I’m no stranger to a crowded stadium.

    The cheers. The lights. The ground shaking beneath my feet as hyped-up fans stomp and scream with excitement.

    And I’m definitely no stranger to this stadium. Most months, I’m here or at the training center next door nearly every day. Running tape, working out, drilling hour after hour, day after day, year after year.

    You don’t get to be an NFL quarterback by phoning it in.

    Apparently, you don’t get to be a pop star that way, either—at least not a pop star of Sloane Walker’s caliber, because the ck Widow herself is here in Austin tonight, and she is killing it.

    This stadium, my stadium, has been transformed into a pop show extravaganza.

    The end zones are gone, the lights are down, and where there should be turf, there’s a massive circr stage dropped dead center like it’s been airlifted from another world. Eight glowing catwalks surround her, lit up and slicing through the crowd.

    From the nosebleeds, it must look like a giant robot spider has invaded from the skies—all chrome and smoke, pulsing with the bassline like it’s actually got a heartbeat. But from down here, it’s organized chaos in the best way. Sloane’s fans are everywhere, all around us, going wild as she struts down one of the legs like she owns the whole damn ce.

    Probably because, right now, she does.

    Lights blink and shimmer. Lasers cut through the darkness, and mes roar up from the edges of the stage. Sloane’s face—gaze fierce, smile dangerous, confidence radiating from every pore—fills the massive disy screens that form the backdrop as she belts out the final chorus of a song about getting it right and feeling all wrong.

    As the songes to an end, the crowd doesn’t just cheer—it erupts. Phone lights bounce around in the darkness as people scream, waving signs and glowsticks and anything else they’ve got in their possession, all in an effort to get her attention.

    It’s pandemonium. It’s spectacle. It’s not just a concert, it’s a phenomenon. A conquest, one where the queen invites her adoring subjects along for the ride.

    And they take it, loving every second. Surprisingly, so am I. I came for my abu, a longtime Sloane Walker fan, but so far it’s been one hell of a show. And I don’t see that changing any time soon. Especially since the fire along the stage sputtered out when thest song ended, and now Sloane is crouching down to touch the hands of a few of her adoring fans.

    The screaming gets even louder, and people start crowding closer to us, their seats abandoned in their frenzy to get to the edge of this catwalk, just in case Sloane decides toe down here next.

    There’s passage under the catwalks, so it’s not as dangerous as it sounds. But still, I shift a little to my left, positioning myself directly behind my abu’s chair so none of the people surging around us can jostle her.

    She pats my arm and shouts, “It’s okay, Mateo. I’m fine.”

    I know she is—my abu is as tough as theye. But she’s also in herte seventies with bad knees. It doesn’t hurt to take a little extra caution.

    “Over here!” the girls next to us shout, screaming and waving their signs so vigorously I’m a little afraid they’re going to hit each other in the eyes with them.

    Disaster’s averted when Sloane nces their way and points at their signs. She even mouths something that looks an awful lot like thank you, which makes one of them burst into tears as her friend screams even louder.

    Sloane sees that, too, and as the band starts ying the opening to another song, one that’s faster and has more rhythmic drums than thest, she switches direction on a dime, moving toward us like the storm my team is named after—wild, destructive, powerful.

    Mesmerizing.

    Not to mention impressive as all hell, considering she’s wearing ck thigh-high boots with sky-high heels and running like she was born in them.

    “Help me up!” My abu grabs my arm, her brown eyes gleaming with excitement at just the idea of being this close to her hero.

    I do, letting her use my arm as support as she moves the few steps from our seats to the edge of the catwalk. She doesn’t have a sign to attract Sloane’s attention, but I bought her a glow light ne and a ton of bracelets when we got here. Not to mention she’s wearing a glittered-up ck Widow T-shirt and waving nails tipped in red with ck spiders painted on them.

    So am I, for that matter, though my little sister painted my nails a different color. “A little abu/mijo bonding outfit,” she told me when she presented me with the blinged-out shirt this afternoon. I like it, though I am a little concerned my favorite pair of jeans is going to be sporting red glitter for eons toe. Not a big deal, except red and blue make up the uniforms of my team’s biggest rivals. The guys will never let me hear the end of it if I show up to game tape day in the Grizzlies’ colors.

    All of a sudden, the beat slows, and so does Sloane. She stops right in front of the girls, in front of us, and kneels at what feels like the edge of the world. Her world. She reaches out one hand to them, another to us, and when my abu’s fingers sp hers, Sloane’s eyes meet mine. And in that moment, she’s not the ck Widow. She’s not the queen who rules the stage, and my stadium, with a sequined fist.

    Instead, she’s a goddess undone—glitter-streaked, mascara-stained, wild-haired—offering a piece of herself in a world that too often worships the spectacr and forgets the sacrifice.

    “I love you, Sloane!” my abu shouts at the top of her lungs.

    Sloane blinks, and just like that, the spell is broken.

    “I love you, too!” the ck Widow shouts as she surges to her feet. And then she’s gone, running back to center stage without a backward nce.

    By the time she hits it, she’s belting out lyrics again, this time about the space that exists between heartbeats. I don’t know the song, but my abu does. She sings along with Sloane, and I dance with her, holding her hand and twirling her around in our little space.

    “What is this song?” I ask as shepletes a turn.

    She grins at me, taking a second to breathe. “‘Interbeat Interval.’ You like it?”

    “Yeah, it’s awesome.”

    Her smile grows wider. “Thanks for bringing me to this.”

    “Thanks for bringing me,” I tell her. “I’ve never paid much attention except for what you post on your Instagram, but she’s pretty cool.”

    “She’s very cool!” she shoots back just as Sloane finishes the song.

    “I’ve got to say, Austin. I know they call you the live music capital of the world,” she drawls, all dark but amused, “but I had my doubts on whether you’d bring it tonight. You’ve surprised me…in a good way.”

    Sloane! Sloane! Sloane! The crowd starts chanting her name.

    To which she grins and deliberately widens her eyes. “All that, for little ole me? I think you’re trying to get me to sing you one more song.”

    The crowd explodes, their chants turning to cries of Rumors. I’m guessing they’re referencing “The Rumor Game,” a song so famous even I know it. It’s the one that catapulted Sloane Walker from child star to household name practically overnight.

    The band starts to y, but Sloane holds up a hand as she moves their way. “Before I do, I have to introduce my fan-fucking-tastic band.”

    She takes a few minutes to do just that, naming all five musicians on the stage with her, before turning back to the crowd with a mischievous gleam in her big, brown eyes. “Are you ready?” she asks.

    Excited screams are her main answer.

    “Well, all right, then. Let’s you and me talk about a few rumors.”

    As the band segues into the intro to the song, Sloane turns a wicked smile on all of us. She scans the crowd, gaze jumping from one group of fans to another.

    And that’s when it happens. Somewhere in the space between one heartbeat and the next—the interbeat interval she sang of just a few moments ago—she freezes.

    At first, I think it’s scripted. A pause to let the fervor build. But then the guitarist steps forward, a concerned look on her face, while the rest of the band loops around to the start of the intro again.

    Not nned, then. A mistake.

    I shift my eyes back to Sloane and follow her frozen gaze several rows into the crowd. That’s when I see it. A sign that reads: ck Widows Eat Their Mates. Under the words are a picture I can’t quite make out from my vantage point.

    “I bet you—” Sloane’s shredded voice tears through the stadium with the first words of the song. I whirl back around just in time to watch it break. Watch her break.

    Because in that one moment, she doesn’t look like a star. She looks like the aftermath—a ck hole stitched from grief and gravity. I can’t look away. Not because she’s beautiful, though she is. But because I recognize the pull, the kind thates when you copse sopletely that you start drawing everything inward just to survive.

    I know it, because I’ve lived in that darkness, too.