Chapter 4 Aria
Aria
Only five songs remain in the show after “Glass Heart,” but Aria is surprised by the energy that thrums through her.
Every dance step has an extra bounce and every note a perfect roundness to it.
Perfection is always her goal, so pulling a professional football player onstage during her down-to-the-minute planned show was a gamble she wouldn’t usually entertain.
But after all the online chatter, the crowd would’ve been disappointed if Griffin didn’t make an appearance—onstage or on a big screen—and Aria didn’t want to let them down.
Nevertheless, she’d worried about him coming out straight-faced and rigid like an athlete trained to buckle down for battle when the lights go on in the stadium.
Sunday football games might be a performance, but they certainly weren’t the type she put on.
Despite a few audible gulps and the flush that filled his cheeks, Griffin had been charming when he stumbled onstage. The postgame interviews were probably good training for the moment—reporters tossing hardball questions his way after hours of pushing his body to the limits.
As the final song ends, a great applause erupts and Aria lets the microphone drop to her side. She beams at her fans, her chest rising and falling quickly from the exertion of dancing and singing at a rapid pace. As the cheers quiet, she lifts the microphone once more.
“Thank you, Chicago! You are always a safe bet for a good night.”
The crowd cheers.
Aria turns to the wings. “And thanks again to Griffin Hayes for being such a good sport. Good luck tomorrow. Go Wardens!”
Aria gives one final big wave as she turns and marches off the stage and into the wings.
Backstage she greets the staff and calls out, “Great job, guys! It went off without a hitch, as usual!” Aria high-fives the audio tech closest to her and gives the lead a wink.
She is only as good as the team around her, and even though it’s her name in the headlines, Aria understands how many good people it takes to pull off productions of this quality.
It’s one of the reasons she’s known as a generous bonus giver in the industry.
Aria ducks into her dressing room, closes the door behind her, and lets out a tired sigh.
Bailey looks up from her phone screen, where she sits on a rolling desk chair in the corner. “Another great show, big sis.”
Aria drops into a chair that matches Bailey’s and starts pulling off her boots. “Thanks. I didn’t love ‘After the Storm.’ I couldn’t get the power behind it.”
“I didn’t notice a difference.” Bailey gets up to open the mini fridge. She stops at Aria’s side with a bottle of water and cracks it.
Aria groans. “Thanks. You’re a godsend.”
Bailey laughs. “I’ve got to earn my keep around here somehow.”
Aria smiles, then pulls down a hearty gulp of the icy drink.
Bailey may worry about whether she’s making a contribution, but Aria doesn’t.
She’s told her—at length, on many occasions—how much Bailey does for her.
Bailey is the listening ear Aria needs when she’s faced with a hard decision.
Bailey is the comfort person when Aria has problems in a show.
Bailey is the shoulder to cry on when unkind rumors are spread online about her.
What Bailey gives is far more valuable than being her personal beverage concierge.
In fact, Aria has worried more than once if she’s the one holding Bailey back.
Being her tour buddy is an easy choice for Bailey, but if that hadn’t been an option, would she have pursued something more meaningful for herself?
Is Bailey really getting what she wants out of life by living on tour or backstage?
Aria worries that she’s being selfish by keeping Bailey at her side.
“You don’t have to earn your place here with me. But if the day comes when you want to spread your wings and leave me behind in the dust, I won’t be anything but happy for you.”
Bailey wraps her arms around Aria from behind and drops her chin onto her shoulder. Her hair tickles Aria’s cheek, teasing the corners of her mouth into a smile.
“I know I’m not chained here, sis. I just love it.”
Aria reaches up and squeezes her sister’s hand. “Me too, Bails. Me too.”
Bailey releases her arms and pulls herself upright. She heads for the sofa along the far wall of the room and flops down onto it. Aria spins her rolling chair to the mirrored wall on the opposite side, and in the reflection she notes not a speck of her makeup has budged.
Aria reaches for her makeup remover and gets to work. “I’ll tell you what, the hair and makeup team are killing it. Hours of sweating my rear off onstage, and every bit of this is intact.”
“You’d better keep them on staff. Remember Dallas?”
Aria shudders at the memory. She was a newbie back then, a teen with big dreams and big curls and little else to show for herself, but through sheer will she’d landed a spot at an outdoor country festival.
At that point, all she could afford was drugstore makeup (some of which she still swore by) and a setting spray.
As it turns out, no setting spray can go toe-to-toe with the Texas summer sun, and by the time she was five minutes into her set, heavy makeup was running in ravines down her face and into her eyes, stinging them as she strummed her guitar.
It was the only time she counted herself lucky to have had a short set.
“I’ll only ever do indoors in Texas now. Lesson learned.”
Aria and Bailey laugh. As Aria scrubs what feels like permanent makeup from her face, Bailey pulls out her phone and scrolls.
“Dang. People are talking about Griffin again,” Bailey says.
“I’m so relieved bringing him onstage didn’t flop.”
“Honestly, I think the crowd would’ve loved it even if he’d just stood there. But the two of you together? That was next level.”
“What do you mean, ‘the two of us together’?” Aria turns slowly to face her sister, her eyes narrowing.
“The two of you were so natural together. Like you’d known each other forever. Or like it was staged.”
“Well, it was staged.”
“You know what I mean—as in you’d practiced the lines. Sure, the setup was planned, but the rest was . . . just the two of you.”
Aria shrugs and whirls back to the mirror. He’d made for a fine side act, she wouldn’t argue that fact, but there also wasn’t any point in harping on it. Griffin was a blip on the Aria Wilder timeline—a nice one, but nothing that would last.
“I’d do anything for the fans. We all know that. So this little stunt is my pleasure.”
Aria just about has the makeup scrubbed off when a knock comes at the door.
“Come in!” Aria calls, then turns toward the door.
The door squeaks as it’s pushed open a crack, and Kelsey appears in the gap, her chestnut-brown eyes sparkling like they do whenever an idea strikes. “Hey! Got a second?”
“Sure thing. Come on in. I didn’t know you’d be here tonight.” Aria waves, and the door swings open into the room, Kelsey entering in jeans, boots, and a bedazzled coat. Somehow the statement is nineties mom fashion but also entirely contemporary chic at the same time.
Kelsey drops into the second rolling chair and props her elbows on her knees.
Aria swallows. She knows this stance, and it usually entails far more than the “second” of time Kelsey asked for.
Aria doesn’t mind the publicity work. She enjoys the spotlight like any other performer, but as her career and success have grown, so has the pull to make appearances and give interviews.
That in combination with the fact that Aria now owes another album of a variety she’d rather not pursue, it feels like another force pulling her from what she wants so badly: to reconnect with the joy of making music, the thing that kicked off this career all those years ago.
“Okay, so we have an idea.” Kelsey grins wide, enthusiasm bubbling in every syllable.
“Okayyy.” Aria pulls out the word to make it sound like an invitation to go on.
“This Griffin Hayes thing. It’s wildfire.
It hasn’t even been an hour since the concert wrapped, and the clip of you and Griffin bantering onstage has already been shared thousands of times.
By the morning, there’s no question this will be another viral moment.
” Kelsey reaches out and gives Aria’s knee a squeeze. She wiggles her eyebrows.
“Okay, and?” Aria asks gently. She could guess what was coming next, but she knows the song and dance, so she lets Kelsey make her pitch.
“We’d love to keep this thing going. Stage a ‘friendship’ between the two of you.
It’d be beneficial to you both. For him, he’s getting off-field press, and all those guys want to diversify these days.
They can only play so many years before their bodies give out, but if they’ve got their hand in something else?
Easy transition. For you, we’re between albums. Of course, all of yours are megahits, but this will keep the fans close until the next classic Aria Wilder album hits.
In this day and age, everyone has to stay relevant. ”
Aria swallows the sigh she wants to release at the mention of the next album.
She slowly crosses her arms and leans back in her chair to consider this proposal.
Admittedly, Aria doesn’t love it. The idea of a fake friendship doesn’t fit with who she is at her core: someone who wants to be genuine, to show her real self in her life and work.
It’s the same desire that lies at the heart of what she wants to do musically by taking a new approach.
However, it’s also true that the friendliness between her and Griffin itself wasn’t staged.
Bailey was right that although they were intentionally put together, the fun that bubbled up between them in that moment onstage was organic.
Griffin Hayes might even be someone she could genuinely enjoy spending some time with.
Aria presses her lips together. “What are the specifics? I don’t want this to take away from the music or the performances I have lined up.”
Kelsey’s head bobbles as she nods. “Oh, of course! Trust me, there’s nothing we want less than to put a barrier in the way of getting more Aria Wilder hits! We’d keep it simple. Some shared appearances, social media, maybe a brand collab.”
Aria’s gaze goes across the room and finds Bailey. She sits upright, leaning in toward the conversation.
Bailey lifts her eyebrows eagerly and shrugs, as if to say, “Why the heck not?”
Aria lets her face relax, and it falls into a soft smile. Bailey is a reliable source of good advice, and Aria doesn’t have a good reason to dig her heels in on this one.
“Okay. I’ll do it. Just don’t let it get out of hand.”
Kelsey claps, then pumps a fist in the air. “Yes! Excellent. Now that we’ve got a green light from you, we’ll pitch his team. I don’t think we’ll have problems getting a yes. I mean, your star power way outshines his. But I’ll be in touch with deets as soon as I know.”
Kelsey leaps to her feet, and as she passes Aria, she squeezes her shoulder. “And killer show tonight. As usual.”
“Thank you. As usual. And for everything,” Aria says.
Kelsey calls a goodbye over her shoulder, then pulls the door shut gently behind her.
Bailey smiles wide. “I guess we’ll be seeing more of this Griffin Hayes character after all.”
An incredulous laugh pops out of Aria. “Sounds like it.” She gets to her feet and starts gathering her belongings into her bag. “Let’s work on getting out of here. I could murder a cheeseburger.”
Bailey hops up and grabs both of their coats from the hooks. “I thought you’d never get us out of here.”