Krista might have initiated her relationship with Abby primarily because of Chase. Their bond might have intensified because of their shared experience of being abandoned by Chase. But now Krista could honestly say that she considered Abby a friend. Completely independent of her son.
So even though Chase Malone was the last thing she should be thinking about, she was headed over to check on his mom. Then she would call Chris, who was her current ‘person,’ and see what time his shift ended at The Grill, where he bartended.
Chris was nice, funny, and good-looking, and the sex was good. There was only one problem. He just wasn’t …Chase.
* * *
“Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s really you!” the exuberant fan squealed as she jumped up and down.
Her tall friend sucked in a shaky breath as tears pooled in her large brown eyes. “I think I might pass out.”
“If you could stand here…” Tully, Chase’s assistant, placed one girl to his right before turning to the other and motioning to his left. “And then you are right here.”
Chase smiled as he stood between two girls and posed for a picture. Their energy was palpable, radiating off of them like heat from the sun. He loved meeting fans and appreciated the fact that he was where he was because of them. It was just odd sometimes to have all that fanatical energy focused solely on him.
Onstage, it was a different story. It didn’t matter if he were playing for ten people or ten thousand—when he was performing, it was like a relationship. It felt intimate. Like an equal exchange of energy where he was giving something to them and they were giving something to him.
It had taken him several years to get used to the attention he received offstage. He still wasn’t one hundred percent comfortable with it, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would be. It wasn’t a natural phenomenon. It was strange and unusual. To have people not just say that they love you, but mean it. To burst into tears when you walk into a room, pass out, jump up and down, basically lose their minds by your mere presence, was not something a person, at least not something that he, could ever really justify in his mind.
“Can you sign this?” the brunette to his left asked breathlessly.
“Of course,” he agreed and took the CD from her hand. “What’s your name?”
“Ariel,” she replied.
He smiled and signed the CD, thanking the two girls for coming to his show as his assistant escorted his next fan in line up to the photo op.
“Hi, I love you so much! I know all of your songs by heart! My favorite is ‘Saving Me’. I think I’ve listened to it like a million times! Look, I even got this,” the girl spoke rapidly as she lifted her shirt to reveal that she had a line of the lyrics of the song tattooed down the side of her body with music notes at each end.
“That’s amazing. It’s beautiful.” Chase read the lyrics and tried to block out the memories, to push down the emotion that rose up in him every time he saw it. He’d written that song when he was fifteen after one of the worst nights of his life.
“Saving Me” was Midnight Rush’s biggest hit to date. That was the song the band won their first Grammy for. It had been optioned for a movie soundtrack as well, for which they’d received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
The ironic thing about that was that Chase had never meant to release it. He’d never meant for anyone except for Krista, the person he’d written it for, to hear it. KC, one of his band members, had seen the music and lyrics scribbled down in one of his notebooks on their first tour, when they had all been packed like smelly sardines into the van, with no privacy whatsoever. He’d tried to refuse to record it. But since early on the four members had agreed that everything band related would be put to a vote, they did just that. Needless to say, he’d been outvoted and “Saving Me” was the first song they’d recorded for their sophomore release. As their first single, its popularity had spread like wildfire, and really, the song had taken on a life of its own.
Without that song, who knew if they’d have reached the success they’d been able to reach. Who knew if he’d be where he was. Those words he had written at fifteen were true then and they were just as true now. The lyrics to “Saving Me” had been like a prophecy. Krista was still saving him.
Chase spent the next forty-five minutes meeting fans, taking pictures, signing everything from body parts to CDs, posters to mementos. The strangest personal item he put his John Hancock on had to be an inhaler. That was a first—he’d never signed medication before. He fielded all of the same questions he’d been getting since he’d announced his solo project and some he’d been getting for years before that.