Page 158 of Dirty Rock

Slightly underwhelmed.

Still, the fans went crazy, and I couldn’t help but smile as I turned around in my seat and watched all the people there cheering, with their cameras flashing and their screams turned up to full volume.

That smile turned into a grin as Halo finished a song and began speaking into the microphone. I saw a group of young girls not too far behind me, squealing to each other and bouncing on their toes. Music was such a personal experience, and what was my underwhelm was their euphoria.

I couldn’t argue with their happiness.

At once, they looked up to the stage, and their faces dropped. The girls pointed and clapped their hands to their mouths before they unleashed the shrillest cacophony of screams I’d ever heard in my life.

“Oh, jeez,” I mumbled to the guy next to me. “I daren’t turn back around. Has Halo just got his dick out?”

The guy’s shoulders bounced with laughter. “Not quite, but you’re going to want to see this.”

“I’m not sure I do.” With a sigh, I turned back around in my seat, only to freeze where I was when I saw a very familiar face staring back at me from the front of the stage.

Rhett had a microphone in his hand as he looked into my wide eyes. His dark hair was styled yet shaggy, and his signature cocksure smirk was in place. He wore a tight Front Row Frogs T-shirt onlyhecould pull off, with his usual torn jeans and black, heavy boots.

My man.

He was right there…

In Berlin!

The stadium erupted, the screams and cheers getting louder and louder and louder while my eyes just held his and filled with tears I didn’t want to part with.

No more crying, he’d warned me.

Not unless I felt so happy, I thought I would explode.

That was the kind of happiness that had taken over, and just like the girls who’d been behind me, I slapped my hands to my mouth and shook my head at him.

Rhett brought the mic to his mouth slowly. He was seducing no one but me, yet the whole venue was eating out of the palm of his hand.

“Hey, Berlin,” he said smoothly.

If I thought the noise before had been crazy, it was deafening when he finally spoke.He didn’t seem the least bit concerned as he just stared right at me like we’d been apart for a year, not a day.

Dropping my hands into my lap, I mouthed to him, “What are youdoing?” But my grin was ridiculous.

Rhett held up a single finger, his smirk ridiculous as he offered me a wink, and then turned into the frontman Halo could only dream of being. Rhett walked over to Halo, shook his hand, and shared a private joke with him the rest of us couldn’t hear. Halo looked in awe. The whole damn band did.

“How’s it going?” Rhett asked the crowd, taking front and centre stage. Halo, to his credit, stepped back. He would know this was big for Front Row Frogs, and how this was about to get crazy for the whole band now. Rhett was wearing one of their T-shirts, and it would only take a day for them to be sold-out worldwide, and for every Youth Gone Wild-addicted teenager to now be a champion of Front Row Frogs.

The crowd screamed back at Rhett, and he ran a hand through his hair, letting it linger down the back of his neck while he laughed to himself.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” he eventually said, walking the length of the stage before he started to drift over to where I was. Looking up at the lighting guys at the back of the venue, he gestured with his hands for them to light him up. They did so on cue, and he came to a stop right in front of me.

“I know you didn’t expect to see me here, Berlin, and I’m not one to normally crash a gig like this unless I’ve been invited, but sometimes we’ve got to do what we’ve got to do, right?”

The crowd, obviously, burst to life again.

“It’s our pleasure to have you, man,” Halo offered.

Rhett tilted his head to the side, beckoning Halo to go to him. The young kid practically ran, before slipping under Rhett’s arm and curling his around Rhett’s waist.

My man had no idea of the hero he was to so many. Including me. He saved people with his music. He saved me with his love.

Instinctively, my arms curled around my swollen belly.

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