His heart thumped. Becoming a funnel, Brian took in the fans’ energy until their love filled his chest. Electricity shot from Brian’s center to his extremities as the crowd poured forth their adulation.
Angst drained away as external validation filled him. Worship from admirers would soon leak out of the holes in his soul, but for now it would do. And he’d enjoy this time to the fullest.
He leaned deep into his microphone stand. “Good evening, Minneapolis.”
His voice echoed in godlike reverberations that buoyed him with temporary pride. For the next couple of hours, he would play God.
The sight of a certain someone in the third row made his heart skip. Amidst the legion, Helen drew his stare. She hadn’t hidden her face behind a cell phone, one of maybe five people in the front rows unobscured by a rectangular object and the ice-white flashes from its cyborg eye. An intriguing glimpse into her personality, how she’d chosen to appreciate the show unmediated.
What a face she had, inquisitive eyes the color of a fine bourbon and smooth skin undamaged by tanning. Her thick, tousled hair and sexy body also pleased his gaze, but qualities more profound than her physical features compelled him.
Qualities more profound, even, than her intelligence and affinity for the exact sort of repartee and banter that kept his mind limber inspired his interest in her. Her personality traits, though, were a definite bonus. Fun, witty people fired him up and made him laugh.
Her assessment of “A Thousand Suns” laid him flat, but he’d managed not to lose his cool and blather this to her like some infatuated fool.
Decades ago, Brian wrote that song in a scrappy wooded area on the outskirts of London, imagining the handful of acres as a secret forest inhabited by elves and magic. He’d stolen every spare moment he could to indulge his sweet escape, descriptions from his favorite boyhood fantasy novels spinning circles in his mind as he daydreamed about composing the next “Stairway to Heaven.”
The polished, final version of his imaginative experiment became the Fyre mega-hit “Deep Dark Woods,” but its messy prototype, “A Thousand Suns,” would live forever as Brian’s creative baby.
In other words, Helen had nailed it. Somehow, the woman saw to his depths. She got him, even if she didn’t fully know or understand the extent.
Though Brian didn’t believe in such sappy bollocks as love at first sight, he couldn’t deny the significance of the force meeting her had shaken loose. From the moment Helen stepped up to him, she treated him like the person he wanted to be. Authentic. Creative. Thoughtful. Playful.
She reminded him of the man who got lost in the shuffle of touring and recording and staying alive in the cutthroat entertainment industry. The man who lived in full color instead of existing in a dull gray of drudgery. Brian waved at Helen, and she waved back, wearing a demure ghost of a smile.
As he faced this enchanting stranger who sauntered off some Midwestern fairground, the first layer of his outer shell cracked.
Thom tapped his microphone. An electronic squeal punctured hushed, heavy air. A peal of nervous laughter ripped through the crowd, slicing tension.
Pulled from his inspirational reverie, Brian laughed back, hearty and not awkward. Time to play some fuckin’ music.
The noise of fans died down into hushed expectation.
The perfect song for Helen arose from his depths. When they’d stood at kissing distance, he’d noticed shards of emerald in her light brown irises. Four in each, symmetrical, like the leaves of a four-leaf clover. In the crimson remnants of sunlight, the golden streaks in her hair sparkled like gemstones. She herself had blessed him. He didn’t even need her crystal gift.
He moaned the opening note of an old favorite, playing the accompanying chords.
Jonnie and Thom caught on and supplied the layering riffs. A wave of uproar rushed from the back of the crowd to the front, blasting Brian with unparalleled energetic impact.
Brian grinned at the masses. His mind dissolved as he lost himself in a tune he’d always loved. One he’d long dreamed of singing to a woman. He broke into song, delivering a full-throated, whole-hearted cover of “Crimson and Clover,” which he sang directly to Helen.
Women swooned. More people cheered. “Fyre, Fyre, Fyre.”
Brian increased the volume of his vocals, grooves in his callused fingers locking in with thick brass guitar strings as he struck chords. Though that chant normally gave him the willies, classic cry-wolf situation, today he cherished the devotion behind it. As his hands moved over the fretboard, a change in his thought pattern pleased him. Perhaps the crevices in his skin didn’t symbolize unshakable ruts in his life after all.
A spike of pain stabbed the inside of his right palm, almost causing him to drop his guitar pick. He powered through it, managing not to strike a sour note. Though his joints and knuckles gave him hell on a regular basis, he’d never experienced such discomfort in the meaty part of his hand.
The unpleasant sensation passed with an aftershock, and Fyre rounded out their set of chart-toppers and beloved radio anthems. For the first encore, they brought a performance of “Deep Dark Woods” that drew a standing ovation. He sang “A Thousand Suns” to end the set.
Brian pressed three fingertips to his lips and blew Helen a kiss before bounding offstage to the soundtrack of whoops and cheers. Euphoria streaked across his skin in shivers, livening his nerves and sharpening his senses. Sweat poured off his body and sluiced down his face, stinging his eyes and hitting his lips with a salty tang.
Every detail, from droplets of perspiration and strands of hair catching the glow cast by the overhead lighting grid to the black cords snaking across the floor, popped into sharp relief.
He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled at the first crew member he saw. “Bring me a
