Chapter 2
ambrose
Present Day
I just needed to get through this set.
Four more songs.
The stage shimmered in front of me. Were those sparkles in the lit floor or...
I wavered.
I grabbed the prop couch and dropped into it. Not because I wanted to, but because my knees literally dissolved.
Thank God, I’d pushed for the couch to be real, not fabric covered cardboard.
I was Ambrose goddammit. I could demand anything I wanted. This time it was going to save me from face planting in front of tens of thousands of people.
I shook back my long hair. Also a prop. Extensions that took six thousand hours to put in—okay, not quite that long, but it had been a full day in the chair. My goddess of a hairdresser, Harini, had painstakingly put them in to cover up the fact that my hair was fried and falling out.
One hundred sixty-eight shows.
Each show had at least eight costume changes.
Stress.
Exhaustion.
Meltdown.
Take your pick, they all applied.
But this was the last show. I just had to make it through four more songs.
I shut my eyes and took a long, slow breath in and let it out.
“Ambrose?” A gentle hand touched my shoulder.
“Change of plans.”
“Oh, shit.”
Cindy, one of my longest running dancers was used to me calling a change. Gary, the lighting guy, would be ready to strangle me.
Too bad.
If I didn’t call a change, the show would end in disgrace. That was something I would never do to my team or the people who paid good money to be here. Especially tonight.
It was the last night of the tour.
It was a sold-out arena in...God, where was I?
New York.
Almost home.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Why did my hometown flash in my head? Not my loft in Manhattan.
“Ambrose?”
I pulled Cindy down on the couch with me. “Remember when we did that rehearsal for The Late Show?”
“With the PJs for ‘The Tower’?”
“That’s the one.” I gripped the edge of the fuchsia velvet couch and blinked away the black dots and frustration that my body wouldn’t cooperate.
“You’ve been pushing way too hard.”
The tears were so close. I was so tired. I could feel my nervous system ramping up to a full-on anxiety attack. “I can’t let people down, but I almost fell down,” I whispered.
I couldn’t look weak.
Not on the last night of the tour. The press was just waiting for me to fail. To have the front row seat to see the Queen of Pop fall flat on her face in front of over fifty thousand people was not happening.
Cindy moved in closer, pitching her voice down. “We can make it a shorter show.”
I shook my head. “No, we can’t. You know we can’t.”
“Okay, okay. You’re right. We’ll just do some songs you don’t usually do this tour. They’ll think it’s special and the internet will explode.”
“Right. That’s good. ‘Golden,’ ‘Exile,’ ‘Tower,’ and ‘Christmas Fire.’”
“Holy crap. People are going to shit glitter.”
I laughed. “Spread the word.”
Cindy popped up and ran off to let the other dancers and backup singers know.
I pulled off the glittery tiara that I usually wore for the end of the show. I kicked off the five inch boots and flexed my feet before pressing them into the floor.
Grounding.
I could do anything for four songs. Even the Christmas song that made me famous rolled off my tongue without real effort.
I’d played with the flu for fuck’s sake.
I rolled my head along my shoulders slowly, easing the tension living there, then I wiggled out of the yards of tulle and taffeta. I waved for my stage manager.
Harried and forever one second away from her own heart attack, Stevie ran over to me. “What’s going on?”
“Breathe. I’m about to ruin your night.”
“Oh, God. Don’t do this to me.” She had her ever trusty iPad clutched against her chest.
I put my hand over hers. “I wouldn’t change things up if I didn’t have to.”
Stevie’s gaze sharpened. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s fine. I’m just a little...off. I can’t do the big number. I’ll end up on my face.” I quickly gave her the rundown of my idea. “I just need you to find me whatever shirt isn’t selling at the stands and get me the biggest size.”
“We can end the show early. Just do one encore song.”
I shook my head. “Absolutely not. We’re going to make this work. I just need this couch to get through it.”
“Ambrose—“
I quickly grabbed her hand. “Get me the shirt. The rest of the girls are covered.”
“Fine.” She hurried off the side of the stage.
The quick change happened only because my people were amazingly good at what they did. I didn’t often ask them to pivot, and the finale was the worst time to do it, but they would.
I could trust in my team.
The floor moved and my head swam.
But this time, it was supposed to move.
The mechanism under the floor pushed me to the center of the stage and my dancers came out laughing.
The instruments were happy and the vibe was immaculate. I rolled onto my knees and a dozen dancers and backup singers surrounded me, hiding me with their bodies so I could do a quick change. Cindy had the T-shirt from Stevie.
It was Barbie pink and a glitter bomb of my face. My boy shorts and bare feet were instantly intimate.
Also helped me cool down and the spins immediately receded.
This was exactly what I needed to finish strong.
Because it was my job to entertain. And I was damn good at my job. And because it was the last night of the tour, I had to sing the song too.
I peeked out from the dancers, my smile massive on the screen behind me. “Guys, what do you think about a little slumber party with fifty thousand of my closest friends?”
It was a little over the top with the reaction, but the crowd ate it up.
One of my dancers ran backstage and came out with a huge bowl of popcorn. I pretended to pop one in my mouth. No way I could handle a kernel of popcorn in my throat with the song I needed to sing.
The four songs I chose told a story, as many of my songs did. But the combination would make for a memorable end-of-tour moment. If I’d been less exhausted I could have refined this to be amazing.
But for now, this would have to do.
The first song was a conversational song about the golden parts of a relationship. It had been one of my first hits that wasn’t attached to Christmas. But the last two albums had been so overwhelmingly huge that my older songs had been pushed to the back of the line.
Even exhausted, at least my voice didn’t betray me.
It soared into the night and as the song hit its quiet end, I slid into “Exile.”
The end of the relationship that “Golden” had been. All the trust and faith that I’d hoped for. Julian Tennant had been tall and blond, and we looked amazing side by side. Too bad that had been the reason he’d pursued me. Because I looked good on his arm and my clout had been undeniable.
But clout only held his attention for so long.
Then came the backhanded compliments, the negging, and the microaggressions.
Dating me wasn’t easy on anyone, but Julian needed the spotlight all the time. I craved connection, he craved attention. In the end his version of attention included another woman.
Leaving me in exile with my massive empty house in Santa Barbara he’d convinced me to buy. With a view that would make a castle proud, but even from the start, I’d known it wasn’t for me.
It was for him.
For the status.
For the parties.
For the dreams of what could have been.
All the emotions that lived in me rolled out in an aching version of the song that left the crowd dead silent as they were drawn into my song.
And for a moment the spins and exhaustion backed off and I connected to my fans.
“Tower” was a battle cry of hope. That my foundations had been rocked, but I came back stronger. I rebuilt myself into the Ambrose I was now. Tired and broken, but still fighting.
I knew I should have tried harder with “Christmas Fire” but I allowed the crowd to sing most of it back to me. My smiles were huge and the screens were full of Christmas lights and the fireplace I spoke of in the lyrics.
I pulled it out for the end of the song and the silence went to thunder.
The couch was pushed out to the front of the stage as I leaned over, pulling the last vestiges of my energy to give them an amazing finish.
Even as the stage darkened and the lights went out for the last time, I distantly heard my manager’s voice.
Then nothing.