Sterling’s nerves sang. He had a gut-level reaction to say yes. He looked to Morgan. “What do you think, boss? New song?”
“We don’t know the new stuff,” Moby said. “It would just be you and your guitar.”
Morgan looked at Sterling, then looked out at the crowd, still mostly on their feet, cheering. “If so, you need to go right now before they lose momentum.” She turned to Reese. “You think this is a good idea?”
Reese gestured toward the amphitheater. “I think they want more. You want to get people on board with a new sound? This crowd would be on board with whatever you gave them right now. Give them something new. Make them feel special.”
“She’s right,” Morgan said, shoving him. “Get out there, big guy.”
Sterling hesitated for approximately half a second and then jogged out onto the stage with a smile on his face. The crowd erupted and he spent a minute bowing up front, smiling and waving. Morgan or Moby must have talked to the stage crew because they brought out a stool and one of the guys was tuning his Taylor acoustic. Sterling stepped to the mic and held up a hand. The crowd stilled and he could feel the magnetic pull between them, that rare thing that he always hoped for but didn’t always experience.
“You guys have been so incredible. Would it be okay if I did something a little special for you? I’ve got some songs no one has heard before. You want to be the first?”
Again, they went wild. The crowds at the back started settling in, sitting back down on the ground, seeming to pick up on the vibe as the stage hand gave him the acoustic guitar. Sterling put the ear piece back in and spoke, leaning away from the mic. “You with me, Mike? I know we didn’t prep for this.”
“Please. The day I can’t handle a girl with a guitar, shoot me.”
Sterling laughed and leaned forward toward the mic again. “This one is called ‘Voiceless.’ I hope you love it.’”
As Sterling strummed the first chords, the crowd stilled. But that electric connection was still there and it felt like they were holding their collective breath as he began to sing. He went through three of his new songs and probably could have done a few more, but it was a good idea to leave them wanting more, to leave while things were on the upswing.
As the last note of the third song echoed through the amphitheater, Sterling looked up. Normally he watched the crowds as he sang, but for this last little set, he had mostly kept his eyes closed. The newest songs he wrote were gut-wrenching for him, most of them focused on the pain he had been feeling going through what felt like the complete loss of his sister May and the family division. Some were about his dad, something he hadn’t written about before. They were raw and had a depth that some of his other songs lacked. It was cathartic to sing through the pain.
His eyes felt damp as he stared out over the faces. Panic squeezed his stomach. No one had moved. The crowd was totally still.
This had been a mistake. The music was too different from his normal sound. This was a rock crowd and he played a fully acoustic set. It probably sounded totally unprofessional. Like an open mic night. Sterling swallowed and got to his feet.
The space completely erupted. The cheering was different somehow. Just as charged as it had been, but he could see a few people wiping their eyes as well. They had gotten it.
Sterling put the guitar in the stand and walked forward to the very edge of the stage, where the people in the very front area could almost touch him. He waved and then put his hands together and took a little bow. People stood in their seats, but they weren’t moving to the exits, even though now the concert had gone on twenty minutes longer. They stood and they cheered for him.
Sterling’s chest warmed. The tears in his eyes now were happy. They liked the new stuff. His most personal and raw songs, played in the most basic of ways. He couldn’t help the smile on his face and could see the smiles and waves in return. Before exiting the stage, he did another pass along the front, making eye contact with as many people as he could, nodding and waving. He never did this, but it felt right.
When he finally walked to the side, the crowd went crazy again, another surge of cheering. The first face he saw was Morgan’s. Her eyes were bright and her smile wide. “I’m not sure you need me managing you. I mean, that was perfect. They loved it. I loved it. This is a great new direction. I think you should do this for every show moving forward.”
“We’ll see,” Sterling said. Not every crowd might appreciate this. He would have to take it show by show. But this was certainly a good start. His eyes scanned the area for Reese.
“Everyone else is in the green room. Ready to head back to the hotel and shower?”
“A shower is most definitely necessary,” Sterling said.
“I concur. Are you going to want to go out after? Tell me how you’re feeling. We can set something up if you need us to.”
Sterling was still looking for Reese. This had been her genius idea. If she hadn’t suggested it, he wouldn’t have thought of it and he wanted to thank her. Distracted, he told Morgan he would text her to let her know his plans and then he headed to the green room. Just outside the rooms in a dark alcove, he saw Reese with her face buried in a phone.
“Hey,” Sterling said. Her head snapped up and her face slipped into an easy grin when she saw him.
“Hope you don’t mind. I took a video during that set. So glad I did. It’s going just as crazy as the other one.”
“Awesome,” he said. “I want to see it later. Just to hear how the set sounded and everything.”
“I went down into the crowd too,” Reese said. “I got their reaction, which was fantastic. This really was something else.” She shuddered and he noticed her rubbing her arms.
“Cold?” he asked.
“No. I get goosebumps when I’m excited.”
His mouth hooked into a grin. “That’s cute.” Realizing that sounded way too much like he was calling her cute, he took a step back. “Uh, we’re heading back to the hotel. Maybe going out or something. Do you feel like … are you …”
He couldn’t find the words to ask what he really wanted, which was to spend time with this woman who had officially given him whiplash. Yesterday he had been horrified to see her on the tour bus. Now he felt like he only wanted to be where she was. He couldn’t say exactly what it was about her but kept going back to what she had said about vulnerability. Reese was vulnerable. And it only added to her physical beauty.
He ran a hand through his damp hair. Suddenly he was aware of his T-shirt, drenched in sweat. He backed off another step. The last thing he wanted was to scare her off with his post-concert funk.
Reese leaned against the wall, looking up at him. “I don’t want to go out. I feel weirdly energized but exhausted at the same time. Is that how it is for you after a show?”
Sterling gazed past her, thinking about the crowd tonight. He might be one of the rare rockers out there who had never tried drugs, but he felt like performing might come close to that kind of high.
“Something like that,” he said. “My whole body feels kind of electric. And there’s this hum, like, in my heart. That sounds stupid.”
Reese shook her head and Sterling found himself staring at her hair. At first glance, it was simply brown. But it was more than that. When she moved, there were gold highlights and darker undertones. He fought the urge to touch it to see if it felt as silky as it looked.
“I love it. It gives me more of a concrete sense of how it feels to be you.” She smiled and Sterling felt his heart plummet down into his stomach. “You should put that on Twitter. People would love it.”
“Are you always thinking about social media?”
Her cheeks flushed. It was a good look on her. “Sorry. Not always social media. I’m definitely always strategizing. It’s been that way forever. Before social media, it was other things.”
“Like?”
Her cheeks stained a deeper shade of red. “In high school and some of college I was known as something of a matchmak
er. High success rate, too. Also, I love strategic board games, which may make me a nerd. When I was younger, it was like elaborate practical jokes. Some of which went on for years. Mostly none of them ended up with people in police custody.”
Sterling laughed. “So, you were a troublemaker? A schemer.”
Reese made a face. “Strategist sounds better.”
“Matchmaking and board games and practical jokes and social media—those things all seem pretty different from each other. What’s the connection?”
“I like to look at the big picture. The long game. Then figure out how to get from point A to point B. It’s like seeing how things fit together. With matchmaking, that’s people. The practical jokes were more like long-term wars and figuring out the right prank to get under someone’s skin. Each joke was another battle. I know it sounds dumb. For a long time, my family traded back and forth my grandmother’s dead dog’s ashes.”
Sterling searched her face. “Are you … serious?”
Reese giggled. “Yeah. When someone would come stay with us, we were always trying to pass Johnboy around between us. Like, hide him somewhere they would find him eventually.”
“Johnboy? Was that her dog’s name?”
“Yep. She loved this show called The Waltons. I think Johnboy was one of the characters. Anyway, he lives in a little plastic container now with his name taped to the lid.”
Her giggles turned into laughs now. Sterling found himself unable to stop staring at her. She was incredibly beautiful when she laughed.
“What kinds of places did you guys hide Johnboy? Give me your best one.”
“Well, mostly we would put him around people’s houses or if it was out-of-town guests like my cousins, we would stuff him in a suitcase, wrapped up in a pair of boxers or something.”
“Him? Don’t you mean ‘it’?”
Reese smiled. “No, definitely a him. The best, though, was the time I put him in the whipped cream at my aunt’s house at Thanksgiving.”
A shocked laugh escaped him. “That’s disgusting, Reese.”
She laughed. “You sound like my mom! It’s not like I dumped the ashes into the whipped cream. It was just the whole container, still sealed, inside the whipped cream. Totally hygienic.”
“You put your grandmother’s dead dog’s ashes into the whipped cream at Thanksgiving.”
“My dead grandmother’s dead dog’s ashes. My Dad’s mom. My other grandma is still around. No dog.”
“Dare I ask what you did with your grandmother’s ashes?”
“What kind of a person do you think I am? She’s buried in a cemetery, thank you very much. Oh my gosh. You must think I am completely a wreck. If you didn’t already.”
Sterling shook his head, laughing. Somehow, the story only made him like Reese more. She was completely different than anyone he’d ever met. Full of surprises and quirks. She made him laugh.
“It just makes me sure I want you on my team, Little Schemer. Speaking of, how about we do our meeting tonight? I’ll get room service delivered to my suite.”
“Your suite?” Her eyes went wide.
“It’s like an apartment, not a bedroom. We’ll stay out in the main room. Promise. It’s a professional, working meeting. Maybe I can hear more of your stories. I need to be prepared for any other pranks.”
She still looked nervous, which was adorable. Sterling hadn’t seen an expression cross her face that he didn’t like.
“Okay,” she said.
“You still look nervous. I’m not the one who said I was going to make you marry me the first time we met.”
“Hey,” she said, poking him in the side. He giggled and jumped back, trying to escape her fingers. Her face lit up. “You really are ticklish.”
“No, I’m not.” Reese stopped and put a hand to the center of her forehead. Sterling watched her. “What are you doing?” he asked.
She put her hand down and smile. “Just making a mental note. Had to file that away for things I can use against you later.”
“I’m really scared now,” Sterling said. “Let’s get back to the hotel.”
“You should be,” Reese said, grinning. “Remember: I’m a long-term pranker. You don’t want to cross me.”
As they fell into step, Sterling realized that he was scared. But not of being pranked. He was scared of other, long-term battles she was launching against his heart, whether she realized she was doing it or not. He felt like he was starting to give up ground, lowering his defenses a little bit more every time he was with Reese.
Chapter Ten
Reese stood just outside of room 522. Suite 522.
Sterling’s suite. Sterling James’ suite.
Six years ago, she would have squealed like the little girl she was to think about this moment. Three days ago, she wouldn’t have imagined it. Now she shifted her weight back and forth on the thick cream carpet, trying to summon the courage to knock. It was just a strategy session. He was just a client.
And he was also her celebrity no-way-it’s-ever-happening crush turned real-live-guy-who-might-break-my-heart. Staci had sent her a text earlier, basically warning her about this very thing.
Staci: Gird your heart tonight!
Reese: Isn’t the verse “guard your heart?”
Staci: Probably. But people are always saying you should gird your loins, so it seems like that might also apply.
Staci: Wait. Stop thinking about your loins!
Reese: I wasn’t. Til you brought them up.
Staci: Gird your heart and guard your loins! I’m pretty sure that’s Biblical.
Reese had laughed for a good few minutes about that last text. She missed Staci, even though being on tour was exciting. Maybe too exciting. She should definitely be taking that advice to heart, even if it was a little bit off.
The door swung open and she jumped back. Sterling smirked and leaned against the doorway. “Are you going to stand out there all night, or are you coming in?”
Reese hesitated, distracted by the way his muscles bunched under his thin, gray T-shirt. His hair looked like it was still wet from a shower. The scent of his cologne or body wash or whatever product he had on was giving her brain fog. “Um.”
“I’ve got candy, little girl …” His eyes crinkled with his teasing smile.
She giggled. “If by candy, you mean pizza, then yes, I’m coming in. Actually, I’d come in for candy too.”
Sterling moved out of the way, ushering her inside the suite. The spicy fresh scent filled her nose as she moved past him and she fought the urge to lean closer to him. Reese remembered suddenly how there was a rumor going around middle school that the cologne all the guys wore had some kind of pheromones in it to attract women. All men’s colognes seemed to have that. Save a few that were really stinky, Reese felt like all their scents were intoxicating. She should probably keep at least a table between them so she wouldn’t find herself climbing up into his lap or something. Especially now that he had lowered the drawbridge and opened the gates to let her in.
“I got us a bottle of wine. I know how much you like it,” Sterling said.
Never mind. Reese froze and turned her eyes to him slowly.
He couldn’t hold it together and bent over at the waist, laughing. “Your face! Priceless.”
“You don’t have wine?”
“No wine,” he said. “I don’t drink on tour. Not off tour either. And I would never supply you with alcohol after seeing what one glass of wine did to you. I swear, you were like a different person.”
“Yeah. Good thing I never drank in college. Who knows what would have happened to me?”
Reese had hardly looked around the room, distracted by Sterling’s bad idea of a joke. She whistled, looking around the spacious room. He had said it was like an apartment and it was. Bigger than the apartment she currently lived in with Staci. With a clean, modern feel and high-end finishes in the open space. Dark wood, plush carpets, and sleek, modern accessories made it look like money.
Through an open doorway Reese saw a bedroom with a king-sized bed and a few clothes rumpled on the floor. There was a kitchenette, a bar, and a living area with an enormous flat-screen TV. A few pizzas sat on a long dining room table with wood and upholstered legs. Across the room, double glass doors led out to a balcony.
“What did you do with that picture you made me sign, by the way?”
Reese set down her laptop bag on the table, trying not to meet his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure I have it somewhere.”
“Reese, look at me.” Humor colored his voice.
“Hm?” She glanced over and he held her gaze, a half-smile creeping up his face.
“You know exactly where the picture is. Bedside table? Fireplace mantel?”
“You’re impossible. I’ll have you know that it’s in my closet.”
He looked offended. “You put a picture of me in your closet?”
“Yep. Along with all the other pictures of guys I’m stalking. Is this pizza for show or can I eat?”
Sterling laughed and joined her at the table. Reese made sure to sit across from him as she grabbed a slice of pepperoni. “I didn’t know what you liked so I got four. Sorry I don’t have plates. He tossed her a handful of napkins, which fanned out over the table.”
“Classy,” she said. As she chewed her pizza, Reese thought about how different Sterling seemed. The Night and Day label that he had been wanting to escape was remarkably accurate. Though she suspected this slightly sarcastic version of Sterling was much closer to the real him. Or, the real him when he was happy. When she had seen him serious or grumpy, he didn’t seem like he was acting per se, but he seemed much more content in this playful version of himself. He seemed like he was in a good space. It made her happy to see him like this.
“Tell me how you got into social media stuff.”
Sterling managed to make the simple act of eating a slice of pizza look attractive. “My major was PR, but I always leaned toward social media and that aspect of branding. I went to UT and Austin has a pretty great music scene. It’s not Nashville, but it’s pretty awesome. I started working for a few clients there, just helping set up their accounts, creating a content strategy and overarching plan for how to best use social media to grow and get fans. When I graduated, I wanted to do something similar on a bigger scale and saw the job posting at Azul and a month later, I was moving to Nashville.”
Managing The Rock Star (Not So Bad Boys Book 1) Page 9