Chapter Twenty-Two
Cooper
Backstage is hot as hell, like surface-of-the-sun hot, and smells like burnt dust, spilled beer, and whatever cologne the guy in front of me took a goddamn bath in.
My guitar’s strapped across my chest, the bottom bumping the wall every time I twitch—which is every five seconds—and I swear, if one of the acts around me keeps eyeing me like I shouldn’t be here, I’m walking out.
Except I can’t walk out because, apparently, this right here is what I’ve been killing myself for. Every late night, every open mic, every video that tanked has all landed me here.
“Reign Cooper?” someone calls, and my throat immediately decides closing is the only and best option right now. “Reign Cooper?”
Oh right, that’s me.
“Pull it together,” I hiss to myself, plastering on my mega-watt smile and stepping toward the wings.
“Done this before?” the guy asks as his eyes sweep over me from top to bottom when I shake my head. “Okay, so after Candy’s done, the MC will do a little intro, and then you’re up. Easy as that.”
“Right,” I whisper, twisting a bracelet around on my wrist.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I groan, wishing I’d left it with Dec. Forcing a swallow, I pull it out because I’m a masochist and can’t not look. The rampant butterflies sort of chill for a second when I see his name on the screen, my fingers fumbling to unlock it and read what he’s said.
Declan
Breathe, Coop. This is your moment.
The part of me that’s been on edge since we got here finally loosens. For a second, I just stare at the screen, at the single line that does more for my nerves than any deep breathing could.
“Okay,” I whisper to myself and shove my phone away. “Breathe. I can do breathing. Breathing is totally my thing.”
“You’re up,” the guy in the wings says.
My pulse kicks up all over again, but I push it down, straightening and tightening my grip on my guitar because this isn’t fear. This is launch-sequence-countdown adrenaline.
Here. We. Go.
I walk out, the audience’s clapping a ripple instead of a roar, but it’s enough. The spotlight slams into me, white-hot and blinding, but instead of shrinking, I lift my chin.
The Monarch suddenly looks twice as big up here, the tables melting into silhouettes, but the stage feels right beneath my boots. Stepping up to the mic, guitar strap digging into my shoulder, my hands aren’t shaking anymore.
I belong here.
“Uh, hey.” The mic crackles, but I’m already smiling. “I’m Reign Cooper and this is The Eagles.”
Someone whistles, a few cheers spark, the noise from the crowd dying quickly, until it’s just me and the amp. I strum once, the chord coming out shakier than I’d like, but muscle memory takes over before nerves can.
I close my eyes, and then I’m standing in The Lost Compass again with Declan behind the bar, grinning at me like I hung the stars.
Fingers find the rhythm, and by the time I hit the first chorus, the tremor in my voice has gone. It’s different from The Lost Compass. There, I could see every face, every reaction. Here, it’s just shapes and shadows, a sea of unknown.
And somehow, that’s easier.
Freeing.
The knot in my chest loosens, every word stronger than the last. I roll straight into my next track—an original. The one I almost chickened out of playing tonight. The one I wrote on my floor at 2 a.m. The one that’s basically my heart stripped bare.
I sing it anyway.
“They say dreamers burn fast,
But I’m still alright.
I just need one little spark,
To set the sky right.
If the stage is the answer, then what is the cost?
Every ‘maybe’ someday feels a little more lost.
But I’ve come too far to fade away,
Screaming to the void hoping it’ll stay.
Every ‘no’ I’ve heard,
Still hits but I won’t deter.
So I’ll keep playing, until someone remembers my name.”
This time, the quiet isn’t judgement. It’s attention. That leaning-in kind of pull. Like gravity.
I don’t think about views, or algorithms, or whether I deserve to be on this stage.
I just think about this.
Every fucking day, I want this.
By the time I hit the last chorus, my throat’s tight, and my chest’s aching in the best way. The final chord rings out, lingering, before the room erupts. A slow swell at first, then a wave, thunder, rolling up from the floorboards. It’s not a stadium. But right now? It might as well be.
I grin, a wide, split-your-face-in-two grin, and blow out a shaky, exhilarated breath.
“I’m Reign Cooper,” I say into the mic, voice hoarse. “And you’ve been unreal.”
Leaving the stage on weak legs, I nearly buckle when the tech guy claps my shoulder. “Holy shit, dude. You were amazing.”
“Thanks.” I chuckle, still not fully back in my body after that.
Someone nudges past me, trying to get on stage, their glare like ice, but who the fuck cares? Out there, beyond that stage, they’re chanting my name. My fucking name.
“I haven’t heard them like that in a while,” the tech guy says again, shaking his head. “Well done.”
In a daze, I make my way through backstage, my smile firmly etched onto my lips. The door to the main floor is in sight, my heart pounding with the need to go out there and see Declan.
A dark blazer steps in front of me, stopping me dead in my tracks.
“Reign Cooper, right?” he says in a smooth Irish accent, confident like I should already know who he is. “Name’s Liam Demont.”
He offers out his hand, a shiny gold ring on his finger glinting under the light, but it’s the lanyard around his neck that hits me like a truck. Raider Records stamped across a glossy black badge.
Raider Records. The label I’ve researched at least a hundred times. The one whose artists I stalk like a creep online. The one I’d sell a kidney to get noticed by.
My mouth goes dry, my brain choosing the least useful word in the English language.
“Eh...”
Liam smiles like he’s used to ineloquent bumbling idiots. “I caught your set. Gotta say, I’m impressed. Vocals? A little untrained, but we can work with that. Your original track? Good, solid bones. Definitely something I could see climbing the charts.”
He slips his hand into his inner pocket, producing a sleek, gloss-white card between two fingers. Looking down at the name, my pulse stutters and sprints at the same time, launching straight into orbit.
Liam Demont.
Raider Records.
I blink, just to make sure he’s not a hallucination I’ve conjured up from the post-show high.
He isn’t.
“You’ve really got something, Reign,” he says. “Send me whatever demos you have, even the rough ones. Let’s talk, okay?”
“I— Yeah. Sure,” I mutter, watching as he pulls out his phone, already typing rapidly into it. “Thanks.”
“Nice meeting you,” he says and shakes my hand again. “Looking forward to seeing what we can do for you.”
For one long beat, I just stand there, staring at his card long after he’s gone, my pulse thudding so hard it feels like my heart might burst through my chest. Everything in me goes light, like my body’s here, but I’m five feet above, watching this unfold.
This doesn’t happen. Not to me. Not like this.
And yet, here it is, the evidence gripped tight in my hands like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
I laugh, breathy and a little unhinged, and do the only thing that makes sense—bolt for the side door and out to the bar.
The place is fuller now, bodies packed tighter, the floor vibrating as a new band plays. I push through the crowd, muttering, “Sorry, sorry, excuse me,” as I go, ignoring the faceless voices trying to catch my attention until I’m a panting mess, popping up beside Declan and Levi.
“Holy shit, Cooper, you—”
“Liam—he—this guy—Declan—” I thrust the card out, words clearly not my strong point right now, searching Declan’s face as he scans it over.
Levi’s quicker than Dec, though, exploding and knocking over his beer. “No fucking way!”
He rounds the table, grabbing me in a headlock that’s pure joy with a splash of suffocation, shouting over me to anyone who’ll listen.
“He did it! Our boy did it!”
Warmth coats my entire being as Levi screams and hollers, but my eyes are fixed on Declan still staring, unblinking, at the card.
“Coop,” he whispers, my name packed with too much to unpack. Pride, shock, and something else he pushes down so fast I miss exactly what it was. “This is…huge.”
“It is, right?” I breathe, my heart still pounding with a rhythm I’m struggling to match. “He told me to send him everything. Like everything-everything. I…” I trail off, laughter bubbling out of me. “I don’t think I even said anything back.”
Levi thumps the table with his hand. “Shots. Now. We’re celebrating.”
He’s already heading toward the bar before we can object, disappearing from sight, leaving me standing in front of Declan. The room blurs a little, the sea of strangers between the pulsing lights and bass guitar, fading into the background until he’s all I see.
He looks up at me, passing back the card, his eyes glassy.
“You did it.”
And maybe that’s what breaks me. Because for so long, I’ve been chasing this dream, begging the universe to notice me, and it finally seems like it has.
I move closer until my chest brushes his, my guitar case bumping against his leg. His breath catches, but he doesn’t step back, staying steady as always as my forehead drops to his shoulder, card still clutched between my fingers.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I mumble into the space between his collar and throat, my words muffled in his shirt.
His hand finds my back, tentative at first, before becoming firmer. Something in me surges, wild and desperate, too full of everything to hold back any longer. Tilting my head, I catch his lips with mine, a laugh caught in my throat, my fingers curling into his shirt, crushing the card in my hand.
For a moment, he’s still, not pulling away but not kissing me back either. Then, as the noise swells around us, he exhales softly against my lips, giving me what I want. It’s quick, though it still leaves me breathless and grinning, emotions spilling out of me faster than I can stop them.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “For believing in me.”
His eyes are dark, expression unreadable. “You don’t need me to believe in you, Coop. This is all you.”
The way he says it, too flat, too careful, tugs at my chest, and for a split second, I get the impression there’s more sitting behind his eyes than he’ll let me see.
Like this should be good news, should make him smile, but instead, it settles heavy between us, quiet and off kilter in a way I don’t understand.
We stay like that, just looking at each other until Levi’s voice cuts through, bright and oblivious. “Shots are up, boys!”