Fly Girl | [Novel] (Wattpad Version)

16| First Successes

Tonight, August 12, 1995 is the night that's supposed to change our lives forever, officially. Not only are we debuting, hoping to boost our first single from number fifteen to number one, we're debuting live at the Apollo!

As I stood off to the side, finishing up the last of my tea, I looked over to my right to see Raymond pacing back and forth while the boys tried their best to calm him down. "What are you trippin' for, Raj?"

"What am I trippin' for? Marliss, you're not the one singing live for our national and televised debut."

Marliss smiled, shaking his head. "But I'm singing lead for the second song. Chill out and relax because you know as soon as you hit the stage, you're killing it." They were wearing all black, with the exception of their shirts and ties. They had on black Doc Martens, or Jodeci Boots as we called them, with caps that held the letter X on them. To say they weren't supposed to dress completely alike either, I actually liked how they looked as a complete unit. It took away, for a few moments, from their varying heights and builds. The girls and I were wearing black stylized riding pants, comfortable enough for us to move around and dance in, with different colored crop tops. We wore Docs to match the color of our shirts, and we all had our hair curled in some form or fashion suitable for our lengths.

"Are we doing the original version, or the remix, I forgot."

"Remix, Raj, remix!"

Marliss shook his head before looking in my direction. I took that as my cue to turn and walk away, but he called out to me before I could. Just as quickly as he'd said my name, he was standing next to me, touching me. I cleared my throat and turned to him after throwing my cup away. "Yes?"

"Please tell Mellow Yellow over here that he'll do fine. You always have some encouraging words for me, how about you hit him with a few."

I nodded, turning to Raymond. "Look, there's two things you can do tonight Raj. You can go out there and bomb, get booed by the toughest crowd known to any performer; or, you can follow the footsteps of our idols, and you can shut that stage down. The choice is yours, but please remember that you don't need to be afraid because you're not up there alone. Your boys aren't going to let you mess up, they're not going to let you fail or crash and burn alone." I looked over to my right briefly. "Alright, he might, but the rest of the fellas won't. You'll be fine, I promise."

Raymond nodded before thanking me and walked off. Marliss playfully nudged me before looking down at me. "So you got jokes now?"

"Of course not. But you do seem like the type to watch your peeps do bad while you go on shining like it's nothing."

He laughed, shaking his head. "Nah, I'd end up messing up too. But um, good luck out there. If either of us are going to climb the charts after tonight, it's definitely going to be y'all."

"Thanks, but have faith in yourselves too. Now get out of my space so I can concentrate."

"Am I distracting you?" I said nothing as I stared into his eyes, gradually moving mine down just as he licked his lips and smiled. "Troy-"

"Yes, you are. Bye."

He chuckled, kissing my cheek before he finally walked away, sliding his hand into his pocket as he did a vocal warmup.

Eventually I noticed that Torii and Ava had joined me after I walked towards the corner of the stage where I could see but couldn't be seen. Keke Shepard had just announced Xclusive and the curtains rose as the audience screamed and applauded. They opened a capella, with one of the best harmonies I'd ever heard. And then, I got mad at Raymond for being so dang crazy. This dude hit a high note like it was nothing before immediately getting the crowd hype as the fellas started dancing behind him.