My assistant manager shifts ufortably as she holds the door open for me, waiting until I’m in the hallway to deliver the bad news.

    Once I’m there, she puts on a bright smile like it’s going to somehow make whatever horrible news she has to deliver better. “I just wanted to remind you of the meet-and-greet after the show.”

    My whole body recoils at her words, my mind shing back to thest meet-and-greet, when one of Jarrod’s self-proimed “biggest fans” jumped on top of me and started choking me out as revenge for his death. I tried to fight her off, but she was stronger than she looked, her hands like a vise around my neck. I shudder at the memory, a phantom pain pulsing in my throat.

    Yeah, it only took about six seconds for security to get across the room and yank her off me, but that didn’t stop my vocal cords from being bruised to hell and back. The show and the tour still went on—somehow, it always does—but it hurt to sing for weeks. Not to mention my voice went from artfully husky to sounding like I really did drink a bottle of whiskey before each show, with a pack or two of cigarettes to chase.

    I can’t do that tonight. I just can’t do it. Not when I already feel like all that’s left of me is glitter and ghosts.

    “Security will be close at hand.” Olivia plows ahead. “And I’m sure it won’t be a problem. He ys for the Austin Twisters and—”

    “Absolutely not,” I tell her, more forcefully this time. Rich men used to getting whatever—and whomever—they want don’t interest me. Been there, done that, and really, really don’t want a souvenir.

    Again, she ignores me. “Apparently, his grandmother is a massive fan. He says he’s really asking for her. She’s followed your career forever and even learned how to use Instagram six years ago so she could start a fan ount.”

    That makes it a million times harder to say no. Six years ago was after Hayden but before Jarrod. Before the ck Widow.

    Six years ago, I was still just Sloane.

    “What’s her name?”

    Olivia shrugs. “I didn’t ask. His name is Mateo Sylvester. He’s the starting quarterback—”

    “Fine,” I say, cutting her off because I couldn’t care less about the grandson. “Give me ten minutes after the show and then bring her back.”

    “Excellent.” Olivia beams as we move into the tunnel. “That will give me time to round up Jess—”

    “You don’t need Jess.” I balk at the mention of the tour photographer. “This is just for the grandma.”

    “But it’s great publicity,” she protests. “Sly—that’s what everybody calls him—is totally the golden boy of football right now. Everybody loves him. They say he’s going to take the Twisters all the way to the Super Bowl this year. Plus, he’s hot as fuck. The headlines practically write themselves.”

    They really do. That’s what terrifies me. Olivia lives by the motto that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But she’s not the one who has to survive it. I am. Which is why there’s no way I’m sending photos of me and this Mateo/Sly Sylvester person with his ridiculous nickname and giant ego—experience has taught me they all have giant egos—out into the media. Absolutely, positively not.

    “No photographer,” I tell her, eyes narrowed so she knows I mean it. “I’ll meet these people, but you are not using it as a publicity stunt.”

    She wants to argue, I can see it in her eyes, but I’m not backing down. Not on this. Just the thought of what the media would say if they imagined there was even a chance the ck Widow had caught another golden boy in her web is enough to send a shiver of dread running down my spine. There’d be nowhere on the I could hide.

    “Okay, then.” We’re under the stage now, so she steps back. “Ready for the encore?”

    Not even close.

    But what else am I going to do? Music is the only thing I know is really mine, and if having it means being the ck Widow, then that’s what I’ll do. Who I’ll be.

    As soon as I move toward the tform, the panices back, brambly and familiar. It coils inside my throat, scratches at me from the inside. I force it back with a long drink of tea and let the lie scald the terror into submission.

    They want a wrecking ball? Fine. I’ll tear the whole damn ce to the ground.

    Jace is waiting for me at the tform. “You good?” he asks.

    I nod, and secondster, my in-earse alive.

    “Can you hear me?” Dani, one of the sound techs, asks in my ear.

    “Gotcha,” I grind out as I hand Jace my sk.

    “Excellent,” she says. “Go finish kicking a little ass, will you?”

    I don’t answer. Instead, I look at Jace, widening my stance as I wait for the signal.

    “See you on the other side,” he tells me, eyes serious despite the smile on his face.

    “See you on the other side,” I repeat, bracing myself as the tform starts to rise, taking me up, up, up, as the crowd goes wild.

    Pretty doesn’t sell nearly as well as pain, I remind myself as I rise.

    So I pull in the cheers. I let them scrape against the jagged pieces inside me as my band starts the intro to “Uncharted Waters.”

    Then I’m exploding onto the stage, belting out the first line with every ounce of strength I’ve got inside me. The fear still flowers in my chest, prickling and wicked. But now it’s something I control. Something I feed to the crowd, petal by poisoned petal.

    And they eat it up. Hell, they beg for it. So I give them more and more and more. For three songs, I give them everything, until I’m nothing more than an empty husk wrung dry.

    Only then do I hit thest note.

    “You killed it,” Jace tells me once I’m back under the stage.

    I nod, then look at Olivia. “Are they here?”

    “Security went to get them a few minutes ago,” she answers.

    “Okay. Give me ten.”

    I race down the tunnel and into my dressing room, letting the door m behind me. I sink against it, desperate to shed the ck Widow like a second skin I don’t need anymore.

    Just a few more minutes, I tell myself as I reach for the hoodie draped across the arm of my chair. It’s August in Austin, so it was hot as hell on that stage. But I’m still freezing.

    After shrugging into the sweatshirt, I walk to the fridge. I grab a water bottle this time and down it as I remind myself I’ve got this.

    Five minutes of small talk, maybe a signature or two. A quick selfie. And then I’m free.

    A nce at the clock tells me I’ve still got three of the ten minutes I requested, so I prop my foot on the table and start to peel down the zipper of my thigh-high boot.

    But before I can get it off, the door opens. They’re fucking early.

    And there he is.

    I recognize him from the catwalk earlier. The guy standing next to the cute olddy in the spider shirt and earrings whose hand I squeezed.

    She’s standing right next to him now, a huge smile on her face. But for a second, all I can see is him.

    Not because he’s hot, though he is—all ck hair, light-brown skin, perfectly chiseled jawline.

    And not because he’s charming, though I can see that, too, in the smile that starts with a question and ends with a dare.

    No, what gets me is his dark-brown eyes and the way they seem to see through it all—through the makeup and the mess and the carefully curated wreckage—to the rawness underneath. And not just see it but recognize it.

    The thought freezes me from the inside out, has my whole body turning to ice in the space between breaths. Not because I hate the idea of him seeing me, but because I don’t.

    Because I want him to see. I want him—want just one person in this whole fucked-up world—to look at me and understand.

    To see the chaos and not flinch away.

    I want it so bad it feels like gravity in reverse. Like falling up. Like flying. And that’s why I do the only thing I can.

    I flinch first.