Page 58 of The Spotlight Effect

“Do you think you’re ready to record?” Stacy asks.

“Yeah, I can give it a shot,” Alexia says and stands up. She wipes her hands off on her black flared jeans that seem to have a lace print on them before walking toward the booth.

“You got this, Lexi!” Scarlett says, giving her two thumbs up. Alexia takes a seat on what looks to be the center stool and puts the headset on.

“Okay in five…four…three…two…one,” Stacy counts down while holding her fingers up, counting while talking. Conner starts the music. Alexia stares down for a while until the cue in the song and her voice begins to fill the air.

It sounds just as amazing as it did the first time. The first time I heard her sing, I didn’t even care that she was using my guitar, one of my most prized possessions. I was so captivated by how lovely her voice sounded. It’s like an angel. She’s a true star singing with Scarlett and Raven, it looked like she didn’t have a care in the world just like she does now. You can tell making music was something she was born to do.

All of us clap as she finishes singing and takes a bow in the booth. “Amazing, we want to get one more recording and then we will do our magic and get you back after,” Conner says. Alexia gives a thumbs up, and we play the song again.

“You are so whipped,” I hear Charlie whisper, but I choose to ignore him.

I am not.

“I’msure everything will be fine,” Scarlett tells Kenan as I walk back into the recording studio from walking Alexia out to leave.

“I hope so. I know she’s been stressed with her first year of college,” Kenan says.

If they are speaking about Nevea, that’s still no reason to hit on your boyfriend’s friends.Bestfriends at that.

“My parents are still pissed that I choose this over college,” Raven says, rolling her eyes. Our band got really popular our sophomore year of high school and it got hard balancing going to school in person and this, so we all switched to online school our junior year and graduated early, but some of us delayed college.

Raven isn’t going to college, Scarlett does classes online but only takes like three classes at a time, Kenan and Charlie do the same and somehow, they balance it. My dad made me skip two years for work, and Shawn he already has like three degrees. Somehow, he still claims he’s not a genius, when he had a degree before we graduated. He’s on his way to getting a doctorate in biochemistry.

“When aren’t your parents pissed at you?” Charlie says.

“True, they always are, but they are jerks,” Raven replies with a shrug.

Raven’s parents are never happy with her choices, and they hate the fact she’s a rockstar. They think she should have gone to school to be a lawyer like her other siblings. She’s a triplet but her brother and sister chose law school, and she picked music. What they don’t know is that her sister is trying to become a Victoria’s Secret model. They will really lose their shit when they learn that.

After practicing vocals in the studio and some songwriting with Austin we all get to go home.

There are stilla couple of hours till the event, which is a costume party, that I am very not excited to go to. But Alexia being my date makes it better. Not that I would call it a date.

“Yes, you have a crush,” Charlie says, as if he has read my mind.

“That’s not what this is,” I reply, staring at the pool in front of me.

“I’m telling you; this is a crush,” Charlie says, in a sing-song voice.

“How would you know?” I scoff.

“I went through the same feelings of denial before I came to terms with liking Scar. I just don't want you to be like me and wait years to tell someone you like them, or she ends up getting a boyfriend and you lose her.”

“How did you figure out you liked Scarlett?”

“Well, I would see how I felt when we did things together like hug, hold hands, be close to each other, or even when she talked to me and if I felt symptoms of what a crush, I would add a point to me liking her. It took about a week of me letting myself just feel it instead of blocking it out and then I knew,” Charlie answers.

I guess this method could be useful. It’s like science, I’m forming a hypothesis. If doing this work, only then will I say I like her.

I arriveat Alexia’s house and she comes out in a Red Riding Hood costume. As I watch her walk up my car begin to let my eyes drift over her outfit: black headband in her curly hair, she wears a white shirt and a gray button-up vest over it, then a short pleated black skirt that's high-waisted so the vest is slightly over the skirt, white socks that stop inches below her knees and shiny black platform heels that little rhinestones around the ankle strap. Of course, Everything is compiled by a red cape. She looks perfectly adorable.

I love it.

Alexia runs to the car, and I open the door for her, once she's in I close the door and go around to the driver's side. She sits a little basket down on the floor before applying some shiny red gloss. I didn’t even notice she included the little basket.

“You look great,” I say, trying not to compliment her the way I want to.

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