Our eyes lock. I’m acutely aware of the crowd beyond the wings. From the wave of grumbles and screams, it sounds like they’re getting impatient. But Oakley makes no move to return to the stage.
“I’m sorry I was such an ass to you after the birthday party,” he says softly. “I know you were just trying to do something nice for me.”
“I’m sorry I invited your dad, Oak. I honestly didn’t think he’d act like that.”
“I know.” He pauses, still eyeing me, and then his expression blazes with emotion. “I missed you. So freaking much.”
And suddenly I know that I was right to come here. To see this moment of exhilaration on his face directed toward me? It doesn’t matter what the tabloids write about tomorrow. The thousands of mean Tweets telling me that I’m not pretty enough, smart enough, talented enough, for Oakley Ford…it all burns to ash under his smile.
I might not be able to play the guitar or sing a note. My future is cloudy for me. I don’t know what lies ahead. But what I do know is that I want to face the future with Oakley’s hand in mine.
I let my palm slide down his arm to grasp his hand. And then, in front of a dozen people I don’t know—including one who I think must be a journalist by the way she’s typing furiously into her phone—I tell him all the things I’ve been afraid to give voice to.
“I missed you, too. I was miserable without you. And I…” I swallow. “I…” Argh, why can’t I get the words out?
“You what?” he teases.
He’s not making this easy on me. But isn’t anything worth having worth an effort? Oakley is worth the effort. He’s worth everything and he doesn’t always know it.
“I’m glad we terminated the—” I lower my voice, because there are people all around us “—contract. You said that everything in your life was fake, but we’re not fake, Oak. We’re real. We’re so real.”
A smile lifts his lips.
Beyond him, the crowd is restless. I hear his name chanted in a discordant rhythm as if the crowd’s confused and can’t get it together. Sort of like me in this moment, searching for the right words to explain to him how I feel.
“I don’t know when it happened, but I’m not pretending anymore,” I say fiercely. “I can’t pretend that I don’t love you. That you don’t make my heart sing. That I don’t look forward to seeing you every day or reading a text from you or hearing your amazing voice say baby.” He grins and I feel my own smile stretch across my face. Maybe it isn’t so hard to be open, after all. “I know I’d be fine without you. I’d live a perfectly good life. But I don’t want a perfectly good life. I want a messy, exciting, happy, sad, emotionfilled, loud life with you.”
The screaming fans are starting to shout together, as one body. Everyone seems to hear it but him. In the near pitchblack of the side of the stage, his eyes burn into mine.
“Then that’s what you’re going to have, baby.”
“Oak, your fans…you need to get out there,” a brave lady murmurs in his ear.
“Go on. Sing for me,” I urge.
He hesitates as if he’s afraid I’m going to disappear.
“I’ll be right here,” I reassure him.
“Promise?”
“Forever.”
With a beaming smile, he runs back toward the front of the stage, grabbing his guitar from one of the roadies.
Ty comes up behind me and places a hand on my shoulder. “Damn, girl. You’re inspiring me.”
“I hope so,” I say without taking my eyes off Oak. “Because if you aren’t as brave as my sister, you don’t deserve her.”
“I hear you. But that means I can’t body for Oak anymore. Conflict of interest.”
“You’re his friend, though, right? That’s all he wants.” I watch as Oak settles onto a stool and adjusts the microphone.
Ty squeezes my shoulder. “I’m always going to be his friend.”
“Think of it this way—you and Oak can play on the winning side of Ladder Golf now, as one of the Bennetts.”
“Why do you think I’m giving in? I hate losing.”
My laughter dies out as Oak starts talking over lightly strummed notes.
“As you all know, I haven’t put out a record in nearly three years, and it’s not because I wasn’t making music. It was because I was finding my voice again. Our world is full of filters, Photoshop, and, well—” he shrugs “—fakes.” He strums a few more chords. “And it’s because we want everyone to think we’re perfect. Problem is that no one’s perfect and the nonstop drive to appear that way crushes our voices. Or, at least, it crushed mine. It wasn’t until I stopped being afraid of facing my flaws that I found the music inside me. The music I wanted to make. And the only reason I’m here, sitting in front of you on this stage today, is because I met someone who gave me the courage to break out of that make-believe cage and just be real.”
The random chords morph into a melody and he starts singing. It’s not a song I’ve heard him sing before—not in any of the studio sessions, not in the impromptu jam sessions with my friends—but I recognize the lyrics.
They were the first ones he sang that ever gave me shivers. The ones about preferring to hide until he found the one person who made the masks unnecessary. The one who turned pretend into real.
He’s singing from his heart…and mine.
38
HIM
OakleyFord_stanNo1 @1doodlebug1 That song. I swear I cried abt a bucket of tears
1doodlebug1 @OakleyFord_stanNo1 me too did he sing it for her u think
OakleyFord_stanNo1 @1doodlebug1 he sang it for all of us
I don’t remember much of the concert after I sing “When It’s Real.” I know the audience lifted up their phones. I can tell by the thunderous applause that goes on and on that they loved the show.
The waves of adulation that normally carry me off the stage fly over my head because the only person whose opinion matters is standing right where I left her.
Larson, one of the roadies who worked the Ford tour, hands me a towel. I rip off my sweat-soaked shirt and start wiping myself down. Vaughn’s eyes widen and then follow my hand around. I take a lot of silly pleasure in knowing I affect her this way, but I’m dying to know what she thought.
“Well?” I demand.
“It was incredible.” She looks at me with a light so bright, she illuminates the entire soundstage. “But now I’m spoiled. I’m going to want to only stand on the side during concerts.”
“Nah, you’ve got to see the show from the floor. The energy there’s amazing. Thanks, Lars.” I toss him the towel and he hands me a clean T-shirt. I don’t particularly want to wear it, because it feels like a hundred and twenty degrees back here, even out of the lights, but I’ve got to walk by about a hundred fans on the way to the green room.
“Good show, Oak,” Darsh Sethi, one of the tour’s money men, calls out, patting me on the arm as we pass.
I don’t flinch at the unwanted touch, but mostly because I’m too focused on Vaughn. She snuggles close to me, tucking a finger around the belt loop of my jeans. I can’t believe she’s here. And as happy as I am to see her, I’m also furious. Not at her, but at the people who were supposed to have my back. Jim and Claudia are going to face my wrath for this. What they did was wrong. It was unacceptable. This is my life they tried to mess with. Not to mention Vaughn’s.
A dozen other people stop to congratulate me, shake my hand, pat my shoulder. I’m greeted by VIPs who paid a shitton of money so their daughters can get a pic with me later.
Through it all, Vaughn never leaves my side. I wonder if she knows that she’s what’s holding me upright. Probably not, but I’ll tell her later.
It takes forty-five minutes to cross about fifty feet from the side of the stage to my dressing room.
“What’s next after this?” Vaughn asks.
I drag her to a couch and collapse. A roadie brings me a bottle of water and asks Vaughn what she wants. A Coke, hold the Jack.