There was no way we weren’t going to play it after a reaction like this.
The restof the afternoon was a race. We had dinner three hours early so it wouldn’t interfere with the concert. We briefly met with my parents and sister, who had also flown in the day before, but had to limit it to five minutes of small talk. Even though they knew Alex and I wouldn’t have much time to spend with them, they still wanted to be there to support us.
By seven, the venue was filling up more and more until they eventually couldn’t let anyone else in. Nora’s efforts had definitely paid off.
In the last hour before the concert, Alex and I retreated to a small backstage room reserved for musicians. It felt strange to be called that again, but the strangest thing was that, this time, I didn’t feel any different than I had a week ago. I was still Sebastian, a hospitality major waiting for my final exam results, about to present a project I had worked on with my boyfriend. I wasn’t doing this to become famous. I was doing it because it was fun—and I was excited as hell.
The backstage room had a couch, two armchairs, and a small fridge stocked with free nonalcoholic drinks, but most of the space was taken up by around fifty crates of bottles and kegs for the bar. A sign in bold letters warned us not to touch them.
At first, Nora stayed with us to take some more photos, but she left about half an hour before we were scheduled to start, which gave us a final moment to breathe.
As soon as the door closed behind her, I put my arm around Alex. “Man, I couldn’t wait to get a few minutes alone with you.” I leaned in to kiss him. My chest had been fluttering more than I would’ve liked for the past hour, but feeling his warmth helped keep me from freaking out.
Alex parted his lips, letting me in. His left hand found my chest and gripped my shirt. Leaning back into the cushions, he pulled me onto his lap.
I chuckled. “As much as I want to, we shouldn’t… gettoo carried awayhere.”
“That’s not my goal right now,” he whispered, pulling me in for another kiss.
My left hand sought balance on his shoulders, and when I touched him, I finally noticed the tremor in his body. It came in short bursts as if he was freezing, but it was obvious why his body was reacting that way.
“Are you excited?” I asked.
“Terrified.”
“Same.” My fingers brushed over his chin. “But you know we’ll give them everything.”
“I don’t care about them. I don’t want to disappointyou.”
“Alex,” I said, sitting up. “Iloveyou. That won’t change no matter what happens out there. I’ll be right there with you. Even if we have to stop the concert halfway through if things go south.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“But if it did, I wouldn’t care. If you’re not comfortable, then this will be the last concert we ever play. I want you to be happy.”
He hugged me closer. “Same here.”
After that, we held each other, not saying or doing anything else. It was just us, together, existing. Alex’s breaths were quick at first, but they slowed the longer we sat.
Eventually, a knock on the door made us both look up. It squeaked open, and Nora poked her head through the gap, pausing when she saw me sitting on Alex’s lap. “It’s time.”
Excitement swept over me, making me grin. I turned to Alex and pressed one last peck to his lips. “Let’s knock them off their feet.”
He grinned back, his eyes sweeping over my face, and after taking me in for a few seconds, he said in the calmest voice, “We will.”
Throughout the concert,I was in a trancelike state—both far away in a place where only our music existed, and hyper-present, noticing everything that happened. I was aware of every rhythmic tap of a foot, every pair of eyes on us, and every burst of applause after we finished a song.
We played through our set as if we had done it a million times. For the first three songs, the audience listened with interest, but they remained somewhat reserved. From my previous attempts at a music career, I knew a set lived or died by the fourth song. That was the make-or-break moment to get people on their feet, especially with an audience that didn’t know our music well yet. We put the track that started our whole journey in that spot, and just as it had for me over six months ago, it got them moving.
Besides singing, Alex only used his mic at the end to thank the audience. Although he stayed mostly in the background, we kept stealing glances, making sure we both knew we were in this together. The applause after each song was encouraging, and grew more intense the further we went.
Before we knew it, it was over.
After our tenth song—the official end of our setlist—the cheers were so loud that I worried about Alex for a moment. Just as I turned my head to check on him, he slung his arm around my shoulders and pulled us into a bow. Sweat streamed down his neck, but he was smiling wider than I had ever seen. We bowed twice more. The cheers only died down when I took the opportunity to ask the audience to donate to help bring our music to all the apps. Nora held out a metal bucket in front of the stage, and people fumbled bills out of their pockets. As shemoved through the crowd, calls for an encore quickly filled the room.
I brought my mouth to Alex’s ear so he could hear me over the roar of the crowd. “You still think we should play our newest song?”
“They won’t know what hit ‘em,” he said with a wink, then turned back to his keyboard.
“Okay, okay,” I said into the microphone. “We have one more, but you have to be nice. This one is special. We only wrote it this morning.” I glanced over my shoulder at Alex. He nodded, and then the click in my ear kicked in.
As I sang my own lyrics, the room went silent. Usually, an amped-up audience stays at least somewhat vocal, especially this late in the set. But for a moment, it was just my voice—until Alex’s orchestra joined me with full force.
The audience stayed mostly quiet as our song washed over them, but as soon as it ended, they erupted again, twice as loud as before. The applause went on so long that we could still hear it as we made our way offstage.
The moment we were out of sight, I couldn’t have cared less about any of it. Alex’s arms were instantly around me, his mouth all over my face. “This was insane,” he said in between kisses. “I want to do that again. That was so much fun.”
I couldn’t have agreed more. With him, everything was fun. As successful as this had been, I didn’t care if we ever made it big. As long as he was there with me, I was happy.
