Page 83 of I Fell for an Alien Popstar

“Zhari scares easily when it’s about her,” he said. “She acts like she doesn’t, but she does. She walks into crowds like it’s nothing, but when it comes to letting people in, she’s… careful. You’re allowed to meet her where she’s scared.”

I looked between them.

“So your professional opinion is…?” I asked.

“Tonight’s the last Tessara show,” Lyn said. “She goes on at nine. You should be there.”

“She asked for space,” I said. “I can’t just show up at her concert.”

“You’re not showing up at her concert,” Yuki said. “You’re showing up for her. There’s a difference.”

The bond pulsed once, faint but present, as if it were listening.

My heart climbed into my throat.

And then, somewhere between the fear and the desperate, stubborn hope, something clicked.

“I have an idea,” I said.

Lyn raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of idea?”

“The big, stupid kind,” I said. “The kind I always do on paper, but in real life this time.”

I pushed my plate away and stood.

“Where are you going?” Yuki asked.

“I need markers,” I said. “And glitter. And every piece of glow-in-the-dark anything I can find in the craft-supply bin.”

Lyn and Yuki exchanged a look.

“That’s our girl,” Lyn said.

***

The arena was a living thing by the time I got there.

Outside, the crowd moved in rivers of light—wristbands glowing, holo-tickets flickering, bodies pressing toward the entrances. Food vendors hawked glowing skewers. Kids ran past with neon face paint. The air hummed with that specific frequency of a few thousand people about to lose their minds.

I’d spent the afternoon in the bus’s craft nook, hunched over a piece of board I’d pulled from a packing crate, with every marker, glitter tube, and glow strip I could find.

My hands were still flecked with silver.

The sign wasn’t pretty in the way my professional work was pretty. It was pretty in the way things were pretty when you made them while shaking and crying, meaning every single letter.

I WANT TO SOLAR CAR WITH YOU

The letters were big and slightly uneven, the O’s ringed in glitter, the word SOLAR painted in yellow with little rays coming off it. I’d drawn a tiny car at the bottom with a smiley face.

It was ridiculous.

It was the most me thing I’d ever made.

I tucked it against my chest, face down, and found my way to the floor section. Lyn had somehow gotten me a crew-adjacent pass—not VIP, not backstage, just close enough to the stage that I could see Zhari and she could see me if she looked.

The lights dropped.