Page 1 of Hey Girl

PROLOGUE

REBECCA

The cheers and whistles of the crowd make me feel sick to my stomach. It’s so loud, and the volume level lets me know just how many people are out there. Thousands of Turn it Up fans - with smartphones, no less - are going to see me, center stage. I’ll be the main focus, all eyes unavoidably on me.

Nowhere to hide.

The air is drafty backstage, and yet I feel like I’m running a fever or having the hot flash from hell. I rub my clammy hands up and down my dark designer jeans, still so foreign to my Kmart-loving self, and swallow hard.

Never have I been this nervous. Scratch nervous: I’m terrified. Completely terrified, like I’m trapped in my worst nightmare, only…it’s going to have a happy ending right?

Oh god, what if it doesn’t?

No. It has to have a happy ending. He loves me. He’ll protect me. Even if this doesn’t go the way I hope, he won’t humiliate me or let anything or anyone hurt me. Even if it’s my own insecurities, he always protects me.

There’s no reason to be afraid, and even if I am, it’s worth it. It’s the good fear, the type you feel when you’re about to go bungee jumping. The type you should feel, and then do the thing anyway. I remind myself of that notion over and over until I feel a comforting, feminine hand running up and down my arm. While at first I jump, I immediately relax when I find it belongs to

Mayzie has appeared at my side, the stage lights reflecting the cheerful encouragement in her grey eyes.

I nod nervously, trying to smile.

Fucking shit, there are seventy-thousand people out there! That’s one hundred and forty-thousand eyes!

“It’s going to be fine, babe. It’s going to be perfect. I am so proud of you,” she tells me affectionately, as if she sensed my inner nuclear meltdown.

I have one of those about every half hour, every hour on a good day.

“So am I,” Melanie appears at my other side, rubbing a soothing hand on my back. “And remember, it’s just like he said. You can’t even see them out there.”

“It’s just thousands of fireflies in the night,” Mayzie finishes, reminding me of what the man of my dreams once compared the expansive audience to when they have their cell phone flashlights ignited.

“Fireflies,” I echo softly and nod to myself as I feel a gentle warmth overtake my soul. That’s what he told me. That an audience of this size can sometimes be intimidating even for him, and that’s what he imagines them as.

I can do that too…

For him.

1

CHRIS

I’m jolted awake, my heart pounding out several hard, startled beats as the opening chords of Crazy Bitch by Buck Cherry blast from my phone. My eyelids fly open despite the sleep that had them sealed shut like rubber cement.

Ow. That kind of hurt a little. But I have no time to worry about that or the fact that my surroundings are shifting from one side to the other as I squint against the daylight, frantically fumbling for any clothing I can find. Because the sound of Josh Todd wailing that infamous song from my phone can only mean one thing:

Tatiana.

I have my ringtone set to alert me when that…well… crazy bitch is on the prowl.

Why don’t I block her, you ask?

Because she tends to call when she’s gotten her ankle tracker removed and has a hankering for breaking her restraining order. If she’s planning on making another terrifying cameo in the movie that is my life, I’d rather have a heads up about it.

I find a wadded-up shirt and pull it on before vigorously shaking my head to get rid of the cobwebs. Last night was fun. I mean, I don’t really remember, but it must’ve been if the empty liquor bottles, discarded whipped cream cans, and variety of pool floaties are anything to go by. Not to mention my pants - hey, there they are- hanging from the chandelier.

I jump and snag them, taking turns hopping on each foot as I try to pull them up in record time. Stepping over the bodies of various half-naked sleeping party people I don’t know in search of my phone, I let good old Crazy Bitch guide me through my still half-drunken haze. I need my morning BLAST, stat.

The song gets louder and I finally find it hiding under someone’s hot pink feather boa (sweet, I might keep this).

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