“Hey, it does the job. Let’s find Luke. He’s my hook up.”

Luke has me set up backstage, behind a curtain, stage right. I have a clear line of vision to Kai, pacing directly across from me, backstage left. She’s chewing on her thumbnail and biting one side of her pouty bottom lip.

I don’t know how to feel. On the one hand, of course I want her to do well. On the other, these guys not only don’t deserve her, I’m not sure they’ll know what to do with her, how to best showcase her talent. Maybe it’s arrogant to think I do, but I know her and I know music. I love her and I love music.

“Ms. Pearson, we’re ready for you,” one of the producers down front calls.

Kai draws a deep breath and then does something that makes me want to throw her over my shoulder and drag her out of here in Marlon’s borrowed rusty Civic. She lifts the nameplate necklace I gave her for Christmas and kisses it, eyes closed tight.

I’ve purposefully avoided her rehearsals, but I’ve heard her doing compression exercises, working on her tone, and stretching her range. It’s paid off. No one would accuse her of being a dancer who sings. She’s a great vocalist. Grady’s been coaching her for this audition. He’s done a great job preparing her, but he had nothing to do with what arrests me, and I’m sure the producers, almost from the moment she steps onto the stage.

All signs of uncertainty, tentativeness, dissipate. Even tiny, barely clearing five feet, she commands the stage from the first step, her wide smile and easy confidence creating a force field around her that nerves and jitters can’t penetrate. She speaks into the mic, her Southern drawl sweetening the air.

“How y’all doing?”

No different than the night we sang a Christmas carol at Glory Falls Baptist for a roomful of people she’d known all her life. As bright and genuine and magnetic.

She gives the nod to the engineer running sound. I know she’s using a track. I would have probably advised her to go live and pared down for the audition because the song is so produced, maybe a simple piano or acoustic arrangement, but as soon as she starts, I understand why she made this choice. She needed the full instrumentation and the background vocals as the base from which she can spring. The bass and grit of the original arrangement allow her to showcase not only her vocal abilities, but in a subtle way, the fluid athleticism of her body. She starts center, but doesn’t stay there long, moving from one end of the stage to the other. Kai can be reserved, but the spunk and fire and energy I get to see when it’s just the two of us, she pours into this performance.

When I suggested the song, I knew it would highlight her vocal ability. When it soars, she can stretch into her range, full-voiced and rich. When it ebbs, she showcases the control and discipline of her vocal instrument. I didn’t realize though, how well it fit her story, her journey. Truth sets every lyric ablaze. When she sings about it being worth the wait and says we haven’t seen the best of her, we know it’s true. We know it’s only a matter of time.

As a professional, I can dissect all the technical things she executes beautifully that make the performance work. Yet, as someone who is seeing her sing and move and emit this riveting stage presence—the whole package onstage really for the first time—I’m awed that I’ve been friends with this girl, been dating this girl, sleeping with this amazing star right under my nose this whole time and had no idea. No fucking idea that she is literally going to jettison past everyone else and explode into the cultural landscape like a meteor.

Me included.

Her last note uncorks applause from the producers. I can’t easily see them from my position, but if I were them, I’d be on my feet. Kai grins, obviously a little overwhelmed by the response, pressing her hand to her forehead and then her chest. Then her stomach. I know that feeling after you’ve given everything, drained your gift for an audience. You don’t know what to do with yourself sometimes when you stop. Nothing else feels as natural as pouring yourself out for them. When you stop, you wonder what else they want, what else you could give.

Luke pulls my arm, jarring me out of the moment.

“You need to get out of here.” He smiles at the few stagehands milling around. “This is a closed audition. It’s a miracle I got you in here. And a bigger miracle that no one has recognized you yet. Let’s go.”

He’s right. I should go. Kai would probably think I’m interfering. She’d be right. I hoped seeing her audition would make my decision easier, my way clearer, but things are murkier now than they were before. Either way I go, I’m afraid she’ll end up hurt. One way, the hurt I control. I inflict. The other, someone else does. When she’s cut, I bleed, so it’s not much of a choice at all.

I’VE RAISED THE PRIVACY PARTITION IN the SUV. Gep and I usually chat some, but I need time alone to process what happened. I just gave the performance of my life. I feel it. I know those moments are pivotal. They will change my trajectory. I lift Grammy’s gold chain to my lips, hanging beneath the nameplate necklace Rhyson gave me. Tears gather at the corners of my eyes, and no matter how much I blink, they defiantly fall.

Grammy, Pops, and Mama would have been proud of me today. I know it. There’s plenty in my life they would never approve of. My faith is a path overgrown with weeds and briars. The people of Glory Falls would probably condemn me for practically living with Rhyson and for how I’ve given myself to him. I don’t know. Somehow right now, I can’t care. Everything I grew up believing is in a box under my bed, and maybe someday soon I’ll take it out and sort through what was mine and what was Mama’s, but right now, today, I know she is with me. All three of them looked down from Heaven, and they were with me. I sang for them. For all the sacrifices they made so I could arrive at that moment and make the most of it.

And they were pleased.

The partition lowers, and Gep looks back at me.

“We’re here.”

I glance up the driveway in front of Rhyson’s house. How long have I been sitting out here replaying that audition? Probably a while for him to have to tell me we’ve arrived. He steps out and opens the door for me, helping me down.

“You were amazing,” he says when I walk past him.

I turn around and stare.

“You were there?”

He gives me a wink.

“I’m always there.”

I’m not sure if I’m comforted or freaked out. I’ll have to talk to Rhyson about this. I thought Gep just drove me around sometimes. I want to make sure he’s not doing more. I still don’t think I need more.

I walk from room to room, looking for Rhyson, so amped to tell him what just happened. I finally find him in the rec room right where I left him. For a man with a “little” world tour coming up, he sure has been relaxing a lot today. He’s reading the same magazine he was when I left. GQ? Rhyson? Oh, well.

He glances up from the magazine, tossing it onto the table and leaning forward, eyes fixed on me.

“How’d it go?”

I know in his heart of hearts, this isn’t what he wants for me and that he doesn’t like Total Package, but I can’t hold my exuberance back. I run across the room past the pool table where we first made love, and dive into his lap on the couch, sending him back into the cushions. My arms loop around his neck, and his hands immediately touch the skin left bare by my top. I press my lips to his, needing him. He was the only thing missing from today, and I’m so glad to be with him now.

“Rhyson, it was like everything I’ve worked all my life for came together in that audition today.” I lean my shoulder into his chest, tucking my head under his chin and stroking his abs under his T-shirt. “At least that’s how it felt.”