I move back as Ayden’s guitar takes over. I suck in a few breaths, feeling less nervous. My voice is balanced, surprisingly smooth. Although, the next part will test it. The words move fast, and I have to push my voice to a near scream. In practice, I rocked it, but I’m worried now. My throat feels like sand paper after puking.

I step up to the mic again, grip the stand, and run my fingers through my hair as some guy whistles at me from the crowd. “You make me weak. You make me strong. You make me ache. You make me feel so wrong. You make me burn for just a taste. You make me, make me, so fucking insane!” My voice carries flawlessly over the room.

And I can’t help myself.

I smile, realizing this dream of mine just might be possible.

I create magic for the next forty-five minutes, and by the time we’re finished, I feel like I’m glowing.

“Thank you!” I shout into the microphone then bounce off stage with the biggest smile plastered on my face.

My skin is damp, I reek of sweat, and I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time. I hug Sage and Nolan after we make it backstage, and then I throw my arms around Ayden and hug the crap out of him.

“That was so much fun,” I say, then throw my head back when he lifts me up off the ground and spins me around and around.

“You were amazing,” he whispers in my ear, sneaking a bite of my earlobe.

“So were you.” I kiss his cheek, and then he plants my feet back down on the floor.

“Who wants to celebrate?” Sage’s pumps a fist into the air, grasping a bottle of champagne.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask. “Did you steal it from one of the other bands or sneak it out from the bar?”

“Does it really matter?” He moves to pop the cork, but to no avail, showing his lack of experience with champagne bottles.

“Dammit, let me go find an opener.” He strolls off, putting swagger in his step as he passes by a few older women batting their eyelashes and grinning at him.

“Oh, the life of a rock star.” Grinning, I shake my head. “He’s going to be a handful. Isn’t he?”

“Probably,” Ayden agrees with amusement. “Every band has one, though.”

“So what do we do now?” My mind promptly conjures up very creative and vivid images.

“We could exchange our belated Christmas presents,” he suggests. “It might be fun.”

“I thought we were going to do that later?  When we were happy.”

“You look pretty happy right now.”

“But what about you?”

“I’m happy just seeing you happy.” When I hesitate, his brow cocks. “Do you really want to wait even longer? Or are you just procrastinating because you don’t have mine?”

“I actually do.” Which is the truth. But the present isn’t bought so I’m uncertain how much Ayden will like it. Still, it did come from the heart. “Alright, let’s do this. Hand it over.”

“I don’t have it with me.” He nods his head at the bar. “But we can go get our moms and head home and I’ll give it to you. Lila’s looking pretty tipsy anyway.”

I stick out my elbow and he links arms with me. “Sounds like a deal.”

An hour later, Ayden and I are in my bedroom on my bed with the door open. Music is floating from my stereo and a soft trail of light flows from my lamp. My mom and Aunt Lila are downstairs with Kale, Everson, and Fiona, drunkenly chatting, so loud we can hear them all the way upstairs.

“They’re trashed,” Ayden remarks as he tosses my present in the air like a baseball. It’s small, about the size of mine, with shiny silver and purple wrapping paper.

“Not as bad as last New Year’s.” My present for Ayden is secured in the palm of my hand. I’m nervous to give it to him. I don’t know why. Maybe because the gift kind of means something?  “Remember how giggly they were. Like two silly teenage girls.”

“You’re a teenage girl,” Ayden reminds me with a clever grin.

I smack my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Duh. Thanks for reminding me. I almost forgot.”

He shakes his head, half grinning. Then he shoves his hand in my direction, presenting his gift. “You open yours first.”

I snatch the present from him, tear open the paper, and lift the lid from the box. Inside are two leather bands with the words Endlessly Yours engraved on them.

“You mentioned once that your parents used to have leather bands that said forever on them and how they used to be best friends like us,” he explains as I stare inside the box. “I remember how happy you looked when you told me about it and how you said that one day you were going to be with a guy that would get you something like that. I didn’t want to make them exactly the same, though, so I went with endlessly yours.”

I’m quiet for a lengthy amount of time, mainly because I’m way too emotionally overwhelmed to speak.

“You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to,” he says self-consciously. “Or you can keep them both and give the other to someone else one day.”

I finally find my voice. “You said ‘how they used to be best friends like us’.”

“Huh?”

“Just barely. You said that we used to be friends like how my parents used to be friends.”

Pink hues his cheeks. “Well, I didn’t really mean it like that. We’re still best friends now, like your parents are, too. I just meant that we were like them in the sense that we used to be friends but now we’re…” He scratches at the back of his neck, glancing at the door like he wants to bolt.