33. Raleigh
Raleigh
33
4 MONTHS LATER
The crowd roars as Demon’s Curse makes their grand entrance for the final show of the Bleed For Me tour, and I cheer along with them, never so excited. It’s almost bittersweet to see it come to an end, but I’m also pumped for everything the boys still want to achieve.
Ezra has been writing like crazy, and I know he’s itching to get into the studio and finally lay down some new songs, but I have it on good authority that the eager fans won’t have to wait too long. It’s been far too long since they put out a new album, and sure, it has everything to do with losing Axel, so they can be forgiven, but since allowing ourselves the time to heal, the grief isn’t as crippling as it once was. It’ll never completely go away, and we will always ache on the inside, but now we’re looking forward to all the new experiences and adventures Demon’s Curse gets to have. Not to mention, it’s mine and Ezra’s chance to be a real couple, away from the limelight. Well, as much as Ezra can ever be, which isn’t much, but it still counts. We get to experience life together like normal human beings, build a home together, and fill it with love, and nothing has ever made me so happy.
Being the last show, Madds and I stand among the crowd instead of in the wings like I usually do, wanting to experience the show the way it was meant to be, which is only made better by the fact that after being back in Ezra’s life for five months, I finally know the lyrics almost better than he does.
We’ve been here in Switzerland for almost a week, and it’s been incredible. I’ve always wanted to come here, and I’m so grateful to Lenny and Louder Records for bringing me along on this tour and allowing me the chance to experience the world in a way I never would have been able to from the back of my car.
Dylan, Rock, and Jett do their thing as they start the intro for the first song on the setlist, and I clutch Madds tighter, never having been so excited in my life. I know exactly how Ezra is about to shoot out of the stage. I know how he will hold himself in the air for the two seconds that he’s airborne, and I know the exact stance he’ll take as he lands directly in the center of the stage, yet my stomach gets butterflies every time. It’s one thing getting to be with Ezra, but it’s another getting to experience him as Ezra Knight, the biggest rockstar on the planet.
Dylan finds us in the crowd, and considering we’re front and center, it shouldn’t have been too hard for him, and when he winks at Madds, she all but combusts next to me. The two of them are doing my head in. I shouldn’t have encouraged it so hard, but there’s no denying how perfect they are. They’re rocking the honeymoon stage, and while I love how in love they are, having to hear Madds recap their sexcapades makes me want to throw up. She’s not shy about the details either. Though I have to give credit where credit is due, Dylan clearly knows his way around the female body. Maybe it’s a guitarist thing. They’re all good with their fingers.
Madds squeals from beside me, and as Dylan grins back at her, she grips the bottom of her shirt and rips it up, letting her tits fly free. Dylan’s grin all but splits his face in half, and judging by the look on his face, he’s probably wondering just how soon he can shove his face between them.
I can’t help but laugh. I hope Ezra isn’t hoping for the same kind of show. Though, what difference does it make? After my father decided to live stream me in that hotel room, the whole world is intimately familiar with my tits. Not to mention, the video has been uploaded across the dark web and onto random porn sites. Ezra’s lawyers have been working overtime trying to scrub it from the internet, but no matter how hard they try, it seems I can’t escape it.
Shit. Too soon.
The reminder has my mood plummeting. I’ve been struggling a lot since that night. There’s no sugarcoating it; I’m a wreck, but I’ve been doing therapy, and so far, it seems to be working wonders. I still have a long way to go until I’m even remotely close to being okay, but just as Ezra promised, he’s been at my side every step of the way. And truth be told, I feel most at ease when I’m lying in his arms at the end of a long night.
He’s been my rock through everything, and I can’t wait for it to be over. Even in his death, my father is still haunting me. I can’t escape him. It’s been one thing after another.
I’ve had detectives bombarding both Ezra and me about his death. I’ve had the media asking me to sell my story, offering me millions of dollars with the condition that I give every sordid detail about the abuse I’d suffered at my father’s hand. I’ve been offered tell-all book deals and movie rights.
On top of all that, there’s the case of the missing inheritance.
Well, it’s not so missing anymore. My father was found guilty of inheritance theft, not that he’s actually here to be charged with it, and considering everything, the courts were quick to rule that everything Axel left for me was returned as it should have always been. Only, over the past two years, my father did a great job at spending as much of Axel’s wealth as he possibly could, drinking it away like the foul, pathetic loser he was. However, the money will soon be returned to me after the sale of the old Michigan home goes through.
As the sole living relative, the house became mine after my father’s death, but I wanted nothing to do with it, and despite the good memories I had of my mother and the boys, I was all too willing to say goodbye to it and welcome a new beginning away from that part of my life.
Thank God for therapy, right? But also, thank God for the money Axel left me because, with all these therapy bills, I’m going to be blowing through it in no time.
The tempo starts to rise, and I jump up and down like the rest of the crazed fans in the crowd, recognizing Ezra’s cue, and like lightning, he shoots up into the sky with fireworks exploding around him. The label took no shortcuts tonight, wanting this show to be the best one they’ve ever put on, and despite Ezra only having been on stage for a mere moment, they’re already exceeding all expectations.
Ezra lands in a low crouch, his gaze flicking right to mine as though the tether between us is calling him to me. He grins, and his eyes sparkle with wicked desire, warning me that the moment he’s done here, he intends to take me back to the hotel suite and spend the rest of our lives making me feel alive.
He takes his microphone, and the opening lyrics of “Hypothetically Yours” fill the stadium as the beat of the drum vibrates right through the ground and into my body. It’s electrifying.
Why the hell have I been wasting the past four months watching the boys from the wing when I should have been watching them from right here?
Madds loses her mind beside me, not even having spent the last few months in close proximity to the guys has done anything to dull that crazy fangirl spirit of hers, and I love that about her. And I love it even more that Dylan isn’t put off by it. He embraced her crazy, just as she embraced his.
She screams the lyrics of mine and Ezra’s story beside me, clutching my hand in a death grip as I watch my man perform for his loyal fans, my heart racing a million miles an hour. When he glances down at me in the crowd and sings the most adoring words about being hypothetically mine, his eyes sparkle with the most sincere kind of love, and I’ve never been happier in my life.
The first few songs pass in a flurry of wild emotion, and when the heat ramps up and the boys really start enjoying themselves, Madds tugs on my arm. “Check this out,” she says, holding up her phone for me to see.
My brows furrow, having to grab it to see the screen properly as Madds continues jumping around beside me, and I find the text chain between Madds and Dylan, more specifically the discreet text he just sent her while on stage.
Dylan - Quick question. If I sacrifice the moon and the stars for you, then in the very least, would you sacrifice uranus for me?
“The fuck?” I laugh, glancing up at Dylan to find his eyes locked on us, laughing as he realizes I’ve just seen his text. But what I love most is the way he owns it, not ashamed in the least.
Madds can’t help herself. She grabs her phone back, and I watch over her shoulder as she types out her response.
Madds - Abso-freakin-lutely! But give a girl some warning. You can’t just go poking around her black hole without first letting her take a ride down the big dipper and into your milky way.
She hits send, and I watch the frustration on Dylan’s face knowing he has a text but not being able to check it right away. Their flirty and shamefully sexual texts are their kryptonite. It’s partly how their relationship began, and with each daring text, they get crazier about one another. It’s the same for how Ezra writes songs about me. It’s how they communicate, and I love it for them. Hell, I also love it for me, especially when their crazy texts finally gave me the courage to open my own phone and send the kind of text to Ezra that fifteen-year-old me could have only dreamed of sending. I’ve never been so raunchy in my life, but I liked it, and I liked it even more when he checked the text and came running.
The show goes on, and every part of it is incredible, only just as the boys are wrapping up “One Day,” Ezra brings everything to a stop. “Hold up. Hold up,” he says, glancing back toward Rock and Dylan, one hand pushing through his hair, and he grabs the neck of his guitar with the other, lifting the strap over his head. “I’m sorry. I just can’t do this right now.”
Murmurs and shocked gasps begin filling the stadium as I watch Ezra, trying to figure out what the hell is going on. If something was wrong, surely I would have sensed it, right? He’s been staring at me all night, surely I would have seen it in his eyes.
He walks over to the boys, leaving his microphone behind, and he quickly says something to them before they all nod, and not a moment later, Ezra returns to the front of the stage. “I’m sorry,” he calls through the microphone. “I’m sure many of you know that these past few months have been an insane roller coaster for me, and I thought I could wait until the end of the night, but I can’t. I have to do this now.”
Do this now? What the fuck is he talking about?
Ezra holds my stare as the stadium erupts with questions, wondering what the hell is happening, but all I can do is stare back at him, something in his eyes warning me to never look away. “Rae, baby. Get that fine ass of yours up here.”
My jaw drops. “Uhh, what?” I say, knowing damn well he can’t hear me.
“Don’t keep these fine people waiting,” he says as the crowd starts chanting my name.
Ahh fuck, fuck, fuck. Whatever this is, I’m gonna kill him.
Hardin, the head of security, shows up in front of the barricades and offers me his hand. “Sorry, Rae. I’m gonna have to lift you over,” he says, reaching for me.
He doesn’t hesitate to haul me over and set me back on my feet. “Do you have any idea what the hell is going on?” I question as he leads me to the side of the stage before offering me a boost up.
“No clue, ma’am, but take it from my experience, when it comes to Ezra, it’s best to just roll with it.”
Shit.
Shoving my foot into his hand, Hardin boosts me up onto the stage, and just as I get two feet flat on the platform, Ezra appears at my side, slipping his hand into mine. He leads me back into the center of the stage where I feel the weight of fifty thousand eyes on me.
“Switzerland,” Ezra roars through the microphone, “tell my girl how fucking beautiful she is!”
The crowd blows me away, and my cheeks flame as they scream for me. “Holy shit,” I laugh as Ezra pulls me into his side. “What the hell is going on?”
All he can do is grin at me as the crowd continues, and with every passing second, the most undeniable joy swells inside my chest.
“Okay, okay,” Ezra says, trying to settle them down. “Now, I don’t know if you guys know this, but I’ve been in love with this girl since I was sixteen years old. She’s the muse behind all of the songs like ‘Hypothetically Yours’ and ‘One Day.’ She’s been my whole fucking world since the moment I met her, and eight years ago, I made the biggest mistake of my life by leaving her behind when we went on our first tour. I wasted all those years not getting to be by her side, and I don’t know about you guys, but I’m fucking sick of waiting.”
The crowd roars, clearly down with anything that comes out of Ezra’s mouth, and when he turns to me, the rockstar show is over, and I’m faced with the sixteen-year-old boy who walked through my door back in Michigan and couldn’t take his eyes off me. Our souls connected in such a profound way that day, a connection that’s now never been stronger.
“Rae,” he says, taking my hands and having to awkwardly squish the microphone between our fingers. “I have loved you since the moment I met you. I’ve cherished you. Adored you. And at times, I have failed you. We’ve had more than our fair share of challenges thrown our way, some that have tested us in ways we could never have been prepared for, and with every one of those challenges, I have loved you more. You’re my soul, my world, and my heart. We have waited so long for something we always knew was written in the stars, and I don’t want to wait anymore. I want to marry you, Rae. I want to build a life with you and give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Tears fill my eyes, and he clutches my hands tighter as my heart races faster than it ever has before, and just when I thought my world couldn’t feel more right, Ezra lowers down onto one knee, and the stadium erupts into utter chaos.
He releases my hand, and not a moment later, he produces a small velvet box from his pocket and thumbs it open, not willing to release my other hand, and despite the insane noise around us, I can’t look away.
A beautiful white gold ring stares back at me with a delicate band that’s decorated with a huge rock right in the middle. Smaller diamonds circle the big one in the center and as it sparkles against the crazy lighting in the stadium, I look back up to meet Ezra’s stare. “I’ve had this ring for the better part of four years, knowing all along that we would find our way back to each other. You captured me from day one, Rae. You tethered your soul to mine the very moment I walked through that door. You became the reason I breathe, and now I don’t know how to do life without you.”
He pauses for just a moment as the crazed audience cheers for their leading man.
“I don’t want to wake up and not see your face staring back at me. I don’t want to build a life without you, and I don’t want to give my heart to any other. It’s always been you, Rae. I’m done waiting, and I’m done with the hypotheticals. I want to take the plunge, and I want you to jump right off the fucking edge with me. What do you say, baby? Will you do me the greatest honor of becoming my wife?”
Tears stream down my face, and I launch myself into Ezra’s arms as my lips crash down over his. “I thought you’d never ask,” I tell him, feeling the intense vibration of the crowd roaring with excitement.
My lips are straight back on his, and he doesn’t even get the chance to put the ring on my finger before Rock and Dylan crash into us, their big arms circling us as they squeeze the living daylights out of me. “I fucking knew you two would make it,” Rock says as I cry into Ezra’s shirt.
I catch Madds out of the corner of my eye, scrambling over the banister with Hardin and beelining straight to the edge of the stage, and before anyone can attempt to help her, she scales the stage like Spiderman before crashing into us too, all but peeling the boys off me before yanking me into her chest. “God, I’m so happy for you,” she tells me. “I think I actually peed myself a little.”
The celebrations roar right through the crowd before we’re reminded that the show isn’t over, and as Ezra goes to lift the microphone back to his lips, I go to make a hasty exit, only he holds on to me, refusing to let me go.
“That’s not the only surprise I have for tonight,” he says into the microphone as Rock and Dylan make their way back to their instruments, leaving Madds to hide in the wing where I usually spend my nights. “It’s been a long time coming, but what better night to tell you that our new single, ‘Not Waitin’ on a Hypothetical’ will be releasing at midnight tonight.”
Not Waitin’ on a … Holy shit. This man!
My jaw drops, and I gape at Ezra, having had no clue that the boys had recorded something new. Hell, when did they even get the time to do it?
The crowd is far beyond chaos now. They’re practically on fire with their current excitement level, and despite that, Ezra still feels the weight of my stare and glances at me, and the way his eyes shine with undeniable love and happiness has me so filled with elation, I could burst.
“So, what’s it going to be?” he asks his eager audience as he keeps his eyes locked on me. “Do you wanna be the first to hear it, or what?”
They roar their excitement, and not a moment later, he pops his microphone back into the stand and pulls me into his side. Rock comes in on the drums, giving us the most captivating beat I’ve ever heard, but nothing, and I mean nothing, prepares me for when the lyrics begin pouring out of Ezra. They’re the perfect ode to us, capturing our love in the most spectacular way possible, doing us justice in a way I could only ever dream of.