adoration: part two

thirteen

May 2nd 2024, San Jose CA

I wasn't really sure how today was going to go, tour life and birthdays didn't really gel together so I was absolutely shocked when I left my tour bus this morning.

"SURPRISE!!" Isa shouted the loudest out of everyone, my whole team was surrounding me including Kelly, Max and Carlos.

"Oh my god!!" I knew they were coming to the show this evening but I didn't expect them until much later in the day, Audrey handed me a cake and the whole team were each holding pink balloons as they sang happy birthday.

I blew out the candles on my cake, it was cute and vanilla, pink sprinkles rapping around the bottom of its base.

"Thank you guys! This is so cute." I smiled happily at everyone who were now beginning to go back to the typical morning routine.

"So birthday girl, we have a special dinner planned after the concert tonight." Kelly mentioned as she squeezed me into a hug as per usual.

"Where's P?" I asked them, the small girl wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Isa chuckled "She's sleeping in one of the tour buses, the flight over was turbulent and she was not going down." Max explained.

Penelope had never been to one of my shows before so I had a job to make it my best one yet, hopefully then she can start coming to more.

The day passed my as normal, I went to see the dancers and we did a two hour session rather than a three before my team started to get me ready for the show.

Tonight I was wearing a crown, not my choice it was chosen specifically by Penelope "It looks so bootiful aunty mel."

So I had a pink tiara on with a white dress, that was short but not too short and thankfully I could move in it, the team wanted me to like 'angelic.'

"Melody half an hour till show, VIP guests are all here." One of the security men, David said through to my ear piece.

I was already dressed and ready to go so I left the dressing room to greet my guests "Auntie mel you look so so pretty!" Penelope claimed as she grabbed at me.

"So do you!" I squealed back, she had a pink tutu skirt on and a white top, two little bunches with pink bows, adorable.

"So melody where are we going?" Kelly asked as I showed them to the VIP section, it was kind of like a balcony above the rest of the audience.

Once we made our ways up there we saw Isa and Carlos who were already stood waiting chatting to none other than the leclerc household.

"What are they going here mel?" Max grunted as he saw Charles, I forgot to mention that I had gotten them all tickets.

"Melody!" Pascale exclaimed once she saw me, and I squealed back "Pascale!"

"Thank you so so so much, I honestly don't know what I can do to repay you- the tickets sold out so fast." She exclaimed rambling on a bit as she held me close to her.

"No don't even worry about it." I smiled back to her as she admired my outfit, "Ten minutes till show." My earpiece said.

"Mum leave the girl be." Arthur joked as he hugged me quickly.

I knew Max wasn't happy based on how quiet he was being but he pretended all was good for Penelope.

"Uncle charlie!!!!" She screamed as she recognised Charles who turned to face her smiling widely, I was worried that he would've been awkward but he didn't care at all.

Penelope ran up to him instantly hugging his leg as he chuckled, the others all remained quiet. After the breakup Kelly and max didn't know what to do about the whole Charles situation in regards to pen so they just ignored it.

"Hi P are you excited?" He asked her as she nodded rapidly, she was a ball of excitement, he gracefully ignored the uncle comment.

"Thank you melody, happy birthday by the way." Lorenzo said as I took my eyes off of Charles and P melting my heart for a second.

"Thank you." I smiled at him, I wasn't really sure what welcoming I was going to get from the family. The FIA ceremony was awkward and I had kind of  dragged their brother and son in a song.

Charles heard this conversation and turned around and grabbed the huge flowers behind him "These are for you as a thank you," he said passing them to me and enveloping me in a hug "my love." He whispered quietly.

I pulled back and thanked them all, Kelly and Max watched the whole thing with wide eyes. They hadn't heard from me about Charles since we broke up, it was quite a shock to see me hugging the entire family and I inviting them to shows.

"You guys should all come to my birthday dinner after the show. The team are setting something up." I told them nicely as Penelope asked for me to pick her up.

"Are you sure? We don't want to overstep." Charles asked double checking.

"Yeah are you sure Mel?" Max commented but I ignored him, he was just holding on to annoyance at Charles.

"Yeah please come, we'd like that wouldn't we Penelope?" I asked her and she nodded along.

"If you insist." Pascale agreed smiling widely, she didn't even attempt to hide her excitement.

"Okay I will see you after then, enjoy the show everyone." I smiled putting Penelope down as Audrey spoke into my ear piece, it was time to go.

"Good luck melody." They all wished as I turned away down to the underneath of the stage where the whole team was.

"Jesus melody, we thought you'd done a runner." Elliot muttered passing my the two pills, I looked down at them and up at him again.

"I'm fine without them actually." I told him and his expression wavered, "How about on the break?" He asked and I rolled my eyes as the show was about to begin.

"Melody when was the last truly nasty, bad pop girl? Because we saw her at that FIA ceremony, and that's what we want now, take the pills." He shoved them into my hand before walking away.

The label signed me because they knew how easy it would be to pursue the whole 'mad melody' thing all the news articles were on about, they wanted their iconic bad girl and I wasn't giving it to them.

I just want to be the biggest touring singer ever.