Whether those people feel the love in this pavilion, too.
If all of this is for nothing.
Or if it’s for everything.
“Want another?” I ask, tickled. Everyone screams. My eyes on TJ, my muse, my everything, I get a happy, teary-eyed wink from him, then give the people what they want.
Chapter 23.
TJ
When the final notes of the final song fill the pavilion, I swear they float in the air like a beautiful flock with no desire to land. No one wants the music to end. It’s too soon. No amount of it will be enough. We’re all in this emotionally-rich moment together, and I think we all know that when it ends, we’ll never have it back. But it has to end whether we’re ready for it to or not.
Austin stands on the edge of the stage, chest rising and falling, Glorious still in his hands, looking like he just bust through a wall and came out on the other side with a smile over his face.
Maybe he did just that.
Everything is super loud all around me. Applause. Screaming. Arms in the air. But all I feel inside is peace.
Something’s different. Like, seriously different. More than just with Austin Love and Chase Holt becoming one person in front of my eyes. Singing from his heart. Hat off, taking with it the shadow that always covers his face. Everything on the stage.
There’s no going back now.
Not for any of us.
And it’s the best feeling I’ve ever experienced.
With this concert, Austin has gone and turned our “incident” at the Korean BBQ place to the intentional date it was supposed to be. He turned our hotel meet-ups from shameful, secret acts into necessary precautions we had to take to protect ourselves.
He pushed away the scandal and replaced it with a love story.
Our story.
And no one can take that away from us.
Awareness of everything starts flooding back in. The noise. All the cheering. Someone grabs my hand and I realize it’s my mom. She’s got tears all over her face. I give her a hug, and we stand like that in the crowd for ages. When I look back up at the stage, I lose sight of Austin and let go of my mom, glancing around for him in half a panic. Where’d he go?
Then suddenly he’s right in front of me.
As if the crowd just gave birth to him.
Didn’t they kind of do just that tonight?
“You okay?” he asks like he didn’t just set fire to the universe.
I let out this breath that feels like it’s been stuck in my lungs since he first took that stage. “Are you?”
His answer is to grab me and lift me straight off the ground, spinning me around, and for a second, I’m convinced he’s helping my body find its soul again, like it floated out of me when he was up on that stage and hasn’t touched the ground since. I guess the evidence is that when he sets me back down, I’m laughing and feel like myself again—more like myself than I’ve probably ever been.
Somehow, somewhere between that hug and the first round of drinks, the night turns into something else entirely.
The house is filled from the front foyer to the guest wing with everyone who made tonight happen. There’s laughter inthe air. And utter disbelief. Everyone’s got a story of how they were called in to help last minute. Cole and Noah had some last-second freak out with the stream, for a moment fearing it wouldn’t even lift off the ground. Something occurred with the sound between the third and fourth songs that was swiftly fixed by my dad, who was aware of an issue with the pavilion’s system after its last use. Malcolm’s boyfriend Samuel is apparently a Chase Holt fan and kept singing through the songs he knew, causing Malcolm to laugh.
Austin, having been working with so many of these people all day, already knows everyone by name and needs no help from me to get introduced. Maybe I’ll save introductions for the Fourth when the whole town convenes in this house to stuff themselves silly with barbecue and watch stuff explode in the sky later.
I don’t know when the heck she arrived or if she’s been here all day and I miraculously didn’t notice, but when Austin is gone to the restroom, Nadine appears before me with a cocktail in hand and, batting her enormous eyelashes, says, “Darlin’, I’m not here to start somethin’, but I’m just gonna sayoh my God,my ovaries—that man’s songsdoessomethin’ to you, does somethin’ deep,deepdown to you. I’m pregnant now. From his voice. I amsohappy for you, TJ—ugh, you’re cute as a button, you’re so dang cute—and I just think you and this Chase boy are the most adorable, the most precious, the most of every dang most I can think of, and … I think I need another drink right about now and would ya like one?”
She’s already several in.