Page 61 of Goode to Be Bad

“Fuck.” I sat back, rubbing my face. “Six million?” I couldn’t quite believe it.

Myles laughed. “It’ll have a hundred million by tonight, guaranteed. Especially once I post it on my socials. It hasn’t even hit any of the big sites, yet. Once it does, watch out. My fans have been after me for years to get Crow on something. I’m always talking about how talented he is, but the reclusive fucker has been impossible about it until now. He’d never go on stage with me, but this is a good compromise.” He grinned at me. “The thing that really makes this video, though, is you, Lex. Straight fuckin’ fire.”

I shook my head. “I wasn’t ready for that.”

He chuckled. “You never are. You helped make the album, you knew I was publishing it.”

“Yeah, but that was just my name and voice as a session player. Not my face.”

He held my hand. “Believe me, you’re ready. This is just the beginning for you.”

“Myles, until this week I’ve never played in front of anyone, ever.”

“I know this week was a bit of a trial by fire. Now you just jump in and trust me.”

“Jump in?”

“And trust me.”

I swallowed. “Myles, I don’t know.”

“Lexie, I do.” He squeezed my hand. “The future is now, and you’re it.”

“That is crazy.”

“Not really.” He laughed. “Just trust me in this. I won’t let you down.”

“I’ll try.” I knew he had plans, and if I knew what they were, I’d be shared shitless. So I didn’t ask, but I had to admit I was just a little bit excited.

Tokyo was nuts.Busy, crowded, loud and super fun, and the people were so polite. We spent two days just seeing the sights—usually through the tinted windows of a limo; being whisked from place to place, always entering through the back entrance. Seemed like a lot drama to me, but Myles took it seriously. We ate in fancy restaurants and simple little holes-in-the-wall, went to shows, nightclubs, and one night Myles even got me drunk enough on sake to do karaoke, which he then recorded and put up on his socials. Suddenly I had my own following and hashtag, and he showed me thousands of comments of people wanting to know who I was, and if I was going to be on the tour. Thousands of comments––I could barely get my mind around it.

He scrolled through them, and had to scroll for what seemed like forever, just so I could see how many there were.

It didn’t seem real.

I didn’t really believe it.

And then Canaan and Corin sent over another video, edited from more of the same footage, and this one was just Myles and me in a duet, with footage of us together. A lot of the footage was from when we did the duets at Badd Kitty. The video racked up hundreds of views within seconds of going live, millions within hours, and then it got picked up and spread around. The number of people who had seen it was higher than I could fathom.

The count was more than most of Myles’s band videos, including the ones he had Grammys for.

This was crazy…and exciting all at the same time.

But I couldn’t believe this was because of me––it didn’t seem real. Or right. I was no one. I’d done nothing. Sang a few songs into a mic, in a little studio in Alaska.

And now?

#Lexie&Myles was trending on Twitter.

Then, our two days of playtime in Tokyo was over. We showed up at the venue—the Tokyo Dome, a place with fifty thousand seats. Empty, for now. The stage was still being set up—lights, sound, effects––it was a whirlwind of activity. Once the sound was up, Myles and the guys settled into a sound check, found their marks on the stage, and then went through their set list.

The setup and rehearsals took a few days, but it was becoming a familiar routine for me—I’d sit side-stage, a bottle of water near me, watching the techs bustle and the guys play, stopping as they missed a note or messed up a chord or forgot a lyric. The day before the show, they went through the entire set from start to finish in a full dress rehearsal, necessary after more than two months off, to make sure the show went off without a hitch.

The last night, before the big show the next day, after their rehearsal, Myles sat down with me at the side of the stage.

He was sweaty from jumping around the stage, shirtless, a towel around his neck, chugging a bottle of water. “Hey, you.”

“Hey yourself,” I said. “You guys look and sound great.”