Page 75 of Rebooting Conor Flynn

“Don’t tempt me. I just might write it...if I can stop wanking off to it.”

She snickered and blushed at the same time. “I think we should squash those cheating rumors. I’m not ready to tarnish your image just to burnish Ashley’s. You can both come out of this tour looking like heros, and Ashley can press reset on her image.”

“I’m on board, boss.” I tapped my fingers to my forehead. “But then why are you sneaking up to me in the dark, backstage, coming on to me?”

“I touched your arm, you perv.” She smacked my shoulder. “I wanted to let you know I reached Louise, Gordon’s assistant. I found her on Instagram and DM’d her.”

“Did she tell you what happened with the phones?”

“We didn’t get that far. She’s still in England, so it was late there, but it looks like she read the message. If Ian’s right and Louise dealt with the phones, maybe she remembers protocol.”

“Okay, Nancy Drew. Let’s see where this leads.” I reached out and wrapped a lock of her hair around my finger. “In the meantime...”

She glanced over her shoulder. “What did I just tell you? We should take a few steps back to let the cheating stuff die down.”

“You’re absolutely right.” I pulled her in for a kiss, slipping my hands beneath her blouse.

Pressing her body against mine, she melted into me...for a second. Then she placed her hands on my chest and pushed me gently. “Later.”

I called to her back as she walked away, “I live for later.”

As I sank into a chair behind the curtain to listen to Ashley’s set, a stagehand came by with a beer. “Want one?”

“Thanks, mate.” I took the cold bottle from his hand and pressed it against my forehead before taking a sip.

Ashley launched into her first song, an upbeat pop tune about reclaiming her power. I hoped that wasn’t some kind of signal to her fans. Even if Ashley didn’t engineer this cheating rumor, she planned to lean into it, which she’d made clear to Tomo.

In a way, I couldn’t blame her. This business put pressure on you, and artists were willing to do crazy things to stay relevant. I’d like to think my motives for the stunt relationship with Ashley rose above curating my image, but we were all guilty of it.

Ashley’s voice held for the next few songs, but by the fourth and fifth numbers I could hear the strain in her tone. I predicted at least autotune in her future sets on this tour. I just hoped she didn’t go all out for lip synching. That would trash this tour and everyone on it.

She compensated for her lack of vocal prowess by allowing the audience to carry the tunes. They shouted the lyrics back to her, and she punctuated them with a few, yeahs, alrights, and lemme hear ya’s. I preferred it to lip synching.

As she wrapped up her solo encore, I got ready to join her on stage for our last song. I hated this part of the show. Our song was a banger for sure, but the pretense with her killed my whole vibe.

On my way to the stage, I mumbled under my breath, “Do it for Noelle. Do it for Noelle.”

I added a little spring to my step as I joined Ashley. She held her hands out to me, and I grabbed them, pulled her toward me, and rested my forehead against hers.

That interaction ignited the audience, and they started chanting, “Conley, Conley, Conley.”

That ridiculous shipping name.

We started the song and halfway through it, the mood in the crowd shifted. Some wouldn’t notice, but I’d been playing huge venues all my adult life, and I felt the change.

My gaze swept the sea of faces, blurred by the lights, but everything looked the same to me.

I glanced at Ashley as she started her verse to huge cheers. Not that I was petty or anything, but my verses usually got the most crowd reaction.

When Ashley stepped back at the end of her part, I began my second solo verse—I swear I heard a few boos. The only time I got booed at my concerts was when I failed to deliver a Five2Go song.

We joined voices for the climax of the song, and the booing stopped, but as we waved to the crowd, I could swear I heard more heckling on my side of the stage.

I left the stage, and Noelle immediately intercepted me.

“We have a problem.”

“Yeah, did you hear that booing too? I guess you’re right about the cheating rumor tarnishing my golden boy image.”