“You’re also collecting gossip.”
“Multitasking is valued in this industry.”
I closed my eyes while Dani worked.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
The sentence felt wrong.
Technically true.
Emotionally useless.
Dani switched brushes.
“Complicated?”
“Apparently.”
“Those are usually the good ones.”
Rachel looked at her.
“That is terrible advice.”
“I work in beauty, not risk management.”
When the first notes of the opening music rolled through the arena, everything else became smaller.
The headlines.
The conference room.
The unanswered messages.
The questions waiting behind every phone.
The stage lights came up.
I stepped into them.
The roar hit me in the chest.
Not as noise.
As recognition.
This was the part people misunderstood when they assumed Savannah was only a costume.
I loved this.
I loved the first second before a song began, when thousands of people became quiet together.
I loved the heat of the lights.
The weight of the guitar.
The band behind me, familiar enough to follow a breath.
