The next evening, after dinner, I replied to Travis Zane, or -more likely- the imposter posing as Travis Zane, with an innocent thank you, telling him that I really enjoyed singing his songs and that maybe I’d try to record another.

To my surprise he replied almost instantly, making me further doubt his identity. Surely the real Travis Zane would be way too busy to reply to a nobody like me; if he even handled any of his own social media and didn’t have a team whose job was to handle his Tweets and Facebook updates.

“Your voice would be perfect for Bliss,” he replied, referring to one of his earlier hits, a sexy song in which he sings to a woman about touching and kissing and their shared bliss. I’d sung it in the sanctity of my bedroom and showers many times, and knew it by heart, but it wasn’t nearly as playful as ‘Fearless’. It was a much more “grown up” sort of song, and although I’d been very sexual with myself, I hadn’t shared that part of me with anyone.

My mind flashed to the music video for ‘Bliss’, in which Travis rolled around in silk sheets with a nearly-naked model, simulating sex in a way that made me gasp the first time I watched it (Okay, not just the first time, the second, third, and hundredth time, too).

I hummed a few bars of it and tried my hand at singing it acapella. It was awful. No way did I have the confidence to pull off a song like that on YouTube.

Going through Travis’s musical catalogue, I settled on two other songs that I thought fit my voice and my personal style a little better. I recorded them and went about dissecting them for the next hour, finding flat and sharp notes and off key spots in so many places I considered deleting my YouTube channel completely. Nerves were killing me.

I could sing in front of a crowd at a game, for Shelby, or at a wedding, but the idea that Travis Zane might be listening had me completely flustered.

“I’m working on a few of your songs. I’ll try to get something new up soon. Can’t believe it’s really you…”

I sent him the Tweet and waited. Five minutes later, my doubt was erased.

I had a new direct message, which I opened to reveal a picture of Travis Zane, the Travis Zane, wearing a simple white t-shirt and a backwards blue baseball cap, holding a piece of paper on which he’d scrawled “Hello Lia!” He was smiling, his trademark dimples working their magic.

Quickly as I could manage, I forwarded the image to Shelby, who magically teleported herself from her house to my bedroom in fifteen seconds. She was awestruck.

“Let’s not get crazy, that paper could still be ‘shopped, but come on! Travis Zane is sending you messages! You! Liane Morris! My best friend! Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Calm down, Shelby. I sang one of his songs, and he thought it was good, or cute, or something. It’s not like we’re getting backstage passes to one of his shows.”

Ding!

Another message.

“In some of your videos you wear Vols stuff. Are you from Tennessee? How far is Charlotte from you? My tour is there next month.”

Shelby and I stared at each other in wide-eyed shock.

I had worn a favorite University of Tennessee Volunteers hoodie in a few of my videos.

Shelby had played for a travel softball team when she was younger, and they’d played in a tournament in Charlotte a few times. I’d never been. So she knew the proximity.

“Charlotte is like four hours away. Totally doable,” Shelby assured me, as she checked the calendar against Travis’s tour schedule.

“Oh, my God. I’m freaking out here. It’s on a Saturday night!” she squealed. “We’re going to meet Travis Zane! And you’re going to have his babies!” Shelby was jumping up and down, practically screaming.

“Nobody is having any babies,” I corrected her. “And how do you propose we get to Charlotte? Or afford anything, if and when we do get there?”

“Your boyfriend, Travis, will handle all the details!”

“He’s not my boyfriend, you dork.” I stared at the open laptop and reread his message, my mind racing. “Who’s his opening act?”

Shelby and I clicked on the Charlotte date on the web site. He had a rotating assortment of opening acts, but for Charlotte one of them was MYB, an all-girl trio whose first names began with the three letters of the band name. MYB was also an acronym for their biggest hit song, ‘Mind Ya Business.’ Mikayla, Yelena, and Bailey were girls who looked equally comfortable on the runway or on stage holding microphones, and I knew Isaac and Jesse would jump at the chance to see them perform in person, especially if they could be near the stage.

“Jackpot,” I exclaimed. “Isaac is crazy for Yelena. If I told him and Jesse that I could get them tickets to see MYB, in exchange for driving us to Charlotte and sitting through Travis Zane, I guarantee they’d be down. We’d just have to convince my dad and your mom and we’d be golden.”