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I WAS SECOND-GUESSING the heels.

The plan was not to stand up for this long, but I was nervous and I needed to pace.

The Revelry was packed. We’d sold out an hour after the tickets went on sale.

That hadn’t happened here in … years . Now I watched from the private balcony overhead.

Our AC had bitten the dust, and even though Uncle Rick and Dad were on the case, the venue was just getting hotter and hotter.

It made sense—summer in Vienna Shores was like walking into a salty sauna.

I just wished it hadn’t been tonight of all nights.

The crowd beneath me swayed like the ocean, conversations interspersed with bouts of laughter. Sometimes, I thought I heard a familiar voice—it sounded just like Mom’s—and my heart would speed up and then I’d remember, and the honeyed taste of hope on my tongue would turn bittersweet.

I had been home for two years when Mom finally passed, and this was the first summer without her.

We were slow to find our new normal, but we were trying.

Most evenings Dad would still go out to the bench in the garden, and then he’d come into the Rev and sit down at the bar beside where Mom used to sit, and he’d tuck something into his pipe and chew on the end, though he’d quit smoking a few months ago.

Things at the Revelry were hard sometimes, and even a bit weird.

I never expected to have to budget for college kids stealing toilet paper or an infestation of seagulls or an ancient AC unit (okay, maybe I should have expected to budget for that), but I never once doubted my decision to stay.

Some months were great, and others we only managed to make ends meet because someone kept leaking which dates Sasha would come in to play.

There was a whole Reddit thread that detailed his expected schedule, and I suspected with the accuracy that it was Mitch doing the posting.

Even though both Mitch and Gigi had moved out to LA after Mom died.

Which was why I wanted to make tonight perfect … and why something was bound to go wrong.

We had ten minutes to go before call time. The AC wasn’t fixed. And I was beginning to stress sweat. Did I have to go to the roof myself and kick it?

So I walked the length of the private balcony, regretting my heels, waiting to hear Dad call in on the radio telling me that the AC was fixed, when I realized—why was I still in my heels ? I owned this damn place.

I tore them off and threw them behind me. One went sailing over Sasha’s head as he slipped into the balcony.

“Well hello to you, too, bird,” he greeted me, carrying a bottle of cold beer for me, a root beer for himself. Just hearing his voice soothed my anxiety.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” I replied, pulling my arms around him. He kissed my cheek. “I’m glad you’re here. The AC is broken. And I’m starting to freak out. But I’m so glad you made it in time. How was your flight?”

“Too long, as always. I think I’m going to turn that back room into a studio.”

I rolled my eyes, unraveling my hug, and took my beer. We sat down in the creaky theater seats. It felt like a lifetime ago we’d been up here whispering secrets over a Jimmy Buffett tribute band. “You always say that.”

“I think I mean it this time,” he replied. “What do you think?”

That surprised me. “Really?”

He took a sip of his root beer. “Really. And I was thinking maybe …” He went quiet. Thoughtful.

I waited patiently. “Maybe … ?”

“I think the AC’s back on,” he said, though it wasn’t what he was going to say. It distracted me enough, however, and I turned around to look at the air ducts. The streamers tied to the vents were, in fact, twirling.

I melted with relief. “Oh, thank god .”

“Everything is going to be great, bird,” he said, sitting back in his seat. “Just breathe.”

I had half a mind to tell him that anything could go wrong at any moment, but instead I … did as he told me. I sat back, and I breathed.

Tonight was Georgia Simmons’s first show in Vienna Shores—her first show at the Revelry. Earlier this summer she opened for Willa Grey’s new tour, and with a few songs Sasha and I had written for her, you could see the stirring of something good. Something magical. But tonight was special.

The walkie-talkie at my hip crackled with the voice of the stage manager, and my tech radioed back signaling that they were ready.

I’d hired a few more people to help out with the music hall—two new bartenders, sound and lighting techs, and a stage manager, positions that the Revelry had in its heyday—and you could see the spark of life returning with each new show.

The houselights went down.

Then the curtains opened.

And the show began.

Gigi was a piece of art in the spotlight. She soaked it in like a sunflower, blooming so big it made the rest of the world impossible to see. The crowd moved with her, her excitement infectious. My apprehension quickly morphed to awe.

There, onstage, was my best friend.

I had never seen anyone shine so bright.

I folded my arms over each other and leaned against the railing, and I couldn’t stop smiling.

From this angle, I could see a little bit backstage, where Dad and Mitch watched from the wings.

Dad dabbed his eyes with the corner of his ascot and said something to my brother.

I couldn’t hear it, but I could guess what he said—

“That’s our girl. That’s our Gigi.”

And Mitch just smiled and smiled and smiled, and never took his eyes off her.

You would’ve loved this, Mom , I thought, imagining her just there on the other side of Mitch, singing along.

Maybe she was.

Sasha leaned against the railing with me. “What’re you thinking about?”

The cost of a new AC unit. The next song I wanted Gigi to listen to. Partnering with Iwan’s restaurant in town for some food, maybe. But most of all, I was thinking—“Us,” I replied with a smile, and kissed him gently on the mouth.

He tasted like root beer, and smelled like air travel and bergamot, and I still could never get enough of him.

Then familiar notes drifted through the Revelry.

A pop ballad in D major, with a key change in the last third.

It was the first song we gave to Gigi, and we knew she could sing it best. We were right.

This song was once about Sasha and me. About warring with who you are and who you were meant to be, but it had turned into an anthem for all the people who shone brightest in someone else’s eyes.

Sasha and I had sung it well, but Gigi gave new life to it, and now the crowd below us sang the song at the top of their lungs with her.

The tempo was our heartbeats as I savored Sasha’s kisses. And just after the bridge, I decided to tell him what was really on my mind, whispering it against his lips. “So, if you move your studio here, you’ll likely need a place to live … Do you want to move in with me?”

“Mmh, I don’t know … moving in with my creative partner might be a terrible idea,” he replied coyly, and planted a kiss on the corner of my mouth.

Then he echoed a sentiment I’d thrown at him a year ago: “I mean, look at all of the ones that didn’t work out—Fleetwood Mac, Sonic Youth, the Wiggles … ”

I pulled away. “You’re comparing us to the Wiggles ?”

“It’s important to note,” he replied soberly.

“Then how about moving in with your girlfriend ?” I asked instead, and when he smiled, it made his eyes bright, gleaming with the lights below.

He pressed his forehead against mine. “I think I can do that.”

I hesitated, searching his eyes. “And how about your fiancée?”

To that, he didn’t need to answer aloud, as he cupped my face and kissed me again, deep and thoughtful and tender, as hundreds of voices sang our song below us.

I heard him clear and bright in my head even if it was just my imagination.

When we finally broke apart, I braided my fingers into his, memorizing the lovely shade of his eyes, the curve of his mouth, the tinge of blush across his cheeks.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I whispered, and when he nodded, I said, “Even though you aren’t in my head anymore, you never left it.”

“You never left mine, either,” he confided.

And in the place where that itchy, awful panic once rested in my chest, there bloomed something so lovely, I didn’t have the words yet to describe it.

But it sounded—still soft, still unsure—like a song.