Chapter 21: Cheer

He did not have a ring.

I saw that right away, because I looked at his hands.

They were empty, with silver on every finger and nothing in the palms.

He was kneeling on the boards of the Allegheny Arena.

Fifteen thousand people were still singing a line I had first said to a stranger's voicemail.

He looked up at me.

"I'm asking you again."

I couldn't hear him.

I read it off his mouth.

The crowd had begun to quiet, because they could see him down there.

He lifted his guitar mic off its stand and held it out, and he didn't use it.

He held it out to me.

"Then ask," I said, to the mic, with my voice shaking.

The whole arena heard it.

I heard it come back from the walls.

"Maggie Doyle." He swallowed. "I love you. I've loved you since the first time you said thirty dollars."

I started to laugh, and then I was crying.

"I love you," I said into the mic.

It boomed off the rafters.

"I love you, too, you idiot."

The place went up.

It was a roar I had never heard from any crowd, a joyous animal sound.

Boots stamped under it, and it didn't stop for almost a full minute.

He stood up, took my face in both hands, and kissed me in front of fifteen thousand people.

I kissed him back with every freckle I owned.

Then I felt the crowd shift.

The noise changed, and I opened my eyes.

On the big screens over the stage, a picture had appeared.

It was a white sheet of paper with a name at the bottom.

Beside it, in a gray bubble, glowed the text Deirdre had sent about Friday and platinum.

Kit Delaney stood at center stage in her rhinestone boots with a wireless mic in her hand.

I hadn't seen her walk out.

"That's the label's own paperwork," she said, in a clear, shaking voice that carried to the back wall. "You can read it for yourselves."

The crowd went quiet to read.

"The laugh at the start of track nine belongs to Maggie Doyle," Kit said.

"Nobody asked her. Nobody paid her. The woman whose name is on that page knew it, and hid it."

A woman in a cream suit was coming down the side stairs.

She was walking too fast, and one heel skidded, and she caught herself on the rail.

"Turn that off," Deirdre said, in a high flat voice I had never heard from her. "Turn it off. This is a private legal matter."

Nobody moved.

"Those are your words, Deirdre," said Kit. "You wrote me my lines, too. I read every one."

"You will never record another note."

"I'll record them in my kitchen."

A man in a good coat stepped out of the wings behind Deirdre.