25. Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I wanted to laugh, wanted to scream, wanted to shove him off the stage and then drag him back by the hoodie.
"Because you make everything loud," I said. "And I'm trying to keep my head on straight."
His gaze flicked to the crew moving in the wings, then back. "We can talk somewhere else."
"No. That's the point."
His jaw worked once.
The stage manager's voice echoed from the floor. "We're good on Lila. Evan, you're up in fifteen."
Evan's eyes stayed on me. "I'll go."
"Great," I said, too bright. "Go."
He didn't move.
I looked up, forcing my expression flat. "Evan."
"Tonight," he said.
I held still. "Tonight what?"
His smile fainted at the edges. "I'm going to play something."
My stomach sank. "Don't."
"You can ignore it."
"You know I can't."
His eyes softened. I hated that too.
"Then don't."
He stepped back and turned toward the wings. "You're impossible," I said.
He glanced over his shoulder. "You make it worse." Then he disappeared behind the curtain before I could decide whether to throw my mic stand at him.
I finished soundcheck with my hands too tight on the mic, and my focus split in half. Every time I tried to settle into my own space, the memory of him watching pressed at my ribs.
By the time I stepped off the stage, my adrenaline was already burning, and it wasn't even showtime.
Backstage smelled stronger now, sweat and hairspray mixing with the sharp bite of gaffer tape. Crew moved with purpose. The day shifted from setup to countdown.
I walked back to my dressing room and shut the door behind me, leaning against it for a second.
Don't hide today. You deserve the stage.
I pulled the folded note from my pocket and stared at it. "You're the worst," I muttered at the paper. Then I tucked it into my bag anyway, where it could sit with my in-ears and my dignity, both equally fragile.
Hours later, the venue was packed.
I stood in the wing, listening to the muffled roar of the crowd through the curtain. My nerves synced with it, an ugly little rhythm that made my hands cold. I did my warm-up under my breath, careful not to overdo it. My mouth tasted like mint gum and fear.
A crew member walked by with a headset, calling times. "Five minutes, Lila."
"Got it."
The stage manager glanced at me, then at the curtain. "You good?"
"I'm fine."
Her stare said she didn't believe me, but she didn't push. "Get out there. No drama."
I almost laughed. No drama on a tour with Evan Walker was like asking the ocean to sign a dry-cleaning agreement.
The intro music hit. I stepped onto the stage, and the lights slammed into my eyes. The crowd surged in sound, a wave that made me stand taller before I had time to be afraid.
I moved toward the mic, found my mark, found the first face in the front row, a girl holding a handmade sign with my name spelled wrong. I smiled anyway. I sang.
My set went clean and tight. The band behind me locked in. My voice landed the way it should. I kept my stage banter light, joking about the city's weird weather and tour buses being rolling science experiments. The audience laughed, cheered, sang along to the hook they knew from TikTok.
I told myself to stay in that. Stay in the moment. Stay in my own lane.
Then, near the end of my set, my eyes caught on the side of the stage.
Evan stood in the shadows, arms crossed, watching.
My voice hardly wobbled. Barely. I kept it steady, finished the song, thanked the crowd, waved, and walked offstage with my pulse banging against my bones.
Backstage hit me with heat and noise. Crew pressed in close. Security shifted near the corridor. Someone handed me a water bottle. Someone else slapped my shoulder in passing, a quick "good set."
I walked toward my dressing room, intending to breathe for five minutes before the headliner chaos took over. That was my plan.
Plans were fragile things.
I had barely stepped into the hallway when a familiar guitar riff sliced through the roar of the crowd. My feet stopped without asking permission.
The opening chords of "Linger" rolled through the venue, and the crowd recognized it before the second measure. Screams jumped in volume. Phones went up. The internet was probably already starting to foam.
I closed my eyes. Evan. Of course.
"Lila," the stage manager snapped, appearing beside me. "He's doing a thing. Stay back."
"I'm not going out there."
Her eyes narrowed. "Good."
Another chord. His voice hit the mic, low and intimate, that stupid velvet tone that had built an entire career on making strangers feel personally addressed. The crowd screamed louder.
I stood there frozen, because the song was a knife, because he was choosing it, because he had warned me. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I didn't check it. I didn't need proof that the world was watching.
His voice carried the first verse, and my body betrayed me with memory before logic could put a leash on it. I hated the song. Hated what it meant now. Hated that part of me still responded to it the way it used to, before I knew better.
Then, halfway through, the band shifted. The chord changed, the rhythm changed, something new slipped underneath. Not a track, not my file. A live interpolation, a riff that sounded dangerously close to "Rewrite Me," shaped by guitars and drums instead of my laptop.
My head jerked up.
The crowd made a sound that was almost a laugh and a scream mashed together. Confusion cracked into excitement. People loved chaos when it came with a melody.
The stage manager swore under her breath. "He had the band learn your hook."
"He what?"
"Don't ask me. He has a team and apparently no survival instinct."
"Why is he doing this?"
She shot me a look. "Because he's Evan."
Onstage, Evan stepped back from the mic as the band carried the hook forward, and he smiled. Wide, reckless, the kind of smile that sold out arenas and ruined my ability to process oxygen like a normal mammal.
He looked out at the crowd, soaking in their reaction, then turned his head toward the wing. Toward me. The spotlight didn't reach that far, but his eyes did. He found me in the shadow as if he had practiced.
The crowd started chanting something, a mess of words I couldn't catch. My name might have been in it. His might have been too. It didn't matter. It was wildfire.
Evan lifted his hand, palm up, an invitation that made my skin go hot.
I stayed where I was. The stage manager's hand landed on my arm, firm. "No."
I stared at Evan. He waited, still smiling, still holding that open hand, that stupid promise of comfort and danger.
I shook my head, small and tight. His smile didn't fade. It sharpened.
He turned back to the mic and started singing my chorus. His voice on my words was a violation and a gift. The crowd lost it, volume climbing until the walls seemed to vibrate. Phones flashed. The pit surged.
I stood there while he sang about rewriting the story, about refusing to be cast as someone else's footnote. He knew what those lyrics meant to me. He knew they were my line in the sand. He sang them anyway.
Then he did something worse. He stepped away from the mic and walked toward the edge of the stage, toward the wing where I stood in shadow. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. The band held the progression. The crowd screamed. The lights cut across him as he moved.
He reached the edge and leaned toward the curtain, eyes on mine. He sang the last line of the chorus softer, just for me, his voice carrying enough that the nearest monitor caught it.
My hand lifted toward the curtain, fingers curling into the fabric.
I didn't step out. I didn't give him that. I held the line.
Evan nodded once, slow, as if he respected it. Then he turned back to center stage, grabbed his mic, and called out to the crowd, "You know this one."
The band hit the start of "Linger" again, weaving it under the riff of my hook. Two songs colliding in a way that should have been messy but somehow landed. He sang the first line, then let the music drop just enough that my song's hook could breathe.
He waited.
The crowd screamed, expecting something, hungry for it. He turned toward the wing again. The stage manager tightened her grip on my arm. "No."
Evan's eyes held mine, steady. No smirk now, no performance. His face was serious, almost bare.
He mouthed, Please.
Something in me cracked. Not forgiveness, not romance. Rage, maybe. Longing too. The kind of reckless feeling that made me want to bite back instead of disappear.
I pulled my arm free from the stage manager's hand.
"Lila."
I stepped forward. The curtain brushed my shoulder as I walked through it.
The roar hit me like weather. The lights slammed into my eyes. The crowd screamed my name, screamed his, screamed for blood and love in the same breath.
Evan stood center stage, mic in hand, guitar hanging low. He looked at me as if I were the only person in the room.
My body hummed with adrenaline. I walked toward him. He didn't reach for me, didn't touch. He waited, giving me the space to choose.
I lifted the spare mic, the one always set for my guest spot during his set because this tour had apparently been scripted by a chaos demon with a romance degree. I leaned in and sang my chorus.
The crowd exploded.
Evan's smile flashed, quick and dangerous. He jumped back in with "Linger," then on the second pass blended into my melody, his voice threading through mine.
We sang part of the chorus together. It wasn't perfect harmony. It wasn't sweet. It was rough and intense, two egos and two wounds pushing into the same line.
Our eyes locked. Everything else blurred into noise and light, but I could still feel the crowd watching. Not listening. Watching. They weren't witnessing healing. They were watching war.
The song ended in a crash of drums. Evan threw one hand up to hype the crowd, and they answered louder, chanting for more. He laughed into the mic, said something I couldn't hear over the noise, then stepped back and gestured toward me like I was the reason they were alive.
I stared at him, chest rising too fast.
He leaned in, voice low, meant for me. "You sound incredible."
I swallowed. "You're insane."
His smile tilted. "You came out."
"I came out to ruin your moment. This is sabotage."
"Sure."
The way he said it made me want to throw the mic into the fourth row.
I handed it back to the stand without looking away from him. If I looked away, I might collapse.
Evan's gaze flicked over my face, then dipped to my mouth. "After the set," he said.
My stomach flipped. "Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't act like you can pull me onstage and then pull me somewhere else."
His expression shifted, something sharp moving behind his eyes. "I'm not pulling."
"You are. You're doing it with music and looks and whatever this is."
He stepped back, jaw set. "Then stay angry."
"I am. I'm furious."
"Good," he said. "At least you're here."
Before I could answer, he turned back to the crowd and the band launched into his next song. The machine always did.
I walked offstage in a straight line, because if I paused, I would do something stupid.