Aria held her breath when a commercial announcing that Yoshi was up next, with a surprise guest, filled the screen. A series of his songs played back to back, all gathered from his different performances over the years, his smiling face lighting up each frame.
Aria had to look away. Her eyes fell to her drink and she cursed them when they stung.
An unfamiliar voice, and a very unfamiliar scent, floated into Aria’s ear from behind.
She turned her head just in time to catch the smiling face of the drunken college kid with his chin on her shoulder. His stubbled jaw scratched her cheek as he nodded up at the screen.
“Hey, don’t you know that guy?” he slurred.
Aria turned away from him with a deep sigh, trying to ignore her shredded heart as she whispered, “I used to.”
That seemed to placate the man, because his chin was off her shoulder in the next instant, and Aria was happy to be free of his whiskey-laden aroma.
But just as she found herself breathing normally, she was holding her breath again. The game had come back on, and Yoshi’s performance was up next.
“The biggest stage in the world,” Shaun said, her voice filled with awe as the camera panned out to display the entire sold-out stadium. The biggest crowd in the world exploded into screams as the lights of the stadium blew out, quadrant by quadrant, until only illumination from the thousands of glow-sticks held high in the air remained, beaming into the night. “All for Yoshi.”
Aria couldn’t tear her eyes away. Dozens of spotlights blasted to life side by side, lighting up the darkened stadium in time with a deep bass. The spotlights moved vertically, highlighting small sections of the titillated crowd. Their screams moved to roars, growing louder as the spotlights flashed and searched the crowd again. A deeper bass moved in with each flash of the lights, and the haunting tenor of a male opera singer joined in, rising with each boom and flash until every voice in the bar—and in the stadium—had quieted in heart-stopping anticipation for the man of the hour.
Aria still couldn’t believe that man was the little orphan boy who used to sing to her on that shoddy roof in Brooklyn.
On the other hand, she could believe it.
It had always been his destiny.
--
Months of sleepless nights. Months of hearing how he couldn’t do it. How he wouldn’t do it. How he wasn’t talented enough. Capable enough. Substantiated enough. Months of being told he hadn’t earned this spot all came down to that moment. Months ago, Yoshi could’ve claimed his heart had never beaten as fast as it did in that moment, but he couldn’t claim that today.
Today, his heart had never beaten as fast as it had a week earlier, when Aria had refused to take him back until he honored her one wish. Her one request. Her one hope.
Now, his heart didn’t pound because his gold suit jacket already felt too hot. It didn’t pound because the lights in the stadium had dimmed. It didn’t pound when the spotlights began to flash, when the bass moved in, or when the operatic tenor sang his first chilling note. It didn’t pound when the lights blew out and the main stage lit up, revealing a line of kids from Five Acres Orphanage of Los Angeles, hand in hand. His heart didn’t even pound for those kids, smiling into the cheering crowd on the field below, when they began singing the first lines of the song that had made him famous.
As he heard the words of “Kings and Queens” sung back to him from the purest mouths in the world, the mouths of babes, his heart only raced for one.
His number one.
His day one.
Just as they’d rehearsed, the kids let their clasped hands rise slowly alongside the vocals. By the time their voices reached the high-C pinnacle, their arms were held high, their clutched hands pointing to the starry sky.
Fireworks zipped through the air from every corner of the stadium as the kids nailed their final falsetto, giving Yoshi his cue, and the blinding spotlight illuminated him.
Still, his heart only raced for one.
Drinking in the crowd below him, jumping up and down, screaming his name from the field, he let their energy enter his body and send the sticks in his hands slamming down onto the drum set he sat behind. Unable to stop his eyes from searching the pit on the field, his smile bloomed and he reacted to the excited crowd, screaming back at them as they seemed to lose their minds at the sight of him.
Drunk on their zeal, he pounded away to the real song that had started it all. A song he’d played every night with The White Keys. A song he’d played so many times he could play it in his sleep. He didn’t know if the crowd’s cheers were so deafening because it was him, or because it was him playing this song.
Soon he found himself lost in the drums, as he often was, and he almost got so deep that he forgot where he was.
Then, the drum set began to move backward and he was brought back to the present, opening the eyes he hadn’t even remembered closing as the diamond-shaped stage he sat on began moving towards the main stage. A new group of screaming fans with eyes filled with adoration caught his eye as the stage travelled, and the euphoria seemed to enter his body and replace the blood in his veins. He loved this feeling, the feeling of falling into the lights, the music, and the crowd, disappearing into a performance so deeply that he would find himself stunned when it ended, wondering what world he’d disappeared into.
He loved that feeling.
Almost as much as he loved her.
He slammed the last note onto the drums just as the main stage glowed white, drowned in spotlight.
And if the crowd had been merely screaming before, it was because they’d yet to see Adam Brand and The White Keys’ band running forward on the main stage out of nowhere, singing the first verse of the song that had made them famous.
The fans, who had been bouncing before, completely lost it at that point, making the pit look like a rolling wave of colorful balls as beanie caps bopped into the air. They sang along with Adam as he worked the stage from side to side, as if he were trying to interact with every screaming, smiling face and give a smile in return.
Yoshi couldn’t help his own grin as he watched Adam, having played the drums to this song so many times he didn’t even have to look at them anymore. He locked eyes with Noodle, annihilating the bass, also enamored with the hyped-up crowd. Noodle glanced at Yoshi from the corner of his eye and smiled. He threw his head back, his blond hair flying as he acknowledged Yoshi.
Yoshi’s eyes traveled to Jon, who was bent over at the hip, making direct eye contact with someone in the crowd—probably a blonde with a sizable rack—while his fingers danced effortlessly over the strings of his electric guitar.
And, just like that, Yoshi was at peace. He’d forgotten what it felt like over the last few years, and he couldn’t believe what he’d almost allowed to slip out of his fingers.
Never giving the crowd a moment to breathe, he leapt from his drum set as the first song moved straight into the next, the upbeat dance track that had won The White Keys their first Grammy, and also the first song he’d ever written with Adam.
Adam held out an arm to Yoshi as he came onto the stage, clutching him in a tight embrace as they sang the verse they’d written together, years before.
And as the short thirteen-minute show progressed, Adam naturally fell into the background. Soon, The White Keys had exited the stage, leaving Yoshi standing alone once more, wondering how it was possible that this dream was almost over.
He stood alone on a tiny circular stage off to the left of the main one, the microphone in his hand calm at his lips with his hand over his heart. The strings of his ballad, “Howling at the Moon,” filled the arena, and he let his buttery voice join them, never meaning the lyrics more than he meant them right then.
His gaze danced from one end of the stadium to the other, realizing he’d never have the time to take it all in appropriately. The biggest stage in the world, and the biggest crowd in the world, all looking back at him. Saying his name. Singing his words. Cheering for him.<
br />
He couldn’t stop the tears that stung his eyes as he purred the words he’d written for her. He realized a million more people could sing his words along with him, back to him, and it would never mean as much as when she sang them.
So, as he crooned the last line of the song, the deafening roar of the crowd nearly drowning them out, he lifted his tear-filled gaze to the moon, plump in the starry night sky, and he finished the note, letting a long silence fall. He realized why he’d felt nothing when he’d signed his first solo contract, why he’d felt nothing when it shot straight to number one, why he felt nothing when he’d been offered the Super Bowl, and why he’d felt nothing when he found himself on the receiving end of the love of the entire world.
He’d felt nothing, because none of them were her.
The song eased to an end, but he didn’t move the microphone from his lips.
Thunderous cheers erupted. Fireworks flew.
And he said, “Aria.”
His eyes fluttered closed, and he brought the microphone closer to his lips, feeling his heart jump straight to his throat as he opened his eyes and reclaimed the moon.
“I love you.”
--
Marissa Ball smiled across the set at Yoshi, leaning over and covering his knee as she laughed at a joke he’d just told. It took her, and her studio audience, an inordinate amount of time to calm themselves before she was able to continue.
“Now, you know it’s not my style to…” Marissa waved her hands through the air, letting her tone take on a ‘hood’ vibe that elicited another soft laugh from her audience. “It’s not my style to be all up in your business.”
“Uh-oh,” Yoshi said, grinning into the crowd while massaging his five o’clock shadow. “Here it comes.”
“Oh, it’s coming. And I think it’s at the forefront of not just my mind, but in the minds of the entire country, who all heard you say something at the end of your phenomenal Super Bowl performance.”
Yoshi squinted at her. “Did I say something?”
“You did. You really did.” Marissa leaned deep against one arm of her chair, squinting back. “And I’ve gotta ask. Who. Is. Aria?”
Applause followed her question, making Yoshi laugh bashfully and shoot them a sideways grin.
“Not only did you say her name at the end of the halftime show—to the largest audience the Super Bowl has seen since Michael Jackson, by the way—but you then went on to say it in every press conference following the Super Bowl. Every paparazzo. Every interview. Anyone who will listen, and you say the name Aria!”
Yoshi’s laughter deepened.
“Am I lying?” Marissa asked her audience.
They responded with a resounding no.
Yoshi chortled, covering his eyes with his hand.
Marissa faced him again, lifting an eyebrow. “I mean, are we wrong, Yoshi? Are we wrong for being curious?”
“Nah, you’re not wrong,” he answered.
Marissa let silence fall.
Yoshi let it linger.
The crowd laughed as they entrenched themselves in an unspoken battle.
Marissa shrugged, her smile still playful, as if she were more than ready to sit there all day until she received an answer to her question.
Yoshi pushed himself into a straight sitting position, leaning his elbow on one arm of the couch. “Aria is… someone who means an awful lot to me. Someone I was foolish enough to let slip through my fingers, and someone I’d do anything…” He met Marissa’s eyes. “Anything to get back.”
“Including saying her name at the Super Bowl.”
“Including that.”
“And still, she doesn’t call? She doesn’t write?”
“She doesn’t call and she doesn’t write.” Yoshi laughed. “But it’s only been a day, you know. I’m happy to give her time. Space. I, uh, I don’t deserve her….”
Yoshi blushed when a string of ‘aww’ melted in from the crowd.
“I don’t.” He shrugged. “But I hope…” He tried to find the right words. “Somehow…” He sighed. “One day….”
Marissa watched him from the corner of her mischievous eyes. “Why not today?”
Yoshi’s heart shuddered to a stop, even as the crowd erupted with cheers. That time, it was him side-eyeing Marissa.
“Excuse me?” he said, his voice having gone so low that the audience didn’t even hear the broken words.
Marissa clasped her hands and repeated herself, leaning on the arm of her couch. “What if I told you that Aria was here? Today?”
The cheers grew higher, and when Yoshi felt that familiar sting in his eyes, he leaned forward and covered them with one hand.
“Aria, why don’t you come on up here!” Marissa beamed.
“Holy shit,” Yoshi whispered, looking towards stage left, and when he didn’t see anything there, stage right. When he still didn’t see her, he looked straight ahead, just in time to see Aria standing from her seat at the very back of the studio, straightening out her jeans and T-shirt while smiling down at him.
“Oh my God…” Yoshi left his seat, unable to control the heat he felt building on his cheeks, or the sweet sickly feeling in his stomach.
Aria hadn’t even taken one step down the staircase before he found himself leaving the stage and bounding up it. He made it to the top of the studio, blazing past all the smiling, cheering audience members before Aria had even taken one step down.
He wrapped his arms around her neck and buried his hot face in her shoulder, jamming his eyes shut when he felt her embracing him in return, her arms slinging around his waist. She squeezed him just as tightly as he squeezed her, and as they drank in each other’s scents, their laughs hoarse with their emotion and wet tears, the audience’s celebration became deafening.
But it all moved away, first ebbing into a dull thud in his ears, and then into nothingness.
He fell into her cottony hair, tickling and warming his face. The curve of her body against his, the body he’d dreamed of taking with wild fervor for longer than he could remember. Her scent, which already had his eyes fluttering with the good night’s sleep he hadn’t had in ages. Everything disappeared but her.
She spoke into his shoulder, laughing when her voice drove him to pull her in tighter.
“You said my name,” she whispered. “On every news channel. In every interview. At the Super Bowl. You’ve already been turned into a meme on the Internet.”
Yoshi pulled back and cupped her cheeks, searching her eyes.
He pressed his forehead to hers and whispered, “I’m keeping you.”
She pressed her lips tight. “I’m keeping you—”
He leaned down and covered her lips with his before she could finish, letting his arms snake around her waist. Again, he didn’t hear it as the crowd went berserk, his ears too filled with the blood from his thundering heart.
He kissed his Bo until Marissa came to the top of the studio and pulled them apart.
But even as his lips left hers, he kept their fingers entwined, and he was okay.
He was home.
Epilogue
“Yoshi, please, to the left!”
“Yoshi, to the right!”
“Aria, straight ahead!”
Yoshi tightened his hold on Aria’s waist and they shared a quick smile before returning their eyes to the cameras flashing before them. The photographers on the press line fell all over each other, threatening to send the flimsy barrier falling onto the red carpet before them in their desperation to get the perfect shot.
Yoshi snuck a peak at Aria as her name was shouted even more than his. He squeezed her side, again, reminding her to stay cool. Remain calm. He remembered his first time on the press line, and like many of the other firsts in his career, it had taken everything he had not to empty his stomach.
One stroke was never enough, and as he ran his hand up and down her slim waist, over her emerald green, empire-waisted corset gown, he was completely ready for this shit to be
over so he could get her back to the bedroom.
Allowing his thoughts to drive him, he pulled Aria away from the photography line before anyone was ready, and he smiled at the scattered objections that flew at him from every angle.
As if Yoshi had been reading his mind, Gus took his arm while motioning to a reporter waiting on the press line.
“Michelle Kitt,” Gus said, giving Yoshi a soft push.
Yoshi approached Michelle Kitt from E! News, still his favorite correspondent on any red carpet.
Looking breathtaking in a glittery red dress, Michelle embraced both Yoshi and Aria. Yoshi noticed the smile on Michelle’s face had never been this wide when Carmen was on his arm.
Michelle shook her head at Aria. They shared a secret look.
“Oh my god, it’s a conundrum. I’m in a serious conundrum here!” Michelle beamed into her microphone, her long hair flying with the breeze, brown skin as flawless as ever. She nudged Aria and Yoshi closer to the E! News camera while placing the microphone between them.
“Why are you in a conundrum?” Yoshi dragged, pretending to admonish her.
Michelle let her eyes flutter closed dramatically, but when Aria laughed, she was unable to uphold her false air of irritation. “I’m in a conundrum, because not only do I not know which one of you I’m more excited to see, but I’m at a complete loss over which one of you I should congratulate first.”
Yoshi tugged at the lapels of his jacket, laughing haughtily as he shot Aria a look out of the corner of his eye. “As if it’s even a question…”
Aria rolled her eyes. She and Michelle shared another look.
“It’s nice of you to try to spare Aria’s feelings, but she knows what’s up,” Yoshi said, drinking in Michelle’s laughing face. He motioned back and forth between them. “She understands that you and I… we have a connection.”
Michelle’s laughter picked up, making her face curl with delight as she nodded. “We do, we do.”
Encore (Stereo Hearts Book 2) Page 29