Shelby’s parents didn’t love the idea of her going on a trip out of state with two older boys, but when my daddy, a respected law enforcement officer, vouched for them as “good boys” and “trustworthy,” they relented.

Travis and I communicated sporadically during the weeks leading up to our trip, dropping occasional messages back and forth, mostly figuring out the details of the concert.

He had an afternoon “Meet and Greet” with actual radio contest winners, and he told me he could host us then and arrange for our guy friends to meet the girls at that event, but that he’d also be around after the show if we wanted to come backstage to hang out for a bit. He arranged for tickets and limited access badges to be left for us at will call. We wouldn’t have the run of the place, but we could go where most couldn’t, and get a message back to him that we were there, and from there he could make the call.

Our tickets were right up front, standing right in front of the stage. We also had a small area we could use to the right of the stage if we wanted to sit and have a unique perspective of the show.

It was spring time, so Shelby and I dressed for warm weather, in sundresses that showed a little more skin than our dads would be comfortable with, but we had our bodyguards with us and we felt like showing off a little bit. It wasn’t every day we met world famous people like Travis Zane and MYB.

We ran into traffic, and by the time we reached the arena, the meet and greets were nearly over. We hurried to will call, picked up our tickets and badges, and rushed inside.

An usher led us past the stage and into a small room down a winding corridor in the bowels of the arena, and there we were, face to face with Travis. Even Isaac and Jesse, who’d expressed nothing but disdain for “that pretty boy and his ‘girly’ music” were taken aback to be in the same room with him.

Despite having been in contact with Travis Zane for the better part of a month online, meeting him in person took me back to meeting Mickey and Minnie Mouse at Disneyland when I was five. Only this time, Mickey was drop dead gorgeous.

If I was nervous, Shelby was borderline catatonic. She’d been flirting with Isaac in the backseat of Jesse’s car the entire drive to Charlotte, and I caught them sneaking a kiss at one point, but once we were in the room with Travis, the Cavanaugh brothers were invisible to her. Shelby just stood there, unblinking, mouthing words that couldn’t escape her throat.

Travis had long ago become accustomed to inspiring unpredictability in women and girls, so he didn’t let the butterflies in my stomach or Shelby’s inability to speak faze him in the least. Hey, at least neither of us fainted, right?

Our host was warm and cordial, shaking Jesse and Isaac’s hands and taking selfies with them. He gave Shelby and I big hugs and cleared his throat before singing the opening few bars of “Fearless.” He reached the end of a line and pointed to me.

I was mortified. I wanted to run away and hide, but I swallowed my nerves and did my best to continue what he started.

His grin was easy and natural, and he nodded and tapped his foot along to the imaginary beat. He harmonized with me through the chorus and then took over again before handing the song back over to me as it hit the bridge. Somehow, some way, I nailed it.

Shelby and Travis both wrapped me up in a hug and Isaac and Jesse applauded, politely. If I didn’t know better, they seemed genuinely impressed.

Somebody from Travis’s management team stuck her head in the door and told him they needed him to wrap things up soon, so he thanked the four of us for coming and said that he hoped we’d enjoy the show.

Jesse gave me a nudge, which Travis noticed, and he told us to hang out for just a minute. He disappeared around the corner and returned with Bailey, from MYB. She was tiny, smaller than she looked on TV, and dressed down in sweat pants and a tank top. Her makeup was flawless. She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen in person with dark hair, olive skin, and almond shaped eyes.

She gave us all the awkward “don’t smudge my makeup” hugs I’d known from homecomings and proms and took pictures with us.

Jesse, who was normally as cool as an igloo, was as flustered as I’d ever seen him. Isaac was also blushing. Like a ghost, Bailey vanished as quickly as she appeared.

“Sorry, guys, they’re getting ready, they go on second. There’s a local band opening, they’re called Whatley’s Garage. They’re really good,” explained Travis. “After the show, I promise you’ll get to meet Yelena and Mikayla.”

Jesse was still busy trying to pick his jaw up off the floor, but the brothers seemed satisfied. We made our way out into the arena, stopping for sodas and finding the seating area reserved for VIPs.

Whatley’s Garage was sort of a country/pop blend, and they got a good reception as the crowd filed in and the house began to fill. I didn’t recognize any of their songs, but I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they hit it big, sooner rather than later. Their lead singer was handsome, with a smattering of tattoos, a tight bleached blonde buzz cut and big biceps. The girls in the audience squealed at his every move.

I’d never been so close to a stage that overlooked so many people, and the whole thing was a real eye-opener. I pictured myself pacing the same stage, belting out my own hit songs, those bright lights blinding me as an audience danced and sang along with me.

Shelby was having the time of her life, and even the Cavanaugh boys looked like they were having fun, although I could tell they were anxious for MYB to appear.

The opening act completed their set, and we had a unique vantage point from which to watch the stagehands transform the relatively pedestrian set into a virtual rainforest from which swung animatronic monkeys and flew convincing parrots.

Before long, the arena was at near-capacity, and buzzing with anticipation. Quietly, from a distance at first, jungle sounds started to permeate the arena, and a hush fell over the crowd. The stage lights came up, and smoke machines added to the illusory rainforest effect.

We, especially Isaac and Jesse, were riveted as Mikayla, then Bailey, slipped out from between the “trees” wearing skimpy leopard-print attire, lip-synching to their latest hit, Like Animals. Last to appear was the statuesque blonde Yelena, complete with an albino python twisted around her lithe form like a modern-day Britney Spears at the VMAs.

The crowd went berserk when they saw her with the snake, electricity crackling in the air. Shelby and I made eye contact and just screamed in incoherent adolescent disbelief.

We were having the time of our lives, and judging by the ear-to-ear grins they sported, so were Isaac and Jesse.

As MYB progressed through their set, with lightning-fast costume changes and a stage that transformed with seemingly every song, they eventually came to their biggest hit, Mind Ya Business.

As the three girls sang and faux-flirted with their dancers, they each went to a different part of the stage and pulled a male member of the audience up to join them.

Bailey went first, and she sang to, and dirty danced with, the guy she’d picked. When the dancers “protested,” all three girls hit them with the chorus to the song, a rousing “Mind ya business!” Every girl in the crowd screamed the female empowerment anthem with MYB.

Mikayla went next, and even though from where we sat we could tell she wasn’t, really, to the gasping crowd it looked like she was making out with the hunk she’d pulled from the floor.

When it came time for the chorus, MYB simply held their microphones up in the air and let the assembled sisterhood of MYB fans tell the shocked male dancers what they could do with their indignation.

Yelena went last, strutting around the stage, followed by two fawning dancers playing her competing “love interests.” She swung her hips and flipped her hair, stopping right in our corner of the stage, where she pointed at Jesse, summoning him up to join her.

Jesse played it up, pointing to Isaac, then back at himself, wanting to rub it in his brother’s face that he’d been the one Yelena picked.

She nodded and gave him a “come hither” stare and crooked a finger in his direction. The band played an extended interlude behind the dancers as Jesse locked eyes with Yelena and the pair joined in a grinding, ass-grabbing dance that had me fanning myself. I wasn’t alone, not by a long shot. They seemed to forget the thousands of people present, and if the lights had gone off right at that moment, I didn’t doubt that they’d go at it right there on stage. Their chemistry together was smoldering.

Finally, the music ramped back up, with Mikayla and Bailey joining Yelena at center stage. The three of them faced their cowering dancers, holding their middle fingers high, and gave them one last “Mind ya business!” at top volume.

MYB was done, and Jesse staggered back to join us, fairly collapsing in his chair. Isaac was seething with envy. Shelby and I were losing our minds.

We hadn’t seen anything yet.