Page 68 of Rocked: The Price of Dreams

One week before graduation, we clocked over five million followers on YouTube. Our Facebook page had more than one million likes. Twitter was insane. Every day we hit social media to encourage as many people as possible to vote for us in the SureHaven contest.

We were last in the poll. Without more votes, we wouldn’t make it to the sixth and final round.

Damn it.

With only four days left for voting, I slumped in the chair in Kyle’s mom’s office. “We tried, guys. We did good but weren’t good enough.”

“It’s okay.” Kyle stood behind me and combed his fingers through my hair, then rubbed the knots in the base of my neck. “There’ll be other competitions. We can try for American’s Got Talent again.”

Waiting all day in long queues only to be cut in the first round of auditions hadn’t been fun. “I don’t think reality TV is for us.”

“Nah. We’ll make it on our own.” Hunter stood in front of the desk, juggling pieces of scrunched paper. He never sat still. “We move in a week. Life is about to change. We’ll be fine on our own.”

My cell phone pinged. No message showed up on the screen, so I swiped it open to read. The notification counter on my YouTube icon showed “10k+”.

My heart stilled. “What the fuck?”

I clicked YouTube open. The top notification on our contest video read:

River Baxter liked your video.

My hand shot over my mouth then fell to my chest. The phone shook in my hand.

River Baxter, one of America’s top selling rock artists, liked our video.

“Gem? What is it?” Kyle leaned closer. I showed him the screen. “Holy shit. No way.”

River had not only liked our video, he’d shared it and voted for us. Holy. Freaking crap! For our fifth submission’s theme of “sexy,” we’d covered “SexyBack” by Justin Timberlake—the song that had brought Hunter and Kyle into my life. Hunter’s moves, Kyle’s hypnotic voice, and our wickedly seductive performance had changed the game. But it wasn’t only that song River had liked, but also our original, “Touch.”

“Hunt? River Baxter liked us.” My hand trembled as I handed him my cell phone.

“Oh. My. God. Look at our numbers. Our votes. Our followers.” The blood drained from his face, but the hugest grin slid across his mouth. “This...this...this means...”

Yep.

Two days before graduation, we made it into the sixth and final round.

Two days after finishing school, we moved to New York.

Two weeks later, I got a phone call that changed our fucking lives.

We won!

We. Fucking. Won!

Epilogue – The Next Six Years

We. Fucking. Won!

When SureHaven Records announced us as the winners, my heart exploded. Other than the night we’d gotten hurt by Kyle’s dad, I’d never seen Hunter cry. But he did this time, and they were tears of happiness, not agony. As we jumped around, danced and screamed in the middle of our tiny West Village apartment, the tears cascaded down his face as much as they did on mine and Kyle’s. We’d done it. We’d fucking won.

Within twenty-four hours, we were thrown into a recording studio to lay down the tracks we’d sung during the contest and propelled into a world of publicity. For three weeks, we sang the hits we’d performed online at shopping malls, on TV shows, and in clubs across New Jersey and New York, and as far north as Massachusetts.

It was insane.

By the time we got back to New York, we were exhausted. It had taken us four years of singing our hearts out and not giving up on our dreams to become an overnight success. Well...not yet.

Far from it.

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