Chapter 48
Levi
Gabriella peeks her head out from behind the curtain. Her ponytail looks painfully tight and it falls straight along her spine almost to her tailbone. I reach out to pull the tip, but as soon as my fingers make contact, she whips the whole lot of it over her shoulder, shooting me a dirty look.
“Is that really your hair?”
“Of course not,” she snaps. “No one has hair like a Clydesdale. Not even me.”
I clamp my lips into each other, preventing anything unwanted from coming out.
“Gabs, I just want to say that whatever happens, I’m proud of you.”
Her painted face falls into a grimace. “What is this, like, a sick joke?”
I laugh. “No joke. I wish you all the success in the world.”
She stares at me suspiciously for a long time. After what feels like ages, she gives me a small “thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, let’s go kick butt!
” I’ve since changed into my full denim look, complete with a patchwork denim bucket hat.
The same bucket hat that threatened to end our working relationship not so long ago, but she won me over with, “You don’t want anyone to see your hair and guess your act.
” The irony, of course, being that I am going to have such bad hat hair that I will likely end up redoing it anyways.
I just really want to smash this last performance, and it has absolutely nothing to do with Tate sitting front and center with my mom and looking like an absolute, stone-cold fox. I’ve peeked a couple times, okay?
I suck in a thick breath through my nose and roll my shoulders back. The announcer, Ryan, just got on stage and is three bad dad jokes from announcing us. Gabriella looks uncharacteristically nervous when she pinches my bicep as I try to walk past her.
“I did something... Don’t kill me.” The last joke hits, the crowd cheers, and our names are called.
What I said about Gabriella being nervous, forget it.
At the sound of our names, her smile ticks up, eyes bright, as she presses through the curtain onto the stage.
I follow a few paces behind because I’m scared to find out what that something is.