Hey Girl (Turn it Up #9)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

REBECCA

T he cheers and whistles of the crowd make me feel sick to my stomach. It’s so loud, and the volume level lets me know just how many people are out there. Thousands of Turn it Up fans - with smartphones, no less - are going to see me, center stage. I’ll be the main focus, all eyes unavoidably on me.

Nowhere to hide.

The air is drafty backstage, and yet I feel like I’m running a fever or having the hot flash from hell. I rub my clammy hands up and down my dark designer jeans, still so foreign to my Kmart-loving self, and swallow hard.

Never have I been this nervous. Scratch nervous: I’m terrified. Completely terrified, like I’m trapped in my worst nightmare, only…it’s going to have a happy ending right?

Oh god, what if it doesn’t?

No. It has to have a happy ending. He loves me. He’ll protect me. Even if this doesn’t go the way I hope, he won’t humiliate me or let anything or anyone hurt me. Even if it’s my own insecurities, he always protects me.

There’s no reason to be afraid, and even if I am, it’s worth it. It’s the good fear, the type you feel when you’re about to go bungee jumping. The type you should feel, and then do the thing anyway. I remind myself of that notion over and over until I feel a comforting, feminine hand running up and down my arm. While at first I jump, I immediately relax when I find it belongs to

Mayzie has appeared at my side, the stage lights reflecting the cheerful encouragement in her grey eyes.

I nod nervously, trying to smile.

Fucking shit, there are seventy-thousand people out there! That’s one hundred and forty-thousand eyes!

“It’s going to be fine, babe. It’s going to be perfect. I am so proud of you,” she tells me affectionately, as if she sensed my inner nuclear meltdown.

I have one of those about every half hour, every hour on a good day.

“So am I,” Melanie appears at my other side, rubbing a soothing hand on my back. “And remember, it’s just like he said. You can’t even see them out there.”

“It’s just thousands of fireflies in the night,” Mayzie finishes, reminding me of what the man of my dreams once compared the expansive audience to when they have their cell phone flashlights ignited.

“Fireflies,” I echo softly and nod to myself as I feel a gentle warmth overtake my soul. That’s what he told me. That an audience of this size can sometimes be intimidating even for him, and that’s what he imagines them as.

I can do that too…

For him.