Not obvious. Just a flick of her eyes. A small, secret smile she hides in the corner of her mouth before turning back to the crowd.
Oh, how I love her.
By the final chorus, the stadium is screaming. Jumping. Losing their minds like this is the best night of their lives.
Maybe it is.
But all I can hear is my own heartbeat hammering in my ears. Loud. Steady. Terrified in the best way.
The curtain comes down like a held breath finally released, and suddenly the sound changes. The roar of the stadium dulls, muffled by fabric and concrete.
Manny is already in motion.
“Clear,” he says into his mic, and the security team fans out like muscle memory. Efficient. Protective. No wasted motion.
Lila steps offstage and nearly collides with me.
She grabs my forearm. Like she needs to confirm I’m still here. Still solid.
“That was…” She swallows, searching for the word. Her voice drops to a whisper. “…a lot.”
“Yeah,” I say. “You did incredible.”
She shakes her head once, a disbelieving little motion, then huffs out a breath that sounds half like a laugh and half like a sob. Her fingers don’t let go.
Behind her, the hallway floods with movement.
Crew members. Assistants. Headsets barking questions. A photographer edging too close, camera already raised. Her team surges forward, all talking at once, voices overlapping.
“What’s next—”
“Are we confirming—”
“Lila, we need—”
Her shoulders tense. I feel it through her grip.
Manny steps in like a wall dropping from the ceiling.
“Not now,” he says, voice calm but unmovable. He cuts a sharp look at the photographer, who immediately backs off. “Route’s changing.”
“This way,” he says, already moving.
Manny leads us through a narrow service door and down a concrete staircase that smells like dust and old paint. The steps echo under our feet. The noise from the stadium fades with every level, the sound thinning out until it’s just a low, distant rumble.
Like weather far away.
At the bottom, a long loading-bay hallway stretches out, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Quiet. Cool. Empty.
The door shuts behind us.
Lila exhales, long and shaky, like she’s been holding her breath for an hour. She stumbles a step and presses her back to the wall, eyes closing.
Her grip finally loosens.
I step closer without thinking. Not crowding. Just there. Close enough that if her knees give out, she won’t hit concrete.
Her eyes open.
