Page 43 of It Happened on a Sunday
I wrote this song when I was first falling in love with a very volatile, very emotional Jarrod Bowers. It appeared on my third album and quickly became a fan favorite, topping charts all over the world. But by the time I toured again I refused to think about the song, let alone sing it in public.
But something’s got to give tonight, and right now, I think it needs to be this.
All around the venue, fans gasp in disbelief as they recognize the opening chords. The last screams and chants die away aseveryone scrambles to turn their flashlights on and aim them at the stage before I start to sing.
The fact that I’m pretty sure every single one of those phones is also currently recording only ratchets up the tension inside me. It’s been years since I’ve let myself hear this song, but every word—every note—is inked on my heart. I push the nerves aside and let the lyrics take me back seven long years ago, before everything went so very, very wrong.
As I get to the chorus, my voice wants to tremble, but I shore it up and keep singing straight through til the end. No frills, no vocal gymnastics, just my voice and a guitar filling up what feels like the whole world as I hit the chorus one more time.
“I want to love you like you want me to, hold you like you ask me to,
kiss you like we’ll never break apart.
I want to miss you like you warned I would, find you like you said I could,
write all the best of you on my heart.”
When it’s finally done, I blow out a long, slow breath. Especially since it isn’t Jarrod’s face I saw when singing. It was Sly’s. But tonight, I’m too busy wringing triumph out of trauma to be concerned about something that feels this right.
It helps that this time, when the fans go wild, it feels less frenzied, like we’re finally out of the woods at last. I acknowledge their cheers before segueing into another popular song that I normally don’t do an acoustic version of.
By the time I’m done with that, I feel confident enough that things are back on track that I turn to the band and get them to join in. I take my first relaxed breath in what feels like centuries.
Too worried about things slipping back into chaos, I forego my outfit changes for the rest of the concert. Instead, I stay out there in the middle of the stage and sing my heart out for the next hourand a half.
The crowd sings along with me for every song, their voices almost as loud as mine.
We end on a crash of drums and a note I hold for what feels like forever. I go straight into the encore before the band and I take a final bow.
More screams erupt, and chants of “Sloaney, Sloaney, Sloaney!” fill the arena once again. I wave to the crowd as the platform that takes me beneath the stage starts to lower. Then, and only then, do I let myself relax.
Pauline, Bianca, Jace, Olivia, and Bryan—my family—are all waiting to greet me.
“You were fucking brilliant,” Jace tells me, and the others echo his sentiments.
But I don’t give a shit how brilliant they think I am. Not when all hell nearly broke loose out there.
So instead of answering him, I lock eyes with Bianca. And say, “One fucking date.”
“Okay.” She nods.
“This time, we’re in control,” I say, the quiet steel in my voice a stark contrast to the fierce volume I just delivered during the show. “We make the rules. And you tell his agent if he—or his friend or the entire fucking offensive line of the Austin Twisters—so much as breathes wrong between now and then, I’ll annihilate every single one of them.”
I’ve spent too many years burning myself down for men. This time, I’m the fire.
Chapter 18
Sly
“You quiet down so you can hear me sing this song for you, and I promise to kissandtell.”
Sloane’s words are drowned out by cheers in the video I’m watching of her concert last night, and all I can think is: How the hell did something as simple as me liking a woman turn into this fucking circus?
Okay, not simple. Nothing about Sloane Walker is simple.
I met her. I liked her. I wanted to ask her out. And that might have worked, if everything else didn’t get in the way.
Now I’m sitting in the damn practice room, waiting to go into today’s press conference and watching as Sloane is nearly injured at one of her own concerts by one of the fan footballs we sell at the games.
