in the 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭. ݁ ﹒ ❝᷀ົ 𝐠rammys 84'
𝓼ummary ✐ 𝒻. popstar!reader 𝑥 thriller!𝓶ichael Ი ᰍ ݃ ݁ᣟ݂ your and Michael’s friendship starts to slowly blossom… until the night of the anticipated Grammys award ceremony, where things take a turn for the worse. ❪ 𝔀.𝐜. 8.9𝑘 ❫
contains 𑣲 ﹕ no use of y/n. some fluff but very angsty. betrayal & jealousy. frenemies. mentions of brooke shields n and some haste towards her . . for the plot. surprise plot twist at the end!
❤︎︎ ゛reblogs are appreciated .ᐟ ( ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ഒ
❛ 𝓯ebruary 1984 — 𝓁os angeles, 𝒸alifornia ❜
You and Michael had spoken on the telephone nearly every night since the accident.
It had begun innocently enough, or at least that was what you would tell yourself whenever you thought too carefully about how quickly his voice had worked its way into the private structure of your life. The morning after your first call, you had woken with an aching neck and one cheek pressed awkwardly against your pillow, the telephone receiver still resting beside your face. For several disoriented seconds, you could not remember why it was there. Then you heard the faint, uneven sound of breathing humming through the speaker and remembered the frightened vulnerability in Michael’s voice from the night before, the unfinished song you had sung to him, and the promise you had made to remain until he fell asleep. Meanwhile, Michael was still sleeping on the other end.
From then on, the calls became something neither of you discussed because discussing them would have required acknowledging what they meant. Michael called when pain or medication made sleep impossible, usually sometime after midnight, when his family had gone quiet and the house no longer provided enough distraction from his thoughts. You called when rehearsals ran late and your body was exhausted but your mind refused to follow, still repeating choreography, interview answers and unfinished melodies long after you had returned home.
Sometimes the conversations lasted twenty minutes. Other nights, they continued until the first gray light of morning began slipping through the curtains and one of you finally noticed birds starting to call outside. You talked about music, films and the increasingly ridiculous things printed about the two of you, laughing over headlines that insisted your professional rivalry had become so bitter that neither of you could remain in the same building without demanding separate entrances. Neither of you mentioned that the real secret was far more dangerous than hatred. It was easier to allow the world to believe you despised each other than to explain that Michael knew which nights you could not sleep and that you could recognize his mood from the way he breathed before saying hello.
He helped you finish the song you had sung to him on the night of the accident, although he insisted his contribution had been considerably larger than the two altered notes and single changed lyric you allowed him to claim. “That entire bridge was practically mine,” he argued one evening, tapping out a rhythm against something you could not see.
“You suggested changing one word,” you reminded him. “One.”
“It was an important word.”
“Exactly,” Michael said with complete seriousness. “The emotional center of the whole song.”
You laughed into your pillow, imagining the self-satisfied expression he was probably wearing. “You are not receiving a writing credit for ‘away.’”
“I don’t need the credit. I just want you to admit the song would’ve fallen apart without me.”
“The song lived several months before you interfered with it.”
“It wasn’t living,” he corrected. “It was surviving.”
Other nights, you did not discuss anything important at all. He complained about being watched too closely while he recovered, frustrated by the well-intentioned hovering that followed every movement he made. You complained about your publicist scheduling interviews before noon, which you considered an act of cruelty against artists everywhere. Michael told you about a dream involving a circus, three elephants and Diana Ross driving some absurdly glittering car through the center ring while he tried to convince everyone that he had misplaced one of his shoes.
A brief and unreasonable twinge of jealousy moved through you at the mention of Diana, the kind you had begun experiencing before you possessed enough honesty to identify it. It disappeared just as quickly when Michael attempted to imitate the seriousness with which dream-Diana had informed him that one shoe was more fashionable anyway. You laughed so violently that the receiver nearly slipped from your hand, and Michael laughed harder because you were laughing, until neither of you remembered the original joke.
Slowly, the sharpness that had once existed between you began to soften. The silences became comfortable rather than combative, no longer requiring either of you to fill them with clever insults or careful performances. Sometimes Michael hummed while you flipped through a magazine. Sometimes you listened to him scribbling lyrics, the pencil moving steadily over paper while the line remained open between you. There were nights when ten full minutes passed without either of you speaking, yet neither person considered hanging up.
You might not have stopped preparing clever responses before answering his calls or waiting an appropriate number of rings so he would not think you had been hoping to hear from him but, eventually, and perhaps most dangerously, you began looking forward to them. Your evenings started arranging themselves around the possibility of his voice, though you would not understand until much later how easily anticipation could become dependence when disguised as routine.
That was why, when Michael called the night before the Grammy Awards, you accidentally answered before the first ring had completely ended. You had been sitting against the headboard with a script open across your lap, reading the same sentence for the third time without absorbing it, when the telephone began to ring. Your hand reached for it instinctively. “Hello?” you answered, already smiling.
A quiet laugh greeted you from the other end. “You barely let it ring.”
You glanced toward the clock beside your bed as though the hour might provide you with a convincing excuse. “Well.. I’m still awake,” you said, neglecting to mention that you had spent the past half hour wondering whether he would call.
“Sure,” Michael replied, drawing the word out just enough to make it clear he did not believe you.
“What do you want?” You closed the script and placed it aside, surrendering to the conversation with less resistance than you would have shown weeks earlier.
“You called me for nothing?”
There was a faint rustle through the receiver, and you imagined him settling more comfortably against his pillows. “Maybe I wanted to hear your voice.”
Your heart stumbled so violently against your ribs that you were grateful he could not see the way your expression changed. The remark was simple, almost casually spoken, yet it entered a place in you that had grown far too receptive to him. “That is disgustingly sentimental,” you said after a pause, relying on mockery because sincerity felt far more revealing.
“You cannot even see me, jackson.”
“I don’t have to.” There was such irritating certainty in his answer that your smile deepened despite every attempt to suppress it.
You pulled the blanket higher across your lap and looked toward the darkened window. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” you asked. “You have a rather important night tomorrow.”
“Not eight-nominations important.”
Your fingertips paused against the telephone cord. “You’ve been keeping count?”
“Maybe,” he admitted, suddenly sounding less self-assured than he had only seconds earlier.
You lowered your gaze and traced one finger along the spiral of the cord, allowing the knowledge to settle somewhere tender. It mattered that he knew. It mattered even more that he had cared enough to remember. “Are you nervous?” you asked.
Michael laughed softly, though the sound contained an uneasiness you recognized from previous conversations. “A little.”
“You’ll win,” you told him. There was no teasing in your voice this time and no rivalry hiding beneath the statement. You knew the work he had poured into the album, the impossible expectations he placed upon himself and the fear he carried that every success might be the last one he was capable of creating. The world saw certainty when it looked at Michael Jackson. You had begun to understand how often certainty was only fear wearing an immaculate costume.
“You don’t know that,” he said.
The line grew quiet, and you imagined him stretched across his bed with the receiver tucked against his ear in the same way you held yours. Neither of you could see the other, yet the weeks of conversation had made imagining him dangerously easy. You knew when he was smiling without hearing him laugh. You knew when his eyes had lowered and when he was biting the inside of his cheek while deciding whether to say something honest.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” he asked at last. The question sounded casual, but the casualness had been placed there too carefully.
“Unless you plan on avoiding me.”
“I don’t avoid you,” his voice said in almost absurdity, “If anything, you avoid me.”
“Okay well, you avoided me for like half of December,” you reminded him, smiling as you remembered the ridiculous lengths he had taken to pretend otherwise.
“You saw me at that dinner and completely turned around.”
“In the opposite direction?”
“Exactly,” Michael said, as though you had finally understood a perfectly logical explanation.
You rolled your eyes fondly, though affection was an emotion you still preferred to disguise as exasperation. “Fine. You’ll see me tomorrow.”
“Good.” The quiet satisfaction in his answer followed you long after the conversation moved on to less dangerous subjects.
You fell asleep that night with his voice still lingering in your mind. You told yourself it meant nothing beyond the friendship that had formed unexpectedly between two people who had once considered every interaction a contest. You had become strange, argumentative friends who stayed awake until unreasonable hours discussing childhood fears, unfinished songs and the versions of yourselves that disappeared whenever the cameras arrived. Friends could care about seeing one another at award ceremonies. Friends could know each other’s laughs and remember the number of nominations beside the other person’s name.
Still, as your stylist zipped you into your gown the following evening, you found yourself wondering what Michael would think of it.
The dress was softer than what you normally wore to award shows, where your image had been carefully constructed around sharp silhouettes and colors that announced your arrival before you entered a room. This gown was made from pale silk that followed the shape of your body before falling loosely around your legs. Its neckline rested just off your shoulders, leaving your collarbones bare except for a thin diamond necklace your label had loaned you for the evening. The effect was elegant rather than theatrical, revealing without seeming deliberately provocative.
Your hair had been styled away from your face, allowing the soft lines of the dress to remain undisturbed. Your makeup artist finished your lips with a muted shade of red before stepping backward to admire her work. “Perfect,” she announced, tilting her head as she studied the complete effect.
You turned toward the mirror and allowed yourself the rare pleasure of agreeing. The woman staring back at you looked composed, mature and almost untouchable, which was useful because none of those things described how you felt inside. “It’ll do,” you said, unwilling to compliment yourself too freely in a room full of witnesses.
Your publicist appeared behind you with a folder tucked beneath one arm and her attention fixed on her watch. “The car is downstairs,” she announced, carrying the brisk authority of a woman who believed punctuality could solve nearly every crisis.
“Already?” You glanced toward the clock and felt the first serious flutter of nerves move through your stomach.
“The carpet will be packed, and we need to arrive early.” She looked you over once, checking for problems your stylist had already prevented. “Do you have everything?”
You rose from the vanity and smoothed both palms across the silk at your hips. “Yes.”
You met her gaze through the mirror. “Never heard of it.”
Her laughter eased some of the tension in your shoulders as she ushered you toward the door. Yet the joke followed you into the hallway because emotional stability had become particularly difficult since Michael’s accident. You had always prided yourself on knowing where the boundaries of your feelings were. Michael had begun crossing them without permission, one late-night conversation at a time.
The drive to the ceremony passed in a blur of traffic, streetlights and nervous anticipation. You attempted to focus on the nominations waiting ahead of you. Three chances to hear your name called. Three chances to leave with a Grammy resting in your hands. Three opportunities to prove that the attention surrounding your career was supported by something more lasting than beauty, headlines and the industry’s desire to manufacture competition between young artists.
Every few minutes, however, your thoughts returned to Michael. Will I see you tomorrow? he had asked, and the quiet satisfaction of his good still lived somewhere in your chest. You wondered whether he would find you before the ceremony or wait until you were inside. Perhaps he would compliment the dress, though it was equally possible he would make some irritating remark about it before reluctantly admitting he liked it. Perhaps you would sit together at the afterparty somewhere beyond the reach of reporters and laugh about how nervous you had both secretly been.
You permitted yourself to imagine it for exactly three minutes. Then your limousine joined the procession outside the venue, and the private fantasy was swallowed by the machinery of public life.
The red carpet was already overflowing. Camera flashes struck against the windows in rapid bursts while reporters shouted names from behind barricades. Fans crowded along the edges of the entrance, screaming whenever another recognizable face emerged from a limousine. Your publicist turned toward you and inspected your expression one final time. “Ready?” she asked.
“Good enough.” She nodded toward the door as it opened, allowing the noise to rush inside before you had taken a proper breath.
You stepped onto the carpet with a smile already fixed across your face. This was a performance you understood intimately, one built from repetition rather than music. Turn toward the cameras. Place one hand lightly against your hip. Lower your chin. Smile as though every flash feels flattering rather than invasive. Move three steps forward and begin again.
Reporters called you toward their microphones, asking about your nominations, the designer of your gown and whether you expected to win. You delivered polished answers that sounded spontaneous despite having been practiced in the car. One reporter leaned eagerly over the barrier and asked whether you believed Michael would sweep every category in which he had been nominated.
“Tonight is about celebrating everyone’s hard work,” you answered smoothly, keeping your smile intact. “There are so many talented artists here, and I think all of us are grateful to be included.”
The answer was safe enough to satisfy your publicist and boring enough to disappoint the reporter. You continued down the carpet while someone called for one more photograph, and you turned obediently toward the cameras.
That was when the screaming became louder.
It was not the scattered excitement that followed most arrivals. An entire wave of sound swept across the carpet, gathering force as photographers abandoned the subjects in front of them and began calling toward the entrance. You did not need to turn to know who had arrived. Your body recognized Michael’s presence before your mind did, every nerve sharpening with the same awareness that had existed between you since the first time your photographs appeared beside one another in a magazine.
“Michael, over here!” the photographers shouted, their voices overlapping until individual words became difficult to distinguish. “Look this way! Brooke, closer to Michael! Michael and Brooke, right here!”
Your smile faltered for less than a second, brief enough that most people would never notice. Then you turned.
Michael stood near the beginning of the carpet, surrounded by security, publicists and a storm of flashing cameras. He wore a dark sequined jacket decorated with gold detailing across the shoulders, its military precision contrasted by the softness of the curls falling around his face. Dark glasses covered his eyes, though you had learned enough about his movements to tell where he was looking by the slightest turn of his head.
Beside him stood Brooke Shields.
She was tall, beautiful and effortlessly composed in the way of someone who had spent most of her life being watched. One of her hands rested around Michael’s arm while she smiled for the photographers. Michael leaned toward her when she said something, and his mouth curved into a quiet laugh that was instantly captured by a dozen cameras.
“Michael and Brooke, look here!” someone called. “Are you two together? Michael, is Brooke your date tonight?”
Your stomach twisted before you could reason with it. You looked away quickly, unwilling to risk Michael catching you staring and even less willing to examine why the sight of them had affected you so violently.
Of course he had brought her. Michael and Brooke had known one another for years, and they had attended events together before. Every magazine in the country had speculated about their relationship at one point or another, constructing romances from photographs and declaring them finished whenever either person appeared beside someone new. You knew all of that. Nothing about her presence should have surprised you.
Yet somewhere between the late-night telephone calls and the way Michael had asked whether he would see you tonight, you had allowed yourself to imagine something different. You had not been foolish enough to believe he would arrive with you. The media would have devoured the two of you before the limousine reached the entrance, turning every glance into confirmation of an affair and every awkward silence into evidence of betrayal. Even so, you had not expected him to arrive looking so comfortable with someone else. You had not expected Brooke’s hand against his arm to make something hot, possessive and humiliating rise through your chest.
A photographer’s voice demanded that you look his way, and you turned back toward the cameras with your smile restored flawlessly. The ability to appear unaffected was one of the first skills fame had taught you. Inside, however, you were already beginning to unravel over a man who had never promised you anything.
You finished the carpet without looking in Michael’s direction again. Your publicist caught up with you beyond the entrance, praising how beautifully the photographs had gone before observing that you had appeared distracted near the end. “The lights were giving me a headache,” you replied, adjusting your purse against your palm.
She glanced over your shoulder toward the carpet, where Michael and Brooke remained surrounded by cameras. The knowing expression that crossed her face told you she did not believe you, but she possessed enough sense of self-preservation not to challenge the lie.
An usher guided you toward your seat near the front of the room, where you were surrounded by other nominees and industry executives. Your label had positioned a young producer on one side of you and your manager on the other, both already studying the program and discussing categories. Michael’s table was several rows ahead.
You hated yourself for noticing that too.
When the ceremony began, you fixed your attention on the stage and tried to remember why you were there. Michael won early, and the room erupted the moment his name was called. He rose smiling, accepting embraces and handshakes before making his way toward the stage. You applauded with everyone else, unable to prevent pride from blooming beneath your irritation.
You knew how hard he had worked. You knew how much the album meant to him, not simply as a collection of songs but as proof that his instincts deserved to be trusted. You remembered the quiet vulnerability in his voice whenever he spoke about the possibility of failing, even though failure seemed impossible to everyone watching from the outside. He deserved the award placed into his hands, and you felt a private satisfaction in watching the world confirm what you had already told him the night before.
Each time Michael returned to his table, Brooke embraced him. The first time, you ignored it. The second time, you reached for your water. By the third, your fingers had tightened so firmly around the glass that your manager glanced toward you with concern.
“Everything all right?” he asked, following your line of sight before you could redirect it.
“Perfect,” you replied, taking a measured sip and placing the glass down before it cracked beneath your hand.
Michael looked back shortly afterward. His head turned slightly as he searched through the rows behind him, and when his eyes found yours, a bright smile crossed his face. It was immediate and familiar, carrying none of the careful reservation he used with strangers. It was the smile you had imagined during every telephone conversation, the expression you heard whenever his laughter softened into something meant only for you.
Your heart betrayed you by lifting.
Then Brooke leaned close to whisper something into his ear. Michael turned back toward her, and whatever warmth had entered your expression disappeared. You faced the stage with renewed determination and did not look at him again.
Your first category arrived midway through the ceremony, and you did not win. You told yourself you had not expected to, though expectation and hope were often indistinguishable until one of them was disappointed. The artist who won deserved the recognition, and you applauded sincerely while the cameras traveled across the faces of every nominee who had lost, waiting to capture bitterness or humiliation beneath their gracious smiles.
Disappointment pressed quietly against your ribs once the camera moved away. You had barely settled back into your chair when someone touched your shoulder, and the familiar current that followed Michael’s presence moved through you before you looked up.
He stood in the aisle beside your seat, having removed his sunglasses so his eyes were completely visible. “Hey,” he murmured, keeping his voice low so it would not interfere with the ceremony.
You forced your mouth into a smile that probably looked more convincing from a distance. “Shouldn’t you be collecting another award?”
His brows drew together slightly. Michael had become disturbingly skilled at recognizing when your teasing concealed something sharper. “I wanted to see you,” he explained.
“Well, here I am.” You lifted your hands briefly as though presenting yourself for inspection, allowing the bitterness to remain subtle enough that you could deny it later.
He glanced toward the stage before returning his attention to you. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.” The lie arrived too quickly, and Michael’s expression softened because he knew you well enough now to hear what you did not say.
He studied your face, noticing every detail you wanted hidden. “You look beautiful,” he said quietly.
Your heart squeezed despite your determination not to let him reach it. The compliment was precisely what you had hoped to hear while sitting before the mirror earlier. Now that he had finally given it to you, all you could see was Brooke’s hand looped around his arm. “Thank you,” you replied with careful politeness.
“I tried to find you outside.”
His expression shifted, confusion giving way to the first hint of understanding. Before he could respond, an usher approached and quietly asked him to return to his seat before the next segment began. Michael lingered, visibly unwilling to leave the conversation unfinished. “Can we talk later?” he asked.
You lifted one shoulder, pretending indifference even as every part of you remained painfully attentive to him. “It’s your night. I’m sure you’ll be busy.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” His voice remained gentle, but the firmness beneath it made your stomach turn.
The lights began dimming around you, and your manager gestured for Michael to move before the cameras returned. “Later,” you whispered, offering neither a promise nor a refusal.
Michael nodded reluctantly and returned to his table. You watched him go despite knowing that you would resent whatever you saw once he reached it.
The rest of the ceremony seemed to move slowly until your final category was announced. When your name was called, surprise cleared everything else from your mind. You remained frozen for half a heartbeat before the people surrounding you began applauding and your manager pulled you into a tight embrace.
The walk toward the stage passed in bright fragments. Hands reached for yours as you moved through the aisle. The audience became a blur beyond the lights, and your heart pounded with the strange disbelief of receiving something you had imagined so often that the reality felt less convincing than the fantasy.
The Grammy was cool and heavier than expected in your hands. You thanked your producers, your label, your family and everyone who had listened to the music before you were certain anyone would. Your voice shook only once, and you covered it with a smile before it could become something more vulnerable.
As you turned to leave the stage, your eyes moved toward Michael. He was standing, applauding harder than anyone else at his table. The pride across his face was open and entirely genuine, unguarded in a way that made the crowded room briefly disappear. For one dangerous moment, everything inside you softened. The jealousy, the disappointment and the defensive cruelty you had been sharpening all evening became irrelevant beneath the sight of him celebrating you.
Then you noticed Brooke smiling beside him.
The jealousy returned so quickly that you nearly laughed at yourself. You were being painfully, embarrassingly ridiculous, and knowing that did nothing to stop it. Michael was not yours. The two of you had never discussed becoming anything beyond friends, and even the word friend had been adopted cautiously, as though naming the relationship too confidently might frighten it away.
He could arrive with anyone he wanted. He could dance with Brooke, whisper into her ear, call her beautiful and spend every night talking to her until sunrise. You had no claim over him, no agreement he had broken and no promise you could accuse him of forgetting.
Apparently, your heart had not received that information.
By the time the ceremony ended, Michael had made history. Eight awards had been placed into his hands, and people surrounded him from every direction, reaching out to congratulate him while photographers fought to capture him holding as many trophies as possible. You remained near the edge of the crowd, your own Grammy held against your chest.
Even from a distance, you could see that he was overwhelmed. He was happy, certainly, and perhaps even stunned by the magnitude of what had happened, but overstimulation lived beneath the joy. You recognized the slight tension in his shoulders and the careful smile he wore whenever too many people demanded his attention at once. The public often mistook that smile for serenity. You knew it was the expression he used when retreat was impossible.
Usually, you would have found a way to reach him. You might have slipped beside him and muttered something sarcastic beneath your breath just to make him laugh, giving him one familiar voice in the middle of all the noise. Tonight, you remained where you were because Brooke remained near him, and her presence offered enough humiliation to convince you that leaving was the wiser choice.
The official afterparty was held only a few minutes away. You considered skipping it, but your publicist rejected the idea before you had finished making the suggestion. “You won,” she reminded you, looking personally offended by your reluctance to celebrate.
“So did half the building.”
“You are going to walk into that party with your Grammy, allow people to congratulate you and enjoy yourself for at least one hour.”
“You make enjoyment sound like a contractual obligation.”
“Tonight, it is.” Her expression made it clear that the matter was no longer open for debate.
You changed into a shorter black dress before arriving, hoping the darker color might help restore some of the armor the pale silk had failed to provide. The afterparty had already grown crowded. Music filled the ballroom while waiters moved between groups of guests carrying champagne, and golden decorations hung from the ceiling, reflecting warm light whenever the air shifted above the dance floor.
You were congratulated before making it ten feet inside. For a while, the attention helped. You smiled, accepted compliments and posed for photographs with your Grammy held close. You allowed yourself to enjoy its weight and the proof it represented, reminding yourself that this evening belonged to you too. Then Michael arrived.
You saw him through a break in the crowd, and Brooke was still beside him.
Something inside you snapped, though not dramatically enough for anyone else to notice. It was a quiet fracture, the final surrender of reason beneath an emotion you had spent the entire ceremony attempting to control. You accepted the next glass of champagne offered to you and finished half of it before your publicist could intervene.
“Slow down,” she warned, glancing suspiciously toward the glass.
“Maybe I’m starting.” You turned away before she could study your face and discover what the champagne was intended to numb.
A man introduced himself near the bar. You recognized him vaguely as a young actor whose face had recently begun appearing in films and gossip columns. He was handsome in an obvious, uncomplicated way, with a charming smile and enough confidence to approach without stumbling over his words.
“Congratulations,” he said, nodding toward the Grammy resting against the bar.
“Thank you.” You offered him the polished smile you used for strangers, though you were already conscious of Michael standing somewhere behind you.
“You aren’t a member of the Recording Academy.”
The actor laughed, delighted rather than embarrassed that you had caught him. “You got me.”
Normally, you would have found a polite excuse to leave but tonight, you stayed. He asked about your music, and you asked about his latest film. When he offered to buy you a drink, you reminded him that the drinks were free, which made him laugh again as he leaned closer to hear you over the music.
You knew exactly how the interaction looked. You also knew Michael was somewhere behind you, and although you told yourself that knowledge had nothing to do with your behavior, you placed one hand lightly against the actor’s arm when you laughed at his next joke.
Across the room, Michael saw everything.
You did not need to look toward him to know. You felt his attention with the same instinctive awareness that had followed you since the industry first placed your names beside one another. His attention had once felt like a challenge. Somewhere along the way, it had become something you actively sought, even when securing it required hurting him.
Eventually, curiosity defeated restraint. You glanced over your shoulder and found Michael already staring.
The pleasant expression he had been wearing while speaking with Quincy disappeared the moment your eyes met. His gaze traveled from your face to the hand resting against the actor’s arm, and his jaw tightened with such visible irritation that satisfaction warmed your chest before shame could reach it.
You should have looked away. Instead, you smiled sweetly while Michael’s eyes narrowed. Good, you thought with a childishness you would later be embarrassed to remember. Let him watch.
“Would you like to dance?” the actor asked, following your attention only briefly before returning his focus to you.
You turned back toward him and offered your hand. “Why not?”
He led you toward the dance floor. The song was fast enough to keep the interaction seemingly harmless but slow enough that his hands occasionally found your waist whenever the crowd pressed closer and you allowed it. You laughed when he spun you, leaned nearer whenever he spoke and pretended not to notice Michael watching like a hawk and expressionless from the edge of the room.
He attempted to approach once. You saw him excuse himself from a conversation and begin moving toward the dance floor, his gaze fixed on you with an intensity that made your pulse quicken. Before he reached you, Brooke caught his arm and pulled him toward a group of photographers waiting for another picture. You looked away before the flash went off.
The actor leaned close to your ear. “Everything okay?”
“Wonderful,” you replied, making your smile brighter than necessary.
“You keep looking across the room.”
“Do I?” You said, innocently.
“Unless there’s something fascinating behind me.”
He smiled, taking the reassurance at face value. “Good.”
When the song ended, you returned to the bar with him. Michael appeared only a few minutes later, alone this time, though the tension in his posture told you he had not approached for polite conversation.
“Congratulations,” he said, his attention moving briefly toward your Grammy.
The actor turned and recognized him immediately. “Michael, incredible night man.”
Michael offered him a polite smile that did not reach his eyes. “Thank you.” His gaze returned to you with unmistakable purpose. “Can I talk to you?”
You lifted your champagne and took another sip. “You are talking to me.” You said in the slightest slur. The champagne was finally doing the numbing it was supposed to.
“I’m in the middle of a conversation.” You knew you were being difficult, but the power of making him pursue you felt dangerously satisfying after spending the entire evening believing you had been forgotten.
The actor looked between the two of you, sensing the tension beneath your civility. “I can give you a minute,” he offered.
“You don’t have to,” you told him, keeping your gaze on Michael.
Michael’s eyes hardened. The actor hesitated before apparently deciding that no amount of curiosity was worth becoming involved in whatever existed between the two of you. He reached for your shoulder and promised to find you later.
Michael watched the man’s hand until it disappeared. “Who was that?” he asked once you were alone.
You stared at him, almost amused by the audacity of the question. “You asked to speak to me privately so you could interrogate me about someone you’ve never met?”
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“You’ve never seen most of the people I speak to.”
“He had his hands all over you.” Michael kept his voice controlled, but jealousy had begun stripping away the gentleness he usually carried with you during the telephone calls.
You released a brief laugh. “You cannot be serious.”
The directness of the question caught him off guard. For a second, Michael looked younger, less certain and entirely unprepared for the answer his own behavior demanded. “I don’t,” he said eventually.
“Then stop glaring at us.”
“I wasn’t glaring.” He tried to deny.
“You looked like you wanted to set him on fire.”
The moment the words left your mouth, you saw Michael’s expression change, visibly watching his heart sink to his stomach. His jaw tightened, and the warmth beneath your anger vanished as you understood the carelessness of what you had said. “Wait,” you began, reaching toward him.
“Nice.” He turned away before your hand could touch him.
“No-I didn’t mean it like that.”
You caught his wrist before he could leave. The contact sent a familiar current through your fingers, one that had existed long before you possessed enough courage to examine it. Michael looked down at your hand, and you released him quickly. “I’m sorry,” you said, the sincerity in your voice finally breaking through your pride. “That was really thoughtless.”
Some of the tension left his face, although the hurt remained visible. “Yeah.”
Michael looked back at you fully. “You’ve been avoiding me all night.”
Your eyebrows lifted. “I have not.”
“You barely spoke to me during the ceremony.”
“Between your photographs?” you asked, unable to keep the accusation from sharpening your voice.
Confusion flickered across his face before understanding slowly replaced it. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Is this about Brooke?”
The sound of her name irritated you more than it reasonably should have, partly because hearing him say it made your jealousy real. “Why would this be about Brooke?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“I lost two awards tonight.”
“Yes, thank you for reminding me.” The sarcasm laced your tone to mask the slight hurt you felt from your losses, he couldn’t have missed it even if he wanted to.
“That isn’t what I meant,” Michael said, taking a step closer as the noise of the party continued around you.
“Then what did you mean, Jackson?” You downed the rest of your champagne.
He lowered his voice, forcing you to lean nearer to hear him. “You were fine until you saw me outside.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“You won’t even look at me.”
You raised your eyes directly to his. “Better?”
Michael stared back, his expression too serious for the petty game you were trying to continue. “No.”
Brooke’s voice called his name from somewhere across the ballroom. Your expression closed instantly, every vulnerable feeling retreating behind the resentment you understood better. “Oh, your date needs you.”
“Go, Jackson.” You demanded.
“Will you stop doing that?”
“Deciding what I’m gonna to say before I say it.”
“I don’t care what you’re gonna say.” The lie landed between you with enough force that both of you felt it.
Michael’s face tightened. “Fine.”
“Fine,” you returned, refusing to be the person who softened first.
He left, and you hated him for obeying. You hated yourself more for watching him return to Brooke, proving that every command to go had secretly been a plea for him to remain.
The actor found you again shortly afterward. You accepted his invitation to another dance without hesitation, and the rest of the party became a petty competition neither you nor Michael openly acknowledged. Whenever he heard you laugh, his attention shifted toward you. Whenever Brooke touched his shoulder, you discovered another reason to lean closer to the man beside you.
Michael danced once, and you immediately looked away. You did not see the way he stopped after less than a minute or the distracted manner in which he excused himself. You only saw him speaking with Brooke afterward, their heads bent close together while she smiled, and the image confirmed every insecurity you had already chosen to believe.
By midnight, you had exhausted yourself. Your Grammy had been passed to your manager for safekeeping, your feet hurt and the ballroom felt unbearably warm. Every conversation began blending into the next, faces and compliments dissolving into meaningless noise. Most of all, you were tired of pretending not to care about something that had already controlled your entire evening.
You excused yourself and slipped through a side door with your heals in your hand, leading into a quiet stone corridor outside the ballroom. The music softened behind you, reduced to a distant rhythm through the heavy walls. Cool air met the exposed skin of your shoulders, and you leaned against the stone before closing your eyes.
This was supposed to have been one of the best nights of your life. You had won a Grammy, held proof of your work before an audience of people you had spent years trying to impress, and spoken your gratitude into a microphone while the room applauded. Yet you had spent half the evening watching Michael Jackson stand beside another woman like a jealous fool, reducing your own achievement to the background of a story that did not officially exist.
You opened your eyes and found Michael standing at the opposite end of the corridor. The gold details across his jacket caught the dim light as he moved, and the absence of the crowd made his presence feel larger than it had inside the ballroom.
“Go away,” you said, turning your face from him.
Michael began walking toward you anyway. “We need to talk.”
“We already tried that, remember?”
“No, you decided to be difficult and then walked off with that guy again.”
“I didn’t walk off. You did.”
“Because you told me to.”
You pushed yourself away from the wall and faced him. “Since when do you listen to me?”
“Since you started acting like this.”
“You know exactly what.” Michael stopped several feet away, close enough that you could see the frustration tightening his mouth.
“You’ve been trying to make me jealous all night.” His arms now cross against his chest.
A laugh of disbelief left you. “You think everything is always about you.”
“You kept checking to see whether I was watching.”
“Because he kept touching you.”
“Well, maybe I wanted him to.”
Michael’s jaw tightened at your answer. “You don’t even know him.”
“I could get to know him.”
“I know you don’t like him.”
“And how would you know?”
“Because you laugh differently when you actually think something is funny.” His response emerged without hesitation, too intimate to dismiss and too accurate to deny.
For a moment, you could only stare at him. Michael knew your laugh. He had learned the subtle difference between your real amusement and the brighter, more decorative sound you used for cameras and unfamiliar men. The realization should have softened you. Instead, it frightened you enough to sharpen your anger.
“You’re an asshole!” you hollered, loudly enough for him to hear the force behind it but not loudly enough to draw attention from the ballroom.
“Me?” Michael argued, closing the remaining distance between you. “Maybe if you weren’t so busy throwing yourself at—whoever the hell that was—I would’ve been able to come talk to you.”
You moved backward as he approached, unwilling to surrender the argument but instinctively retreating from its intensity. Your shoulders met the cold stone wall, trapping you between its chill and the heat of his presence. “How?” you scoffed, releasing a bitter laugh. “You had miss look-at-me, look-at-me hanging off you all night.”
Michael conjured a laugh of his own and shook his head at your behavior, but the sound was charged with the satisfaction of a man who had finally confirmed what he had suspected. You were jealous. Painfully and unmistakably so. The woman who had once sworn she could barely tolerate him had spent an entire evening unraveling because he brought another woman to accompany him, and despite the frustration still burning through his chest, he was eating up every second of the discovery.
“Brooke is my friend,” he reminded you.
“Good for Brooke.” Your tone now decorated with more haste.
“And you’re an asshole,” you repeated, the word slipping from your tongue more sharply this time.
Michael did not appear offended. His jaw tightened as a low, almost thoughtful “Mhm” rumbled beneath his breath, as though he had heard the accusation and chosen to accept it. He stood directly in front of you now, close enough that the gold detailing across his jacket brushed the black fabric of your dress whenever either of you breathed too deeply.
He looked slightly down at you, and your eyes remained locked with his. Neither of you spoke. The argument still burned between you, but another feeling had begun building beneath it, heavier and far older than the jealousy of that evening. It had been gathering since the first time you challenged him backstage, when irritation had made you notice every movement of his mouth. It had followed you through magazine interviews, rehearsals and the private club where he gave you his telephone number. It had deepened the night you heard fear in his voice and realized that the possibility of losing him frightened you more than any rivalry ever could.
Michael’s gaze dropped toward your mouth. His teeth caught his lower lip nervously, worrying it between them as though he were attempting to restrain an impulse that had already become impossible to hide. You noticed and he noticed you noticing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” you asked, your voice falling to a whisper despite the anger that had carried it only moments earlier.
Michael’s eyes returned to yours. “Tell you what?”
“That you were bringing her.”
“I didn’t know I had to.”
“You didn’t,” you answered too quickly.
“Then why are you upset?”
“I’m not..” you blatantly lied to, not only him, but yourself.
“You called her miss look-at-me.”
“Because she was quite literally looking at herself in every camera.”
The corners of Michael’s mouth twitched. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Don’t laugh.” Your eyes squinted at him.
“A little,” he confessed, and the brief flicker of amusement only made you more furious because he was enjoying your jealousy while refusing to explain his own.
You used both of your hands to push against his chest as you shoved him lightly. Michael barely moved, but his hand closed around your wrist before you could pull away. The playful trace vanished from his expression. His thumb settled against the inside of your wrist directly over the frantic rhythm of your pulse, and the awareness in his eyes made you feel exposed.
“You’re jealous,” he murmured.
“I am not.” You tugged on your wrist, trying—but not your hardest—to pull away.
“You spent the entire night glaring at another man because he touched me.”
“Because he shouldn’t have been touching you.”
“Why not?” you demanded. Michael opened his mouth, but no answer came. The truth had risen too close to the surface, and neither of you knew how to approach it without destroying the fragile definitions that had protected you for months.
You lifted your chin. “Exactly.”
His grip loosened around your wrist, although he did not release you. “You were jealous too,” you said.
The admission struck you silent. You had expected another denial, another clever argument that would allow both of you to continue pretending nothing had changed. “Maybe?” you repeated.
“So you can admit it, but I can’t?”
“You haven’t admitted anything.”
“Because there’s nothing to admit.”
“Go ahead.” Michael’s voice had lowered until the invitation sounded like something entirely different.
The final word never reached your mouth. One moment you were staring at each other, anger and jealousy trembling through the narrow space between you, and the next the two of you deliciously crashed into each other’s lips.
You did not know which of you moved first. Later, both of you would privately insist it had been the other, because accepting responsibility for that first collapse would have meant admitting how desperately it had been wanted.
There was nothing cautious about the kiss either. No soft approach, no tentative pause in which either of you reconsidered what you were doing. The kiss was deep and passionate from the instant your mouths met, as though both of you had been craving it since the first argument and had merely spent the following months searching for new names to give the hunger.
Michael released your wrist only to slide his hand around your waist and pull you away from the cold wall. Your fingers caught the front of his jacket, gripping the sequined fabric as his mouth moved against your lipstick stained ones with an urgency that felt almost furious. You kissed him with the jealousy you had denied all evening, and Michael answered with every moment he had watched another man place his hands on you while pretending not to care.
It felt like ecstasy, but not the distant, immaculate kind described in songs. It was clumsy in its desperation and almost breathless in its relief, the collision of two people who had spent so long resisting the inevitable that tenderness initially felt impossible. The faint taste of champagne lingered between you, softened by the warmth of his mouth and the small, involuntary sound that escaped you when his hand tightened around your waist.
Michael’s other hand rose toward your face, his fingertips resting carefully along your jaw. The kiss softened for only a second, but that second changed everything. Hunger could still be mistaken for anger. Desire could be dismissed as the reckless consequence of jealousy, champagne and an argument carried too far. Tenderness could not be explained so easily.
Your mind snapped back to its senses. Brooke was inside the ballroom. Photographers stood only one heavy door away. The entire industry had spent more than a year waiting for proof that something existed between you and Michael, and you had just kissed him against a wall as though every denial you had ever offered had been a lie. Worse still, he was not merely the rival whose name had been placed beside yours in headlines. He was your friend. He was the voice that called when he could not sleep and the person who had begun hearing every truth you concealed from everyone else.
Your overwhelming thoughts finally brought you to pushing him away, causing him to tumble backward half a step, breathing heavily. Neither of you said a single word—you couldn’t. You stared at him beneath the dim corridor light, his lips parted and his expression dazed in a way you had never seen before. One of your hands remained curled against your chest while the other hovered near your mouth.
You had kissed Michael. Michael had kissed you. You had kissed him back as though you had been waiting your entire life to do it.
Panic flooded through you before pleasure had fully left your body. You turned and rushed toward the ballroom door before he could say your name, your heels striking urgently against the stone floor. Your heart beat so violently that it seemed capable of breaking through your ribs, and your fingers rose to graze your lips, still warm and faintly swollen from his.
You did not know whether to be furious or laugh. You had spent the evening resenting him, the past year competing with him and the previous months insisting that the intimacy developing between you was harmless. Yet you had not entirely hated the kiss—you had not hated it even slightly.
Michael remained exactly where you had left him. He watched you disappear through the doorway while his chest continued rising unevenly, one hand lifting slowly toward his now crimson stained mouth. He could still feel you there—the force of the argument, your fingers clinging to his jacket and the small sound you had made when he pulled you closer. He replayed the instant before the kiss, attempting to determine who had crossed the final inch and knowing the answer did not matter.
He had won eight Grammy Awards that evening. He had broken records and spent hours surrounded by people telling him he had achieved something no artist had before. Those accomplishments had seemed enormous beneath the lights, almost too significant to understand while they were happening. None of them had left him as breathless as you had. Michael continued looking toward the doorway long after you were gone, and the realization came with a clarity the kiss had made impossible to deny. He was in trouble. Not the temporary, manageable trouble of an attraction he could ignore, but the deeper danger of caring for someone who could wound him simply by walking away.
You reached your waiting car without saying goodbye to anyone. Your publicist hurried behind you, calling your name and demanding to know why you were leaving your own celebration. You barely heard her. The ballroom, the Grammy and the congratulations had all become distant beneath the memory of Michael’s mouth.
Once the car door closed, you sank into the backseat and pressed your fingertips against your lips again. The kiss replayed immediately—the way his eyes had fallen toward your mouth, the low sound of agreement when you called him an asshole, his hand tightening around your waist and the sudden softness that had made you panic.
You closed your eyes and leaned your head against the seat. This was Michael. Your rival. Your friend. The person who called whenever he could not sleep and whose voice had become the final sound you heard most nights. He knew when your laughter was false, remembered the number of your nominations and understood the fears beneath your ambition because they resembled his own.
You had known the telephone conversations were changing something. You simply had not realized how much had already changed until his lips were against yours and every careful definition collapsed.
Outside the window, the lights of Los Angeles blurred into streaks of gold and white. You should have regretted the kiss. You should have been furious with him, furious with yourself and determined to forget the entire thing before morning. You should have hoped it never happened.
Instead, you touched your lips once more and wondered what might have happened if you had not pushed him away.
You were completely, undeniably in trouble too.
© original works by honeysmoonave. do not duplicate or feed through ai. | ohhh my god yall writing this chapter was the death of me… almost 10k words yeah im insane… insane for this pairing tho! 🤭 I hope you guys enjoy your little bedtime story tonight! ❤︎︎ layout inspo. @angelcrescent
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