Page 215 of Wicked Angel
Sixteen weeks later…
It was storming out. Rain, wind and darkness… it was eerie, sliding through the downtown streets, so black, the rain sheeting over the car. A huge section of downtown was completely blacked out as we drove into it. A power outage. The police weren’t even out yet to direct traffic; it must’ve just happened.
I wasn’t driving. I couldn’t drive right before a show, and not in the sheeting rain and dark.
“Just spoke to Elle,” Angeline said next to me, hanging up her phone; she’d been on a call while I was texting with Noah. “Champagne is fine. Most of downtown still has power.”
“Good.” I gave her a slight smile. I didn’t want her to know how tense I was. The dark fist in my gut was tight tonight, growing tighter as the storm lashed down around us.
We were heading to Champagne nightclub for a special show. Me and my backup band were going to play my songs for an intimate crowd of industry VIPs and my family and friends. My new songs.
Includingthesongs.
It was a chance to play them for more than just a few friends in my small home studio. So far, only Angeline, Yash, Shane and my band had heard the songs. And tonight, key people in the industry, including reps from several record companies, would be in the room. Along with many of my peers. No media. No fans. Just special guests invited by Yash, Angeline and me.
Yash said the music was so good, we weren’t taking it to Trey. We were going to make him come to us. And if he wouldn’t, someone else would.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe he was wrong, and this was the last show I’d ever play. But hey, I made a promise to Angeline that I’d die on this sword. I believed in these songs. So did she.
Right now, that was enough for me.
And the fact that Yash and my band believed in them, too, reassured me that we weren’t totally crazy.
My phone buzzed with a text and I glanced at it. Yash had been texting me all evening.What’s your ETA?
I texted him back.About five minutes.
I knew he was concerned that I’d choke. Bail. Run. That I’d somehow fail to pull through tonight. I’d never bailed on a show. But there was a first time for everything. And I’d definitely never played a set featuring such deeply personal music.
Or one where I was singing lead vocals.
We rolled up to a red light, finally reaching a set of working street lights. Sort of. They were flashing red. The red light colored the rain on the windshield in between each slash of the wipers, making it look like blood. Rain water, blood. Then clean again. Rain water, blood.
I swallowed and looked away. I was in the backseat of Lamar’s car, holding Angeline’s hand. There was a time I thought I’d never ride in a backseat again, but Angeline Delacroix, and her love for me, made almost anything seem possible.
“Everything okay?” she asked me lightly. I knew she was worried, too. About me, more than the show. But also about the show. Because she knew how important it was to me.
“All good.”
“I’m trying to zip it. You know, not talk,” she said. “So you can think and go over the songs in your head and whatever you need to do. Sometimes Elle tells me to shut up before shows because I get babbling backstage and Zane likes quiet before he goes onstage… He does this thing where he stands just offstage checking out the crowd, and no one’s supposed to talk to him so he can just be in his head, but if I’m too close, sometimes I forget and get in the way of that. So, I’ve learned to—”
I was smiling at her and she smiled back.
“Oh. I was just doing it, wasn’t I?”
“Yup. But I’m not Zane.”
“Then… you want me to babble?”
“I want you to do whatever makes you happy.”
Her smile faded. “I love you, Johnny.”
I squeezed her hand. “I know.”
“Nothing that happens tonight can change that.” She meant if I choked. If I bailed or failed or completely fucked up onstage, or whatever.
