Page 17 of When the Stars Rise

I spend a good five minutes staring at the screen, dissecting the message word for word as if it’s a cryptic code and I need to crack it to reach the next level of the game.

I’m not even sure which game we’re playing.

How is she going to make it up to me? By strutting around naked?

By teasing and taunting and making me so hard, I have to pull over at a fucking rest stop?

Exhaling a breath of frustration, I push my hand through my hair and pocket my phone just as a girl shrieks. “Oh my god! It’s Noah!”

I look to my left as three girls in their early teens make a mad dash across the parking lot. It’s like having three Gracies charging toward me. And yes, it’s just as frightening as it sounds.

One of them is hyperventilating and looks like she’s going to faint. The other two are brandishing their phones like weapons.

“Where’s Hayley? Is she with you?” one of the blonde girls asks, her gaze darting around the rest area as if she’s expecting Hayley to pop out from behind a car.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re really here,” the other blonde says.

“Can we get a selfie?” the brunette asks, fanning her face. Her cheeks are bright pink.

Before I even have a chance to form a response, they close in on me and start snapping photos, angling their phones like true pros.

“Thank you,” the brunette says after they take about a million selfies.

“Anytime.” I’m trying to be gracious, so I flash them a big smile, which they capture in a photo.

One of the blondes holds her hand over her heart and looks like she might burst into tears. “Oh, my god. You’re like…somuch hotter than Justin Bieber.”

The other one jumps up and down and squeals, waving her phone in the air. “I can’t wait until everyone sees these photos.”

Justin Bieber? The fuck?

It’s a sad day when I get compared to Justin Bieber. I don’t even like to think about the dark days, a.k.a. when a twelve-year-old Hayley was a true Belieber. Posters plastering her bedroom wall and everything. I still shudder at the memory.

When Hayley met him a few years ago, she said she got so tongue-tied she couldn’t speak.

I don’t get the appeal. I really don’t.

I put on my helmet, ready to take off, but their words drift back to me. “Noah is totally hot, but Harry Styles is still way hotter.”

“Oh my god, right? Nobody can compare to my one and only.”

“True, bestie.”

Teenage girls. So fickle. I sigh and get back on the road.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hayley

After sold-out shows in Birmingham,Miami, and Orlando, we’re in Atlanta. When it’s time for my acoustic set, I sit on a stool and cradle my guitar, leaning into the mic.

“Can I just tell you how happy I am to be here tonight? I love you all. I hope you know how much you mean to me.” I pause, scanning the darkened arena lit by thousands of LED wristbands, and wait until their applause dies down.

“Today is a very special day, and tonight, I want to honor the man who put aside his career to pave the way for me. Dean Bouchon is not only a great singer-songwriter, but he’s also someone I’ve come to admire for how he turned his life around. Fifteen years of sobriety is something to be proud of, and I’m not sure he’d be here today if he hadn’t put in the hard work and stayed committed to his course. But I’m so grateful that he did. He once told me music saved him, and I think it saved me too. There’s so much power in music. It’s what brought us all together tonight.”

I smile at the applause and the shouts of “I love you, Hayley,” and my heart swells to ten times its size. I still can’t believe this is my life and that all these people have paid money to come and see me.

“It’s Dean Bouchon’s birthday, so how about we get him out here to sing a couple songs with me?”