Page 39 of #Moonstruck

But my brothers didn’t care.

I was not the bantering-with-the-crowd type and quietly walked over to where my microphone and guitar were set up. Parker, on the other hand, had no such problem. As soon as he was seated at his drums, he said into his microphone, “Hello, Las Vegas! How excited are you to see Ryan De Luna tonight?”

The entire arena erupted in hysterical screams.

Cole played along. “Will we do until you get to see him?” He even struck a pose, much to the delight of the crowd.

“If Ryan doesn’t treat you ladies right, you come find one of the Harrison boys,” Parker teased, causing even more shrills and shrieks.

“Yeah, we know what women like,” Cole said, and I thought the crowd might actually fall down from the response. Like the walls of Jericho.

A woman near the stage screamed, “I want to have your babies!” and ten seconds later a lacy hot-pink bra landed on the stage. It was like the feminism movement was regressing before my eyes.

I figured somewhere Gloria Steinem had just become violently ill without knowing the reason why.

With the crowd whipped up into a frenzy, Parker hit his sticks together to an eight count, letting us know when to come in.

The adrenaline rushed through my veins, singing as it went. An electric buzz sank into my skin, spreading until it filled my soul. The only thing I could compare it to was when I’d been close to Ryan earlier.

Only more magical.

Our music filled the speakers and shook the stage beneath our feet. I sang the first five words of the cover song we’d chosen, and the crowd immediately responded, singing the next four words back to me without prompting.

It was the most incredible feeling in the world. It would be hard to explain to someone whose life didn’t revolve around music, but it was this ... overwhelming euphoria. Connection to the audience that was connecting with us. As if we’d harnessed some great, inexplicable power and thrown it out to the crowd, and they were funneling it back to us with their cheers.

Not that we were flawless. We made mistakes. Rushed beats, sang flat notes, misplayed chords. Probably due to jitters and excitement, but it couldn’t detract from the golden bubble of happy that encased all of us onstage.

When I got to “One More Night,” the audience practically lost it. They sang every word along with me, and I had to fight to not get choked up. The music uplifted. It united us and spoke to every person in the arena in a way that no language ever could. I’d never felt so energized, so completely alive.

Like I had been fundamentally changed and would never be the same person again.

This was what I was going to do with the rest of my life, no matter what it took.

We finished with “Yesterday” and thanked the crowd for listening to us. This time, the cheers and applause were real and maybe a little bit earned.

Then we were back under the stage. The audience’s response still rang in my ears. I felt hands slap me on the back and heard people say, “Great show!” and “Good job!” I was on such a high that I walked by Ryan without even realizing it.

Clear up to the moment when he slipped a hand around my waist, pulled me in close, and pressed his lips softly against the side of my face. I gasped, my breath sticking in my throat.

“Sorry,” he murmured. “Your cheek looked like it was missing a kiss. You were absolutely incredible out there. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

With a wink and a grin, he was gone, and I almost stumbled and fell into a stack of animal props they used for the circus portion of his show.

“Come on, IQ,” Cole said as he navigated me toward our dressing room. “Let’s get you cooled off.”

Not possible.

“I know you said this is all fake, but that looked real to me.”

What could I tell him? There was nothing to say, so I just kept walking.

“Don’t get me wrong, because I think he’s a cool dude, but don’t say you weren’t warned.”

I’d been warned. Repeatedly. By both strangers and the people who loved me best.

I was finding out that it didn’t matter. I knew what I should do: what was best for me and my life.

In that moment? I absolutely, 100 percent, did not care.

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