Chapter 6 Avery
Chapter six
Avery
"How long does it take for two girls to get ready?
" I groan loud enough for them to hear before burying my face into the palm of my hands. I check the time on my watch, thankful MSG is only a couple minutes away by car. "Hurry up, or we’re going to miss the girl you want to see." And I’ll have to pretend I don’t know the words to any Akira Rain songs while I sit through her set.
But I have a plan. Avoid her set entirely. Not because I want to, but I just don’t like being around…people. We’ll be there before Olivia starts, and be out the back door before her band can play their last beat.
"Two minutes!" The girls both shout back in unison, laughing to each other as though they’ve just shared some kind of inside joke.
I can literally see clothes flying around her room as Noelle and Leah search for options on what to wear, yet none of it seems to be good enough.
Yes, she has her own bedroom in my home.
Yes, it was my idea.
And, yes, she uses it to her advantage more than I care to admit.
After everything that happened last year, I wracked my brain with all the ways I could keep her safe.
Her having a permanent place in my city seemed like the most obvious answer, but she didn’t accept my offer.
She gladly reminded me that I would be away more than I’m home.
Who would keep her safe while I was gone?
After six months of constant begging, she relented.
I would hardly say Noelle calls this place home, but I made sure she always has a place here no matter what.
"Two minutes is up," I call out to them, forcing my thoughts back to tonight, hearing their laughter vibrate through the wall as Ryder waltzes in through my front door.
"I’m leaving without you." It’s my final warning.
I greet my best friend with a slapped hand shake.
He smirks in the direction of the girls.
"Women," he teases, helping himself to a protein shake from my fully stocked fridge, his blue denim jacket thrown over a plain black t-shirt, black jeans cuffed at the ankle.
"Girls," I correct him. I keep my tone steady and firm, but his ability to rile me up is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before. He finds joy in my annoyance.
"Women," he repeats, grinning as I roll my eyes and grab my keys, shoving them deep into my pocket. "Lighten up, brother. She’s been twenty-one for months. You cannot control her life." He chugs back his drink.
"We’re ready," my sister and her best friend say in unison, their voices both high pitched and equally annoying. Noelle’s brown, tight curls fall just below her shoulders, the light catching her natural gold highlights, while Leah’s black, straight hair hangs down her back.
"Three hours for jeans, sneakers and a shirt you stole from my closet?" I raise a brow as the four of us head out the door of my apartment. Orlando is meeting us at the venue, so we don’t have to wait for him.
"It was either this or a tight little dress," Leah purrs, her eyes locked on Ryder. He visibly shudders, and I do my best not to groan.
While ignoring Leah has never been possible, I’ve given it my best over the years. She and Noelle have been best friends since first grade, inseparable on all counts.
She’s like the sister I didn’t want but got stuck with anyway.
"Besides," Leah says. "You’re literally wearing the same thing, only the boy version."
I don’t even know what that means. I’m wearing jeans, sneakers, and a hooded jumper to disguise myself on the way in and out.
My stylistic choice is a tactic. My sister’s, however, is a fashion statement.
There’s a ten-year age gap between the girls and me, and I know I’m way too out of the loop for this conversation.
"Anyway, we’re staying for Olivia only, then we’re leaving." I clench my jaw as we ride the elevator down to the underground car park, key fob clenched tight in my fist.
"Her name is Olive," Noelle reminds me again. I still can’t get past someone naming their kid after a salty piece of food that belongs on, like…a charcuterie board. "And Orlando told me he got us meet and greet passes too." Of course he did.
It’s a known fact that my manager loves to fuck with me. So it’s no surprise he looped Noelle into our plans and left me out.
By the time we make it inside, the crowd’s already screaming.
We make it to our seats—front and center— just as the lights dim. The guy next to Ryder looks weirdly familiar, but I can’t place him.
The girls are wedged between us, their knees bouncing, and their eyes glued to the stage.
They’re waiting impatiently for any sign that Olivia or Olive is even in the building, let alone on the empty stage.
And when I say empty, I mean it. It has a lone microphone on a stand, and nothing else. I’m now worried that the opener my sister is obsessed with is some wannabe karaoke singer with a backing track.
The thought alone makes me want to bail and wait in the car until this shit show is over.
It’s a full house, which, according to Noelle, is unheard of for an opening act.
"Nobody ever cares to see the person opening for the headliner. Usually, there are thousands of empty seats," she told me. I wouldn’t know, I rarely leave the house. And when I do, it’s not to see pop stars live in concert.
My head scans around the place I know so well, unable to see any vacancies.
"What’s with the hype around this girl, anyway?" I ask Ryder, leaning his way. The guy on the other side of him whips his attention towards me, shocked by my question.
"The hype around Olive?" he asks. My head tilts automatically. I know that face.
"Harley Wingrove?" I breathe, the name landing right as Ryder blurts it too, his eyes wide. He beats me to the handshake, but Harley leans toward me next.
"Hey, man," I say with a nod. "Good to meet you."
"You too. You think you guys will take it all the way this season?" he asks, recognizing us much quicker than I did him.
Harley dropped off the face of the Earth after his injury. Everyone knew he’d moved back to his hometown, but lately, he’s been popping up in the most random places.
An Akira Rain concert is probably the most bizarre yet. Though, the pride on his face tells me he isn’t here for her.
"Fuck yeah, we are. My guy here is at the peak of his career," Ryder says, swatting my chest.
The peak of my career at age thirty-one?
Yeah, right. Ryder likes to toot my horn around others, knowing full well that my career peaked a long time ago, and is completely flatlining after the incident.
Since then, I’ve been fighting an internal battle on whether or not I leave it all behind, and focus on something I actually want.
If you were to ask me what that is, though, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
"We just have to come out on top after these next few games," Ryder says, and Harley gives me a knowing look.
"I just need the guys to pass me the ball, and we’ll be good." I slouch back into my seat.
Something unreadable flashes across Harley’s face, but before I can decipher it, he asks, "What is up with that? I saw your face plastered all over every magazine cover and sports network. One minute you’re walking into a bar after you guys lost game six, and the next you’re being escorted out."
"Why did you retire?" I flip the switch and watch as Harley raises his hands in defeat.
"That sensitive, huh?" he says to Ryder, who nods with a laugh.
"We don’t touch that subject," Ryder tells him. "Well. I do. You can’t, though." He nudges me with his shoulder.
"Got it," Harley agrees. "I never expected to see you guys at an Akira Rain show, and I definitely didn’t expect you to be in the front row." He smiles at the woman approaching him, who hands him a beer before taking her own seat.
"My sister is a huge fan of the opener, actually," I tell him, and the lady beside him whips around with the biggest smile across her tanned face. Her cheeks are flushed soft pink. She looks vaguely familiar, with a face I want to place so badly, but can’t quite put my finger on.
"I’m so proud of her," she says, her feet tapping nervously against the black vinyl floor beneath her feet.
"Me too, Lizzie," Harley says, right as the remaining lights around us begin to fade, and the screams from the crowd become overwhelming.
I glance at Noelle and blink. Is she…crying? Sure enough, tears well up in her eyes, and slip down her cheeks.
Since fucking when does a singer have this sort of impact on my sister?
And why?
What makes her so special that she has girls of all ages blabbering like a goddamn mess before she’s even stepped foot on stage?
A hush falls. Slow at first, then total. No cheers. No chatter. Just the weight of every eye locked on the stage, waiting.
It’s like they know. It’s like they could sense her footsteps echoing through the place before the microphone picked up on it, letting everyone know that she had arrived.
The first pluck of her acoustic guitar cuts through the silence, familiar and unmistakable. I eat my own words.
Guitarist, not karaoke singer.
The crowd erupts, the sound crashing over me from every last corner of the stadium. Fans are screaming for Olive.
Then her lips part as she looks out over the crowd, the spotlight catching her just right as she sings the opening lines to a song.
That song.
It’s like an angel has captivated the attention of almost twenty thousand people.
Everyone, including me.
Holy shit. It’s her.
The girl front row of my game.
And this…this is the song from halftime when I tried to drown everybody out.
It’s like the crowd is stuck in a trance, listening to a siren cast her spell, luring each and every one of us to our death, and nobody seems to give a damn.
My mouth has gone bone dry, hanging wide open, my clammy hands now balled into fits against my knees.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a concert and listened so hard to the lyrics before. I’ve never paid this much attention. And suddenly, Noelle’s reaction to seeing her makes all the sense in the world.
Heartbreak.
My sister’s features are softened in the dim lighting, not phased by how her tears stain her makeup-covered cheeks.
We’re close enough to the stage to see the emotion all over the singer’s face and how her voice portrays what she feels so easily.
Goosebumps. Everywhere. And honestly? I don’t even care.
Her lyrics tell me this girl has been through all kinds of pain. Felt every type of sadness, and she’s letting the world know about it, one song at a time.
By the time the final notes of her last song fade, my hands hurt from clapping, my throat ripped to shreds from cheering her on.
I don’t think I would have this kind of reaction to seeing Akira live.
This girl is…angelic.
"Might wanna wipe the drool off your bottom lip before we go backstage, brother," Ryder says, and I hear Orlando snort to hide his amusement from beside me. "She might get the wrong idea about you."
In all the commotion, he and Noelle switched places, and I hadn’t realized.
I wipe my lip, and my finger comes up dry.
"You look like you just fell in love, Avery," my manager teases, an arrogant smirk slapped across his stupid face.
"Fuck off. She’s talented. You’d have to be an absolute idiot if you can’t see that," I mutter, throwing my hood over my head to hide the redness I feel forming on my cheeks, while joining the crowd with Olive’s well-earned standing ovation.
It’s hard to get her name wrong when it’s written in bold letters on every screen.
"Yeah, she is!" Harley shouts, so proud of the girl everybody just witnessed create magic.
And when she walks off stage, there’s chaos all around us. Everybody’s voices hoarse as they scatter for a toilet break, or a drink break, but not us. "Anybody with VIP tickets. Please head backstage for a meet and greet. Have your passes ready," a random lady says, commanding our attention.
Noelle squeals like a twelve-year-old girl.
Here we go.