I was buzzing. It was like I was really alive, and it was something that I only ever felt when I stepped out on stage for the first time and the lights came up illuminating a crowd of women all screaming for me.

Was it egotistical? Maybe, but you didn’t get into this business if you didn’t have a little bit of an ego. This wasn’t exactly the kind of career that was good for introverts.

“How you feeling man?” Blake asked.

I grinned as he held out his hand. I slapped my own into his as we went through a now familiar dance running through the maze of struts and supports under and behind the stage. The whole area was a dark labyrinth of exposed metal and hissing from hydraulics being put in place for various rises up through the stage, and through it all there was the high pitched roar of a crowd of women just beyond screaming at the top of their lungs as though that was somehow going to make us appear on stage sooner.

Oddly enough the semi-dangerous maze felt like home. I’d spent so much time down here in the past year, first when we were doing rehearsals and then in our first run of shows. Even though it was nearly pitch black down here aside from the occasional light hanging to mark the way it didn’t feel claustrophobic at all. Not that we spent enough time back here to feel claustrophobic anyways.

“I’m feeling fucking great!”

“Lots of women out there,” Blake said. “A target rich environment!

“Almost makes me wish I was still in the game!” Todd said as he came up behind us. He joked like that once in awhile when we were down here and he knew Lisa wasn’t around. Not that he’d ever follow through so much as he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

I shook my head and laughed. “You don’t mean that and we both know it.”

He shrugged. “I suppose you’re right. The married life is pretty great so far. You should try it sometime!”

I winced and it must’ve been pretty damn obvious even in the faint light cast by the LED clamp lights the crew had set up at intervals under the stage. Todd’s usually infections grin turned to a frown.

“Hey man, I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking, really.”

I held up a hand to stop him, both because I should be over it by now even if I wasn’t and because now wasn’t the time to have a deep conversation with one of my bandmates about the Incident anyways. Not that I’d ever really had a conversation anyone other than Blake anyways.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “It’s ancient history.”

Yeah, it should’ve been ancient history, but the way I was feeling the pain was still pretty damn fresh even after all this time. I pushed down on that viciously just like I always did when those feelings came up. That was in the past. It was over. I wasn’t going to think about it.

Todd slapped me on the back. “Right. Ancient history. So you should seriously consider getting back in the saddle! Lord knows there’s plenty out there who’d be willing to saddle up and take you for a ride. Just listen to those screams!”

I grinned more because that’s what I felt like I was supposed to do than because of any happiness I was feeling. Yeah, there was a reason I’d been avoiding anything to do with the girls who gathered at these concerts, and I didn’t plan on that changing any time soon.

And yet.

Hadn’t I already broken that rule in a big way? I’d already been tempted by a pair of pretty blue eyes attached to a killer body tonight which made any thoughts about not approaching the fans seem hypocritical seeing as how I’d already approached a fan with my big head and inflated ego thinking I was going to give her the thrill of a lifetime.

Yeah, that had worked out so fucking well. I set out to give a fan the thrill of a lifetime and instead I end up getting the surprise of a lifetime from a girl who turned out to be anything but a fan.

Of course that was probably part of the reason why I found myself so drawn to her. Why I found myself still thinking about her as I was buried beneath the stage getting ready for our next number.

Mia was out there somewhere, though she probably wasn’t adding her voice to the throngs of screaming women. No, if my judge of her in the brief few captivating minutes we’d been talking was anything to go by she was probably standing with her arms crossed acting disinterested. I’d seen girls like her at concerts before, though they were rare. I certainly never thought I’d find myself mooning over a girl like that!

And yet that conversation had been so much fun. It felt so easy. It felt so natural. Sure it was a conversation where I was making fun of everything I’d built, everything my life had revolved around, over the past decade, but there was also some truth to what she said.

There were times I thought it was ridiculous we were even doing this tour even if we were making money hand over fist. I hadn’t believed that would be possible when our manager first floated the idea of getting the group back together, but I couldn’t argue with results.

I also couldn’t argue with how captivated I was with Mia. With the strange girl who hated Twenty Promises and had no idea who I was. With the girl who thought I was gay because why else would an unattached guy be going to a Twenty Promises concert?

Yeah, that had been fun. That had been nice talking to someone as Grant the man rather than Grant the “hot one” and lead singer of Twenty Promises. For a few minutes I was able to be myself, and she treated me like just another guy.

Was it a silly thing to go on? Was it a silly reason to be thinking about what our kids names would be? Sure, but I couldn’t deny that at the very least she’d caught my attention.

Of course there was one little problem. She was out there somewhere, and that meant that she probably realized who I was by now. There was no hiding it now. She’d no doubt seen the opening number where my face was plastered across every huge screen in the arena.

How would a girl who hated everything to do with Twenty Promises react to suddenly knowing the guy she was flirting with in the diner before the concert wasn’t a gay aficionado of the band, but instead was the lead singer? Something told me that for once in my life being the lead man for Twenty Promises was going to be a liability in getting the girl rather than the major advantage it had been in the past.

Trying to get the girl? Was I really thinking like that? Particularly after the Incident and the promise I made to myself while I was dealing with the fallout?

Yet there was something that felt different about this girl. There was something about her that gave me warm fuzzies deep inside, as ridiculous as that sounded. It was the only way I could think to describe a feeling that was so different from the pure lust I’d felt towards girls on past tours. Pure lust I’d acted on repeatedly in numerous cities all across the country which set the stage for the damned Incident.

No, I had to get to know this girl. I was going to have to track her down and get her attention in a major way before she had a chance to leave the arena and write me off as a chance meeting that was never going to go anywhere because of who I was, though given my reputation I could understand why a girl would want to avoid getting entangled because of who I was.

Then again she didn’t know any of that if she really didn’t follow the band. Unless her friend told her about it.

I shook my head. I was overthinking all of this, and that was a weird feeling too. I hadn’t been this in my head about trying to get a girl since middle school, and that had been a long fucking time ago.

I needed to impress this girl. I needed to get her attention. Luckily I was sort of in a unique position to do just that considering I was in the middle of an arena about to step back out on stage for another number. Already I could hear the opening strains blasting through the stage as the guys started, and any moment now the hydraulic platform I was on would hiss and I’d pop up out of the floor onto the stage and start singing.

I listened and figured I had just enough time for a quick text message. I was suddenly really glad I’d grabbed her number. I dashed off a text and was slipping my phone back into my pocket just as I heard a familiar hiss that meant it was showtime.

In more ways than one. I felt the familiar rush and the clenching in my stomach I got every time I went out onstage, but this time it was accompanied by something else. A burning yearning deep in the pit of my stomach because she was out there, somewhere.

And I was going to find her and dazzle her with a little bit of star power!