By the time the four of them spilled out of the taxi, Vegas had already shifted into a higher gear. The MGM Grand's facade glowed radioactive green against the neon latticework of the Strip, swallowing up each new arrival with a vacuum-sealed whoosh of over-conditioned air. The crowd on the casino floor pulsed in algorithmic intervals, bodies separating and rejoining around rows of blinking machines, each one hungry for a tap or a slip of plastic.

  “God, I love this place,” said Marcus, arms flung wide as if to embrace the entire lobby. He wore a linen shirt unbuttoned to scandal, his skin already glistening with that special cocktail of ambition and SPF 45. “It’s like all the worst decisions in my life, but vertical.”

  Elena pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head, glancing at the velvet-roped line for the Hakkasan club. “You say that about every city we visit,” she said, but she smiled, the kind of smile that broadcast both affection and a willingness to be unimpressed.

  Darren, trailing behind with a rolling duffel, surveyed the situation with the air of a man mentally drafting his Yelp review. “How is it possible,” he said, “that every human here is simultaneously drunk and buying coffee?”

  Theo said nothing, his eyes locked on his phone screen as they crossed the marble threshold and stepped into the casino proper. No new messages from Kristy. He checked the last one, reread her “See you at 11:30, unless Vegas eats me first,” and scrolled up to the selfie she’d sent from her hotel bed: her hand in a peace sign, sunglasses mirrored with the Vegas skyline behind her, a disposable coffee cup held like a shield.

  He tried not to think about the fact that she was here, in this city, maybe already in the same building. He tried not to think about how fast his heart was going, or how the casino’s lights reminded him of an infinite row of status LEDs, all blinking at different rates, never quite in sync.

  Marcus slapped him on the back. “Earth to Wilson. You gonna win us a fortune on blackjack, or do I have to carry this team?”

  Theo pocketed his phone and tried to recalibrate. “I’m not allowed within fifty feet of a blackjack table. MGM level backoff.”

  “I believe it,” said Darren, deadpan. “The man counts cards like it’s his default setting.”

  Theo ignored the jibe and glanced around the lobby. Everything here was precision engineered—stacks of gold coins behind plexiglass, an aquarium filled with sullen-looking tropicals, a bellhop who looked ready to bench-press any guest who complained about room temperature. The check-in counter hummed with the soft click of acrylic nails on glass, punctuated by the occasional shout from the slots area.

  Elena elbowed her way to the front of the line, then beckoned the others over. “Let’s go, gentlemen. The concert doesn’t wait.”

  They’d planned it all weeks in advance: check into adjoining rooms, dump the bags, hit the casino for a warmup drink, then head to the arena for the main event. In theory, it was just a night out, a chance for four old friends to relive a little of the reckless abandon they’d once called normal. In practice, it was an operation: timed, mapped, executed with the same collaborative efficiency as a group project in their college days.

  But even now, with the itinerary locked down to the minute, Theo felt outside of himself, as if he were both the observer and the subject, the experimenter and the rat.

  The elevator ride to the thirtieth floor was a lesson in forced intimacy: a bachelor party in themed T-shirts, a pair of influencers vlogging their every movement, a businessman with the wilted posture of a man already regretting tomorrow’s meeting. Marcus made conversation with everyone, his volume unadjusted for enclosed spaces. Elena offered polite nods, while Darren stared at the digital floor counter as if willing it to skip ahead.

  Theo watched his reflection in the mirrored ceiling. His shirt—white, freshly pressed—looked almost luminous in the casino light. He wondered if it was too much, if he should have gone with something more neutral, something that would disappear in a crowd.

  He glanced at his phone again. Still nothing.

  When they reached their floor, the group split off to their respective rooms to “reset.” Marcus and Darren vanished to the far end of the hall, while Elena paused by Theo’s door.

  “You okay?” she asked, not unkindly.

  He shrugged. “Fine. Why?”

  She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t made eye contact with a human since we left the airport. And you keep checking your phone like it owes you money.”

  Theo weighed the truth, then said, “I guess I’m just…nervous.”

  Elena softened, leaning against the wall. “About her?”

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  She smiled. “It’s cute. You know, in a tragic, overthinking way.” She reached out, squeezed his forearm. “She’s already love you.”

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  He wanted to ask how she could possibly know that, but instead he said, “Thanks, Elena.”

  She winked, then turned toward her room. “Text if you need me to rescue you from Marcus.”

  Inside, Theo flopped onto the bed, the king-size comforter swallowing him whole. He let himself sink into the mattress, scrolling aimlessly through Kristy’s texts and then, as a palette cleanser, opening up the set list for the concert. He studied it, half-memorizing the order: the opener, the three big hits, the acoustic ballad near the end.

  He closed his eyes, visualized the arena filling with sound, imagined the exact moment when the house lights would drop and the world would rearrange itself. He pictured himself there, watching the stage, maybe catching a glimpse of her in the wings.

  At 7:30, Marcus texted the group: “Lobby in ten. Bring your game face.”

  Theo changed shirts twice, finally settling on the pale blue Oxford—the one Marcus had called “tastefully boring.” He slicked his hair, splashed water on his face, and gave himself a pep talk in the mirror. Then he pocketed his phone and joined the others in the elevator.

  The casino was louder now, the ambient noise cranked to a setting just short of intolerable. A pit boss in a sequined blazer did a slow patrol near the high-stakes tables, flanked by two security guards with identical haircuts and nothing in their eyes but the desire for a shift change.

  Darren handed Theo a gin and tonic, then clinked glasses. “To the best night of our mediocre lives,” he said.

  “To not getting arrested,” said Marcus.

  “To friendship,” said Elena, and that was the toast they landed on.

  They walked the length of the casino, then veered into the arena concourse, where the crowd for the Mia Amor show had already queued into a serpentine mass. Fans wore branded jackets, gold-foil tees, even the occasional feathered boa. The demographic was impossible to pin down: clusters of TikTok teens, thirtysomething couples, septuagenarians with hair dyed to match the tour colors. Everyone seemed giddy, faces bright with the kind of expectation that came from believing you were about to witness history.

  Theo couldn’t help but analyze the line: how the staff funneled the VIPs through a side entrance, how the bottleneck at security created a downstream lag, how the merch tables were perfectly positioned to catch impulse buyers while the rest of the crowd shuffled in place.

  At the turnstile, a young usher scanned their tickets, then handed each of them a holographic wristband. “Wear this,” she said, her voice pitched to cut through the noise. “It syncs to the show.”

  They slipped them on, the plastic cool against Theo’s skin. Darren examined his, trying to crack the mechanism. “It’s an RFID,” he declared, but no one cared.

  Once inside, the arena was breathtaking: a vast, tiered bowl, the stage at one end layered with digital screens and kinetic sculptures that promised a spectacle before a single note had played. The seats were packed, every aisle a tangle of bodies, every row vibrating with nervous energy.

  Marcus led the way to their section; mid-tier, dead center, a perfect vantage point for both the main stage and the catwalk that jutted out into the crowd.

  As they settled in, Marcus nudged Theo. “You ready for this?”

  Theo nodded, but his eyes flicked to the time: 8:01. Show start was in twenty-nine minutes.

  Elena, sitting between Theo and Darren, passed him a box of popcorn. “Don’t stress,” she said, reading his mind. “Just enjoy it.”

  He tried. He really did. But each minute felt like it hung on the outcome of the night—on whether or not Kristy would show up, on what they’d say to each other if she did. He thought about the version of himself that existed in her messages: wittier, bolder, less prone to overthink everything into dust. He wondered if that person could survive out here, in the open.

  The lights dimmed. The opening act took the stage—a DJ who wore a motorcycle helmet covered in LEDs and shouted motivational slogans over bass drops. Darren leaned over to Theo. “He’s like a TED talk and a migraine had a baby,” he said, and Theo laughed for the first time all day.

  After a mercifully short set, the crowd surged as the main stage reconfigured itself. The house lights dropped to zero, and the wristbands on every arm in the arena lit up in perfect synchrony, painting the audience in pulses of purple, gold, and white.

  A hush fell, thick and expectant. Then, from the center of the stage, a single spotlight snapped to life.

  Mia Amor rose out of the floor on a mirrored pedestal, arms outstretched, her gown trailing behind like a comet’s tail. She hit the opening note with a force that felt seismic; the screens behind her flared with her image, magnified and multiplied until it was the only thing visible for miles.

  Theo felt every hair on his arms stand up.

  He watched her, and for a long time, nothing else existed: not the friends beside him, not the crowd, not even the phone in his pocket. Just her voice, clear and powerful, ricocheting around the bowl and then zeroing in on him like it had been aimed there all along.

  For the first two songs, he tried to analyze it—the way the lighting cues hit on beat, the flawless coordination of the backup dancers, the way each transition masked a costume change or reset. But by the third song, analysis was impossible. He was overwhelmed, as if the music itself had wormed into his chest and started flicking switches he didn’t know existed.

  He thought of Kristy, of the photos she’d sent in the weeks leading up to this, the offhand comments about how much work went into “making it look like magic.” He imagined her watching from the wings, invisible but omnipresent, her real self shadowing the icon onstage.

  The fourth song was a ballad. The arena went dark, save for the white glow of a hundred thousand phone screens. Mia stood alone in the center, her image flickering on the screen behind her, raw and unadorned. She sang, and the words landed with a weight that was almost physical.

  Theo closed his eyes. He felt the air move, the press of bodies, the heat of the lights. He let himself be a part of it, for once. No analysis, no critique. Just experience.

  When the song ended, the crowd erupted. The wristbands flared gold, then faded to black.

  He checked his phone, almost on instinct. Still no new messages.

  He grinned, pocketed it again, and promised himself not to check until the encore.

  As the show roared back to life, he turned to say something to Marcus, but Marcus was already standing, shouting at the top of his lungs.

  Theo joined in, surprised by how easy it was to lose himself, how much he wanted to.

  He made a mental note of everything—the feeling of the seat under him, the way the stage lights played across the faces in the crowd, the exact moment when the bass drop in the sixth song made his heart skip. He catalogued them, knowing he’d want to share every detail with Kristy later.

  As the last chords of the song faded, Theo stared up at the stage and felt the world click into focus. For the first time all day, he wasn’t thinking about what came next. He was just there, alive, the music ringing in his ears, and it was enough.