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Chapter 1
Beth
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know my best friend is destined to be a star . . . I just don’t want to believe it. But standing in the swarm of screaming, singing college students, staring up at the stage tonight, I feel an impending sense of doom.
Gabe McKenzie is crooning a breakup ballad so tender and sweet it has the girls next to me sobbing as they sing along. His husky, low voice strikes the perfect chord. Literally.
Heck, I’m close to crying, too, but not because I’m so moved by his performance. There is that, of course. Gabe has the entire quad eating out of his guitar-strumming hands. But there’s a ball of emotion in the back of my throat that’s knotted tighter than a tangled web of Christmas lights because he’s my Gabe. My best friend. My . . . maybe something more than friends.
And he’s up there giving the performance of a lifetime for our entire college campus. This wasn’t part of my plan.
I rip my watery eyes away from Gabe and laser in on the three celebrities sitting on a raised platform in the center of the audience, bobbing their heads along to Gabe’s vocals. Gabe isn’t just performing for the University of Wisconsin–Madison student body. No. He’s caught the eye of the producers of Hidden Gems, a new talent competition that’s taking the country by storm this year. Think American Idol, except instead of people lining up to audition, the producers scour the internet, scoping out talent from social media posts and video uploads. They pluck these diamonds in the rough from relative obscurity and bring them to Nashburg for a giant talent competition. First, they fly in the celebrity judges and get some hometown footage. Hence the concert on the quad here tonight.
The girl next to me loops her arm over my shoulders, our winter jackets squeaking at the contact.
“Isn’t he totally hot? He’s going to win for sure!” she shouts.
“Totally!” I force a smile and let her pull me back and forth, but I feel numb.
I clap along as Gabe finishes his set and leaves the stage, disappearing into the tent they’ve set up for him. Unlike every other person in this crowd, I can’t bring myself to scream or beg for more.
Even though all I want is more from Gabe. To be more than the best friends we’ve been since I moved to his hometown as a freshman in high school. We’ve been inching our way in that direction. I think. I hope. We’re seniors in college now, both of us graduating in a few weeks, at the end of this semester. I thought we’d move back to Dasher Valley—together. See what we could be—together.
But now, this.
Stupid Hidden Gems. Stupid diamonds in the rough. It’s all stupid.
Gabe reappears to the delight of his fans and starts playing an upbeat encore song.
“This is the best day of my life!” The girl next to me starts jumping up and down. She’s singing at the top of her lungs. No one seems to care that she’s tone-deaf, least of all herself. Good for her.
I start weaving my way through the hordes of people toward Gabe’s tent. I promised I’d meet him there after the show.
My stomach feels like I just downed three double cheeseburgers and a milkshake and then hopped on a roller coaster. I hate it. I should not feel nauseous about talking to my best friend. This is Gabe. I knew him when he had braces and acne and when his voice was changing and would give out in intermittent squeaks. I know he likes ranch with his pepperoni pizza and prefers to watch movies with subtitles. I know he secretly loves watching the holiday bake-off cooking show so much that he streams old episodes year-round. It’s either that or Law and Order.
I’m not intimidated by him or nervous about being around him. But I don’t know what to do with his sudden rise to fame—or with my adversity to fame. In my defense, fame killed my parents, so there’s that.
I pull up short in front of the tent when a large man in a black polo shirt with an official-looking walkie-talkie clipped to his belt holds up a hand.
“Sorry, lady. You’ll have to go around.” He gestures behind me to where they’ve set up a barricade to keep the crowd contained and ensure they disperse after the show concludes.
I unzip my winter coat enough to fumble with the neckline of the crewneck sweatshirt I’m wearing, pulling out the lanyard with my backstage pass attached. “I’m actually with Gabe.”
For how much longer, I don’t know. But for now, he’s still my best friend. He’s still Gabe.
“Name?”
“Beth Collins.”
Walkie-talkie man checks his list. “Gotcha. Okay. Here ya go, then.”
He lifts up the flap of the tent and shoos me inside as Gabe sings the final line of the song. The crowd erupts. I grab a bottle of water from the cooler that’s tucked next to some folding chairs. A dozen people are milling about. Some are wearing headsets. Some have clipboards. No one pays me much attention.
When Gabe appears, they rush toward him, congratulating him on a great show, shaking his hand, and talking all at once.
I study him as he fields their praise, answers their questions, and does all the things. He handles the attention like he was born for this moment, an easy smile on his face and that delicious swoop of hair I’ve come to like so much brushing his brow. His cheeks are rosy with the joy of his performance, and it’s genuine. He loves being on stage. Another piece of my heart cracks off at the confirmation of what—somewhere deep down—I already knew.
He’s wearing his old worn-out brown bomber jacket over a long-sleeve white Henley and faded blue jeans. I helped him pick out his outfit for this show. He’s always been pitifully inept in the fashion department, and he has no clue how attractive he is. His humility only makes me like him more.
