1

ADDISON PAGE had the world at her feet. She had the face, the body, the voice, the moves, and the money. Let’s not forget the money. But advantages like that come with a price. I should have known it was all too good to be true….

“What?” I yelled, my throat already raw from shouting over the roar of the crowd and the music blasting from dozens of huge speakers. Around us, thousands of bodies bobbed in time to the beat, hands in the air, lips forming the words, shouting the lyrics along with the beautiful, glittery girl strutting across the stage, seen close-up on a pair of giant digital screens.

Nash and I had great seats, thanks to his brother, Tod, but no one was sitting. Excitement bounced off every solid surface, fed by the crowd and growing with each passing second until the auditorium seemed to swell with the communal high. Energy buzzed through me, setting my nerve endings on fire with enough kick to keep me pinging off the walls through high school and well into college.

I didn’t want to know how Tod had scored seats a mere fifteen rows from the stage, but even my darkest suspicion hadn’t kept me at home. I couldn’t pass up a chance to see Eden live in concert, even though it meant giving up a Saturday night alone with Nash, during my dad’s extra shift at work.

And this was only Eden’s opening act….

Nash pulled me closer, one hand on my hip, and shouted into my ear. “I said, Tod used to date her!”

I rode the wave of adrenaline through my veins as I inhaled his scent. Six weeks together, and I still smiled every time he looked at me, and flushed every time he really looked at me. My lips brushed his ear as I spoke. “Tod used to date who?” There were several thousand possible suspects dancing all around us.

“Her!” Nash shouted back, nodding over the sea of concertgoers toward the main attraction, his spiky, deliberately messy brown hair momentarily highlighted by a roaming spotlight.

Addison Page, Eden’s opening act, strutted across the stage in slim black boots; low-cut, ripped jeans; a tight white halter; and a sparkly silver belt, wailing a bitter yet up-tempo lament about the one who got away. The glittery blue streak in her straight, white-blond hair sparkled beneath the lights and fanned out behind her when she whirled to face the audience from center stage, her voice rising easily into the clear, resonant notes she was famous for.

I stared, suddenly still while everyone around me swayed along with the crescendo. I couldn’t help it.

“Tod dated Addison Page.”

Nash couldn’t have heard me. I barely heard me. But he nodded and leaned into me again, and I wrapped my arm around him for balance as the cowboy on my other side swung one eager, pumping fist dangerously close to my shoulder. “Three years ago. She’s local, you know.”

Like us, the hometown crowd had turned out as much for Texas’sown rising star as for the headliner. “She’s from Hurst, right?” Less than twenty minutes from my own Arlington address.

“Yeah. Addy and I were freshmen together, before we moved back to Arlington. She and Tod dated for most of that year. He was a sophomore.”

“So what happened?” I asked as the music faded and the lighting changed for the second song.

I pressed closer to Nash as he spoke into my ear, though he didn’t really have to at that point; the new song was a melodic, angsty tune of regret. “Addy got cast in a pilot for the HOT network. The show took off and she moved to L.A.” He shrugged. “Long distance is hard enough when you’re fifteen, and impossible when your girlfriend’s famous.”

“So why didn’t he come tonight?” I wouldn’t have been able to resist watching a celebrity ex strut on stage, and hopefully fall on his face, assuming I was the dumpee.

“He’s here somewhere.” Nash glanced around at the crowd as it settled a bit for the softer song. “But it’s not like he needs a ticket.” As a grim reaper, Tod could choose whether or not he wanted to be seen or heard, and by whom. Which meant he could be standing on stage right next to Addison Page, and we’d never know it.

And knowing Tod, that’s exactly where he was.

After Addison’s set, there was a brief, loud intermission while the stage was set for the headliner. I expected Tod to show up during the break, but there was still no sign of him when the stadium suddenly went black.

For a moment, there was only dark silence, emphasized by surprised whispers, and glowing wristbands and cell-phone screens. Then a dark blue glow came from the stage and the crowd erupted into frenzied cheers. Another light flared to life, illuminating a new platform in the middle of the stage. Two bursts of red flames exploded near the wings. When they faded, but for the imprint behind my eyelids, she appeared center stage, as if she’d been there all along.

Eden.

She wore a white tailored jacket open over a pink leather bra and a short pink-fringed skirt that exaggerated every twitch of her famous hips. Her long, dark hair swung with each toss of her head, and the fevered screaming of the crowed buzzed in my head as Eden dropped into a crouch, microphone in hand.

She rose slowly, hips swaying with the rhythm of her own song. Her voice was low and throaty, a moan set to music, and no one was immune to the siren song of sex she sold.

Eden was hypnotic. Spellbinding. Her voice flowed like honey, sweet and sticky. To hear it was to crave it, whether you wanted to or not.

The sound wound through me like blood in my veins, and I knew that hours from then, when I lay awake in my bed, Eden would still sing in my mind, and that when I closed my eyes, I would still see her.