Chapter 241: Tour Opening (1)
<🎧 Song Recommendation: Baby by Justin Bieber, Ludacris>
...
[Kaseya Center — Downtown Miami. 5:47 PM.]
The arena sat right on the edge of Biscayne Bay, and from the causeway it looked like somebody had parked a spaceship next to the water.
For three days, the entire block had been closed off. Trucks came in at night and left before sunrise. Whatever they carried in, they carried it in under black tarps.
The result was standing there now.
Two enormous banners ran down the full height of the building, four stories tall, rippling in the ocean wind. On them was the tour poster.
Naomi had designed it: a painted picture of Von with a crown on his head and a mic in his hand, looking nonchalant and emo, with the tour dates listed down the side.
The artwork alone was winning over the crowd, and many kept staring at it as they walked by.
The plaza in front of the doors had been transformed, too. Speaker towers pumped out a low, steady heartbeat of bass that you could feel through the pavement.
Food trucks lined the west side. Security in bright orange vests moved through a crowd that had started forming at eleven that morning.
Twenty thousand people. That was how many had gathered to witness the opening night of one of the most anticipated tours from the multitalented rising star, Von Varley.
And somewhere in the middle of that ocean of people, a young man in a plain blue shirt was losing an argument.
"Two years, Nicky."
"I know, honey."
"Two whole years. And this is what you picked."
Nicholas was twenty-two, tall, and a little too thin. He’d driven them down from Coral Gables in his mother’s Corolla, sat in causeway traffic for twenty minutes, and paid thirty-five dollars to park nine blocks away.
He had been dreaming of this day ever since he fell in love with Von’s music: getting to see him perform live.
Sabrina, walking beside him with her arms folded, had not.
She was in a yellow sundress and sandals, her braids pinned up off her neck, and her face was doing that same thing it did when she was trying very hard to be nice about something.
"I told you I don’t like concerts. I don’t like standing. I don’t like crowds. I don’t like screaming."
"You said you don’t like concerts for artists you don’t care about."
"That’s not what I said."
"It’s what you meant."
Sabrina stopped walking and gave him a flat look. "Nicholas!"
He laughed and stepped in front of her, taking her face in both hands and rubbing his thumbs over her cheeks the way he always did when she was working herself up.
"Don’t worry, babe," he said, grinning down at her. "You’ll love this one. It’s Von."
"I don’t care who Von is!"
Nicholas quieted her by holding her shoulders. "No, but listen. He went to our uni and was even my classmate once. I’ve told you this like a hundred times, he’s such a big inspiration to me."
"I know, I know." Sabrina let out a long breath, but she didn’t pull away from his hands. "But I’m not really interested. And I don’t think dragging me here is going to change that."
Nicholas opened his mouth, but he didn’t have anything to say.
Then his eyes moved past her shoulder, and he brightened like a man who had just been handed a lifeline.
"Okay. Fine. Look, they’re selling merch over there. Let’s go check it out."
"Nicky—"
"Five minutes. Just look."
He already had her hand.
The merch setup wasn’t a table. That was the first thing that struck Nicholas as strange.
It was a whole structure, a black pop-up built out of what looked like two shipping containers welded together.
There was another picture of Von on the side, next to a logo that read V-OMEN, he almost read it as ’Von’ until he looked twice.
Under it, in smaller letters:
PARADOX.
The line to the setup stretched about forty people deep and curved around the side of the building.
They joined the back of it, and Nicholas immediately started listening, because a line at a concert is the best place to hear people talk.
And everybody was talking about the same thing.
"—no, bro, the whole setlist. Even the choreography and surprises. It’s been up since Tuesday."
"So we already know everything?"
"That’s what I’m saying. I paid two hundred dollars to be spoiled."
"My cousin said they might cancel."
"They’re not canceling, the trucks are literally right there."
"I feel bad for him, though. Like genuinely. That’s someone’s whole show."
Sabrina leaned in toward Nicholas. "What are they talking about?"
"Someone leaked his show," Nicholas said. "A couple days ago. Even one song he planned to release online. The whole thing just showed up on the internet."
"That’s horrible."
"Yeah." He shrugged. "He dropped the song officially the next day, though. *Remedy*. It’s been number one on Musify since Thursday."
"Wait." Sabrina’s head turned. "That’s his? That’s the one that’s been all over my feed?"
"Babe."
"What!"
"That’s his."
But Sabrina had already stopped listening, because a group of four girls had just come out of the container, and she was staring at their feet.
They were all laughing. All four of them were carrying black drawstring bags, and all four of them had swapped out whatever they’d walked in wearing for something Sabrina had genuinely never seen before in her life.
They looked like boots, but not really. There were no laces or fabric anywhere.
Each pair sat somewhere between a snow boot and something you’d wear inside the house.
One of the girls had a pink pair with a small crowned princess stamped into the outer panel. She kept lifting her foot up to show her friend, and her friend kept slapping her arm and squealing.
Sabrina’s mouth opened in excitement.
"Did they get those in there?"
Nicholas turned to look. "...I think so?"
"Nicky." She grabbed his forearm. "Look at them. Look at her shoes. I have never seen anything like that."
"Me neither," he said honestly, admiring the unique design himself.
Sabrina didn’t even notice that her arms had uncrossed.
The line moved faster than it looked like it would. By the time they got to the front, four more groups had come out of the container, and every single one of them was smiling.
Inside, the pop-up was cooler than the plaza, and two sellers were working the space: a short, round-faced guy with a headset and a nose ring, and a girl with box braids.
"Yo, welcome in!" the guy called out, spreading his arms. "First time at the drop?"
"First time at anything," Sabrina said.
"Then y’all picked a good night." He laughed. "Take your time, look around, ask me anything."
Nicholas was already scanning the walls. It was just the basic merch and then the boots—they were everywhere.
Sabrina had gone straight to the back wall, standing completely still in front of it.
There were about thirty pairs up there, arranged in a grid and lit from behind so the foam glowed slightly at the edges.
Every single pair had a different theme: a basketball, a green cactus, a slice of watermelon, a little bear face, a soccer ball, a pink pair with the crowned princess, a pair of black ones that looked military...
And on the third row: a deep aqua blue with a small white dolphin curving across the outer panel and a coral-colored sole.
Sabrina’s whole expression changed.
"Excuse me," she said, without taking her eyes off the wall. "What are these?"
The seller walked over with his hands in his pockets, clearly enjoying her reaction, as he was already used to it.
"Those are the Exo-Foam Boots," he said. "Everyone’s just calling them Exo Boots now. They’re part of our new PARADOX collection from the V-OMEN brand. Von Varley partnered with Vanguard to make these."
"He made these?"
"Yep. Rumor has it he designed them himself, too. And there are other pieces yet to drop."
Nicholas nodded along politely, but Sabrina was already speaking.
"Can I try them? The blue dolphin ones."
"Yeah, of course. What size?"
"Seven."
The girl with the braids was already crouching by the storage cubes.
Sabrina slipped off her sandals, took the boots, and stepped into them right there on the mat.
Then she froze.
"...Oh my god."
"Right?" the seller said with a grin.
She shifted her weight, rocked forward onto the balls of her feet, then rocked back.
She had expected them to feel like plastic. Instead, her feet sank into something that pushed gently back up.
It was warm, dense, and soft in a way that made zero sense for a shoe you were supposed to wear outside.
They felt like the slippers her grandmother kept by the door. Like the inside of a bed.
Except she was standing on the floor.
She took four steps toward the mirror and gasped in excitement.
"Nicky."