Page 38 of Forever Yours

Evan peeked his head out of the door. “We’re running a few minutes behind. Sorry. The judges needed a bathroom break. You can come backstage, though.” He opened the door wider so we could enter. The previous performer was long gone. They’d scheduled a buffer between each performance, and we weren’t supposed to watch one another. The first time we would see our competitors perform was when the show aired.

As soon as we stepped backstage, I could hear the buzz of the audience. The sound caused adrenaline to pump through my veins. I’d performed plenty of times before but nothing on that scale. Suddenly, I was grateful I wasn’t alone, that Trenton was by my side.

“Are you the stage assistant too?” Trenton asked Evan jokingly.

Shrugging, Evan straightened the cuffs on his suit jacket. “I do it all, bro.”

“Maybe you should sing too.”

Evan’s mouth stretched into a lazy grin. “Only if you, Liam, Jack, and Ben sing with me.”

Trenton chuckled and shook his head. “You didn’t get enough of that this summer?”

Evan patted Trenton’s cheeks then squeezed them. He looked at me. “Look at this face. Can you ever get enough of this face?”

Trenton peeled Evan’s fingers off. “Dude, you’re going to leave a mark.”

The answer to Evan’s question was no, I couldn’t get enough of Trenton’s face. Or the rest of him, for that matter. I suddenly became nervous about my performance but for a very different reason—if I got voted off after today, then I wouldn’t have a reason to see him.

Evan pressed his fingers to his ear, listening through an earpiece. “It’s time. Any last-minute questions?”

I shook my head. If I didn’t know by then, I didn’t want to. Finding out I was unprepared for something would only stress me out.

“I think we’re good,” Trenton said.

Evan gave a quick salute then went back onstage.

Trenton put his fingertips on his face. “Do I have marks on my cheeks?”

I peered up at him. It was hard to see in the dim backstage lighting, so I went on my toes to get closer.Big mistake.If I let myself fall forward another three inches, our mouths would meet. “I don’t see anything,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

“Good.” Trenton grinned. “I wouldn’t want the viewers to think you’d slapped me.” My eyes widened, and he chuckled. “Although I’d rather they think that than know that Evan was playing patty-cake with my face.”

His joke broke the tension, and I stepped back, assuming a more appropriate distance. Trenton surprised me when he stepped toward me. My breath caught, and for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me good luck. Instead, he reached toward my shoulder, and my flesh burned at his touch. Disappointment flooded me when he plucked a stray hair and then stepped back.

I stared at him, not knowing what to think. “I shed so much hair that it’s a miracle I’m not bald.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I felt the need to fill the silence.A good-luck kiss?That had been such a stupid thought. Good-luck kisses weren’t even a thing.

But in that moment, I had wanted them to be.

“This is going to be great,” Trenton said. “I’m glad Evan talked me into doing the show.” He leaned close and whispered, “But if you tell him I said that, I’ll deny it.”

I chuckled. “Your secret is safe with me.”

Through the backstage speakers, I heard Evan introduce us. Just as I was about to step forward, Trenton took my hand in his and brought it to his lips.

Instead of walking onstage, I floated.

Georgia insisted we watch the performance show on Wednesday night with the other girls to bond with our fellow contestants. My knee-jerk reaction was to feign an excuse, but since I was shit at lying, I decided to grin and bear it. My segment was third out of the twelve. I couldn’t decide if that position was beneficial. On one hand, I would make an early impression. On the other hand, sometimes viewers waited until the end of the show to vote, which meant they might forget about me by the time they’d seen the twelfth performance. Our positions would change every week, so I supposed there was no point in speculating.

Our performance had gone perfectly—or at least, as close to perfect as I could have expected. The format of the performance itself had been straightforward. Evan introduced us, we performed, and that was that. The unknown part of the show was the footage they were stitching together from our first meeting and our self-recorded reels.

After the first contestant was introduced, and all the girls in the room cheered for her, I realized Georgia had been right—this was a good idea. Everyone seemed to have forgotten their ire over Trenton being featured prevalently in the advertising campaign. Of course, it probably helped that the posters never actually saw the light of day.

When I appeared on the screen in the tiny meeting room with Trenton, I held my breath. It was odd to see the awkward experience from an outsider’s view. My expression was a mix of terror and shock, while Trenton’s held a bit of a what-the-fuck. Luckily, there was only about thirty seconds devoted to our initial meeting before it cut to a clip of us rehearsing, which was much more flattering.

When my segment finished and the girls cheered, I held my head high and accepted their compliments because I knew I’d earned them. Georgia’s performance was next to last, and I was more nervous to see hers than I’d been to see my own. Even though she assured me it was fine, her partnership with Walter worried me. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until I exhaled as the audience applauded at the end of her performance. She was excellent, of course, but the real surprise had been Walter—he’d come alive. If someone had told me the man was showing signs of Alzheimer’s, I wouldn’t have believed it from that clip.

In the car on the way back to the hotel, Georgia was in a great mood. So was I, to be honest. Trenton and I had looked good together—natural, confident, and comfortable with one another, as if we’d been performing side by side for years instead of less than two weeks. It was a far cry from the footage of our initial meeting.

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