“Positions in thirty, people!” a tech yells.
Dean steps back like he’s breaking a spell. “Go shoot,” he murmurs. “Do your thing.”
“You go do yours,” I parrot, smirking.
His mouth curves, again, just barely. “Yeah,” he says. “I will.” He turns away and heads toward the stage entrance.
I watch him go, my pulse refusing to settle. I know he’s scared. I know he’s starting to feel something he doesn’t know how to name. But so am I.
And for the first time since this whole whirlwind started, I’m not afraid of what happens next. I’m afraid of what happens if we stop.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dean
Ocean Eyes
Billie Eilish
Orlando crowds don’t warm up. They detonate. The arena is a living organism by the time we hit the first chord and the noise rolls over us in hot waves, lights slicing through haze, the bass thumping so hard it feels like it’s rearranging my bones. I sling my guitar low, shoulder settling into that familiar weight, and the moment my fingers find the strings, the world narrows to sound.
This is the only place my head behaves. I step to the lip of the stage on the second song, letting the riff roar out across a sea of hands. People scream like they mean it. Like they’ve been waiting all day to break apart and be put back together by a song.
I get it. I live for it. Tonight though, there’s a thread running under the music I can’t ignore. Sadie. I spot her in the pit between security guys, camera up, hair pinned back, eyes sharp in that way that makes me feel like she sees straight through my skin. She catches me the moment I look down. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. Just meets my gaze and holds it like she’s not afraid of the heat.
My fingers almost miss a note. I recover fast, shove the moment back into its box, but my pulse is already wrong. The kind of wrong that has nothing to do with performance anxiety and everything to do with the fact that she’s still here after Memphis, after Graceland, after that almost-kiss in the hall today.
I try to focus. Solo on track four. Switch to the hollow body for track five. Step to Luc’s side for the bridge. Smile when the crowd howls. No one fakes normal better than me. Except every time Sadie shifts position, I track her without meaning to. She’s a gravity well, and I hate that my body knows it.
Halfway through the set, I catch her laughing at something Mikey does onstage; some ridiculous hip thrust to the drumline rhythm, the crowd losing it. She throws her head back, teeth bright, and something in my chest loosens in a way that feels illegal.
Happy looks good on her. I should not be thinking that. I should not be thinking about her at all with twenty thousand people watching me bleed music into a microphone. I am, though. Because she’s not just in the pit. She’s in my head.
We hit the final song, the one that makes the room feel like it’s floating. Luc steps forward, voice rough and gorgeous, and I weave the melody around him with my guitar, letting the notes climb until they sting.
I look down again, just once. Sadie’s lens is trained on me. Not the show. Not the spectacle. Me. Her mouth curves, and it’s small, private, like she’s hearing something in the music that’s meant for her alone.
The last chord hits. The place explodes. Luc throws an arm around Hayden. Mikey launches a stick into the crowd. I lift my guitar in a lazy salute, letting the noise wash over me. We leave the stage soaked and buzzing, adrenaline humming so hard it’s almost painful. The hallway behind the curtain is chaos. The crew is shouting, towels flying, water bottles popping open.
Someone slaps my back. Someone shouts my name. Someone else hands me a beer I don’t remember taking. And through all of it, I feel the second I’m not in line with Sadie’s orbit anymore. It’s like stepping out of sunlight. I don’t say it out loud, obviously, but I don’t like it.
Backstage cools down in phases. First the frenzy, then the laughter, then the low hum of exhaustion. We strip off sweat-soaked shirts, trade jokes, argue about a missed cue that only I noticed, and pretend we’re not all riding the thin edge between invincible and hollow.
Sadie slips in quietly half an hour later. No big entrance. No showy smile. Just camera bag, water bottle in hand, and that steady presence that makes the room feel a little less sharp.
I’m leaning against a counter, towel around my neck, when she walks past me toward Cherry to share a few shots. Her shoulder brushes my chest. Accident? Not sure, but my body reacts anyway. I hate myself for it, but I don’t stop it.
Mikey’s eyes flick to me and I know he saw the whole thing. He says nothing, just raises a brow and goes back to his drink. Luc catches me staring too long and smirks. A quiet get your shit together without words.
I pick up my guitar case, pretending I need to check something in the storage room. I don’t. I just need air. I slip down the side hallway toward the loading dock, where the night breeze comes through an open door, damp and warm. Orlando at midnight still feels like a sauna, but it’s quieter here, away from the hum of people.
I lean against the wall and exhale. Fuck me. This is getting worse. Not worse like bad. Worse like real. Footsteps echo down the hallway. Soft, measured, and I know who they belong to before I even turn.
Sadie leans her shoulder into the doorway, watching me like she didn’t come to trap me, just to see if I’m okay.
“Hey.” She offers me a small smile.
“Hey.” Silence stretches, but it doesn’t bite.
