Chapter 24
“Rolling in the Deep” - Adele
Saylor
I feel like I just ran a marathon. Sagging against the wall backstage, I hear Rhett getting the crowd excited, but I’m not listening to his words. I’m calculating whether I have enough time to head back to the hotel for a quick nap before the party.
No one ever tells you running after a rock star is so hard.
For a few minutes there, I didn’t think I’d convince him to get onstage. The look in his eyes—it will haunt me forever.
They tore him to shreds online. That may happen to a lot of celebrities and public figures, but Rhett’s more sensitive than people think. There’s a lot to unpack with that, and it’s not something I’m prepared to do. Leave that one to his therapist.
My mission is accomplished, and I’d prefer to get out of here. I’m missing home and my plants and the peace inside my flat. Hell, I’m even missing Paula barking at me through the walls to turn my music down.
Only a few more weeks of this tour, then I’ll be back to my normal life. Only it won’t be normal at all, not after spending the best weeks of my life with—
Noah, Rhett’s tour manager, is looking at me funny.
“What?” I say, and reach a hand up to my mouth, wiping the corners in case of any stray chocolate smears. Do I have spinach in my teeth? I didn’t even eat a salad today.
I scan the space for Leo so I can ask him to drive me back to the hotel, but Noah approaches before I can locate him. He looks a little like Glen Powell but shorter. “Are you going up there?”
I blink a few times. “What are you talking about? Going where?” Am I so tired that I can’t even follow simple conversations?
He nods toward the stage entrance. “He’s calling for you.”
I turn my horrified eyes toward the stage. My ears snap into action for the first time since pushing Rhett out there. And then I understand what Noah is talking about.
“Saylor.” Rhett’s voice is magnified by the speakers, my name bleeding out of every pore of the building. “Where are you, baby?”
I close my eyes and sag into the wall. What the fuck is he doing?
When I reopen them, Noah is still standing in front of me, a questioning look on his face. “You need to get up there.”
“What—” I try to make the words come, but my mouth is simply a gaping hole.
“You need to give the audience what they want,” he says.
The cheers from the crowd register. They’ve taken up chanting my name until even my heart is beating in time to “Saylor, Saylor, Saylor.”
I shake my head, tongue still thick and numb. “I can’t.”
We agreed there’d be no cameras. Rhett promised to keep my name out of the press. If I go out there, the entire world will know who his mystery girlfriend is by the end of the night. My quiet life as Saylor Jones will be over.
“You don’t have much choice.” Noah grabs my arm—not hard, but firmly—and leads me to the stage steps. “Just go out there, smile and wave, and you can come back down.”
The roar from Rhett’s fans is insane. My ears are on the verge of popping.
“Saylor,” Rhett calls through the mic. “Get out here.”
I pause with my foot on the first step and turn back to Noah. “I really don’t want to do this.”
He shrugs with indifference. “It’ll be fine. They’ll love you.” He gives me a nudge with his hand. “Now go.”
I ascend the stairs like a zombie, dread filling my stomach so quickly I can already taste the bile.
The lights blind me as I leave the shadows of backstage.
When I step into view, the crowd completely loses it.
They’re screaming louder for me than they usually do for Rhett himself.
I’m not sure if that should make me feel good or even more terrified.
Rhett looks like he’s just won the lottery. If his grin grows any wider, I’m scared that beautiful face will break in two. He either can’t read the terror on my face or just doesn’t care, because he grabs my hand and drags me to the front of the stage.
I shoot Jamal a help me look, but he just shrugs and smiles down at his guitar.
My feet follow Rhett to his microphone because they’re out of other options.
I’m here now; I can’t very well slink backstage without causing an uproar.
The lights make my eyes squint until they’re nearly shut. How does Rhett stand this every night?
Hand still firmly clamped around mine, he leans into the mic. “I am madly in love with this girl.”
He’s looking at the audience as he says it, and that crazy-ass grin is cemented on his face, but my heart still skips a beat. There’s no way he meant that, right? It’s just part of the act.
I’m still trying to convince myself of that when Rhett places both hands on my jaw, cupping me between them like he always does, and leans in to claim my lips with his own.
We’ve kissed hundreds of times by now, but this one feels different somehow. Like I’ve become untethered from the buoy keeping me afloat. Like someone snipped the strings of my hot air balloon heart and I’m drifting toward heaven.
He tastes like the peppermint toothpick he spit out right before taking the stage. He tastes like adrenaline and energy and nerves. He tastes like an expensive mistake, the kind you never tell your mum about because you don’t want to hear her lecture on life choices.
He tastes like finding that hidden treasure at the thrift shop, the one you squeal when you spot and bury in your cart before anyone else can see it.
He tastes like a rainy day curled up with a tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice on the sofa.
He tastes like the soaring joy you feel when you help someone weaker than yourself, when you watch their eyes brighten for a moment as they say thank you.
He tastes like the best moments of your life preserved in a scrapbook, ready to be flipped through again and again.
He tastes like . . . home.
Rhett ends the kiss slowly, drawing back, eyes fixed on me. His smile has disappeared. In its place is something I can’t identify, because I’ve never seen him wearing this expression before, and it makes me nervous to not know what he’s thinking right now.
We stand that way for five, ten, twenty seconds. I’m not keeping track, because I don’t have the ability to move, let alone do anything as complicated as counting.
As slow as molasses, he lets his hands fall from my face, his gaze still muddled together with mine. Then, like the crack of a gunshot, the moment is broken.
Immediately, the noise of the crowd breaks through the fog in my head. If they were excited to see me enter the stage, they’re going ballistic now. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see security keeping crazed fans from approaching us.
As the sounds around me start registering, so does what just happened.
Rhett just dragged me onstage during a show, kissed me soundly, and introduced me by name to the crowd. The whole thing will be splattered across the internet in a matter of minutes if it hasn’t been already.
He’s back at the mic now, although he’s angling his body toward me, prompting every eye in the place to focus on me as well. “That was the best kiss of my life,” he says, and the audience roars. “I’m not sure how I’m going to play the set.”
The dizzying high I was experiencing up until this moment fades away, and I’m left with a growing realization of what this all means. I narrow my eyes and stare at Rhett coolly, but subtly enough that no one who isn’t within a few feet of us would be able to make it out.
There’s no going back now. The damage is done. Turning to the crowd, I wave as Noah instructed, then blow a few kisses for good measure. This delights the fuck out of them, so I wave for a few more seconds before retreating.
As I’m leaving, Rhett’s voice rings out once more. “Isn’t she amazing? Ladies and gentlemen, my girl!”
The din of cheering chases me all the way backstage. I don’t even pause at the bottom of the steps. Leo is standing near the exit, and I head directly for him. “Let’s go,” I say.
He ushers me out of the building and toward the car. I’m a lady, so I’ll wait until Rhett has completed his show, but then I’m going to murder that bastard.