Chapter 20
"Fuck," Taylor whispers, frozen by the window of the trailer they've assigned her as a dressing room, set behind the main stage.
Ethan is with her, sitting in a chair while he lazily tunes his guitar, as if the roar of the crowd outside didn't faze him.
"Nervous?" he asks without looking at his sister.
Taylor turns to him. Ethan has been too quiet all day, with a guarded expression that has her unsettled.
"A little," she admits, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans.
She feels comfortable in her clothes. She went with tight black jeans, a gray sleeveless T-shirt that sets off her tan skin, and leather boots. She left her hair down and did just enough makeup to bring out her features.
Ethan sets the guitar aside and steps toward her, but something about the way he moves, too slow, puts Taylor on alert.
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" he asks in a gentle, affectionate tone, the worried big brother, watching Taylor as he sets a hand on her shoulder.
She frowns, not sure exactly what she feels—anger at him or just hurt.
"What do you mean by that?" Taylor asks.
"Nothing. Just that you should be aware of what's out there. This isn't Rusty's, Taylor, this is the real thing. It's not just a crowd; there will be label execs and music journalists—people who can wreck a career before it even starts if something goes wrong."
Taylor stares at him, trying to convince herself it's concern behind her brother's gaze and not something twisted.
"Are you telling me you think I can't do this? Is that it?" Her voice comes out lower than she meant, but with a fury that makes her brother take a step back.
Taylor goes cold when she realizes this is yet another attempt by Ethan to undermine her confidence, a last, low blow right before the show, with only minutes left before it's her turn to take the stage.
"It's not that," he says, showing off his knack for manipulation, "I'm just saying everything's moved too fast. Maybe we should've waited a little longer, prepared better..."
"I'm ready," Taylor cuts him off, feeling nerves race down her arms and tingle in her hands, "if you're not, stay here, but I'm going up there and I'm going to do exactly what I've been doing for the last three weeks."
"What if something goes wrong? What if you blank? Have you practiced that, too?" Ethan presses.
Taylor doesn't have time to answer, because right then the dressing room door opens and Abigail walks in.
Her entrance is commanding, wrapped in a dark gray suit that looks designed purely to intimidate anyone in her way.
She has her planner closed in one hand and her phone in the other, and she watches them with that stony expression that makes it impossible to guess what she's thinking.
"Hi," she greets, with a quick glance at her phone screen. "You're up next. As soon as they swap the gear, we'll have four minutes to check that everything's good. After that, it's go time."
Abigail lifts her gaze. Her presence has completely changed the energy in the dressing room. Taylor feels the air thicken between them, while Ethan—emboldened a moment ago as he tried to intimidate his sister—seems to shrink, like an animal that has instinctively recognized the stronger predator.
The executive senses the charged air immediately. She fixes her gaze on Ethan and then on Taylor, who looks dazed.
"You're perfect," she says suddenly, looking her up and down.
Taylor feels her blood heat like someone lit a match to her, and her smile widens, though the shadow of her brother's words still flutters over her.
"The monitors are calibrated to your preferences," Abigail goes on, ignoring Ethan completely. "David will make sure you have visual contact with him at all times for the transitions."
"Okay," Taylor replies.
"The lights will start low during the first chords of Wildfire and hit full intensity when you come in on the first chorus. Taylor, are you listening to me?"
Taylor blinks.
"Yeah, sorry."
"Do you have any questions before you go on?" Abigail says.
Taylor shakes her head, then glances at her brother and nods.
"What do I do if I blank?"
The muscles in Abigail's neck tighten until her shoulders go rigid. She cuts a glance at Ethan and clenches her jaw before looking back at Taylor.
"Did something happen here that I need to know about?" she asks, almost hissing like a snake.
"No," Taylor answers, "but I..."
Abigail sets the planner and phone on a table, steps in front of Taylor, and takes her by the shoulders.
"Look at me. You're not going to blank."
"You don't know that," Taylor counters.
"I do know," the certainty in Abigail's voice is almost insulting. "I know it because you don't sing with your head."
Taylor's dark eyes go wide.
"You sing from your gut," Abigail touches her belly, a gentle touch, but Taylor feels her whole body vibrate. "You sing with the fire boiling in your blood, and none of that gets forgotten, or blocked, or switched off. It's impossible. Is that clear?"
Taylor's eyes start to shine as she nods. Her smile curves and she bites her lip. She feels as if Abigail has just lit something inside her—a flame that's been building for three weeks and now threatens to consume her whole.
"Five minutes," announces a voice over the earpiece Abigail wears.
"Ethan," she says in a thunderous voice, "give me a moment alone with your sister, please."
It's not really a request; it's an order. Ethan knows it, and so does Taylor. He seems to hesitate for a moment, but in the end he grabs his guitar and leaves the trailer.
"I don't know what he said to you, but don't let it get to you," Abigail says, placing her hands on either side of Taylor's neck.
"It doesn't get to me, but that does scare me," Taylor says with a smile, pointing outside, toward the roar of the thousands screaming for the next act. "They don't know me, and if I get up there and..."
"Taylor." Abigail sounds firm but somehow close, and Taylor almost melts.
"What?"
"It doesn't matter if they don't know you when you walk onstage; what matters is that they remember you when you walk off."
Taylor kisses her in a rush of impulse, but Abigail pulls back quickly, startled, running her fingers over Taylor's lips to make sure her lipstick hasn't smudged.
"It's the expensive kind," Taylor teases, trying to bite one of Abigail's fingers.
"I see," she murmurs, giving her a small smile in return.
The voice in the earpiece comes again, and Abigail's gray-green eyes darken.
"It's time."
Taylor exhales.
"Okay."
Abigail guides her through the tunnel that leads to the stage. It's full of cables and techs running back and forth, but Taylor is barely aware of any of it as she walks. David, James, and Lucas are already in position, and her brother has just joined them without looking at them.
"Ready?" Abigail asks, stopping at the edge of the stage.
Taylor nods, brushes her hand, and steps out with the rest of the band.
Her mouth goes dry as she swings the guitar over her shoulder and tightens the strap.
There's a knot of nerves in her stomach, but the good kind, and she's not afraid.
Plus, from where she stands she can see Abigail perfectly placed to her right, and that gives her the strength to keep her knees from buckling at the sight of the human tide in front of her that will see her when the lights come up.
She knows all her friends are out there, her parents and her sister too, in a VIP area Abigail got them into.
According to what the executive told her, the organizers estimate there are about twenty-five thousand people.
The thought alone makes Taylor dizzy, but she's here now.
She's spent three weeks getting ready for this moment and she doesn't intend to let anyone down, but more than anything, she needs to prove to herself that she deserves to be up there, where Abigail put her.
The lights dim and the crowd quiets. David starts the count with nods, just like they rehearsed. Panic threatens to lock up her lungs, but then she takes a split second to look toward the area where Abigail is. She can't see her now—everything's dark—but Taylor knows she's there, and it's enough.
The first chords of Wildfire ring out from her guitar and, instantly, the first verse pours from her throat loaded with all that passion that runs in her blood, amplified by the stage's brutal sound system.
That wail Ethan has made her so afraid of comes, and the crowd's reaction is immediate.
The ovation rolls forward like a wave from front to back, and Taylor feels the energy shift as she becomes even more powerful.
She feeds on all those faces she can't see but knows are there, watching her, keyed in to her every move, and instead of letting them intimidate her, she uses them as fuel.
Abigail watches it all from the side, arms crossed and wearing a satisfied smile no one can see. What's happening is exactly what she knew would happen: Taylor's taking flight. She was made to be on a stage, and she just needed to put her on one this big to prove it to her.
The song ends with Taylor holding a note that seems to last forever until her voice breaks at the end.
A silence falls that lasts barely a second, and then the roar explodes.
Thousands of people clapping and screaming, creating a sound that shoots shivers through every nerve ending in Taylor's body.
She grins, with no time to take it in before the second song is already playing and she lets herself go.
The nerves are gone; she just flows through the music and the crowd follows her without hesitation, but it's when Tongue of Fire hits that Taylor truly blows the roof off.
The song starts with just her—her voice and her guitar.
She sings the first lines almost in a whisper, and then the band comes in and the sound feels apocalyptic.
Taylor lets all the fire the song talks about consume her completely; she turns wild, primal, charged with the mix of pain and passion she has built up over years of living in a town that was too small for her.
When the chorus hits, her gaze locks on Abigail.
She can see her silhouette in the shadows and feels the current between them.
It's impossible for anyone else to catch the subtext of those words, "With my tongue of fire I'm going to burn you," but for the two of them it's as if Taylor were singing naked in that moment, her soul laid bare.
When the song ends and the deafening roar erupts again, Taylor stands in the middle of the stage, panting, drenched in sweat, eyes shining and wearing the widest smile of her life.
She can't hear anything over the crowd, but she can feel the vibration of the applause through the stage floor, coursing through her body.
She looks for Abigail's gaze at the side; there's light there now, and she finds the executive watching her with a smile.
For a split second, Taylor feels everything else disappear, like there's no one else in the world but them, but then the rest of the band steps up to thank the crowd, and Taylor turns her smile on them again.
Abigail would love to stay and meet her when she comes offstage, but her phone has been ringing since Taylor started the second song and she has to start returning some calls, so she allows herself a few more seconds to watch her, then turns and heads for the dressing room she's been assigned as a workspace.
Taylor bows and the ovation swells until it's almost unbearable.
The musicians bow with her, even her brother, who's stunned by what just happened.
They wave goodbye and head toward the back, but Taylor lingers there in the shadows, soaking up every second as it sinks in that this is the moment her life just changed forever.