Chapter 15 Felix #2
Dino smiled and pointed directly at me. Not near me. Not at the random stranger next to me. At me. His finger was aimed at my chest like a weapon, and suddenly every camera swivelled towards me.
The crowd around us exploded into chaos. People were screaming, pushing, trying to get closer to the chosen one. Security was already moving in our direction, cutting through the crowd like sharks.
My blood turned to ice. My legs felt like they might give out completely. This couldn’t be happening. Of all the thousands of people here, all the fans who would kill for this opportunity, they’d picked the one person who wanted nothing more than to disappear into the floor.
“No, no, no,” I breathed, but my voice was lost in the noise.
A security guard reached us, gesturing for me to follow him towards the stage steps. Dino was still pointing, still smiling encouragingly. The cameras were still rolling. Thousands of people were watching me have what should have been the moment of a lifetime, and all I wanted was to run.
“Take me instead!”
Lily’s voice cut through everything. She’d stepped forward, directly into the security guard’s path, her arm raised high in the air.
“I’m his sister!” she shouted. “Take me as tribute!”
Dino looked between us. Lily’s enthusiasm was undeniable—she was literally jumping up and down, lightstick in hand. Next to her, I probably looked like I was about to be sick.
Which I was.
Dino laughed and nodded, redirecting his point towards Lily. The crowd roared their approval, and suddenly the security guard was reaching for her instead.
“Go, Lily, go!” I shouted as she was swept away towards the stage steps.
She turned back once, her face split by the biggest smile I’d ever seen, and blew me a kiss before disappearing into the controlled chaos of the stage area.
God, the relief was overwhelming. I could have cried. Instead, I erupted into uncontrollable nervous laughter.
I was never going to live this down. Never.
Mia and Jess would have filmed the whole thing on their phones—my deer-in-headlights expression, Lily’s heroic intervention, probably even my hysterical laughter afterwards.
Lily would gleefully play the footage once a week for the rest of my life, cackling every time she got to the bit where I looked like I’d rather spontaneously combust.
Speaking of Mia and Jess…
I glanced around, expecting to see their familiar faces somewhere in the chaos around me. Pink hair should’ve been easy to spot. But there was nothing. Just strangers jumping and screaming and waving lightsticks like their lives depended on it.
Where the hell had they gone?
I craned my neck, searching the crowd methodically. They’d been right next to me when the security guard had swept Lily away. But now? Vanished. Swallowed by the surging mass of bodies like they’d never existed.
Well. That was brilliant.
I wasn’t particularly bothered, if I was being honest. Once Lily finished her moment of glory up there, she’d surf through the crowds and reunite us all.
The music exploded back to life, the bass line for what I vaguely recognised as “Thunder” doing exactly what you’d expect—thundering through the floor and up into my bones. This was one of their most intense songs, judging by the way the crowd had gone absolutely feral.
People pressed closer, jumping higher, screaming louder. The space around me compressed like a slowly closing fist.
A particularly tall bloke materialised directly in front of me, completely blocking my view of the stage.
All I could see was the back of his denim jacket.
I tried to wriggle left, hoping to find a gap, but then the crowd abruptly surged forward as one massive unit, carrying me with it whether I wanted to go or not.
My chest constricted. The air suddenly felt thick and used, recycled through thousands of lungs before reaching mine. People bumped into me from every direction—elbows in my ribs, shoulders knocking against mine, someone’s hair whipping across my face.
Too many people. Too close. No space to breathe properly.
Panic crept up my throat like rising water. I needed to get out. Now. But there was nowhere to go. Bodies pressed against me from every angle, an impenetrable wall of humanity that seemed to shift and move with its own terrible logic.
Without warning, an arm wrapped around mine and pulled me sideways through the crowd.
I twisted, expecting to see Mia or Jess—who’d spotted my obvious distress and come to rescue me. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with…
A complete stranger.
“You alright, man?” he shouted over the music. “Sorry, it looked like you wanted to get out of there.”
He was tall, with short brown hair and a tattoo creeping up the side of his neck. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, showing more ink on his forearms. He had a wide smile, the kind that reached his eyes and made you want to smile back even when you were drowning.
“Yeah…” I managed, nodding to show my gratitude. “Thanks.”
“No worries. You looked like you’d rather die when they picked you just now,” he said into my ear, his breath warm against my skin. “Can’t say I blame you. I’d have probably fainted, myself.”
It was completely mad, but I found myself grinning. “Right?” I shouted back. “She saved my life. I was about five seconds away from pretending to have a medical emergency.”
He laughed properly at that, throwing his head back before shouting, “I’m Mike, by the way.” He extended his hand for a shake.
“Felix.”
His grip was firm and warm, and he didn’t let go immediately. “So, is that your girlfriend?” He nodded towards the stage, where I could just make out Lily’s distinctive pink hair ribbon as she danced with the band members.
I shook my head. “Sister. She’s the proper fan.”
Mike smiled widely. He leaned even closer, ostensibly to be heard over the music, but there was something deliberately intimate about the way he moved into my space.
“Lucky me, then.”
Oh. Oh.
He was flirting. Actually flirting. With me. And not in the subtle, “maybe he’s just being friendly” way that left me second-guessing every interaction for weeks afterwards. This was unmistakable.
I could do this. I could. It was just harmless flirting at a gig. Good practice for me. And if it got weird or overwhelming, I could always claim I needed to find the others and disappear back into the crowd.
But talking—proper talking—would involve shouting directly into each other’s ears. Which meant being very, very close to this stranger.
My pulse quickened.
Mike brought his mouth to my ear again. “You don’t seem like much of a crowd person.”
“Not really,” I admitted.
“I can tell.” His hand found the small of my back, steadying me as someone almost knocked into us from behind. “Want me to be your bodyguard for the rest of the show? Make sure you don’t get squished?”
He shifted to stand behind me, his chest solid and warm against my shoulders. The song reached a chorus, and the crowd pressed in around us, but the panic didn’t come. I felt protected, not trapped.
Well. This was definitely not how I’d expected the evening to go.
“I…” I started to say, then stopped as his arms came up on either side of me, creating a protective barrier against the surging crowd.
I could lean into Mike properly if I wanted. Give him a clear sign that I was interested. The thought made my heart skip a beat, but not entirely in a bad way.
This is what I was supposed to be doing, wasn’t it? Putting myself out there? Embracing every opportunity?
His breath tickled my ear as he said something I couldn’t quite catch over the music. I tilted my head back slightly, about to ask him to repeat himself, when suddenly I was being yanked sideways with enough force to nearly knock me off my feet.
A hand gripped my arm, pulling me away from Mike so violently that I crashed into a group of fans behind us. Beer sloshed from their plastic cups, the cold liquid splashing across my back and seeping through my hoodie.
“Oi, watch it!” one of them shouted.
I spun around, expecting Mia and Jess, who’d accidentally snatched me away in their excitement at finding me. Instead, I found myself staring up at a very different face towering above me.
Everything stopped.
Kit.
Kit Thorne.
My Kit.
Here.
At this SEVENTEEN concert. In the middle of the crowd, looking absolutely furious.
A low growl rumbled from his chest as he glared fiery daggers at Mike, who was staring between us with complete confusion written across his features. Mike’s face shifted from bewildered to slightly hurt. Slightly annoyed, even.
He didn’t say anything. Just melted back into the crowd and disappeared, leaving me standing there with beer soaking through my back and my mind reeling.
The music had paused between songs as SEVENTEEN grabbed some water on stage, and the relative quiet made everything feel even more suddenly, uncomfortably surreal.
All I could manage was, “What’s going on?”
“He was… touching you!” Kit’s voice was alarming, peppered with something that sounded almost like distress. “That… random guy had his arms around you!”
I blinked at him. “He… he was only being friendly.”
Kit’s face scrunched up, and he scrubbed a hand through his beard. “Do you think Wren would approve of how friendly he was being?”
What’s Wren got to do with this? But before I could voice my confusion, Kit’s face crumpled.
“Fuck, Felix, I’m so sorry. Look, that’s obviously nothing to do with me. I was completely out of line. If I’d known you actually liked that guy, I wouldn’t have intervened. I honestly thought he was harassing you.”
The words tumbled out of him in a rush, but none of them explained the fundamental impossibility of his presence here.
“But… Kit…” My voice sounded frazzled, angry even, though I was mostly just baffled beyond belief. “Why… why are you here?!”
His eyes widened. He didn’t say anything.