I think it had everything to do with the woman who stood off in the wings jumping and screaming along to each word of our songs. Every time I glanced her way, a jolt of electricity hit me, and I hit each note sharper than before. She’d come to two of the three shows this week, and it was like a puzzle piece that had been shifted just a little off-kilter clicked into place for us.
Like we’d said before. Nova was the glue that kept us grounded.
When we hadn’t had her, we’d ignored the shift and focused on our dream, growing accustomed to the ill-fitting feeling. Like a rock in your shoe that you didn’t have time to get out, so you just ignored it and eventually grew used to it. Until you were reminded of what it felt like to have that nagging pressure there all the time—then you realized how off you’d been walking this whole time.
Now, if only I could break through the thin veil holding us apart. I was so close, crawling into her bunk every night, not even bothering to wait and hide it anymore. We watched TV and talked about experiences. She told me about her favorite hikes, and I told her about our favorite shows. One night we’d laid on our sides, barely fitting in the damn thing with a pen and paper between us and jotted down lyrics like the tension constantly trying to bind us together bled into the paper.
With one more bow from all of us, we finally left the stage, getting high-fives and backslaps from the crew. Nova stood to the side, beaming with flushed cheeks, her lip firmly planted under her teeth. I moved to her like a magnet, and when she saw the intention in my smile, her hands came up as if to hold me back.
“Don’t you dare, Parker.”
“C’mon. It’s not that bad,” I said, plucking my damp shirt from where it clung to my chest.
“No.”
“What about now?” I asked, stripping my shirt over my head.
She stopped walking backward and took me in. I loved catching her off guard without my shirt on. We all walked around the bus in various states of undress, but only with me did she freeze, her attention solely focused like I was a god.
“Is this better, Nova?” I asked quietly, now that I was only a foot away.
She swallowed and nodded jerkily. “Yeah. It’s, uh—it’s a start.”
“What would make it better? How do I get you in my arms?”
The question snapped her attention from where it mapped every ridge of my chest up to my eyes. We weren’t just talking about right then after a show. I meant all the time and not just at night either.
The flash of a camera stole her attention, and when she looked over my shoulder, her eyes blanked of any heat, and she stepped back.
“I’ll catch you after you clean up and do the whole rock star thing,” she explained, her eyes flicking to the journalist Aspen set up to write about our show.
She backed into a crowd of workers, doing her best to blend in and failing. Nova stood out to me among the masses, and I was sure I’d find her even with my eyes closed. But taking her in, I didn’t understand how anyone could miss her with half her red hair down her back and a weird knot thing on top. She had on one of our band T-shirts she’d tied up over her loose, torn jeans that she rolled up over her snakeskin ankle boots. I snorted, loving her obsession with weird as hell shoes. And if that wasn’t enough, she wore some sheer cardigan thing that hung to the floor. The deep teal made her look like a mermaid in the sea of black clothes everyone else wore.
Another flash directed at me, standing there with my shirt in my fist, pulled me out of my daze.
“You’d probably make the fans go wild if you took your shirt off during a show,” the reporter commented.
“Nah,” Ash cut in, his arm tossed over my shoulders. “If he took his off, then I’d have to take mine off, and they’d forget who he even was. He’d cease to exist.”
The other guys joined in, and we bantered, took pictures, and answered questions. It was actually a fun interview about our music and tour. Sometimes we got people who flirted or asked about our personal lives, barely touching on our music. I understood it and played the game, but it was always nice to have someone as passionate about music as we were.
“There you are,” Oren shouted when we walked back into the room they’d set up for us.
Nova sat on the couch, swiping through her phone. “Yeah, I figured I’d wait here away from the chaos.”