Page 72 of Siren's Game

I never once thought about what the stadium would look like filled with people. If I had, I’d probably have begged Naroa to call everything off. No wonder that Mia, the pop-icon who was supposed to perform originally, said no.

But I can do this.Wecan do this. By now I could do our choreography in my sleep with how Mike has drilled it into our heads, but I am scared shitless nonetheless. So much could go wrong.

It's somehow bittersweet that the day is finally here. We've worked for this so long and now it's going to be over before we even know it.

I'm sure to anyone else it looks like we're enjoying ourselves in this fucking aquarium-like VIP box as we pretend to watch the first half of the match while, internally, both of us are freaking out.

We're supposed to watch the match from here, then we'll give our performance and afterward watch the rest of the match with Millie's parents in their booth.

And holy fuck do I want this to be over.

"Relax. Everything's going to be fine," I assure Millie and pat her shoulder, swallowing down my own restlessness. To be honest, I'm just as nervous as she is; I’m just better at hiding it. "We got this." I say it more to assure myself than her.

"Do we? What if I slip? Oh God, millions of people are going to be laughing at me." She bites the nail of her thumb and starts pacing the room.

Instead of rolling my eyes, I take a deep breath and shake my head. "You won't slip."

"What if the campaign didn't work and they boo me off stage?" she asks, turning to walk in the other direction.

I gulp. It's a very real possibility. One I've been trying very hard not to think about.

For the rest of that evening two days ago, Asher and I continued to call around and get our celebrity friends to join our 'We Love Millie' campaign. All of them came through, without any exception. They shot videos, posted memories with Millie, and all around just showed up to advertise their support.

I'm pretty sure it worked. Fans who have met her chimed in and it became a bigger and bigger online wave of positivity. But how sure can you really be with stuff like this? Especially about how well and quickly an online campaign translates into real-life events such as today.

"Ain't gonna happen," I say confidently, despite my doubts. "Don't focus on the haters, focus on our fans."

"What if I forget the text?" I sigh. In all the years we’ve been on tour, she hasn’t forgotten the lyrics to our songs even once. And I doubt it will happen today.

"Just look cute while you're doing it and improvise, nobody will care." I mean, wedolook cute today in our matching sparkly body suits, hers pink, mine a deep red, our signature stage colours.

"But hear me out, what if—" She’s talking herself into a panic and I need to stop her.

"Millie!" I step in front of her, forcing her to stop walking and take her hands in mine. "It's. Going. To. Be. Fine." I wait for her to calm down and nod.

"Come on," I say more softly, reaching for her hand and pulling her after me. "Let’s go downstairs. We need to get ready anyway."

As we walk out, I hand her a champagne flute and she greedily takes a big sip. I'm not trying to get her drunk, but I assume a gulp or two might help her relax.

We make our way down many flights of stairs to get ready for the show—get our in-ears before someone hands us our bedazzled microphones.

Then we huddle in a corner and, after a few encouraging words, it's finally time to fucking go.

The applause and cheers are fucking deafening as the final note of our last song fades. Millie and I look at each other in disbelief, breathing heavily as we stay in the final position of our choreography. Then we break after three seconds and she runs toward me, panting an "Oh my God, we did it," as she throws her arms around me.

I hug her back out of reflex, emotion clogging my throat and stinging in my eyes. "And we were amazing."

She lets me go and I take her hand. Together we walk to the front of the stage for our final bow before a lift in the ground will let us disappear under the stage.

"Oh my God, oh my God, Kayla, we fucking did it!" She starts jumping around me, her face stretched in a smile so wide I'm afraid it will make her face burst. "Oh my fucking God."

I laugh and pull her with me, past people scurrying to take down the stage so the match can resume, to the backstage labyrinth. Fuck yeah, we did it. And there was no hiccup at all. She wasn’t booed off stage, none of us forgot their steps or lyrics—it couldn’t have gone any better.

Now I can't wait to get out of this damn bodysuit. It looks amazing, but holy shit, is it uncomfortable, and now it's sweaty and I just want to wear some comfortable pants and a t-shirt.

I look up when suddenly, Millie rushes past me and jumps at a person waiting for us behind the stage. A grin tugs at my lips when I realize it's Luca, then my face freezes when I realize that Asher is right next to him, looking at me with a bright smile on his face.

And there's a camera trying to catch every moment for the viewers at home and probably a documentary they're selling for more charity donations.

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