“BIRD!” STELLA CALLS, pounding on my bedroom door.

The beating is intense, as is the high-pitched tone of her voice, so I throw off the covers and fly out of bed, terrified. “What is it?” I say, swinging open my bedroom door. “What’s wrong?”

“OMG, have you read the new Us Weekly?” she asks, holding up a copy of the gossip magazine as she barges into my room.

My pulse slows down a little and I rub the sleep from my eyes, but I’m still confused. I look over at the clock on my bookshelf; it reads 9:00 AM. “Um, no.” She throws her lavender messenger bag onto my bed and opens it with purpose. “It’s Thursday. Shouldn’t you be at school?” I ask.

“I was there,” she says hurriedly, pulling out her phone and a bunch of other magazines before sitting down and facing me. She looks really anxious. “But then I found out about all of this and ditched.”

“Found out about what?” I ask slowly, an inexplicable feeling of dread coming over me.

“Have you been online?”

“No, but—”

She holds up her cell phone and explains: “TMZ says Jason Samuels is your ‘muse’ and that you guys are a hot and heavy couple who’ve secretly been involved this whole month. You met him at a party over the holidays in Nashville and have been, quote, ‘the song in his heart’ while he shoots his new drama.”

“Oh my God!” I exclaim, shutting the door quickly and grabbing my laptop off my desk.

“So you haven’t read Star,” she guesses correctly. “Or InTouch or OK!?”

“No,” I say, feeling queasy. “I just woke up.”

I climb onto my bed and grab a magazine, completely mortified.

“ ‘Jason Samuels gets cozy with his new Song Bird’?” I read, my voice getting higher with each word. Under the headline is a blurry shot of Jason with his arm around me on the sidewalk in front of Fido.

“We weren’t ‘getting cozy,’ ” I snap at the magazine. I hold it up to Stella. “These idiots were waiting for us outside, and Jason was just leading me through. When all those cameras got up in my face and the paparazzi were yelling, I froze.”

She bites her lip. “You do look cozy,” she concedes, fanning out all the articles and pointing to a pic in another magazine.

I feel sick. According to Us Weekly, I’ve been into Jason for a long time and now that my single is number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, I’m over the moon that he’s “Noticed Me.” There are a couple of pictures of Jason touching me, once when he put his hand on my shoulder at the beginning of our “date” and once when he brushed away that eyelash. And in Star, there is a picture of us laughing at our table in Fido with a headline asking, WILL JASON MOVE TO NASHVILLE FOR LOVE? And then, to top it all off, OK! magazine has eyewitness statements of how we were sharing a burger and making out in his car, complete with a series of photos of him ushering me into the front seat.

“This is completely made-up!” I shriek, trying to remain calm and failing miserably. I look at her, my eyes a little wet. “What if Adam sees this stuff?”

She bites her lip.

“Stella?”

She exhales loudly. “Yeah. I think that would be bad.”

I throw myself back against my pillows and bury my head under my comforter. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, kicking off her shoes and moving up on the bed to where I’m hiding.

“This isn’t happening,” I moan.

“You could text him,” Stella suggests.

I pull the covers off my face. “And say what? ‘Oh, hey, Adam. I know we’re not technically dating and I don’t know what that kiss was or if we’ll ever kiss again or if you even want to since it’s been, like, two weeks, anyway, but just in case you do—’cause I really do—I’m definitely not dating Jason Samuels even though it totally looks like it, okay?’ ” I look at Stella and she twists her mouth, thinking. “And then what if he says, ‘What are you talking about? You went out with Jason Samuels?’ Like, he may not even know. He doesn’t read this stuff.” Even as I say it, I can hear how pathetic that hope is.

“Okay, so it’s presumptuous to text Adam since y’all aren’t technically a thing, but I definitely think you need to talk to Anita,” Stella says. She leafs through one of the magazines again. “She obviously set you up. You need to ask her WTF.”

I groan. “I already called her when I was really ticked off the day I met Jason, but she turned it back on me. She got mad, saying that she was hurt I’d question her motives and that she couldn’t really remember whose people called whose. But then she called again yesterday and said my song is definitely being used in the movie now, so it was ‘all for the best.’ I don’t see the point in calling her again. I mean, it’s done.”

Stella frowns. “In other words, ‘all publicity is good publicity’?”

I sigh, looking down at a small picture of Jason and me laughing in the corner of the cover of InTouch.

“I wonder what your fans think,” Stella ponders aloud. She grabs my laptop and types in the URL to my fan forum. “Oh no,” she says.

“What?” I ask, sitting up and tilting the screen my way. To my horror, there are two thumbnails side by side, one of Adam and me at the Pancake Pantry and one of Jason and me at Fido. The article is all about comparing my body language in each picture and what it says about my interest in each of the guys… that I’m dating.

“This is a nightmare,” I grumble, shutting the laptop firmly.

“You want to see a nightmare?” Stella asks. She picks up a tabloid and flips through the pages expertly. “Then look at the bedazzled midriff-baring shirt Kim Kardashian is sporting on page twenty-two of Us Weekly. Stars are so not like us.”

And despite everything, I smile.

“I really think we’ve got it,” Shannon says, setting down her guitar after what’s already been a long day.

“You’re sure?” I ask, looking at the lyrics in front of me. “We hardly changed anything on this one.”

Shannon smiles warmly at me. “Sometimes it happens that way. The hook is catchy, the lyrics are smart, and now that we’ve upped the tempo, I think it will really complement the rest of the songs on your album.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure,” she says. “Let’s take a break and then lay down the demo. I’ll e-mail it over to Dan later tonight, but I’m positive he’s going to green-light it. This actually might be one of my favorites.”

I smile, feeling the same way. After the crappy “personal life” morning I had, it was nice to have a productive workday. I set down my own guitar and stretch my arms up over my head as her phone rings.

“This is Shannon,” she answers brightly.

But then she bolts up, standing still as a statue, her face suddenly tense with worry.

I feel my own stomach twist. “Is it Stella?” I ask.

Shannon glances over at me and curtly shakes her head before leaving the room. I get that it’s totally uncool to spy, but I walk closer to the kitchen, anyway. I’ve never seen Shannon so freaked out and I’m concerned.

“Tell me you’re joking,” I hear her say.

I take a breath and waltz into the kitchen as nonchalantly as I can, my hand to my throat to exhibit the pretense that I am suddenly so parched that I can’t possibly wait another second for a glass of water. Shannon barely takes notice. She is sitting on a bar stool at the counter going through pages in an open binder and talking to the person on the other end of the line about “filling a hole.” From the bits and pieces I overhear, I start to relax. Nobody’s sick. Nobody’s hurt. It’s just something to do with a show.

“No, no, no,” Shannon says, barely audible. She shuffles through the pages again and pulls out what looks like a set list. Then she flips her long black hair over one shoulder and pinches the bridge of her nose. “She was our opener, Kevin.” A pause. Then a curt reply. “Yes, I understand it’s just a high school showcase, but I happen to have a daughter who attends said high school.”

“Can I help?” I ask quietly. I hate to see her so stressed out.

“No, Bird,” she says, waving me off. Then she looks up at me, locks her eyes on mine, almost as if she’s just registered what I said. “Kevin, let me call you back.”

She ends the call and takes a deep breath. “Bird, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate right now. And I know this is a lot to ask. But yes. You actually can help. But only if you really want to.”

“Anything,” I say.

“It’s two thirty now,” Shannon starts, checking her phone. I’ve never seen her so worked up. “I am putting on a big fund-raiser at Stella’s school tonight to raise money for the arts program, since the state cut the budget—again.”

“Oh, that’s terrible,” I say.

“Yes.” She nods. “It is. That’s why we’re throwing the fund-raiser. This is Nashville, Tennessee. You would think that Music City of all places would get it. Anyway, the show starts at seven thirty tonight, and I’ve just lost my opener to the flu. I can make some calls, but…”

I volunteer readily. “No, I’ll do it,” I say. “Let me help. I can do ‘Notice Me.’ ”

Shannon exhales loudly, her shoulders relaxing. “Oh, Bird, you’re a lifesaver,” she says, putting her hand to her heart. “Let me just call Dan.”

“No!” I say, reaching out a hand. I think about the advice Jason gave me, about finding balance, about differentiating Me Time from Work Time. “I want to do this for you, Shannon, because you’ve done so much for me. But I don’t want Amanda to send over an outfit or Anita to put out a press release. I don’t want it to be a ‘work thing.’ It’s my song and I want to sing it at my best friend’s school.” I frown. “I don’t know why you guys didn’t mention it to me in the first place.”

“You’ve been so busy in the studio,” Shannon says. “I know firsthand what it’s like to put out an album on a normal schedule, and Open Highway has you on the express track. I honestly don’t know how you haven’t had a nervous breakdown—I would be fried. I just didn’t want to add anything else to your plate.”

“Oh, no, I miss live performances. I used to be onstage every night with my family, but now I only sing in the studio.” I feel myself getting preshow jitters already, feel the old adrenaline kicking in. I smile. “I’m even going to bring Maybelle. This will be fun!”

“What will be fun?” Stella asks as she walks in the door.

Shannon looks up at her daughter. “Bird is going to open at the fund-raiser tonight.”

Stella looks up at me, surprised. “Seriously?”

I nod.

“OMG, that’s so exciting!” she says, stomping her foot. “Let’s go pick out something to wear. You can borrow that cute purple dress I just got. My friends are going to love you.” She grabs my hand and drags me out of the kitchen.

“I have to stop by my house on the way to grab my fiddle,” I tell her.

Stella stops dead in her tracks. “Wait, what about Adam’s show? It’s tonight, right?”

My mouth falls open. I’d totally forgotten. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “No biggie. Just tell my mom you have plans already. We can still get ready together, and I can drop you at the 5 Spot on my way to the school and then meet up with you later.”

I contemplate the situation, wondering if I can possibly do both things. I promised Adam that I’d be there tonight, but I also really want to help Shannon. Without her, I wouldn’t have had the courage to sing from my heart at the Bluebird, and I definitely wouldn’t have been able to turn the songs in my journal into singles for the radio. And if I’d never met Shannon, then I’d never have met Stella.

“No,” I say, not wanting to let them down. “I’ll open for your show and book it out right after. I can make both, even if I show up a little late at the 5 Spot. Adam will totally understand.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“One hundred percent,” I say.

And even though I’ll be cutting it close, when she throws her arms around my neck and gives me a big hug, I know that it’s the right thing to do.