With this, in a jerky but bold move, Roman lunged for Oakley’s phone and stomped it hard on the concrete floor of the hallway. It lay in shattered pieces on the ground.
“There. Any evidence I may have inadvertently given you is gone.”
Oakley stared down at it, stunned. How would they prove anything now?
“You jerk!” Brinn lunged at him, but Clyde held her back. “You ruined my friend’s phone!”
It was a good thing Clyde restrained Brinn, because Roman wasn’t through with his threat-a-thon. Violence still lingered in his gaze. He aimed an angry finger at Farley’s chest. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Instead of taking the threat and cowering, though, Farley caught Roman’s finger and twisted it hard.
“Bad news, boss. There is no statute of limitations for murder,” Farley pronounced, and the two lawyers flanking Farley nodded grimly, affirming his statement. “You’re going down.”
Hudson added with deadly iciness, “Like a plane in a storm.”
Roman shrank back, looking left and right, as if for a place to retreat. He was surrounded. Every face in the crowd accused him. He had no allies in this crowd. Not even Blue, his business partner. She looked as disgusted with him as Ignatius Torres did.
“No.” He shrank farther, looking from side to side. “No! It’s not true. It’s been too long.”
While Roman shrank, Hudson seemed to grow. He stepped closer to the cowering villain, whose overly tanned face and freakishly white teeth suddenly looked out of place when gracing the features of fear incarnate.
“Roman, did you really think you could kill my brothers and get away with it? Did you not know that I would come back to haunt you years later so that justice could be served?”
“You—you’re … not …” Roman was stutter-stepping backward, and he tripped, landing on his backside with a pathetic thud.
“I’m Hudson Oaks. And I’m not afraid to let the world know it.”
***
“Okay, folks!” Troy the emcee grinned his boyish face at the camera, his perfect hair coiffed into place during the break, his sea-blue eyes a-sparkle, as if someone had hit the refresh button on his appearance, despite the long day. “Thanks for sticking with us despite the temporary break to re-broadcast the first round of the bowling tournament. I know you’re as breathless as the rest of us to find out whether the studio audience, as well as all of you viewers out there, will vote to keep Oakley M. from Oregon in the finals, like our judging panel did.”
The audience cheered, but Oakley’s heart pounded—a mixture of terror and, well, a lot more terror. It seemed impossible to have even one more glitch added to this day’s mayhem, but there it was. Despite Clyde’s magnificent efforts, they had no track for the reworked version of “Lunch Lady,” now called “Your Kisses Take Me.” Roman hadn’t known it during Oakley’s confrontation with him, but the sound booth tech had actually obeyed orders and flushed the thumb drive down the toilet. Sadly, Clyde couldn’t access the file remotely or recreate it in time.
Live television, no track to sing to, a completely unknown song, and an audience of millions who were already irritated about a bowling tournament. How crazy was she?
Not crazy at all. Unless crazy in love counted. Or at least crazy in like.
“Well, my dear”—Hudson slipped an arm around her—“I can’t believe I’m going to be on the stage again. When that plane crashed, I thought all my chances to sing and perform died along with the guys.”
“That’s why we have to do this.” She looked up at Hudson, trying to keep her emotion at bay. Way too much stuff had happened in the last week for her to be completely steady. Heck, make that in the last hour. “We’re dedicating it to Nick, Chris, and Al. Your brothers.”
“That’s perfect.” He looked at her with a half-smile. “And to everyone who believed in Girl Crazy. Including the ones who never gave up on my life.”
From the stage, more words erupted from Troy’s mouth. Oakley adjusted her headset and her guitar. Hudson had his guitar strapped over his shoulder as well.
“What do you think the world is going to think when you tell them I’m Hudson Oaks?”
“They’re going to think exactly what I did: Wow. He’s hot. I hope he’ll be my boyfriend.”
Laughing aloud, that deep sonorous laugh of his, Hudson pushed her shoulder. “Oh, really? Is that how it was?”
“Maybe not exactly, but we can let go of the past, right?”
“Or we can celebrate it. Come on!” He took her by the hand and together they jogged toward the stage.
They emerged into the glare of the stage lights together, hand in hand. The top tier didn’t feel right. Oakley stepped down one level, and then another. They were right up close to the audience. From that vantage point, despite the glare of the stage lights, she could see the astonishment on women’s faces. A few started pointing. Some held up cameras and took pictures with one hand while holding their free hands over mouths agape with wonder.
Both the band name Girl Crazy and Hudson Oaks’s name were on hundreds of lips at once. It floated in the air all around the haze of the studio.
“You ready, Oakley?” Troy asked. When she nodded, he said, “Okay, then! Ladies and gentlemen, Oakley M. will be performing an original number, alongside her boyfriend and co-lyricist, someone the ladies in the audience will recognize as the one and only Hudson Oaks.”
Blue had given Troy a script. He’d executed it with perfect verve. Go, Troy.
For a full three seconds, gasps rang in the rafters of the auditorium, echoing. But then, just as Oakley predicted, and exactly like Mom would have done, the air erupted in screams of ecstasy.
“That’s our cue,” Hudson said, and he played the first bass chord of the new version of “Lunch Lady.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hudson said into his microphone over the cheering of the crowd. “My girlfriend and I have a song for you today. I wrote the melody, and she wrote the lyrics. We offer it to you, and you can tell us whether we make a good team. Our song for you tonight is called ‘Your Kisses Take Me.’ It’s based on a song Girl Crazy recorded and never released. But Oakley here wrote the words. I’m sure you’ll love them.”
“Hudson helped,” Oakley needed to clarify. “And he penned the melody himself. You’ll love it.”
Only a few times in her life had Oakley played the guitar and sung, and never in front of an audience of any size, let alone hundreds of people in an auditorium plus however many more who’d stayed with her in spite of a bowling tournament interruption on TV. While Hudson gave the opening riff on the bass, she did what she could to find her fingers’ spot on the strings of her guitar.
“Give me a sign,” she sang, her voice surprisingly clear. “Give me a sign,” she said as her hands found the chord progression that Clyde had admired so much in the song originally. It was working. Her music was happening. “Show me you care, open my mind—and my heart,” she sang, and the audience started to look like they were getting into it as her voice ascended on the word heart, leading to the chorus.
“Your kisses, your kisses, light up my life,” Hudson joined in, and several women in the front row squealed and grabbed each others’ hands. “Take me to the place of the deep, silver sigh.” Several women in the front row visibly gave their own deep, silver sighs in response. It was sweet. Oakley completely empathized.
“Your kisses, they take me,” Oakley joined in on the climax of the chorus. “I’ll always save my best self for you.”
The crowd was really with them now, and both guitars’ strumming together through the melody and the chorus made the room come alive. Oakley’s voice melded with Hudson’s, and during the repeat about kisses, the audience, unbelievably, joined in.
Just like Hudson had explained, it was the best feeling in the world. Her soul left her body and soared around in the rafters, vibrating with the thrumming of the crowd’s electric energy, before coming back down for the final notes.
“Your kisses, your kisses, light up my life.” Repeat, repeat. “Take me to the place of the deep, silver sigh.” The audience got it. When Hudson pointed, they sang. They had already, with just one introduction, caught the vision of the song and internalized it. It was as if they were singing the second chorus of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” and nobody needed to be told twice to chime in on the walk all over you sing-along portion.
The end came, and Hudson played an amazing bass riff. At the last note, Hudson grabbed her hand and lifted it high, and then swung it downward and they bowed in tandem.
The crowd ate it up. The second they hit the note, all phones whipped out simultaneously, and the voting was underway.
Oakley’s fate was in their hands, literally, as they punched their phones.
Behind them, on a blue screen, a tally lit up. Under the YES heading, a screen-projected dial like an odometer of a car rolled quickly upward. One hundred, four hundred, nine hundred, two thousand, nine thousand. It spun so fast Oakley could barely gauge its progress. Beside it under the NO heading, a dial rolled as well. Haters gonna hate. What can you do? It was probably bitter nineties boyfriends who hadn’t liked it when their girlfriends swooned over Hudson Oaks back in the day, and now he was the last person they wanted to see showing up on the scene, especially still looking so fine.
That, or disaffected bowling fans registering their general disgruntlement.
“Only sixty more seconds to get your text votes in, people,” Troy the emcee’s voice tingled with urgency. “We’ll know in just thirty seconds. Fifteen. Now ten, nine, eight …”
The studio audience counted down along with him.
“We have a resounding yes!” Troy the announcer beckoned her over. He placed his hand on Oakley’s shoulder. “How do you feel, Oakley M. from Oregon, knowing that not only has the voting from a panel of four judges given you a unanimous thumbs-up, but the voting from this audience as well as our television viewers has been roughly ninety-nine percent yes rating as well?”
“So humbled and grateful, Troy. I mean, you probably saw my initial audition, how crash-and-burn it was.”
This brought a gut laugh from the crowd.
“Anyone with eyes and ears and viral video access knows about that, Oakley. But you’re like the boxer who won’t stay on the ropes. You just keep coming back for the fight.”
“I hope so.” She shrugged. She felt so done talking to this guy. All she wanted to do was yank Hudson into a huge hug of gratitude and love. “However, don’t think I deserve all or even very much of the credit. It was this guy here who believed in me.” She smiled up at him, the love so obvious it was probably wafting off her like stink off a skunk. Then she turned back to the audience, and finally spoke straight into the camera to the viewers everywhere.
In that moment, she told the audience there and watching on TV the most important thing she could think to convey. “People, I know some of you might be doubters, but this really is Hudson Oaks.”
“I want you, Hudson!” a middle-aged woman hollered from the front row, but her friend whacked her on the arm and she shoved her back, shouting, “I called dibs, way back in nineteen ninety-four!”
“Sorry, girls.” Hudson gave a kind laugh. “Last time you saw me, I was free as a bird, but now, I’ve got Oakley. I’m hers, poor thing, and she’s mine—lucky dog.”
Scene 3: “Safest Place to Hide”
It took Hudson and Oakley a lot longer to get back to Hudson’s house where everyone was meeting after the show, due to all the fans wanting autographs and selfies with Hudson as they tried to leave the studio. He looked like it was good to be back, to be himself.
Oakley wouldn’t take that away from him. Performing and making people feel good about themselves were his gifts. She’d never stand in the way of that for him.
It might be time to let him go do that now. She could admit it, but she didn’t like it.
Just when I finally realized how much better I was when I’m with him, I have to say goodbye.
They walked into Hudson’s house on Whidbey Island with the comfy couches and the wood carvings and the warm, family happiness. It was bursting with people—Hudson’s family, naturally, but Oakley’s parents were there, too, as was Ignatius Torres and someone who must have been his wife. Ignatius was carrying on an animated video chat, and it took little time to gather that the other person on the line was someone from Alfonzo’s family. He sounded too much like Barnard to be anyone else.
Besides parents, Brinn and Clyde had come, and even Barnard had arrived. It was like a homecoming party after a soldier had been at war. Everyone was laughing and talking over the loud music blasting through the room—Girl Crazy’s greatest hits, of course.
Everyone looked incandescently happy—except for Mom.
“Where have you been?” Mom asked, a crease between her eyebrows. “We were worried.”
“Sorry.” Hudson handed Sherm the keys of his truck back. “It was my fault.”
“Hudson has a lot of fans.” Oakley counted herself as his biggest. She was pretty sure by now she’d eclipsed even Mom. “They’ve been waiting to see him for a long time.”
A little smile quirked the left side of Mom’s mouth. “Well, I’d never deny them that joy.”
Oakley was tingling with her victory, but that tingling went into full-blown fireworks when Hudson took her hand in front of everyone and said, “We can go out back and talk, if you want. There’s a porch swing my dad built. You’ll like it.”
He took her by the hand and led her through the kitchen and out the back doors. On the swing, he gave them gentle pushes with his foot, while Oakley curled her legs up beneath her.
“This is nice.”
“Yeah,” he said. He scooted toward her, placing his arm around her shoulders. He smelled nice. “My dad really likes to build things. He’s good at it.”
She rested her head against his chest. This was the quietest moment she’d had in a long time. An owl hooted somewhere. Wind whooshed through the tops of the pines. Peace unfurled in Oakley.
Until she realized this might be the last time she would see Hudson.
“You’re going to move here, I guess.”
Hudson breathed in and out. “Yeah. It will be weird, but I’d better finish high school.” He ran his hand over her hair. “I’m thinking about the future, about what comes after singing songs on a stage.”
The shelf life of a pop star was rarely twenty-three years, and Hudson had already expended more than that.
“Yeah,” she said, echoing his earlier syllable. “I’ll be, uh, in Wood River.” Oakley hoped he’d offer to at least come and visit her, but he didn’t.
“Plus, with the legal stuff coming up, I need to be around the Seattle area to testify.”
Chris’s dad had assured everyone that after the lawsuit and the criminal proceedings sorted out, all that money Roman Levy had siphoned from the other two band-mates, as well as the insurance money from the plane crash, would revert to Hudson, to Manny’s family, and to Al and Nick’s families in fair portions determined by the court.
“I guess if the court case goes the way Sherm and Mr. Torres expect, you won’t need to worry about money for a long time. You can buy your own Little Debbie Snack Cakes when you’re wandering the streets of Wood River.”
Was her hint subtle enough? Maybe it sounded desperate, like she was begging him to come see her in Wood River.
He gave a soft laugh. “Right.”
She waited, and waited, but he was just pushing the swing back and forth with his leg and saying nothing about their future together.
A whisper from inside told her, Confidence. Fake it ’til you make it.
“I hope I get to see you sometime again.”
The slow creak of the swing halted, and Hudson’s arm went stiff. Oakley sat up. “What’s wrong?” Her shoulder felt cold without his arm around it.
“Well, I just assumed I’d see you. Like, pretty much every weekend
.” He looked worried. “Don’t you want to?”
Of course she wanted to! “Um, sure.” She tried on a little smile. “If that’s what you want.”
“I mean,” he said, “weren’t you listening when Blue offered to let us come in and record our version of ‘Your Kisses Take Me’ in her recording studio? She wasn’t even going to request rights. She was going to do it gratis since our performance reignited the show’s ratings so much.”
An icy wind gusted. Autumn could do that.
Oakley’s eyes flew open. “We get to record it?” she gasped. “You mean, my lyrics are going to be recorded.”
“Yeah, with you and me singing, and it’ll probably play on the radio. Maybe. Or at least on one of those internet things on people’s smarty phones. Maybe I can get a smarty phone, and we can do some long-distance lyrics-writing over the phone when you’re not in school.”
Or maybe even when she was in school. Wait. No, she needed to be serious about her grades again. Maybe she could pull them back up. She had an algebra II test in the morning, too.
“Sure. And can we text, and video chat, too?” Like, all day, and every night they were apart? Except—“My phone. Roman broke it.”
“He really went postal. Oh, you’re cold.” Hudson took her hand and led her back inside.
Back inside, it was warmer. The party was still going on. They found a spot on a couch in the loud room.
A twinge of disappointment that Hudson hadn’t kissed her flitted through Oakley. Then again, rather than a physical sign of affection, he’d told her he wanted to spend every weekend with her.
That wasn’t bad.
But she still wished she could kiss him again. Even just a little.
“Too bad about your phone.” Mom brought Oakley a carved-wood cup of lemonade with ice. Mom sighed. “You’ll have to save up for a new one, but at least the sim card still had all your data—including the video you took of Roman’s confession.”
My 90s Boy Band Boyfriend: A YA Time Travel Rockstar Romance (Teen Queens Book 2) Page 33
