Page 302 of Rush

“I don’t know aboutcommit. But what Pip said at SORA…about actually taking care of ourselves.” She exhales. “That stuck with me. I don’t want to spend my life drifting around pretending everything’s fine.”

She glances over at me.

“Especially when we’ve both been given opportunities most people only dream about.”

She’s right. She’s always right.

I stare back up at the ceiling, at the scrotum-shaped pattern Riley ruined forever.

Maybe I need to figure out who I am when I’m not chasing someone else.

The thought sits there for a moment—quiet, uncomfortable, unfinished.

Then Riley snorts beside me.

“I’m serious though,” she says. “If we go to the Philippines, I’m eating everything.”

I grin.

“Even balut?”

She groans.

“Absolutely not.”

I laugh, the tension easing from my chest.

While my future isn’t written yet. For now, it’s enough to lie here with my best friend and imagine the next chapter.

Chapter 35

Madness

The hotel suite pulses with noise—curling irons hissing, cameras flashing, someone shouting, “Where’s the damn lash glue?” from the bathroom. Every surface is cluttered: dresses, makeup trays, bottles of champagne, garment bags ripped open like crime scenes. I sit on a stool near the window while Inga pins the last of my hair into place, her hands moving fast and efficient, like a surgeon.

“Don’t move,” Inga mutters around a bobby pin clenched between her teeth. “I want your hair to hold through an earthquake.”

Kylie perches on the edge of the couch with a laptop balanced on her knees, tapping with one hand and swirling a green juice with the other. “Odds are still in your favor,” she says, without looking up. “Best New Artist is leaning sixty-forty. Song of the Year’s tighter—might be a toss-up. But your stream numbers for “Sparks”just overtook Ava Edwards’s single this morning. Big swing.”

Mark gives her a look. “She doesn’t need Vegas stats right now.”

“I like stats,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s true. I like being distracted. My phone buzzes again in my lap. Still nothing from Broderick.

His silence twists like a knife in my side.

Rio twirls from the mirror, still fussing with the hem of my gown like it might shift dimensions if he lets go. “I’m gonna cry. You look like a fucking constellation.”

I smile like I’m supposed to.

Riley pops a chocolate-covered almond into her mouth, eyebrows raised knowingly at me in the mirror. “Babe.”

“I know,” I say, too fast.

She saunters over, barefoot, robe swishing. “This is your night. Your moment. If you’re about to spiral over?—”

“I’m not spiraling.”

“Sure. That’s why you’ve checked your phone every thirty seconds like he’s gonna beam himself here through Wi-Fi.”