I knew something no one else in the entire auditorium knew except him.

We had a secret.

Twenty minutes later, we were settled in our seats in the second balcony. They weren’t quite nosebleeds, but we’d be doing most of our watching on the jumbo screens. The opening acts were a blur—a group of four girls shaking what their mamas hadn’t quite given them yet, and then a young boy who couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old, crooning about the one who got away. I turned to Vanessa.

“What got away, his video game remote?”

She laughed, and Jen shot us a look, one that said we didn’t deserve to be there if we didn’t take it more seriously.

There was an intermission of about twenty minutes after the second opening act. The dim lights came up, and groups of teenage girls linked arms in search of the bathroom or snacks.

Jen was on social media with her friends.

Vanessa leaned over and smiled. “What do you think these girls would do if they found out you had Ryan Hooks’s cell phone in your purse right now?” she asked. “Think they’d mob you?”

“Probably,” I said, looking around nervously. “And don’t say that so loud.”

She shrugged. “It’s not like they’d be able to get into it, since it’s locked.”

“You think that would stop me from getting mobbed?”

“No, you’re probably right.” She smiled. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to have it back, though. Who knows what’s on it?”

I frowned. “Have it back?”

She turned to me. “Well, yeah, isn’t that why you brought it? I thought you were going to give it back and maybe even see about that big ole reward,” she said.

I laughed nervously. “That was just a joke,” I said. “Besides, what are we going to do, wait outside his tour bus?”

“Nah, we’ll get backstage.”

She said it so simply and so confidently that I laughed. I was about to respond when there was a loud crashing sound, and then the lights in the arena began to shut off, one area at a time, in perfect rhythm with a slow and steady drumbeat. Immediately, the crowd erupted in screams. I looked over at Vanessa, but she’d turned back to the stage in excitement, her face a mirror image of her daughter’s.

Here we go.