Page 2 of Sounds Like Love
“Who exactly is up there?”
In reply, the security guy pointed to his earpiece, and shrugged again. As if he couldn’t quite hear me.
“Guess I’ll find out myself,” I murmured, and started up the stairs.
Behind me he replied, clear as day, “He’s just like his dad.”
He.Well, that was a clue at least. I hoped it wasn’t anyone I knew—though most men I knew refused to work with me since, well, they cited that my work didn’t fit their image. I wish I could say that female songwriters in this career were a dime a dozen, but the truth was we were rarer than stumbling upon a decent man on Tinder.
I had half a mind to just bail on the show and go home—
Stop it,Jo. You have to at least stay until the song, I told myself, because that’s why I was here, anyway. And I really didn’t want to disappoint Willa, even if I’d met her only a handful of times.
So I climbed the stairs to the balcony. It was smaller than the one at my parents’ venue, with barstools pushed up to the railing instead of theater seats. At first, I didn’t see anyone else—and then a shadow leaned back from the railing and turned to look at me.
Below, Willa launched into a bright, high-energy song I’d written a few years ago about girlfriends going out for a night on the town. The stage lights threw pinks and yellows up into the balcony, highlighting the stark planes on the man’s face and threading light into his hair.
Oh.
I’d never seen him in person, but I could recognize him anywhere.
Sebastian Fell.
Son of multiplatinum rock star Roman Fell, he had stumbled into the limelight as one of five members of the boy band Renegade, though they’d broken up over a decade ago. When I was a teen, Gigi wasobsessedwith them. She decked out her binders with printed photos, and wrote fanfic, and in our sophomore year of high school, she convinced me to skip school, lie to my parents and her grandmother, and drive two hours to Raleigh to see them. From the nosebleed seats, we watched most of the concert on the jumbotrons, but it didn’t matter. I was there for Gigi, and Gigi was there for Sebastian Fell. Back then he had swoopy hair and played the “bad” boy of the group, and I guess he lived up to that when he crashed his Corvette.I was a senior in high school then, I think. Renegade called it quits after that, and I couldn’t remember what happened to the guy.
Apparently, he was now attending Willa Grey’s concerts.
He’d turned twenty when he quit the band, so now he was—what—midthirties? Fifteen years looked different on everyone. On me, it grew out my hair and broke that bad habit of biting my cuticles and gave me a skin-care regimen. On Sebastian Fell, it made him unravel like a pop song turned folk. In the dark balcony, the neon lights made the shadows of the crow’s-feet around his eyes darker and the wrinkles across his forehead fine. His dark hair was unkempt and shaggy, half pulled back into a bun, the rest brushing against his shoulders. Over time, a smattering of freckles had spread across his nose and cheeks and bloomed into constellations, and his cheekbones had turned sharp, though he still had those same thick, expressive eyebrows. He wasn’t as tall as I thought.
I distinctly remember aVoguearticle calling his eyes “cerulean,” though as his gaze slid over me and caught the light, they reminded me more of an ocean before a storm.
Definitely not inviting.
Quietly, I went over to a stool at the far end of the balcony and sat down. I’d learned that it was always best to ignore rich and famous people. Otherwise, they’d get spooked. Throughout the next song, he kept glancing over at me.
Then, after the next song, he asked, “What brings someone like you up here?” His voice was deep and syrupy. He propped his head up on his hand as he studied me. “Haven’t seen you here before.”
Willa ended her song and started chatting with some of her bandmates onstage, so I didn’t have to shout when I told him, “Willa invited me.”
His mouth, which some tabloid article had noted as “tricky,” twisted into a smirk. “Did she now.”
“She did.”
“Hmm. Well,” he added, sitting up a little straighter, “before you ask, no, I don’t do autographs.”
I stared at him, my mouth dropped open. “E-excuse me?”
“I appreciate my fans, but I’m off the clock right now.”
Whatever nostalgia I had for him withered away within seconds. I tried not to scowl as I said, “I don’t need your autograph, thanks. And I’m not a fan.”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Sure.”
He didn’t believe me. I wrestled down the impulse to argue, and I squinted at him. “Sorry, who are you?”
His eyebrows jerked up. Then he barked a laugh. “You’re cute. I deserved that.”
“You haven’t seen me cute,” I quipped back, “but you did deserve it.”
