Madison

Doors open at eight. Show starts at ten. The Night Bell will come on at eleven thirty. Midnight at the latest. If the show was any earlier, you'd have girls standing around too long in the hot afternoon sunlight hoping to spot Noah Hammond and Kendall Kenn waltzing into soundcheck. Johnson keeps his promise to stop by. He holds my place in line while I wash up in a nearby restroom, and when I come back, he's passing out bottles of soda. The venue already came around a couple of times with water, but he's got cola and orange and lemon-lime.

“Thank you, bro,” I say.

“For you, there's also pizza.” Actually, there are three pizzas— enough for the little gang of girls gathered around me.

“Your boyfriend is cool,” somebody says, and I don't disabuse them of the notion.

Johnson touches my arm, and then he's gone again. Work. I'm on my own.

The limo cruises up not long after. There's still a piece of pizza left, and I never see who ends up taking it, because suddenly I see a silver limo with two guys in it lifting binoculars to scan the crowd and I know. I just know. Everybody else is ignoring it because silver limos are a dime a dozen in Vegas.  People figure if the guys have binoculars in their face, they're security.

Then the binoculars go away, and the doors come open, and two guys flanked by four giants come out, and everybody starts screaming.

Noah Hammond. He has everybody's attention. Little flashes are coming from all the phone. Yeppers, Instagram has some incoming.

My heart almost stops. I don't mind saying so. I know he's a big-ass star full of big-ass charisma, but it still amazes me the way he has of looking into my eyes like I'm the only one in the line. I don't even understand how he fucking does it. I mean, I know intellectually he's got to be giving every fan in that line the same impression, but it honestly feels like he's only looking at me.

Fuck. It's fucking insane.

I would've even been willing to swear that he stopped for a moment, right in front of me, just to gaze deeply and significantly into my eyes for a moment out of time that went on eternally.

He couldn't have.

I know that.

If he'd stopped, if he'd even slowed down for a half a heartbeat, the crowd would've fucking swarmed him screaming for selfies with Noah Hammond. He can't stop moving, and his guards can't stop bodyblocking people, and I know that. I can see that. I'm not fucking crazy.

Still, if I was strapped into a lie detector, I would've had to say what's in my heart. And what's in my heart is that it honest-to-God seems like he stopped right there in front of me and he wanted to say something to me so fucking bad and his fucking guard took his elbow and wouldn't let him.

Then he's gone, and I'm telling myself to take some deep breaths and get back to planet earth, and then I'm swearing because A) I forget to take any photos and B) somebody's made off with the last piece of my pizza.

I still have a big bottle of Orange Crush, and I drink some of that, and then I'm aware of the social noises all around me.

“He looked at you, girl,” the girl behind me says.

“Totally,” says her friend.

“I don't think so,” I say.

“He did, though.”

Some more voices chime in. This crap isn't helping me get my head clear about Noah Hammond.

“Is it true he's Albert Hammond Jr's little brother?” some guy asks. “Can you maybe help me meet The Strokes?”

My fellow fans are in need of some serious side-eye. “He's no relation to Albert Hammond Jr. He doesn't know The Strokes.”

“Everybody knows he just says that so he can make it on his own.”

“That is a total lie. Hammond isn't even his real last name. He's, like, he was born in Indiana, and that's where it came from.” These alleged fans can't be bothered to read Tumblr? Or even Wikipedia? “Noah hates it when people say that.”

“He's from London, though,” somebody says.

“Yeah, but his family only moved there when he was eight months old. He was born in Indiana.” Seriously. What fans are these who don't even know the basic facts?

The buzz in line is getting louder, not softer. There's a guy built like a linebacker or a bouncer coming over, and it isn't Johnson. After a minute, I recognize him as one of Noah's bodyguards.

“Miss,” he says. “Can I see some ID?”

“What's this about?” I ask.

“You know what it's about.” There's a twinkle in his eye, so I doubt it's about kicking me out of the concert before it even got started.

I have a choice here. I can give him the false driver's license or the real one. A concert is not a casino. I'll still get in if I'm eighteen. They just won't sell me any alcohol. I don't give a fuck about the alcohol, and Noah Hammond's muscle doesn't either.

Yeah. This is most definitely about something else, and we both know it.

Hell, everybody knows it.

The whole line has gone quiet. It's like everybody's holding their breath waiting to see what will happen.

I'm an eighteen-year-old virgin. If Noah Hammond or his people have a problem with that, fuck 'em.

If he wants to meet me, he can meet the real me. It's my off night. I'm not here to catch my sugar daddy. I'm here to dance to some fucking music and maybe get a selfie with a rock star.

I hand over the real driver's license.

He puts it in the reader, and it beeps the little beep that says it's real. Of course, even the fake ones do that, if you know the right place to get the fake ones.

“The other one.” The guy sounds bored.

“The other one.” I enunciate the words carefully. Maybe bat my lashes a little.

He rolls his eyes. “I was a kid once myself. You've got more than one ID.”

I shrug and hand him the other one. His eyes open as he realizes what he's got.

The fake one says I'm twenty-one. The real one says I'm eighteen. He thought something else— that the real would say I'm fifteen or sixteen. That the real one was the fake.

“It's all right,” I say. “You really think I would do anything to hurt Noah Hammond? He's my hero.”

“You'd be surprised.”

Everybody starts screaming and cheering as he takes my arm to lead me out of the crowd. “There's a VIP entrance,” he says.

You'd expect people to be jealous and hateful, but they're not. It's the dream everybody has, and they just want to know the dream is possible. I'm living proof. The cheers grow louder, and then they're muffled because we're on the other side of a heavy steel door.

“Nobody gives me the real license first,” the guard is saying. “Everybody wants Noah to think they're older than they really are.”

I shrug. “If Noah wants to meet me, he might as well meet the real me.”

“That's unusual. I don't know the last time he met a real person.”

That's such a sad statement on the rock star lifestyle I can't believe the guy said it. But, before I can say anything else, we're down a hall and now we're in a backstage area and there's Noah Hammond just in the process of wiggling his tight body into a tighter pair of jeans.