I’m in the middle of a remix of the biggest single from my EP, adjusting and embellishing it to make it sound more mine and not like a generic summer hit. Everyone is screaming out the words as they jump to the beat. The audience is just one surging wave of faces and arms, and the energy rolling off them is a physical force I can feel crashing into me. This song is alive. It’s tangible. I could reach out and touch it, hold it in my hands, and hurl it back into the crowd.
I’ve never played like this before.
When I build to one final, epic drop, the collective anticipation almost becomes too much to take. I half-expect the spotlights above me to shatter when I let the tension break and the whole room explodes into screams and wild dancing.
I tip my head back and laugh because I don’t know what other sound to make. I’m breathless, ageless, timeless, floating in a moment that lasts millennia before the world fills my lungs again.
I know what I need to do now. I was worried about my plans for tonight working out, but all the nerves are gone, purged from my system. There’s only room for triumph.
I fade the music out to just a dull thump of percussion and grab the microphone. I don’t talk much during my sets, and it takes me a second to flip the right switches to turn it on.
“Hello, Luxe!” I shout once it’s working. I have to wait for the fresh round of screams to subside before I can continue. “Et bonsoir, Montréal!”
Again, the cheers are so loud I have to stand there waiting for them to subside before anyone can hear me.
“I have one more track for you guys tonight, and I’m hoping we can get someone special onstage. We just need a minute to set up, if that’s cool with you guys?”
I take the raucous applause as an affirmative and push the volume up on the backing track before jogging offstage. Most of the stagehands already know what’s up, but my little crew of supporters standing in the wings are all staring at me in confusion.
Nabil, his girlfriend, Mohammad, my parents, and Paige are all grouped together like a ragtag band misfits in the corner. My parents look especially out of place, dressed way too fancy for a dance club and glancing around at all the backstage chaos like they’re afraid something might explode.
“Youssef!” Mohammad steps forward and claps me on the back. “Great set! Now what’s going on?”
It took a few days of recovery after I dropped the bomb about Nautilus for Mohammad to stop acting like I’d mortally wounded him. Eventually I got him to see that he’d be way better off pursuing clients who actually want to be superstars, and most of the tension between us has faded.
As he put it himself, we had a great run, and we’ll be calling in music industry favours from each other for years to come.
“A surprise!” I shout, smiling so hard my face hurts. My ears are still ringing and my whole body is buzzing from the high of being onstage.
A few stagehands are already messing around out there behind me, getting the additional gear ready to go. It took a lot of string-pulling and organizing, but I managed to make sure they’d have access to it.
A benefit of being the headliner: people are a lot less likely to tell you ‘no.’
“Paige!” I step away from Mohammad, my whole range of vision zoning in on her.
She looks incredible. I only had a chance to catch a bit of her set from really far away, but she killed it. Her hair is in some sort of Viking-style braid up-do, and her eye makeup is done with these sharp black lines that make her look fucking dangerous. She’s wearing black skinny jeans and a long, gauzy black t-shirt thing.
It’s enough to have me stopping dead in my tracks just to stare at her. Then someone bumps into my shoulder on their way to the stage, and I remember where we are.
“Paige.” I step closer and grab her hand. “I want you to come out and play your song.”
Her jaw drops. “What?”
“I got them to set your gear up so you can play ‘When the Lights Come On.’ Everything’s ready for you.”
She shakes her head slowly from side to side. “N-no. I mean—what?”
I let out a crazy chuckle. I know how manic I sound, but I can’t calm down. This night is so full of energy and power. “I knew you’d say that. That’s why I didn’t tell you before. Please, Paige, I want you to play it.”
She stares at me. “But why?”
I grab her other hand and pull her in close, speaking right into her ear so no one can hear but her. “Because it’s time, Paige. Because when I look at you, I see everything you’re gonna be, and it’s time for the world to see it too. I had my moment out there, and now it’s time for you to have yours. This is it. This is when the lights come on.”
She grips my t-shirt. “But I don’t...I’ve never played it live before. What if—”
“This is your moment,” I repeat. “Challenge accepted?”
I step back and look her in the eyes, and after a moment, her features harden into that stubborn determination I know so well.
She nods. “Challenge accepted.”
