak starts talking over lightly strummed notes.