Page 85 of One Time Only (One Time Only 1)

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If you’ll let me.JacksonI want to kiss the phone. I want to jump to the sky. I want to hoot and holler.

I. Can’t. Wait.

But when I push open the door, Candi tackles me. “Picture for Insta before your last show?”

“Sure,” I say, frazzled.

“Wait. This is a bad location. Let’s move over there,” she says, gesturing closer to the stage.

I follow her, and she snaps a shot, then shakes her head when she looks at it. “No. You look flustered.”

“I am flustered,” I say, since Jackson is mere feet away. I want to talk to him, but Zoe is finishing her last song, and the show is timed to the second.

Candi sets her hands on my shoulders. “Breathe. You’ve got this. It’s just a pic. Just a show.” She glances around, having no clue it’s not the show that has me rattled. “Where’s your guitar? Let’s get this man his Strat.”

A stagehand chimes in. “Got it!” He carries it over and hands it to me.

I sling it on, and Candi brandishes the phone. “Better.” But when she checks the shot, she screws up the corner of her mouth. “Nope. You look annoyed.”

I sigh. “I’m not annoyed.”

“Then give your signature smile.”

I try to smile, but all I want is a minute with Jackson.

The song is ending.

Candi needs a picture.

My heart is bursting.

I’ve got to get onstage.

“Smile like you’re happy.”

I groan, gritting my teeth, but then my eyes find Jackson. He’s standing a few feet behind Candi, smiling like he knows why I’m suddenly grinning too.

I am happy. I am ecstatic. He is here.

She clicks. “Perfect.”

I only have eyes for him. I walk around her, touch his arm, and melt. “J.”

He’s all soft and swoony when he says my name. “Stone.”

The notes from the stage fade away. Then Zoe says my name too. I have to get out there.

There’s a guitar between us. I don’t care. I reach for him, my hand on the back of his head.

One touch, and it feels so right.

The world is silver and gold, beautiful and brilliant.

“I love you something fierce,” I say to Jackson, and his eyes glimmer with happiness and hope and something I’ve never seen before and never want to lose—love returned.

His smile is all I need.

It’s big and real and all mine.

He parts his lips to speak, but the noise is deafening. My cue sounds, and I don’t know what he said.

I mouth, Stay here, and point to the wings.

He mouths back, I will, still smiling.

Hell, I am too. I may never stop.

Then I hit the stage to thunderous applause, to seismic cheers, and it is glorious.

But the way I feel for Jackson is better than anything else in my life, and I want the world to know.

“Look at you!” I shout to the audience through the mic I wear. “Look at all you beautiful people.”

They roar back at me, rocker salutes appearing across the theater, voices echoing everywhere.

“I am in love with all of you,” I say, then I grin, wiggle a brow, and give a dramatic pause. “And someone else. And I wrote a song about it.”

Cheers erupt like wildfire.

“Wanna hear it?”

The yes is a reverb, an anthem.

I strum the first chord. “This is the new song I’ve been teasing you about.”

Noise rains down.

I power through the next few notes, playing them before a crowd for the first time, still talking. “You sure you wanna hear it?”

The shouts are electric.

“It’s a love song. It’s my favorite one.”

I swing my gaze to the wings, and there he is. That man. Tingles rush over my skin. My pulse surges.

I turn back to the audience. They are stomping their feet, clapping their hands, screaming.

I am the luckiest man in the world.

I launch into a new song.I remember the day, when you shared them with me . . .

All of these pictures . . .

Pictures of you . . .

That’s when it started . . .

That’s when I knew . . .

That someday I’d want it all . . .

And want it with you . . .

With the guy in the picture . . .I walk across the stage as I play, walk toward my man without giving him away, holding his gaze as I hit the line with the title in it.

Jackson dips his face for a second, then raises it again, his cheeks pinker than they’ve ever been, his blush noticeable from several feet away.

It is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, and I fall deeper in love with my guy.

I launch into the next verse, returning to the center of the stage, giving the audience everything they came for.

I sing my heart out.

Play my ass off.

And I do something I’ve never done before.

Pour the entire truth of my soul into a song.

When it ends, I lock eyes with Jackson, and I hold his gaze as a brand-new happiness floods me. Possibility. A future. A forever.

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