"Harley Wingrove?" I breathe, the name landing right as Ryder blurts it too, his eyes wide. He beats me to the handshake, but Harley leans toward me next.
"Hey, man," I say with a nod. "Good to meet you."
"You too. You think you guys will take it all the way this season?" he asks, recognizing us much quicker than I did him.
Harley dropped off the face of the Earth after his injury. Everyone knew he’d moved back to his hometown, but lately, he’s been popping up in the most random places.
An Akira Rain concert is probably the most bizarre yet. Though, the pride on his face tells me he isn’there for her.
"Fuck yeah, we are. My guy here is at the peak of his career," Ryder says, swatting my chest.
The peak of my career at age thirty-one? Yeah, right. Ryder likes to toot my horn around others, knowing full well that my career peaked a long time ago, and is completely flatlining after the incident. Since then, I’ve been fighting an internal battle on whether or not I leave it all behind, and focus on something I actually want.
If you were to ask me what that is, though, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
"We just have to come out on top after these next few games," Ryder says, and Harley gives me a knowing look.
"I just need the guys to pass me the ball, and we’ll be good." I slouch back into my seat.
Something unreadable flashes across Harley’s face, but before I can decipher it, he asks, "What is up with that? I saw your face plastered all over every magazine cover and sports network. One minute you’re walking into a bar after you guys lost game six, and the next you’re being escorted out."
"Why didyouretire?" I flip the switch and watch as Harley raises his hands in defeat.
"That sensitive, huh?" he says to Ryder, who nods with a laugh.
"We don’t touch that subject," Ryder tells him. "Well.Ido.Youcan’t, though." He nudges me with his shoulder.
"Got it," Harley agrees. "I never expected to see you guys at an Akira Rain show, and I definitely didn’t expect you to be in the front row." He smiles at the woman approaching him, who hands him a beer before taking her own seat.
"My sister is a huge fan of the opener, actually," I tell him, and the lady beside him whips around with the biggest smile across her tanned face. Her cheeks are flushed soft pink. She looksvaguely familiar, with a face I want to place so badly, but can’t quite put my finger on.
"I’m so proud of her," she says, her feet tapping nervously against the black vinyl floor beneath her feet.
"Me too, Lizzie," Harley says, right as the remaining lights around us begin to fade, and the screams from the crowd become overwhelming.
I glance at Noelle and blink. Is she…crying? Sure enough, tears well up in her eyes, and slip down her cheeks.
Since fucking when does a singer have this sort of impact on my sister?
And why?
What makes her so special that she has girls of all ages blabbering like a goddamn mess before she’s even stepped foot on stage?
A hush falls. Slow at first, then total. No cheers. No chatter. Just the weight of every eye locked on the stage, waiting.
It’s like they know. It’s like they could sense her footsteps echoing through the place before the microphone picked up on it, letting everyone know that she had arrived.
The first pluck of her acoustic guitar cuts through the silence, familiar and unmistakable. I eat my own words.
Guitarist,notkaraoke singer.
The crowd erupts, the sound crashing over me from every last corner of the stadium. Fans arescreamingfor Olive.
Then her lips part as she looks out over the crowd, the spotlight catching her just right as she sings the opening lines to a song.
Thatsong.
It’s like an angel has captivated the attention of almost twenty thousand people.
