Me: it’ll be over soon!!!! we should be there just before your set!!!! Seriously thanks so much for the tickets. VIP holy shit haha does that get us backstage too?!
He might as well go full-unhinged fan and push it to the maximum,since Calvin won’t be able to take the ticket back now. It’s already stored on his phone.
Cat-vin: You and Gabby want to meet the rest of the band?
Me: OF COURSE!
Calvin asks for their full legal names, which he sends with shaking hands. Ten agonizing minutes pass before he gets another message.
Cat-vin: Asked them to give you backstage passes. See you.
His hands are getting clammy. Even if he’s talked to Calvin several times by now, it still sends him reeling—and this is going to be magnitudes of that. He’s going to meet everyone else. At a music festival. Backstage. Is this real?
When he tells Gabby the news, she exclaims, “No way!?”
Several people turn to glare at them. This is an art exhibit, after all. There’s a certain type of decorum to be expected. The patrons are all drinking champagne and eating canapés, and outbursts of joy are very frowned upon. Gabby, to her credit, grins sheepishly at them.
***
Gabby’s practically buzzing with excitement when most of the patrons leave for the night. Miles goes off to thank the gallerist and his manager. He also congratulates the other artists, doing all the polite things that are expected of him, even though he thinks about the music festival the entire time.
As soon as the exhibit ends, Gabby and Miles are both practically buzzing with anticipation, ready for the festival, and they leave right away.
The festival’s in an open field on the other side of town. The roads are crowded with cars parked on the sides of the streets and in empty lots. Gabby’s talking his ear off, and he can’t focus on a thing she says. He finds a parking spot about three blocks away from the venue, which Gabby, of course, groans loudly about.
“Love this band,” Gabby says, humming along to the tune. As they get closer, the performances get louder. Miles can recognize the song. It was by a local up-and-coming band. Since the festival started hours ago, there fortunately isn’t a queue to get inside. There’s a lot of security and metal railings surrounding the open field, with food and drink stalls all along the perimeter.
Miles opens the e-tickets, the guard scans them, and gives them both blindingly red wrist-bands.
“We have backstage passes, too,” Gabby tells the guard.
The big, intimidating security guard says, “Let’s see your IDs.”
Both he and Gabby rummage for their driver’s licenses and hand them to him. The guard looks them over, types into the tablet he’s holding, and yells to someone behind him, “VIP passes for Miles Curtis and Gabriela Martinez!”
Gabby stares at Miles with wide eyes. They hand them lanyards with laminated passes. His says “VIP Miles Curtis, Cloverlily Guest.”Cool.At the bottom of the passes, there are dates. The date on his is for two days ago, on the first day of the festival, and Gabby’s has today’s date. He doesn’t point it out to the guard in case it’s a typo and somehow invalidates his pass.
His thoughts race as he follows Gabby into the crowd.
What’s the actual protocol here? He doesn’t want to disturb theband, so he probably shouldn’t head there before they play on stage. And—what’s going to happen once he gets there? Is he going to get some photos, exchange some pleasantries, and then leave? What if they don’t even look his way? Holy fuck, what if Calvin was only being polite and didn’t actually expect him to come!?
No. Okay, Calvin wouldn’t have gone through the effort of putting him on the ‘list’ if he didn’t expect him to come. Right?
All this over-thinking is ridiculous.
Gabby sings along with the band that’s currently playing, as is the huge crowd, and Miles does too, even if he wants Cloverlily to go on stage already. He’s been waiting for literally years for this, and he can’t wait a moment more. Finally, after what seems like forever, the host announces Cloverlily is up next. Miles wipes at the sweat on his forehead. He should have changed before coming here—he’s still in the white dress shirt and black slacks he wore to the exhibit. Everyone else is in loose and airy clothing appropriate for a jam-packed outdoor concert, and he looks as if he’s about to sell real estate… or a funeral plot.
Miles’ heart races. One by one, the band members come up on stage, Theo Reid leading all of them, as usual.
“How are we all doing!?” Theo shouts, prompting cheers from the crowd. There’s also their bassist Chase Manning, and their drummer Gil Ramos. Calvin comes up last, guitar in hand.
It’s the first time he’s seen them in person, ever. Theo walks onstage in a way that demands attention, his posture loose but confident, and their band’s name emblazoned on his tank top. Chase, their bassist, waves at a group of ladies standing near the stage. He’scute, Miles admits, and he can see why the blond, pretty boy’s consistently voted as one of the most attractive celebrities. Then there’s Gil, who, like Calvin, is also known to be pretty quiet—he makes a beeline for his drums, his dark curly hair shadowing most of his face.
Then there’s Calvin, who looks fantastic and unfairly hot, as usual.
Gabby cups a hand around her mouth and yells, her voice ringing in Miles’ ears. Miles never realized she was also this big a fan of Cloverlily. Maybe Miles blaring their music every waking hour helped.
It’s funny to Miles how he always thought that if he ever had the chance to watch the band play live, that he’d be yelling the words of their songs along, and he’d be as rowdy as Gabby was being. He also thought he’d focus mostly on Theo, who really was the charismatic frontman who knew how to get the crowd going.
