Page 118 of Cherish

Boos fill the audience, and I can’t figure out what’s wrong until the crowd starts chanting. “Vegaville! Vegaville! Vegaville!”

Hudson looks astonished for a second. He covers it well, but I can tell he is completely overwhelmed by their response. And things haven’t even gotten started yet.

“Okay, okay.” He holds up a hand to quell the screaming. “Let’s try that again. Helloooooooooo, Vegaviiiiiiiiiiille! How are you tonight?”

The crowd goes wild—so wild that I think the sound waves buffet Hudson back a foot or two, because by the time they’re done shouting he looks a little shell-shocked.

“I want to thank you all for coming out tonight. Your reception has been, ummmm, a little astonishing.” He pauses, kind of thinks to himself. Then says, “Yeah, astonishing is a good word.”

The crowd laughs, and next to me, Macy groans. “Seriously? This is his stage patter? Has the guy never been to a concert before?”

“What do you think he should do?” I ask a little acerbically, because I don’t see her ass out on that stage, taking one for the team. “Ask them to throw their underwear at him?”

As if the concert gods heard me, a bright-purple bra comes spinning up onstage and hits Hudson right in the face. Lumi and Caoimhe don’t miss a note as they continue to play.

And if I thought Hudson was astonished before, it’s nothing compared to his expression when he peels the lacy lingerie from his face. He holds it away from him, one of the straps pinched gingerly between two fingers, and it looks like he’s torn between throwing it back or trying to hold on to it because he doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

In the end, though, he holds it up and says, “I think one of you lost this? Wave your hand and I’ll throw it back to you?”

The next thing I know, ten thousand hands are in the air and every single woman in the place is screaming for Hudson to throw her bra back to her.

“Okay, then,” he says, looking back and forth between all the adoring, screaming fans. “Looks like I’ll be keeping this.”

Lumi and Caoimhe play a particularly complicated riff behind him as he wraps the bra around his microphone stand like one of Steven Tyler’s scarves.

“Smooth,” Heather says as the crowd starts screaming all over again. “I didn’t think he had it in him.”

Hudson leans toward the mic stand again and says, “So, um, I think it’s probably time to, uhh, introduce you to, umm—”

He breaks off as the stage is literally flooded with bras and stuffed animals and Hudson Vega statues. A small one bounces off his left leg, and he jumps back. “Bloody hell!” he chokes out, which only makes the crowd get more frenzied.

“Is he all right?” Flint comes down from his flying patrol long enough to ask.

“I don’t know. He looks like he’s limping a little,” Macy answers.

Heather pinches up her face. “I’m beginning to think he should have asked for hazard pay for this gig.”

“Poor Jaxon.” Flint looks super sad as he shakes his head. “If they’re acting this way over Hudson, can you imagine what they’re going to do when my man finally makes it onstage?”

I start to make a snarky comment back to him, but Hudson chooses that moment to look over at me wide-eyed, and I think he wants me to give him some advice on what to do. But I’ve got nothing, except to suggest that maybe he hurry things along. Maybe they’ll stop throwing things at him if he’s actively singing.

I roll my hands in a speed-it-up gesture, and he gives me an aggrieved look, as if to say,What the hell did you think I was trying to do?

But when he turns back to the audience this time, he grabs the microphone and yells, “I want to introduce you to someone! Do you want to meet him?”

The crowd screams and whistles and stomps their feet in reply.

Hudson grins, a little more confident now that he has something certain to say. “Let me tell you a little bit about this guy before I bring him on out to meet you.”

The lights grow a little dimmer, and for the first time since he got onstage, Lumi and Caoimhe bring the background music down to something a little more soulful.

Hudson walks to the edge of the stage and crouches down to touch all of the little purple fingers thrusting up from the standing section right at the front. “He’s my baby brother, and he’s a pretty cool guy. I mean, he’s got a soul-searing obsession with the color black, but other than that, he’s a pretty stand-up guy. If you don’t count the way he used to steal my colored pencils when we were little.”

The crowd whistles andawwwwwwwwwws at that, and Hudson raises a brow. “Wait a minute. Are you cheering because he stole my crayons?” he asks. And when he shifts the microphone from one hand to the other, I know he’s finally starting to feel a little more comfortable.

The crowd responds by cheering even louder.

Hudson laughs. “Well, if you’re that excited by a little crayon stealing, I’m guessing you’re going to be really excited when you see how he can handle a pair of drumsticks.”

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