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That nearby PA suddenly exhales with relief, the same way I’ve seen so many others do before her while awaiting Savage. And that’s how I know Mr. Rockstar has arrived, approximately three minutes before we’re set to walk onstage on live TV.
The air shifts and electrifies. And then, there he is. Rounding a corner.
Casually, he sidles up to me, like he’s got all the time in the world. His eyes wide, he looks me up and down and says, “Damn, Fitzy. That’s quite a dress. Fuck.”
“Hello, Adrian,” I say curtly, pretending not to notice the way his eyes are popping out of his head. His cologne and charisma, the intensity of his gaze . . . all of it is hitting me like a ton of bricks. But I ignore it all.
The superstar onstage says, “And the award goes to . . .” She opens the envelope and immediately stiffens at whatever she’s seeing inside. She looks out at the crowd and smiles thinly. “Hugh Delaney.”
Savage, the production assistant, and I simultaneously snicker, as the audience in the theatre collectively does the same. There’s some scattered, half-hearted applause before the woman onstage finally chokes out, “I’m told Hugh can’t make it tonight, so Taggert and I accept this award on his behalf!”
Savage leans into my ear, making my skin tingle at his proximity. I feel his warm breath as he says, “Yeah, no shit Hugh couldn’t make it tonight. Ha.”
I can’t help snorting with him, totally contrary to my strategy of ignoring him. “Yeah, Hugh’s a little busy tonight . . . imploding spectacularly.”
It’s an understatement. Four days ago, the world found out the fifty-three-year-old, iconic country star who’s been the elder statesman on Sing Your Heart Out since the beginning, has been cheating on his world-famous actress-wife with their kids’ Brazilian nanny—a twenty-year-old who claimed, once the sex tape of them leaked, she’d been “coerced” into having a long-running affair with Hugh.
In response to the shocking allegations, Hugh went on an epic bender, drove his Range Rover into a tree, and promptly got arrested for DUI. Right after that, Hugh’s wife filed for divorce, while the nanny filed a civil lawsuit and sold her story to a gossip rag. The day after that, as in, two days ago, Sing Your Heart Out announced Hugh’s termination, two weeks before shooting on the new season is set to start, saying he’d breached his contract’s strict morality clause. And now, here we are, celebrating Hugh’s win for Best Country Music Video.
The scandal has been catastrophic news for old Hugh, obviously, but fantastic news for whoever his last-minute replacement on the show will turn out to be. It’s a long shot, but my agent, Daria, is already hard at work, trying to make Hugh’s replacement me. I don’t expect her efforts to bear fruit. I’m barely famous enough to have snagged a spot as a mentor this season. But my profile has expanded significantly since the success of my second album. Not to mention, since that video of me fighting with Savage in New York caused Google searches of my name to spike by one thousand percent. So, my agent figured it was worth a shot.
Daria’s pitch to the show’s producers has been: “You’ve already publicized Laila as a mentor this season and the response has been fantastic. So why not make a surprise announcement that you’ve expanded her role because you’ve realized she’ll bring a fresh energy to the judges’ table? Who better to replace Hugh at the last minute than his polar opposite—a young, enthusiastic woman?”
Yeah, we don’t have high hopes that pitch will work. Almost certainly, they’ll replace Hugh with another big star, another man, who’ll appeal to Hugh’s same demographic. They’ve always had one woman and two men at the judges’ table, since the beginning—and Aloha is still under contract for the next four years of the show.
The PA hands Savage the short script for our banter. “This is all cued up on the teleprompter,” she assures him. “But you’ll probably want to read this before walking out there, so you don’t stumble on anything.”
“I’ll do that. Could you give us some space to rehearse in private?”
“Sure. Let me know if you need me. I’ll come back and cue you, right before the announcer introduces you both.”
As she walks away, Savage tosses the script onto a nearby speaker. “You’re stubborn as shit,” he says to me.
“Excuse me?”
“I kept my word and told no one. For a full month, I pretended nothing happened between us, whenever anyone was around. I kept my word to you and showed you I’m trustworthy. So why didn’t you come to my room, even once? Why not answer a single one of my texts—either during the tour, or over the past two weeks? At the very least, you could have replied to one of my texts! But you just can’t help yourself, huh? You’re so used to being a bitch to me, it’s now your default mode.”
