Page 110 of The Spotlight Effect

“God, you’re such a boy.” I roll my eyes.

“I can’t help it if you look perfectly sexy in that uniform,” Gray compliments me.

“How perfect?” I ask, lifting up the edge of my top and running my hands under. I’m not too worried about anyone, seeing as he’s in a space alone now. I keep lifting my top till I pull it off and I’m left in my brown sports bra.

“So perfect I want to keep you all to myself,” he responds.

“Tough luck, Popstar. I think you have to share,” I tease him, tossing my top to the side and moving on to my skirt.

“I don’t share, Grumpy,” Gray says, causing me to laugh a bit. I continue to try to sensuously pull my skirt down until he says, “If you keep teasing me like that, I’ll fly out there and do some teasing of my own.” I smile at him, taking the skirt off because I have to shower anyway.

“Lord,” I say to myself.

“Oh, did you watch the concert video Zara sent you?”

“No, but I will right now.” I exit Facetime and pull up messages going into me and Zara texts, see a video, and start it.

The concert begins with very loud and bass guitar strums, the lights flashing as the stage rises. Behind where the drums sit for Charlie, rainfall in the back begins, and fog starts to cover the area lightly before the lights flash red to white. Charlie rises onto the stage with his drums, starting the song as you begin to hear Kenan on the floating platform that’s lowering down. On the back wall a big led sign lights up in red that saysMasked.

Is that the name of their summer album?

The stage lights up again and I begin to see the faint glow of a mask on Charlie and Kenan as Raven rises onto the stage and she’s wearing a mask as well.

Within a few seconds more, Scarlett and Gray rise from the bottom of the stage while a cannon goes off, making red and silver confetti rain down from the ceiling. When they come up, they, too, are wearing masks. Gray’s mask is red with black, thin scratch-like lines through each eye space and small back indents throughout. The mask is shiny, and you can’t see their faces under, but the mask isn’t the only thing I take in while he comes up onto the stage. Not only with the mask but he’s wearing this white T-shirt that has “I heart my girlfriend” onit and the heart isn’t words, it’s just a red heart and inside the heart is my name in silver inside the middle of the heart. That is going to be viral.

“I can’t believe you actually did this,” I say.

“Of course. Every time I perform, it’s for you. I’m always thinking about you, Alexia. You are in everything. Every note, song, melody, chord, and everything I do, you are my muse, my inspiration. Alexia, you are the person I’m meant to love.” The confession ricochets through me as I play with the bracelet Gray gave me on our last date that has red and purple clay beads with beads that spell out Morningstar in the center. Everything about this moment makes me feel complete and for once I feel like it’s okay to love someone because maybe they love me too.

Gray is my person. He’s all the relief of the butterflies in the world.

BLOW OUT YOUR CANDLES

ALEXIA

Your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life, but I’m starting my twenties off with a big ass dilemma that could determine what I do with the rest of my life. So, I’m feeling a lot of pressure right now. I roll over in my bed after another sleepless night. Last night, I didn’t get to talk to Grayson and it’s really hard for me to sleep without him.

The purple clock on my wall reads ten-ten a.m.. This is a good enough time to get up. I sit up, stretching my body and looking at my birthday dress on the sofa across from me. I’ve had this outfit planned for weeks honestly, I saw it and thought it was perfect.

“Are you awake?” Lia asks through my door. She must have been waiting.

“Yeah.” I toss my covers aside and get out of bed. I open my curtains, letting the sunlight in as Lia opens my door. “Finally.”

I turn around to see her and Lia and Faith. “I bought breakfast!” Faith says, sitting a tray of food on my bed.

“Thank you. This was very thoughtful.” I walk over to the tray and look at it. Bacon, eggs, waffles with syrup and strawberries on top all sit on the tray with my favorite orange juice.

“We will leave you to eat and get ready then we have a surprise,” Lia says enthusiastically.

“See you then.” They both pull me into a quick hug before letting go.

“Love you,” Faith says, and they both exit my room. I don’t really have much of a plan for today. Faith convinced me to have a small party to celebrate so that’s most likely the most I’m doing today; birthdays aren’t really a big deal to me.

I eat my breakfast first before getting ready. I don’t do too much, just take a short shower, defuse my hair so it has more volume, and put on my birthday dress. Satisfied with my look, it’s better to go out now than later, so I make my way to the living room, finding birthday gifts on the table and the room completely decorated, but the thing I notice the most are the five Izbanz singnative V8 guitars all in different colors.

“Surprise!” Everyone jumps out from around the corners of the kitchen, surprising me.

“You guys could have given me a heart attack.” I hold my chest as if that’s going to slow my heart down.

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