Chapter 34

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

H arry was used to having dozens of people surrounding him before a concert—loads of security, the stage manager, staff coordinating lights, timing, announcements, all of it. He wouldn’t be running out onto a national stage with tens of thousands of people screaming his name, who’d been waiting for him for an hour through another band.

But the pressure settled on his shoulders all the same.

He had to be personable. He had to glow with happiness to be playing a guitar and singing. He had to ooze charm and charisma. And since he hadn’t wanted to do this tour at all from the very beginning, conjuring up all of those things felt like a monumental task that Harry would fail at.

Boston and Adam had both been in the private dining room for the past half-hour. All of the band members had arrived, the camera crew had gotten food, and the general tension in the air felt like it could snap Harry’s neck at any moment.

“It’s six-forty-five, sir,” Boston said, and Harry wanted to tell his cousin he didn’t have to call him sir . At the same time, his very best friend in the whole world still called him sir in public, and Harry reminded himself that both Boston and Adam, while friends and family members, were employees as well.

“Thank you, Boston,” he said, because if Harry had learned one thing from his father as a country music star, it was that gratitude and kindness would always win.

“You have a list of tables I can visit?” Harry asked.

“All of them,” Boston said. “There wasn’t anyone who didn’t agree to be filmed.”

“Okay.” Harry had forgotten how many tables they’d set up in the main concert area. It didn’t really matter. He would go around to all of them, say hello, thank people for coming, possibly get some shots that they could put on their social media to try to sell more tickets, and sign album covers, posters, or whatever else someone asked him to.

No, he didn’t particularly want to do this concert, but he would put in a good faith effort to make it successful. Rebel Records had been good to him. They’d paid him a lot, and then allowed him to do this concert his way instead of traveling all over.

“Has anyone seen Belle?” he asked.

Though she wasn’t playing with him that evening, he’d gotten a contract for her. She was playing ten shows in Jackson Hole—and would be paid a lot for them .

“I saw her on my way in,” Bryce said as he came to Harry’s side. “You ready to do this?” He hugged Harry, and getting a hug from Bryce was like hugging the Lord Himself.

“I’m ready,” Harry said.

“All right,” Bryce said. “I think they’re waiting for us in the dining room.”

“Dessert has just been served,” Boston confirmed. “Everyone has their cheesecake and drinks for the duration of the concert now.”

Harry’s nerves boiled at him, just as they had every other time he’d had to perform. He told himself he’d done this many times before. He knew his songs inside and out. He had memorized everything about Devil’s Tower. All he had to do now was get out there and do it.

“Do I have two minutes?” Harry asked.

“You have ninety seconds,” Boston said, his eyebrows going up.

“All right.” He grinned at Bryce and put his arm around him. “It’s time for one of your toaster prayers, brother.”

He grinned at his cousin and then raised his hand. “Everyone who wants to have prayer before we go out, over here.”

His team immediately dropped what they were doing, stopped their conversations, their pre-concert rituals, all of it. They circled up around him, and he nodded to Bryce, his heart already full. “You’re down to sixty seconds.”

“Well, we better not be wasting any more time then,” Bryce said, his personality as bright as the moon and the sun put together. “Dear Lord,” he said, not even removing his cowboy hat. “We’re real grateful that Harry’s able to do his concerts from right here in Coral Canyon and Jackson Hole this year. Having somewhere to call home is such a blessing. And we’re really grateful that within this room, we can be home when we’re with each other. Bless every voice and hand and finger tonight as they sing and play that they will land in exactly the right spots, and that we can bring Thee glory through music and performing. Bless anyone who needs to hear a special message in one of the songs or through the lyrics, that their hearts will be open and their ears will be able to hear the messages that Thou has for them.”

He paused, and Bryce had already prayed longer than they had time for, but Harry didn’t rush him, and no one cleared their throat. Then Bryce simply said, “Amen,” and their prayer circle broke up.

“Amen,” Harry muttered to himself while others said it much louder than he did.

“Ten minutes, guys,” Boston said. “Harry, let’s go.” He led the way out of the private dining room. Harry went second, with Bryce behind him and Adam following them all. As he approached the stage area and the section of the restaurant that had been cordoned off, Harry quickly counted the tables—twelve. They’d paid a premium price to be in that section, and Harry wanted to make it worthwhile.

“We need to give more time before the concert,” he said to Boston. “There’s twelve tables here—that’s not even a minute per table.”

“I’ll check with The Branding Iron,” Boston said. “See how many they’ve got. Michelle won’t have tables at the Daily Grind.”

Harry sure did like how his cousin knew all of this in only a couple of short days. He knew Boston had just needed a chance to step into the spotlight.

“It’ll be standing room only there, with coffee or decaf at the door.”

Harry stuffed away his emotion, though it would bleed through in the songs, and he could use all he could get. “Three minutes per table, Boston. People might want to get something signed. And we don’t have much time for that here.”

“Yes, sir,” Boston said.

Slightly frustrated, Harry stepped past everyone protecting him and entered the dining area. The first people who saw him gasped and started to clap. Harry waved them off, but the damage had been done, and soon enough the entire restaurant applauded. He grinned and met the woman’s eyes who started it all.

“Pretty sure I failed your biology class,” he said. “You don’t need to be clapping for me.”

This got some laughter, and Mrs. Hoffman grabbed onto him and hugged him. He embraced her back, taking precious moments to do so.

Harry moved quickly to say hello to those people in the reserved dining area. Adam had taught him to have tunnel vision, to keep his head down, focus on one thing, and don’t make eye contact. But this was the opposite of that.

Harry tried to give everyone the time they wanted, to say hello and thank them for coming. He scrawled his name on the cover of his third album several times, he laughed, he made expert small talk—and he knew when the main cameraman got up on his stool.

That meant he had one minute to be on stage. He still had four tables to go, and he looked at Bryce. They had not rehearsed anything, and Harry didn’t want Bryce opening his first online world concert.

So he got up on stage, picked up the mic, and said, “We’re going to be starting here in about a minute. I apologize to those of you who I didn’t get to speak to yet. If you have something for me to sign or want to chat, I’m willing to stay after for as long as it takes.” He grinned at his parents in a booth off to the side. Of course, they wouldn’t take a table away from someone else, but he sure was glad to see them there.

He didn’t see Belle either, and for half a second, he thought about saying her name into the microphone, just so that she would raise her hand, and he’d be able to see her. At the same time, Harry knew that would mortify her, so he simply scanned the restaurant.

When he met Adam’s eyes, his assistant’s eyebrows went up, clearly asking, What are you looking for?

Harry stood in front of a live mic, and Boston gestured him off the stage to come get his guitar. He wasn’t supposed to start the live stream on the stage, and Harry got down as quick as he could.

“Where’s Belle?” he muttered to Adam .

“She’s got a table right on the other side of the wall here, sir,” Adam said.

Harry wanted to go say hello, give her a kiss, and ground himself. Instead, his cameraman called out, “Five seconds,” and added, “Five…four…three….” and then only gestured, two—one—with his fingers before making a fist.

Zero.

It was time.

Harry transformed into the country music star he’d been for the past few years. They’d recorded a voiceover introduction already at Rebel Records, and Boston had donned a headset and proceeded to send out the drummer and then keyboard player, Harry’s bassist, and their backup singers, all in time with that voiceover.

Boston put his palm on Harry’s chest and watched the stage as people clapped and welcomed the band to Devil’s Tower. The energy in the restaurant had spiked, but it wasn’t full of tension, more like apprehension and excitement. When Boston lowered his fist, he placed his palm on Harry’s back and said, “Go, go, go.”

Harry jogged out into view of the camera. He wasn’t Uncle Luke, and he didn’t rip off his shirt and do backflips, but he raised both hands high above his head as the crowd in front of him got to their feet again.

Thirty people in the vicinity of the camera, and probably a hundred-fifty in the whole restaurant, clapped for him. Harry brought his hands together in a praying gesture and bowed before he stepped up onto the stage, adjusted the mic, and said, “Welcome to the greatest small town in the world, Coral Canyon, Wyoming!”

Hours later, Harry simply wanted to take Belle back to her apartment and lay down on her cushy couch while they put something on TV. That had become his favorite thing, and he hadn’t even known he needed it in his life.

But he liked being with her, and he liked that they sometimes talked and sometimes didn’t. He liked how the world became very small while he lay on the couch with his girlfriend in his arms.

Instead of doing any of that, he pulled up to a big mansion in the gated community, having gone by Uncle Blaze’s house on the right several houses back. Plenty of cars sat out front, and Harry peered at all the lit windows throwing light out onto the lawn and driveway.

“Here we go,” he said.

“I should have driven myself,” Belle said. “You’re going to be here all night.”

He was late to his own after-party because he’d stayed at Devil’s Tower to greet people, talk to them, and sign albums and posters.

“We’ll stay an hour,” he said. “I do whatever I want. ”

She grinned over at him and said, “Of course, you do,” with a slight laugh.

“I mean, I don’t do whatever I want,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Because if it was whatever you want, we’d go home.”

“Is that what you want, my Belle?” he asked.

“Well, it’s almost midnight,” she said. “And I’m not exactly what you’d call a party animal.”

Harry laughed because no, Belle did not have the party animal personality.

“It’s the first concert,” he murmured. “It went really well. We have to go in.”

“Yeah, over fifty thousand tickets sold,” she said. “For an online concert.”

Harry couldn’t help grinning. “Get as many as that in Atlanta.”

“Okay, Mister Arrogant.”

He looked over to her and grinned. “And bonus, I didn’t have to fly there.”

She leaned toward him and kissed him, and Harry really just wanted to do that for the rest of the night. Instead, he pulled away, got out, and came to help her down from the truck. The garage door stood up, and Harry went in that way instead of going to the front door. The country music bopped through the closed door as he approached. It faded into silence as he climbed a few steps to the cement pad and then opened the door, Belle’s hand in his behind him.

Inside the house, he entered a mudroom, which provided a calm before the storm. Further in the house, he heard voices talking and laughing, but no one had put more music on yet.

“It looks like people are taking off their shoes here,” Belle said, but Harry wasn’t going to do that. He hated taking his shoes off in public. It felt demeaning, and he left her on a bench while she started to unlace her sandals to remove them.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “You want something to drink?”

“Yes,” she said. “Ginger ale or Coke Zero.”

“You got it.” He hovered in the doorway and peered out into the kitchen. Two of his backup singers stood at the island, nursing appetizers and drinks.

“I can’t wait to meet his girlfriend,” one of them said, a woman named Mariah who had a high soprano voice as clear as a bird.

“I don’t care if I meet her,” the other one—CeCe—said. “It’s Belle Graves .” She sneered out the name in a way that made Harry’s ribs close in around his vital organs, ready to protect them violently.

“So?” Mariah said. “Do you know her?”

Harry’s heart pounded. CeCe leaned in closer and said in a mock whisper, “She couldn’t hack it in country music several years ago. She’s a complete failure.” She glanced into the living room, but not over her shoulder, toward the mudroom where Harry stood. “No wonder she’s been buttering up to Harry. She probably thinks he can get her into the industry again. ”

“Well, I still want to meet her,” Mariah said, and she tossed her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder and lifted her drink to her lips.

Harry wasn’t sure what to do, and he became aware of Belle moving past him and toward the women. She said, “Hey, CeCe, what are you drinking?”

The other woman shrieked and said, “Oh my goodness, Belle, it’s so great to see you again,” in one of the fakest voices Harry had ever heard.

He scoffed right out loud, and that brought all three women’s attention to him. Something dangerous and dark swirled within him, rose from his fingertips as they curled into fists, and moved up his arms and into his shoulders, and then his chest.

And Harry knew he was about to explode.