She rolled her eyes.
“What?”
“Everyone knows that one.”
To be fair, everyone knew a lot of our songs. We’d spent a lot of time at the top of the charts. Still, I tried again, rattling off one cheesy name after another like a semi-automatic weapon. “‘She’s my Truth.’ ‘Back it Up.’ ‘Dream Girl.’ ‘I’d Drop Dead for You.’”
Dani doubled down on the eye rolls. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was refusing to accept my word only because she didn’t want to concede defeat. “All that proves is you have very bad taste in music, Chad.”
“Watch it. I helped write some of those songs.”
Her eyes widened, telling me—without saying a word—how she really felt about my songwriting abilities.
“Screw you,” I fought back. “At least I don’t have your exceptionally horrible observational skills. I mean, take a good look, Dani. You don’t have to be a hardcore Dayer to see it’s me under all the hair.”
Emitting an offended squeak, she stomped back over to me, bending down and grabbing my face as she tilted it from side to side. Despite the pain roaring through my insides, I patiently waited for her to confirm my identity, and when the truth finally sank in, she let go of my jaw and backed away. Our eyes met and began a full-on stare down. She was pissed. She was shocked. And judging by the grimace Dani had adopted on that pouty face of hers, my neighbor was not the least bit impressed.
“Well, isn’t this a treat. RJ Contreras in the house.”
The way she said it through clenched teeth indicated she didn’t find it a treat at all. I grinned at her faked enthusiasm.
“RJ Contreras in the parking garage,” I corrected. “But yes, I agree, it is a treat.”
Dani found no humor in my response, and I watched as she folded her arms over her chest in indignation. Despite my life hanging in the balance, I couldn’t help but take one last dig.
“You know, Dani, you really are the worst Lois Lane ever. I mean, I thought the fictional Loises were bad, not being able to tell that Clark Kent was actually Superman because he wore glasses, but you…Jesus… All I can think is you don’t get out much.”
“Uh-huh.” She grimaced. “You have no idea how much I want to kick dirt in your face right now.”
I laughed, but my amusement was short-lived as pain swept through me. My sudden change snapped Dani from her frustration and her forehead wrinkled in worry.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen, Chad.”
“RJ,” I corrected.
Dani’s lips flattened. “Here’s what’s going to happen, RJ. I’m going to go now so that I can save your life. Then once you’re all healed up, I’m going to punch you in the gut for lying to me. Are we clear?”
I nodded to my savior. “We’re clear.”
As she turned to leave, her ponytail swung from side to side. Even her hair was full of life. Dani was a breath of fresh air in a world that had gone stale.
Overwhelmed with affection for this woman who was risking everything for me, I called out to her. “Dani?”
When she whirled back around, the confident woman was gone. Tears had replaced the anger in her eyes. Dani cared, more than she was letting on, and what surprised me the most was that her desire to help me had nothing to do with my fame. Dani didn’t care about RJ Contreras, the superstar. She cared about some no-name asshole called Chad Woodcock. Somehow, somewhere, the two of us had connected, and now neither one of us wanted to let the other go.
We stared at each other, soaking in the moment. The tears slipping from her eyes were only steps ahead of the ones pooling in mine.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking with the emotion the moment required. “For being there for me.”
There was no playfulness. No mocking. Only genuine gratitude. This girl had become my lifeline. Her bravery might not save me, but I’d die knowing someone had cared enough to try.
She nodded, barely able to meet my eye.
“Remember your promise,” she said. “You better be alive when the rescuers come.”
“I’ll try.”
“No,” she insisted, this time holding my gaze. “You will be.”
I paused, drawing hope from her strength. If anyone could save me, it was this fiery and determined girl. “I will be.”
8
Dani: The Scout
I didn’t remember the parking garage being so compact… or dark. Typically, I drove in, did my obligatory Cake Walk loop-de-loop with the mentality of a survivalist, and then went about my day, with no cave-ins and no life-or-death decisions to speak of. But this… Why had I always taken for granted that things would remain in the spots they’d always been? Everything was wrong now. Up was down. And down was—buried under a pile of rubble.
Remembering the concrete under my car dropping away, I realized then that we were underground and, to get out, I had to go up. Except there was no up, no opening. We were entombed. But I couldn’t give up. RJ was counting on me. So I continued on with purpose, every step I took away from him more urgent than the next. RJ was hurt. More than he was letting on, that much I was sure of. If I didn’t bring help back to him, there was a chance he’d die. No. I couldn’t think that way. RJ was going to be fine. He’d live another day. That blender of his would shred a thousand more sliding glass doors if I had anything to say about it.
After climbing over a wall of downed pipes and concrete pillars, I spotted the exit sign only to discover the exit was no more. Cars from the second floor of the garage were suspended precariously in the air, held only by the steel railing they’d crashed into on their way down. And on top of that were what appeared to be the upper floors of the apartment complex caving into the lower ones.
And then there was RJ and me, under all of that.
A squeak escaped me as my eyes tried to process the shock of what they were seeing. I’d promised RJ that I’d get help, but what if there was no help to be had? What if I couldn’t find a way out? I would be as doomed as the man trapped ankle deep in concrete. The man who had a legion of fans to mourn him. Because he was RJ Contreras. RJ frickin’ Contreras! Chad. RJ. Chad was RJ!
Okay, Dani. We got it. No need to repeat it a thousand times.
But the more I milled it over in my head, the more shocking the revelation became. The asinine man I’d been absently daydreaming about pushing in front of a stampede of bulls was actually one of music’s biggest stars. RJ didn’t just know the names of those songs he’d rattled off in record time, he’d sung them—nearly every night on stage with his generation-defining boyband.
Not that I’d ever been a worshipful Dayer, but you’d have to be living in a hole to not know the band AnyDayNow or to not be able to sing along to their songs when they came on the radio. For five years of my life, those Dayer boys had been pretty much unavoidable, appearing in magazines, on television, and on billboards, their music playing over the radio waves way more often than seemed necessary. And I’d just now discovered that I’d been living next door to one of them all this time? How dumb was I? No, really. On a scale from one to ten, I was like a forty-two. My god, I’d even been to one of his concerts, standing just below the stage, so close, in fact, that I’d sworn to my girlfriends that he’d sweated on me. That was the same RJ I was now trying to save. The same RJ Contreras from AnyDayNow! RJ was Chad. Chad was RJ.