In the Spotlight (The Sunshine & Sparks Duet #1)

Chapter One

EFFA

The stage is pitch black.

Not quiet.

Never quiet.

The crowd is a living thing out there, thousands of bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder, their roar vibrating through the floor and straight up my spine. It rattles the rigging. It shakes the speakers. It claws at the dark like it’s starving for us.

The house lights cut, the arena inhales, and for half a second, the world holds its breath.

Thump.

Not the drums.

Thump.

Not the bass.

Thump.

My heart.

It slams against my ribs like it’s trying to break free, each beat heavier than the last, adrenaline flooding my veins so fast it feels like I’m wired straight into the amps. The darkness isn’t empty, it’s loaded—electric and waiting.

Another beat.

Another surge.

The first chord hasn’t even hit yet, but the explosion has already started.

And I am the fuse.

This is utter euphoria, and I love every second of it.

The endorphins from an undeniable surge of excitement coursing through my veins as my heart pumps faster, harder, and more furious with every movement I make.

My mouth opens, and I use every ounce of energy I have, letting the words flow over my tongue like the lyrical geniuses are somehow caressing the air with their magic.

My husky voice echoes through the stadium, gravelly and silky, but with a hard edge that only the best girl rockers can accomplish.

I’ve worked hard for this and so have the girls.

We’ve come from nothing.

Worked our way up to packed stadiums.

And now we’re living the dream.

As I sing the catchy lyrics to our chart-topping song “Melodramatic,” Casey moves in behind me, slamming on her lead guitar as I strum away on mine. Sweat beads on my forehead, trickling down my temple, strands of my long blonde hair sticking to my face.

Turning to the microphone again, I belt out the verse, my voice caressing the words as if they’re warm, thick honey while I glance at Andi, who’s trying to find her lighting cue.

But it isn’t coming. Her face contorts, screwing up, as she moves forward anyway on the stage with her Fender bass guitar and starts rocking out.

Her pixie haircut—short on the sides but longer on top, dyed red today—sways with the frantic movements of her headbanging as she takes her position at the front of the giant stage.

Kristy leads in with her drum solo, banging hard and furiously, the vibration running right through me, causing me to smile as I sing. She’s a different person while playing percussion. On the kit, she’s a freaking animal and lets loose like an untamed beast. But in person, she’s quiet and calm.

Casey breaks away from me, strutting her way over to Alana in her little section of the stage, where her keyboard and DJ set are stacked up.

She’s working frantically, giving us that slight electro edge that mixes in with our hard rock sound, making us that little bit different from the other rock bands out there.

The end of the song creeps up, and the crowd is pumped. I’m on a high, but the lighting is strobing all around the stage in the wrong cues, as per usual. It should be fading into yellows right now to match the gold streamers that are about to burst out over the crowd.

But no, of course not.

Dennis, the idiot, has our strobe light going off erratically instead.

I swear this guy has no damn idea what he’s doing, and it’s only because he’s a mate of a mate from way back that he is still up there fucking up our shows.

He’s killing my buzz.

The cannons shoot out the gold streamers, and they fly through the air, flittering delicately down into the crowd.

A round of cheering, jumping, and applause erupts as they throw their hands in the air.

The lighting above flickers, strobing to pink, then flashes on all at once.

The vivid, bright light makes the crowd gasp, and I lose my place in the song.

The lyrics fail me while I’m momentarily blinded, and the girls must be having issues, too, because the music comes to a screeching halt.

The stadium begins to shake with jeers of unhappiness as I repeatedly blink while looking upward, attempting to figure out what the fuck’s going on with Dennis and his preposterous lighting techniques.

“For fuck’s sake, Dennis,” Andi calls out, loud enough for the front row to hear as she steps forward, looking up to the rafters. The jeering grows louder as the lights flicker and change sporadically.

Fuck me.

I grit my teeth in annoyance, trying to find my center of calm, but it’s absolutely not working.

“Dennis, will you fucking fix this shit, you motherfucking moron, before I come up there and shove something very long and hard up your fucking ass?” Andi yells, raising her fist into the air toward Dennis, who’s in the rafters with our lighting equipment that’s clearly more than a little on the blink right now.

I turn toward my microphone and look out to the crowd, whose jeering and sneering is now almost as loud as one of our songs, and I raise my hands, trying to placate them.

“I’m sorry, guys… technical glitch and all that.

We’re working on the matter. If we could all open our chakras and embrace the harmony of music, we’d know this was meant to happen.

Could we all take a moment to embrace each other…

” I pause and smile. “Turn to the person next to you, and take them in a tight hug, showing your affection,” I advise calmly, wanting nothing but peace and love.

Casey laughs while Andi rolls her eyes.

The crowd chatters on a little more, and I turn just in time to see someone throw something at me. I dodge whatever it is and furrow my brows, then cross my arms over my chest.

“That’s definitely not embracing the love, people,” I blast into the microphone.

Casey chuckles, and Andi walks up to the closest microphone. She grabs it firmly in both hands and grunts out loudly, “Luke, get Dennis to fix the lighting or turn the normal lights on so we can continue to rock, yeah?” There’s a massive sarcastic tone to her voice, and the crowd cheers loudly.

Luke is our manager slash agent slash general organizer of our day-to-day existence.

“Yeah, Andi, you rock!” someone in the crowd yells out.

She finally smiles, does a curt curtsey, and then walks to the middle of the stage.

The lights flicker a few times, then a loud bang follows. A mass of flashing beams scatter over the stage and the audience. We all look up as another loud cracking noise resounds from above, followed by a bright flash.

An array of orange and yellow flickers rain down like a giant sparkler, and then I see it, like in slow motion, a heavy stage light tumbling down, right in line with Andi’s head.

She freezes, her eyes opening wide once she takes in the massive black object hurtling toward her at lightning speed.

The crowd gasps, and my pulse quickens so fast I can feel the pressure in my skull, and I think I’m going to vomit.

I don’t have time to get to her.

Suddenly, Luke jumps out from the side of the stage, grabbing her in a full-force lunge and landing on top of her, the momentum pushing her to the floor face-first. The light plummets down right next to them, smashing in a wave of broken glass and metal as it breaks apart, then bursts into a ball of flames.

“Fuck!” I call out as the amber and yellow flames lick and burst upward, quickly taking hold of Andi’s bass speaker, then continue up, scorching the curtain right next to it and sending the side of the stage into a blazing inferno.

If Luke hadn’t moved, if he hadn’t seen it in time, I don’t even want to think about what we’d be cleaning off the stage.

I turn to Alana, who’s looking mortified, standing by her keyboard dock, while the crowd erupts into a screaming frenzy.

Security guards rush out, attempting to tackle the blaze with fire extinguishers.

That’s when I pull off my guitar and run along with everyone else to the other side of the stage, away from the flames.

“Holy fucking shit, Alana, did you see that?” I ask as she grips my hand for support while we wait for the others to join us backstage.

She nods. “Effa, how could this happen? I mean, all those people out there…” Tears fill her beautiful blue eyes. “They’ll be okay, right?”

I flick my head out from the backstage area to see that the ushers are leading people out of the venue, and the fire is completely under control. My body sighs with relief before I close my eyes, just as I hear the thumping footsteps of Kristy and Casey coming my way.

“Are you guys okay?” Kristy asks, and Alana and I both nod.

“That was fucking amazing, girls. We should do that at every concert. Oh my God, I’m on such a high right now,” Casey calls out, bouncing up and down on her toes like a freaking maniac, her plastic bangles jingling on her wrist with her hyperactivity.

“Casey, Andi could have been killed. I mean… she’s your cousin,” Alana berates, and Casey snorts.

“At least she would have gone out in an epic… flames-of-glory-style rock ’n’ roll performance,” she yells, doing the rock ’n’ roll sign with both hands and sticking out her tongue.

I try to hold back my giggle, but I can’t fight it for long.

“Casey, did you use before the show?” Kristy asks, raising her brow.

Casey opens her eyes wide and swipes at her nose while nodding. “No!” she smiles.

I roll my eyes, and Alana groans. “That would explain that crap then.”

“Explain what?” Casey asks as Andi and Luke rush down the stairs toward us.

Andi looks like shit. Her hair is a disheveled, sweaty mess, and her bass is completely shattered from the fall. It’s almost hanging in a long line from her hand. She’s going to be pissed.

“Explain what?” Casey asks again, but we continue to ignore her as we all move in, surrounding Andi and Luke.

“Shit, Andi! You okay?” I ask.