Prescott’s summer festival wasn’t only about music. There were food vendors set up at stands along the main street, and stores had rolled out their merchandise for sidewalk sales and put on massive discounts. At the far end of the street was a face painting booth — a popular attraction amongst the younger visitors — as well as several other activities that were seeing impressive traffic. The cut Prescott made from the vendors put the event in the black, and Aaron was in awe that he’d not only managed to put together an event that was revitalizing the economy and bringing tons of new people to somewhere so small, but that he’d succeeded in surpassing expectation. He’d been given a budget to spend, but when it came down to it, he was generating revenue for the city.

It blew his mind that he was the driving force behind all of this. And as the sun set and the sky darkened, the strings of white lights he’d seen installed up and down the street blinked on and turned Prescott into a fairy-tale. Aaron only wished he could find his happy ending. Vance was set to go on soon, but he couldn’t bring himself to go watch. In a few days, when things had died down, he’d talk to Vance as per Teddy’s instructions, but tonight, it hurt too much knowing that Vance was up there on the stage, his heart closed off to Aaron, singing in an attempt to break back into the scene and leave Prescott for good.

Aaron still wasn’t sure that their life goals were aligned well enough to consider a serious relationship. He didn’t want to leave Prescott, and Vance was ready to go. Still, he clung to the hope that there was a middle ground somewhere he hadn’t thought of before — a way for both of them to get what they wanted. But tonight, they both needed to focus on their careers. Aaron would spend his time as far away from the stage as possible, making sure the vendors had all had positive experiences, and then, when the last band had played for the night and the activities were over, he’d oversee the crews as they disassembled the stage and cleaned up following the event.

At least, that was what Aaron had planned until Teddy jogged up to him, face flushed and mildly panicked.

“Teddy?” Aaron asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I was hanging out in the audience waiting for the show,” Teddy panted. He braced his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Aaron’s stomach twisted with fear. “There’s… there’s something going wrong over there. Security is… it’s… fuck, Aaron, you’ve just gotta come. Vance is…”

“Vance is what?” Aaron asked. His heart leapt into his throat. “Was there a security breach? He’s not hurt, is he?”

“F-Fuck…” Teddy dropped his head. He was breathless, and he sounded scared. Aaron couldn’t calm his rapidly beating heart. Vance had warned him about putting in security and hiring staff to do pat downs and check purses and bags, and Aaron had. Was it not enough? Had someone snuck in with a weapon and hurt Vance? Aaron looked desperately toward the crowd. He couldn’t hear screaming, but he could see them all moving, shifting, swarming…

“Where is he?” Aaron asked swiftly. “Did someone call 911? Is anyone there to help? You have to take me there, Teddy. Show me what happened. I need to be there.”

Even as he spoke, Aaron had started to move. Panic turned his highly organized mind to chaos. He started to jog, but it didn’t feel like it was enough. Hearing Teddy’s rapid footsteps behind him, he shook his head and started to run.

He needed to help Vance. He needed to be there for him if something had gone wrong. Aaron knew that they weren’t officially together, and that Vance had told him they weren’t good for each other, but he didn’t care. All that mattered was that, over the course of the last eight months, he’d fallen for Vance. He’d tumbled into love reluctantly and unwillingly, and now that he’d fallen, he couldn’t get back up. It didn’t matter if the event went south because of this. It didn’t matter if he lost his chance at the job because of a security breach. All that mattered was that he be there for Vance when Vance needed him — that he see Vance just one last time, if anything bad really had happened.

He couldn’t let this go. He couldn’t.

He was too in love with Vance to care what anyone thought, and he’d still feel that way even if things with Vance never worked out.

Security stood at the closed checkpoint, checking every new attendee before they were allowed access to the audience area. Aaron ripped his personnel badge from inside his shirt as he arrived, not bothering to slow down. If they didn’t recognize who he was and tried to slow him down, he would fight them. He wouldn’t let anyone stand in his way to Vance — not when Vance needed him.

The audience wasn’t whipped into a frenzy, which told Aaron that Vance had to have been hurt on the stage. The curtain was still up, and the lights were still on. The show hadn’t started yet. That meant that whatever had happened to Vance had happened privately — a small relief, but one that did nothing to soothe Aaron’s anxiety. He was glad he didn’t have to deal with the chaos of a panicked audience, but with no telling what had happened to Vance, he couldn’t rest easily.

He cut through the crowd of people, squeezing and bumping his way forever. Every now and then, someone would call him out for his behavior, but Aaron couldn’t stop to apologize or complain. He needed to get to one of the sets of stairs to the main stage — both of them guarded by security — so that he could get back there and check to see how Vance was doing.

Seconds before he arrived in the front row, all the lights went out. Everyone gasped, and the energy in the crowd changed. Aaron wanted to let out a strangled scream of rage, but his frustrations were put to rest a second later when the curtain dropped.

What? But Vance is hurt. He can’t perform. Who’s going on right now?

The stage lights blinked on. They weren’t as bright or powerful as the stage lights at a professional show, but they did the trick just fine. They lit Vance up from head to toe, and Aaron saw every last inch of him.

Vance wore tight leather pants — a throwback to his time in the spotlight. He wore a white shirt, the sleeves torn, that hugged his body in all the right ways. Aaron looked him up and down, searching for signs that something had gone wrong and that he was pushing on with the show despite being injured, but he saw nothing. Vance didn’t look injured at all — he looked happy.

There was no introduction. The guitarist strummed the first chords of Whoa and the rest of the band launched into action. Vance moved across the stage as though it were a big production, owning every step he took, and oozing the flirty, charming charisma that Aaron had come to associate him with. Aaron watched, started, as Vance found him in the crowd and locked eyes with him. His cocky grin grew, and he continued on with more feeling than ever as the crowd went wild.

One song. All it took was one song. Aaron felt his knees start to go weak. His blood rushed in his ears, and his cheeks heated. He’d never seen Vance perform live before now, but what they said about musicians was true — Vance was captivating, and Aaron was sure that even if he still harbored negative feelings for him that they all would have been forgotten by the time the song was through. Seeing Vance strut his stuff, owning the stage and singing his heart out, was sexier than anything Aaron had seen before.

Had Teddy tricked him, he wondered. There was nothing wrong here. Teddy knew that they were going through a rough time, and he’d probably figured out by how closed-off Aaron was being that he hadn’t made spoken to Vance about how he truly felt. Was this Teddy’s way of thrusting them together? If it was, it was working. Aaron was a few crooning notes away from melting into a puddle. Vance was hot as hell, and Aaron was overly susceptible to his charm.

The audience was going wild. Bodies moved and jumped. People screamed. It looked like several of them hadn’t been expecting the real deal — like they’d believed that the promotional tactics had been a trick, and that there was no way an actual rock star would be performing somewhere so small. Their energy fed into Aaron, and the booming bass thudded in his chest and sent shivers down his spine. He closed his eyes, only for a moment, but a moment was long enough — Vance’s voice sank through his eardrums and into his heart, then dispersed through his soul.

The words were the same as Aaron had always heard them on the radio, and the sound was the same, but the spirit was different. The way Vance sang was refreshed and hopeful, like he’d given up on who he’d once been, and embraced the man he’d become. Aaron let that feeling settle in his soul before he opened his eyes again and looked at Vance in full. How could he ever have dreamed of missing this? This was Vance’s shot at revitalizing his image — of making something of himself all over again. Even if it meant they had no future together, Aaron wanted to be there to share in his success. He wanted to see Vance achieve, even if that meant the destruction of what they had. He was witnessing the man he loved take what he wanted… and in him, Aaron found the strength to do the same.

He would be strong. He would tell Vance how he felt, and he would fight for what could be. There was no reason to give up. Not now. Not after so much growth and heartache. There was still a chance that they could be happy.

The song ended. The crowd went wild. The roar deafened Aaron, and he looked over his shoulder and marveled at how many people had come. Vance had to have done additional advertising out of his own pocket — Aaron didn’t think he could ever have attracted such a big crowd on his own.

Vance was only scheduled to play one song. Whoa was supposed to be it. But instead of say goodnight and leave the stage graciously, Vance looked out over the audience and grinned. Aaron knew that Vance was aware of exactly where he was, but he didn’t give Aaron his sole attention. He was still playing to the audience, doing what he did best — stir up hype. Women were screaming. People were still jumping and waving. Aaron was glad he’d hired extra security, because he was sure if this went on much longer, someone would try to rush the stage. He’d never seen something so crazy before.

“Hey, Prescott, and everyone who’s visiting Prescott for the very first time,” Vance said. His voice rang out through the speakers, and people cheered again. The roar of their voices drowned everything out for a moment. Vance laughed. “You guys sure know how to make a man feel welcome. I can’t believe all of you came out tonight to hang out and have fun at Prescott’s summer event. It’s been pretty sweet so far, right? Have you guys seen the face painting booth? It’s killing it.”

“I love you!” A woman from the audience shrieked.

“Hey, you know what? I’ve got a lot of love for everyone here tonight, too.” Vance smiled. “You know, I was only supposed to play one song. That’s all I’m scheduled for. But I talked with the awesome band up next, Heartburn — they’re an awesome group of guys, you guys really need to stick around and give them all your love, because they’re incredible — but anyway, they told me they didn’t mind if I ate into their allotted time a little bit so I can play another song.”

There was more shrieking. Aaron’s heart skipped a beat, and when it caught up with itself, it hit the ground racing.

This isn’t planned at all. What’s he doing? Is he trying to make me look bad…?

“So… well, I’ll be honest,” Vance said. He grinned all the while. “Some of you might know the songs off the Midnight album that I sang on, but I don’t own the copyright to any of them but Whoa, so I can’t play you anything familiar. What I can do, though, is play for you some new stuff. Did you guys know that I’ve been working on a new album?”

Cell phones were flashing as they took pictures. Aaron saw at least five people recording. To his surprise, not all that far from where he stood, he noticed Freddie and Luke. Reagan Ann, their daughter, had to be at home with a babysitter. Freddie was recording the whole performance on one of his high quality cameras — Aaron had no idea how he’d sneaked it in, but he knew right away that Freddie planned to post tonight’s performance in a vlog on his highly successful Youtube channel. Freddie wouldn’t have brought one of his good cameras otherwise.

What the hell is happening?

“So, this next song is a little different than anything I’ve done before. Here’s a little trivia, for all you non-existent die-hard Vance Chastain fans out there — I’ve never written a love song before.”

The audience replied in hushed awe.

“Yep, that’s right,” Vance said with a laugh. “And it’s because I’ve never had a frame of reference. You know, love just wasn’t on my agenda for a long time… but now, I think I understand what it’s about. Being back home here in Prescott has inspired me. I’ve found my muse, and I think I’m ready to give this a shot. Are you guys willing to take a chance on me?”

There was another roar which meant that the audience agreed. Vance laughed.

“Alright,” he said. “You asked for it. Guys? If you’d please?”

Aaron watched, shocked, as Vance took the stage one more time. The drums kicked in, the guitar started, and then Vance began to sing.