Bonus Epilogue
LOU
I 've finished my set and am now guzzling water with electrolytes in the tent. My friends rush me and we all hug.
"You were amazing!" Jane says.
"Phenomenal," Millie says.
"Incredible," Parker adds.
"You crushed it, dude!" Ash says. "The set was perfect from top to bottom. Fan favorites mixed in with your new album — you're a pro."
"I can't believe I have fan favorites," I say, panting from the performance. People have no idea how physically taxing performing is. Including me. I haven't performed in fifteen years. I sing all the time at home and when I'm recording, but singing on stage is a different kind of effort. My throat is raw and my lungs burn.
It makes me feel alive.
"You have a bajillion followers and an album that’s already gone platinum. What are you talking about?" Ash laughs.
"But that's all virtual. Experiencing it physically hits different."
I’m so energized, I could shoot along the power lines and blow every fuse box in this town. How could I ever think I didn't want to perform live? The connection I had with the audience was beyond anything I ever imagined.
On the field, the town is cheering for an encore.
"You should get back out there," Jane says. "Give the people what they want."
"Okay," I say. "Will you guys be here when I get back?"
"You know it," Ash says. "Knock 'em dead!"
I grin, grab my guitar, and march back out of the tent and up on stage, where my fans — friends and neighbors and random Sugar Maple residents I haven't met yet — go wild.
"Y'all have been such a great audience," I say. Some of the stadium lights are on, illuminating the stage, while others are off. Other spotlights are trained on me, too. A couple of huge screens have been propped up behind me, making me visible to fans far on the other side of the field. Somehow, it feels both huge and intimate at the same time.
"Did y'all know this is my first time performing live since I was a kid?" People cheer. "I've made a point of hiding in plain sight since I started releasing videos, and I can't say how nervous I've been at the thought of starting up this tour soon and having people know who I really am." I swallow. "When my friends wanted to move to Sugar Maple, I considered moving back home to Augusta with my family."
"I love your mom!" someone shouts from the audience.
I laugh. "I love my momma, too." I start strumming a few chords. "I didn't realize how much I could come to love a town, though. Part of that is because I've seen each of my friends fall in love with it, too. "
More chords, and now, the audience can tell what I'm about to play: "All Roads," one of my biggest songs.
The audience screams and starts singing along.
My throat is just about worn out when I perform another hit. I maybe have one song left in me. I should play another big one, but instead, I look at the picnic blankets and see Ash and Rusty swaying together.
"I'd love to play one last song tonight, but it's a new one, and I hope you'll love it as much as I do." I adjust the mic. "It's called 'Don't Go Faking My Heart.' And the people I wrote it for know exactly who they are."
My friends are close enough that I can see them all cheer for Ash and Rusty.
It started with a glance, a smile, a laugh
Long days, late nights, never doin' things by half
Smiles linger longer, your lips like candy
Can’t live without the way you look at me
Winds and tides are changing
And you're giving me a ring
Pop the question and you'll see
That maybe we are meant to be
We paint our love in shades so bright
Our hearts illuminate the night
We could be a work of art
But baby … don’t go faking my heart
When I finish singing, I'm panting, exhausted, worn out, and absolutely on fire.
I wave at everyone as they cheer. I've never felt alive like this. My heart is bursting with pride, excitement, and love . I love this crowd! I love this town! I love this stage and these stairs and this tent. I love my friends, who again greet me with fierce hugs and who gush about how much they love the new song.
"I think it might be your best yet," Ash says. "You were made for this, LJ. You were even better than I imagined!"
"Of course you love it," Parker says. "It was about you!"
"Duh," Ash says. She grins at me. "Thank you."
"I'm so glad you liked it," I croak. I grab my throat, and one of my friends hands me a fresh water. I drain it.
My throat is killing me, my ears are ringing, and it’s probably going to blossom into a full-blown migraine, but I love it. I wouldn't change a thing.
"I get why my mom misses this so much," I say.
"She is so proud," Ash says. "We streamed it on a private channel, and she commented about five hundred times."
I swallow hard. Is my mom proud? I mean, of course she is. She's been my biggest cheerleader since the day I told her I wanted to follow in her footsteps. But there've been moments where I've caught her with a look on her face, something wistful or nostalgic maybe. It always makes me worry that she doesn't just miss it.
I wonder if she regrets what her family cost her.
I wonder if she's jealous.
With the concert over, the stadium slowly clears. My friends' families join us in the tent for a late night party, of sorts. My family didn't come — I asked them not to. Having them here would have been too nerve-wracking. My mom isn't critical, but it's impossible for me to forget the fact that she's been there, done that. She catapulted to stardom … and then fell slowly and quietly, like she was wearing a parachute. She never even announced her retirement from music, she just stopped .
She says she's happy, but how can someone with music running through her veins be content no longer letting it out? The concert ended thirty minutes ago, and I still feel like my blood is pumping lyrics and chords .
While my friends party, I slip outside the tent. The night is perfect. I barely noticed the heat while I was on stage, and now there's enough of a breeze that the heat feels good, especially for someone like me who runs cold.
I step back up onto the stage and look over the empty stadium. I take a deep breath and hold it like a memory. If I could go inside my brain, I would freeze frame a million different moments from tonight.
I want to live in this feeling forever.
Laughter erupts from the tent, and I turn around to see my friends through the open flaps. They're standing in a circle with their significant others. I sit down at the edge of the stage, dangling my feet off of it as I catch snippets of their happy conversations.
A stab of longing pierces my heart. A pang of loneliness and envy? —
NO.
I squash the pang like a bug.
No.
I will not have a fate like my mom's.
I will not fall for a guy and watch my career fall with it.
I will not.
And I keep telling myself that as an absolute hot mess of a man walks past me in a T-shirt and jeans, holding an amp. His brown hair is shaggy and wavy at the same time, his jeans are torn — and not in a fashionable way — and he has the hint of a tattoo on his bicep. He’s unkempt, but not so much as to stand out. In fact, it's the opposite. There's no other way to describe it. His look, his very body language is calculated to deter attention. His movements scream nothing to see here.
As someone who's done my best to fly under the radar since I went viral in college, I'm a little in awe.
What is it people say? Game respects game.
Curiosity creeps through me. What game is he playing ?
Nothing about his appearance matches the rest of the crew who's breaking down the concert. He looks like a professional roadie while the other guys look like former members of the Hawkins A/V club.
He puts the cords to the side of the field with the amps and walks back past me, paying me no mind.
Why is he paying me no mind?
"Need a hand?" I ask.
He glances at me. "You're not exactly dressed for it."
"I didn't ask if I was dressed for it. I asked if you need a hand."
He snorts. "You've obviously never dropped an amp on your foot or you wouldn't ask to help wearing sandals like that."
"I could grab … " I look around. "Cords."
"I don't need help with cords."
"Are you always this reluctant to let people help you?"
He doesn't respond. Instead, he climbs under the curtain covering the stage. He comes out a few moments later with a long cord, one he didn't need help with.
"How'd you like the show?" I have no idea what inspires me to ask this. I don't care , obviously. I don't know the guy.
He shrugs, squatting near me and coiling the very cord I asked to help with. "Didn't watch it."
"Really? Aren't you on the crew?"
"Far as I know, this show was a one-off."
"Do you not know who played?"
He shakes his head, and my eyes widen. He doesn't know who the concert was for. He doesn't know who I am. And more to the point, he doesn't seem to care.
At all.
The curiosity that was already creeping in rushes over the rest of my body. "Then why are you here? Are you a … roadie for hire?"
He stops and looks at me. "Can I help you with something? "
"I offered first."
He snorts and hefts the cord around his arm. "A friend of mine asked me for help, so I helped."
"Who's your friend?"
"Rusty Fielding."
"Wait, I know Rusty. He's dating my best friend."
For the first time, he looks at me like he's really looking at me. "Which one are you?"
"Which one am I?"
My tone would make anyone else blush, but he doesn't seem to care if his phrasing sounds offensive. He waits, and it's like we're in a standoff. Shouldn't he naturally want to clarify his words?
We're playing chicken.
Still playing.
I sigh. "I'm Lou." He nods slowly, as if snapping in a piece of a puzzle. "And you are?"
"Patty."
"Wait, you're Patty?"
"You thought I was a woman, too?"
"No, Ash already told me you're a guy. It's just … Patty's a bartender."
"Sure am.”
"You don't look like a bartender."
He holds his hands out. "What do I look like?"
Trouble .
The word flashes in my mind so fast, I can't stop it. And that flash is like a heatwave over my body.
"Not a bartender," I say, coming back to myself.
"You're … the lawyer?"
Not the musician? Not the "Hannah Montana" of the group?
He really doesn't know who I am. "Is that how you think of us? The lawyer, the therapist? — "
"No," he says. "I don't think of you. "
He takes his cord over to a flatbed truck with an open cover. As I watch him, a memory strikes me of my older sister finding a matchbook and playing with it near the creek that ran through our backyard. We were going through a dry spell, and Nora kept striking the matches and tossing them into the creek.
Watching the flames ignite and then extinguish in the water was mesmerizing, although I refused to get too close. All she had to do was miss, and the match could have landed in brush and set the field on fire.
She didn't miss, thank goodness, but my nerves were like a frayed guitar string the whole time I watched.
I've never been the kind to play with fire.
So why are my fingers suddenly itching to strike a match?
And why do I suddenly not care if everything I've worked so hard for burns?
Stop it , I tell myself. He's trouble, and we do not do trouble.
No matter how tempting it is.
I give myself a shake and return to the safety of the tent and my friends. I don't see Patty again.
Doesn't mean I don't think about him, though.
Doesn't mean I don't dream about playing with fire.
But I'm smart enough not to play with it.
I hope.