“We’re gonna get a neckache this close up,” Adele said. Her eyes scanned the empty stage, mics, and guitars that Brighton recognized, a teal-and-navy paisley rug spread out on the floor.
Brighton just smiled. “I want them to see me.”
Adele nudged her shoulder. “Look who’s the badass now.”
“I’m not,” Brighton said, shaking out her hands, which felt tingly with adrenaline. “I’m just ready, you know?”
Adele hooked her arm through Brighton’s. “I know, baby girl. Proud of you.”
Brighton pulled her friend closer, and they stood like that for a while, the crowd wild and queer and beautiful around them. Brighton let herself feel it all, feel the jealousy, the bitterness, the rage.
The sadness.
For all her hurt and anger, she missed Emily and Alice as her friends. They’d been her first touchstone in Nashville, her first everything after she blew up her life with Charlotte. She didn’t think she’d ever not miss them. And she didn’t think it would ever not hurt, the way they’d cast her aside so easily. The way they’d taken her words, her music, her heart without even a phone call, a fuck-you, anything.
And what was worse, what hurt the most, was that they clearly just expected her to accept it. They didn’t expect any recourse, any consequences. It was like they had seen some sort of smallness in Brighton that made them unafraid.
The same kind of smallness she’d let rule her for the last nine months.
Well, for the last five years, really. She’d been carrying what she’d done to Charlotte for so long, letting it nearly crush her, letting it rule how she felt about herself. But as she stood there, people surrounding her on all sides, ready to hear the band she’d fucking founded, she knew she wasn’t that person anymore. She wasn’t sure when it had happened, the change. Maybe it was simply being with Lola again, talking through what had happened, knowing Lolasawher.
Or maybe it was Lola’s leaving. The crushing blow of it, the realization that she wanted Lola. She wanted Lola so much. For all their messy history, the pain they’d inflicted on each other, Brighton would always love Lola. Always miss her. Always want her, maybe. But she wanted herself too. She wanted her music and a career. She wanted stages and lights and applause and that hushed awe that settled over a crowd when a song really landed. She wanted love and sex and passion, and maybe it’d take a while to find that with someone else, but she had to believe it was possible.
She took in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders as the lights went a little dimmer. A man with a beard and a Panama-style hat came onstage, and the crowd erupted. He held out his hands, then gripped the microphone as the audience quieted.
“We’ve got a real treat for your New Year’s Eve,” he said. “Your local faves, the national sensation, the one, the only, the Katies!”
Then there was nothing but noise—and whistles and claps—but Brighton felt a silence settle around her, like she was in the eye of a hurricane. Emily, Alice, and Sylvie stepped onto the stage, gorgeous and confident and powerful. Emily went to her keyboards, Alice settled behind the drums, and Sylvie took the center with her guitar, her red hair flowing like lava. Brighton was standing to the left of her, right in front of Emily. She stared up at her old friend, her oldbestfriend, tears clogging her throat.
Emily was luminous, her dark curls like a halo around her face, striped crop top and charcoal-gray high-waisted pants, makeup subtle and perfect.
“You good?” Adele said, tightening her arm, still hooked through Brighton’s.
Brighton could only nod.
She was okay.
And she was a mess.
“Hey, Nashville!” Sylvie said into the mic, and the room roared in greeting as the Katies launched into their first song. It was fast and energetic, one they’d written with Sylvie, and Brighton could only stare as they performed, mesmerized by their energy, their magnetic charm onstage.
Would she have been able to do that?
Would she have been like Sylvie, moving around on the stage, head tossed back, hair flying?
The Katies’ style was certainly different from her own, she knew that. And as she watched them, each song high-octane, pulsing drums and roaring keys, she realized they’d made the right choice.
The Katies, as they were now, weren’t Brighton Fairbrook.
And she wasn’t them.
“Okay, we’re going to slow it down now,” Sylvie said after a few songs, mouth pressed to the mic, sweat shining on her neck and collarbones. “Take a breath, tell you a love story. You all like love, don’t you?”
The crowd cheered.
Brighton’s stomach tightened.
“Here we go,” Adele said.
