Page 75 of Falls From Grace
Before she knew it, Coral was ushering her back into the dressing room, where her concerned looking makeup artist was waiting. Jon’s eyes went wide when he saw Savannah’s face. “Don’t mind her,” said Coral. “She’s having a lot of feelings.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When Brynn walked off stage, she was practically attacked. Noah flung his arms around her and ruffled her hair and she clung to him, both of them laughing. The second he pulled back, the rest of the band were on them, everyone wild-eyed and thrilled to the point of prattling incoherently at each other, all at once. Jen appeared, a wide satisfied smile on her face, her strong handshake accompanied by a warm arm squeeze.
“Well done, Brynn.”
“You crushed it!”
“Way to destroy a stadium, you animal!”
Amongst the congratulations and compliments, Brynn looked around her. Savannah was nowhere to be seen. Had she seen any of Brynn’s set? Or was she too busy avoiding her, or even just getting ready for her own show? Anything seemed possible.
“You’re the real thing, Brynn Marshall,” came a voice to her left and there was Coral looking glamorous in her on stage ensemble. She thanked her and tried to find a way to ask that wasn’t too desperate, but even as she opened her mouth Coral responded. “Yes, she was here. Yes, she watched the whole thing. But we’re on in fifteen, so you’re going to have to leave her alone.” Her tone was a warning, and Brynn wondered what the hell that meant.
Before she could ask, more well-wishers swept in and Coral melted back into the crowd. Another of the label executives pulled her aside, talking excitedly about sales and strategies and plans, and she nodded in what she hoped were the right places, but she could barely hear them, let alone listen.
“I’m your new biggest fan!” piped up one of the guitar techs as he rushed back and forth onto the stage and she smiled at him gratefully. The pace on the empty stage was increasingly frenetic as what seemed like a hundred people scurried around moving gear. There was a slow drum beat happening to hype up the crowd who were already howling Savannah’s name.
A bottle of cold water was shoved into her hand and she looked up gratefully to see Noah beside her as he towed her to a better spot to see the set. He nodded over to the very edge of the wings and she saw with a shock, that there in the dark, Savannah was standing, alone, her head bowed. She almost looked like she was praying. Brynn felt electricity jolt through her at the proximity. After all this time, suddenly there she was, eight feet away at most.
Brynn went lightheaded with the realization that any second Savannah could look up and meet her eye. But then Coral strolled out on stage like it was a catwalk and the crowd went nuts. The band all took their spots, strumming out noise, the atmosphere in the stadium on a knife edge. Then Savannah lifted her head and walked out and the roar hit the stratosphere.
She was smiling, her charm at a million watts, wearing a very short gold sparkly dress that made her look like she was drenched in a thousand tiny lights, her limbs and shoulders bare and gleaming, standing taller in dangerous stilettos. Brynn wanted to bite her, she looked that good. She lifted the mic off the stand and the wall of sound morphed into the opening bars of their second single, Dumb and Rich. Brynn was in knots. If there was a more effective way to be reminded of the stupidest thing she’d ever done than having it blasted over a stadium with 70,000 people chanting the chorus, then she didn’t want to know about it. But god did Savannah look and sound incredible while she destroyed her.
When the song faded out, Savannah greeted the crowd, her banter warm and easy. Then Coral spoke up into her mic, her tone both sultry and teasing.
“You know I get this feeling, Savannah, honey, that tonight you’ve got a little extra steam built up, am I right?”
The crowd screamed for it. There was a tiny fraction of a pause, long enough that Brynn wondered if Coral had gone off script. But Savannah raised her head, her smile a straight up tease.
“I think you might be right,” she said warmly into the mic.
She reached down and picked up a bright red electric guitar and pulled it onto her body. Then she lowered her lashes.
“Don’t look at me with eyes like that,” she began, her voice every bit as sultry as Brynn remembered it the first time when Savannah had fixed her eyes on her in the band room and taken her apart, line by sexy line. Only this time the crowd made sure to scream the hinted word wet and Brynn’s teeth nearly went through her bottom lip. Savannah writhed and rocked her hips into the guitar, dropping words like splayed, helpless, and honey. Brynn was not even sure if she was breathing anymore.
Brynn found herself unprepared when the band followed this up with Looking Back and her eyes filled with tears, remembering so clearly that day by the snowy lake, how badly she’d wanted everything, even the simplest of pleasures, like holding Savannah’s hand in the cold. It felt like ten years ago. It felt like yesterday.
The rest of the set raced by, everything from pyrotechnics to lights that could give you a damn seizure, incredible, unbeatable music and in the center of all of it was Savannah Grace. Tonight, though, it wasn’t just Brynn losing her mind at the sight of her, it was 70,000 other people too. Every single pair of eyes in the stadium were fixed with admiration, heat and adoration for the woman projected out on the massive screen, her voice filling up the whole damn world.
Brynn felt incredibly small all of a sudden. She’d had one chance with Savannah, who somehow, miraculously, had seen her and wanted her, and she’d fucked it up. And now, here she was, just one of the millions with a crush.
And then, “you’re up next,” came the prompt from a stagehand. Just like that, Brynn straightened her spine. She was not just one of millions, after all. She’d tasted the mouth of the golden-voiced woman singing on stage. She’d had her right there in her arms, gazing into her eyes like she’d never want to look away.
All of a sudden, a hundred tiny moments rushed over her. Savannah, blushing and staring at her in a blanket fort, lit up by fairy lights. Savannah teasing her with a coy glance over her shoulder on her way out of the bedroom in the early morning light. Savannah dumped in a snowdrift, her laughing accusatory eyes looking like she couldn’t pick between yelling at Brynn and kissing her.
Distantly, Brynn could hear Coral hyping her, announcing her name. It took everything she had, but Brynn stepped out, to deafening applause, just managing to remember to smile and wave at the crowd as she walked all the way up to Savannah Grace herself, who stood waiting for her at the front and center of the stage. Savannah was smiling back at her, all golden and beautiful and twinkling with practiced charm. They hugged, as had been literally choreographed, but on feeling Savannah’s body finally in her arms it was all she could do to remember to draw back. She stepped up to the mic stand, feeling lightheaded, and the music kicked in.
“You make my knees weak…you steal all my sleep.” Savannah’s moan was addressed to the audience. She could do it that way if that’s what got her through. Brynn wasn’t going to play it that way though.
She turned her body fully as she watched Savannah sing, then locked her eyes on her face, the first lines tumbling out of her mouth like a prayer.
Savannah felt the look and turned too. Brynn blazed with instant heat as their eyes met. Savannah sighed out the next words, her eyes on Brynn’s face. She was performing for the crowd, but there was something there in her eyes that snagged on Brynn’s heart.
Gripping tight to the microphone, she moved, ridding the distance between them. She was dimly aware of the crowd losing their minds, but all she could see was the fast rise and fall of Savannah’s chest and her red painted lips parting, as Brynn lifted the mic to sing to her, their bodies only inches apart.
“If I could just touch you-” Brynn let all the want inside her spill out into her features as she sang through her lines and she saw the exact moment Savannah’s game face slipped, with a small, fast intake of breath.
