Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) (30 page)

“Have you ever seen that movie,
The Fan
? I’m beginning to have suspicions it was written about Adam and his obsession with the New York Giants. I’ll just leave it at that.”

“You’d think he’d be in here losing his mind along with everyone else.”

“He had a last-minute work thing,” Shaun said. “You know how these artists are. Consumed by their work.”

“What kind of work thing?”

Shaun poked her lips out and shrugged. “I dunno….”

Aria squinted at Shaun, sensing she was keeping something from her, but she let the subject drop.

“Henry’s right. You’re not yourself.” Shaun bumped shoulders with Aria. “Still haven’t heard from Yoshi, huh?”

“Not since we had drinks last week.” Aria sighed. “He asked me what he had to do to get me back, and I told him. I told him exactly what it would take, and he hasn’t done it yet. Apparently, it’s the one thing that’s still too risky to pull off. At the end of the day, his career comes first to him. It will always be the most important thing to him. More important than me. And I can’t live with that. I deserve better.”

“Maybe he has to get all his ducks in a row before he can give you what you want.”

“What I asked for? It wouldn’t have taken him a week to get all his ducks in a row. All it would’ve taken was for him to stop in front of the paparazzi that follow him everywhere he goes, and just do it. Do the one thing I asked. The one thing I need. The one thing that would’ve gotten me back in a flash. He hasn’t done it, and he’s not going to. So, it’s over. For real this time.”

Shaun bumped her shoulder again. “I’m sorry, friend.”

As halftime arrived with the Giants still down, pained groans filled the bar. The patrons couldn’t even enjoy the game’s infamous commercials, too hurt by their team falling behind to enjoy it.

Aria held her breath when a commercial announcing that Yoshi was up next, with a surprise guest, filled the screen. A series of his songs played back to back, all gathered from his different performances over the years, his smiling face lighting up each frame.

Aria had to look away. Her eyes fell to her drink and she cursed them when they stung.

An unfamiliar voice, and a very unfamiliar scent, floated into Aria’s ear from behind.

She turned her head just in time to catch the smiling face of the drunken college kid with his chin on her shoulder. His stubbled jaw scratched her cheek as he nodded up at the screen.

“Hey, don’t you know that guy?” he slurred.

Aria turned away from him with a deep sigh, trying to ignore her shredded heart as she whispered, “I used to.”

That seemed to placate the man, because his chin was off her shoulder in the next instant, and Aria was happy to be free of his whiskey-laden aroma.

But just as she found herself breathing normally, she was holding her breath again. The game had come back on, and Yoshi’s performance was up next.

“The biggest stage in the world,” Shaun said, her voice filled with awe as the camera panned out to display the entire sold-out stadium. The biggest crowd in the world exploded into screams as the lights of the stadium blew out, quadrant by quadrant, until only illumination from the thousands of glow-sticks held high in the air remained, beaming into the night. “All for Yoshi.”

Aria couldn’t tear her eyes away. Dozens of spotlights blasted to life side by side, lighting up the darkened stadium in time with a deep bass. The spotlights moved vertically, highlighting small sections of the titillated crowd. Their screams moved to roars, growing louder as the spotlights flashed and searched the crowd again. A deeper bass moved in with each flash of the lights, and the haunting tenor of a male opera singer joined in, rising with each boom and flash until every voice in the bar—and in the stadium—had quieted in heart-stopping anticipation for the man of the hour.

Aria still couldn’t believe that man was the little orphan boy who used to sing to her on that shoddy roof in Brooklyn.

On the other hand, she could believe it.

It had always been his destiny.

--

Months of sleepless nights. Months of hearing how he couldn’t do it. How he wouldn’t do it. How he wasn’t talented enough. Capable enough. Substantiated enough. Months of being told he hadn’t earned this spot all came down to that moment. Months ago, Yoshi could’ve claimed his heart had never beaten as fast as it did in that moment, but he couldn’t claim that today.

Today, his heart had never beaten as fast as it had a week earlier, when Aria had refused to take him back until he honored her one wish. Her one request. Her one hope.

Now, his heart didn’t pound because his gold suit jacket already felt too hot. It didn’t pound because the lights in the stadium had dimmed. It didn’t pound when the spotlights began to flash, when the bass moved in, or when the operatic tenor sang his first chilling note. It didn’t pound when the lights blew out and the main stage lit up, revealing a line of kids from Five Acres Orphanage of Los Angeles, hand in hand. His heart didn’t even pound for those kids, smiling into the cheering crowd on the field below, when they began singing the first lines of the song that had made him famous.

As he heard the words of “Kings and Queens”
sung back to him from the purest mouths in the world, the mouths of babes, his heart only raced for one.

His number one.

His day one.

Just as they’d rehearsed, the kids let their clasped hands rise slowly alongside the vocals. By the time their voices reached the high-C pinnacle, their arms were held high, their clutched hands pointing to the starry sky.

Fireworks zipped through the air from every corner of the stadium as the kids nailed their final falsetto, giving Yoshi his cue, and the blinding spotlight illuminated him.

Still, his heart only raced for one.

Drinking in the crowd below him, jumping up and down, screaming his name from the field, he let their energy enter his body and send the sticks in his hands slamming down onto the drum set he sat behind. Unable to stop his eyes from searching the pit on the field, his smile bloomed and he reacted to the excited crowd, screaming back at them as they seemed to lose their minds at the sight of him.

Drunk on their zeal, he pounded away to the
real
song that had started it all. A song he’d played every night with The White Keys. A song he’d played so many times he could play it in his sleep. He didn’t know if the crowd’s cheers were so deafening because it was him, or because it was him playing this song.

Soon he found himself lost in the drums, as he often was, and he almost got so deep that he forgot where he was.

Then, the drum set began to move backward and he was brought back to the present, opening the eyes he hadn’t even remembered closing as the diamond-shaped stage he sat on began moving towards the main stage. A new group of screaming fans with eyes filled with adoration caught his eye as the stage travelled, and the euphoria seemed to enter his body and replace the blood in his veins. He loved this feeling, the feeling of falling into the lights, the music, and the crowd, disappearing into a performance so deeply that he would find himself stunned when it ended, wondering what world he’d disappeared into.

He loved that feeling.

Almost as much as he loved her.

He slammed the last note onto the drums just as the main stage glowed white, drowned in spotlight.

And if the crowd had been merely screaming before, it was because they’d yet to see Adam Brand and The White Keys’ band running forward on the main stage out of nowhere, singing the first verse of the song that had made
them
famous.

The fans, who had been bouncing before, completely
lost it
at that point, making the pit look like a rolling wave of colorful balls as beanie caps bopped into the air. They sang along with Adam as he worked the stage from side to side, as if he were trying to interact with every screaming, smiling face and give a smile in return.

Yoshi couldn’t help his own grin as he watched Adam, having played the drums to this song so many times he didn’t even have to look at them anymore. He locked eyes with Noodle, annihilating the bass, also enamored with the hyped-up crowd. Noodle glanced at Yoshi from the corner of his eye and smiled. He threw his head back, his blond hair flying as he acknowledged Yoshi.

Yoshi’s eyes traveled to Jon, who was bent over at the hip, making direct eye contact with someone in the crowd—probably a blonde with a sizable rack—while his fingers danced effortlessly over the strings of his electric guitar.

And, just like that, Yoshi was at peace. He’d forgotten what it felt like over the last few years, and he couldn’t believe what he’d almost allowed to slip out of his fingers.

Never giving the crowd a moment to breathe, he leapt from his drum set as the first song moved straight into the next, the upbeat dance track that had won The White Keys their first Grammy, and also the first song he’d ever written with Adam.

Adam held out an arm to Yoshi as he came onto the stage, clutching him in a tight embrace as they sang the verse they’d written together, years before.

And as the short thirteen-minute show progressed, Adam naturally fell into the background. Soon, The White Keys had exited the stage, leaving Yoshi standing alone once more, wondering how it was possible that this dream was almost over.

He stood alone on a tiny circular stage off to the left of the main one, the microphone in his hand calm at his lips with his hand over his heart. The strings of his ballad, “Howling at the Moon,” filled the arena, and he let his buttery voice join them, never meaning the lyrics more than he meant them right then.

His gaze danced from one end of the stadium to the other, realizing he’d never have the time to take it all in appropriately. The biggest stage in the world, and the biggest crowd in the world, all looking back at him. Saying his name. Singing his words. Cheering for him.

He couldn’t stop the tears that stung his eyes as he purred the words he’d written for
her.
He realized a million more people could sing his words along with him, back to him, and it would never mean as much as when she sang them.

So, as he crooned the last line of the song, the deafening roar of the crowd nearly drowning them out, he lifted his tear-filled gaze to the moon, plump in the starry night sky, and he finished the note, letting a long silence fall. He realized why he’d felt nothing when he’d signed his first solo contract, why he’d felt nothing when it shot straight to number one, why he felt nothing when he’d been offered the Super Bowl, and why he’d felt nothing when he found himself on the receiving end of the love of the entire world.

He’d felt nothing, because none of them were
her.

The song eased to an end, but he didn’t move the microphone from his lips.

Thunderous cheers erupted. Fireworks flew.

And he said, “Aria.”

His eyes fluttered closed, and he brought the microphone closer to his lips, feeling his heart jump straight to his throat as he opened his eyes and reclaimed the moon.

“I love you.”

--

Marissa Ball smiled across the set at Yoshi, leaning over and covering his knee as she laughed at a joke he’d just told. It took her, and her studio audience, an inordinate amount of time to calm themselves before she was able to continue.

“Now, you know it’s not my style to…” Marissa waved her hands through the air, letting her tone take on a ‘hood’ vibe that elicited another soft laugh from her audience. “It’s not my style to be all up in your business.”

“Uh-oh,” Yoshi said, grinning into the crowd while massaging his five o’clock shadow. “Here it comes.”

“Oh, it’s coming. And I think it’s at the forefront of not just my mind, but in the minds of the entire
country
,
who all heard you say something at the end of your phenomenal Super Bowl performance.”

Yoshi squinted at her. “Did I say something?”

“You did. You really did.” Marissa leaned deep against one arm of her chair, squinting back. “And I’ve gotta ask. Who. Is.
Aria
?”

Applause followed her question, making Yoshi laugh bashfully and shoot them a sideways grin.

“Not only did you say her name at the end of the halftime show—to the largest audience the Super Bowl has seen since Michael Jackson, by the way—but you then went on to say it in every press conference following the Super Bowl. Every paparazzo. Every interview. Anyone who will listen, and you say the name Aria!”

Yoshi’s laughter deepened.

“Am I lying?” Marissa asked her audience.

They responded with a resounding no.

Yoshi chortled, covering his eyes with his hand.

Marissa faced him again, lifting an eyebrow. “I mean, are we wrong, Yoshi? Are we wrong for being curious?”

“Nah, you’re not wrong,” he answered.

Marissa let silence fall.

Yoshi let it linger.

The crowd laughed as they entrenched themselves in an unspoken battle.