Center Stage! (Center Stage! #1) Read Online Free

daughter about your age, and you just made me miss her a whole bunch,” he said. I bit my lower lip. Of course he didn’t know that Taylor and I had bobbed for apples together at Halloween parties, traded Barbies, pushed each other on swings, and made each other friendship bracelets out of embroidery floss from my mom’s sewing kit. The realization that I was potentially going to have to come clean with Chase Atwood about knowing his daughter—and quarreling with her—if I were to make it onto the show hit me like an anvil dropped on my head. “You’ve got my vote, too. When I wrote that song, it was very personal and emotional for me, and you brought all of that sensitivity and energy to your performance. I’d like you to consider joining my team. I think we could turn your potential into something magical.”
    Something just underneath my sternum broke in half, and I couldn’t breathe. I had my two required votes; I’d be on the show! But more incredibly, I had Chase’s complete attention. I knew how badly Taylor had longed for that, even if she had acted like it didn’t bother her that he was so uninvolved in her life before her mom died. Sometimes he would call on her birthday and send postcards from weird tropical islands every few months. He lived on the other side of the country with his new wife. Even though Taylor saw pictures of the two of them dining and cavorting in Los Angeles all the time in celebrity gossip magazines, he never requested to spend time with her when he was in town. And now he wanted me on his team. He wanted to be my mentor. It made me feel victorious and horrible simultaneously.
    Before I had a chance to reply, Lenore James (who was as famous for her comically enormous earrings and messy divorce from a raunchy comedian as she was for her velvety voice) was rambling a mile a minute about what she believed she could do to shape my voice. And then the short guy who I would learn backstage was rap artist Jay Walk was telling me he thought I was hot. He said I had the potential to go all the way to the top.  
    “What these other fools aren’t telling you, girl, is that I have my own record label. If you stick with Jay Walk, I can sign you to my label whether you win the grand prize or not. Something to think about,” the rapper was telling me.
    My head was spinning. My vision was blurring. I heard the Center Stage! theme song rising and I knew that the camera was closing in on me, capturing every little twitch of my face as I deliberated which coach’s team to join. The voice of Danny Fuego informed the audience that this was the first time that season in all of the audition cities—New York, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, and Atlanta—that a contestant had been requested by all four coaches.
    My eyes fell upon Chase Atwood, who was looking directly at me. I couldn’t deny it: Taylor’s dad was what my mom would have referred to as “a hunk.” It wouldn’t have surprised me at all if Taylor’s fancy boarding school classmates constantly hounded her for details about him.
    “This is such a tough decision,” I muttered, sensing tension build in the audience. I knew I didn’t have long to make up my mind. I just had to blurt out a name, and I surprised no one more than myself when I sputtered, “Nelly. I’d like to be on Nelly’s team.”
    Backstage, I was ambushed by Danny Fuego and a roaming camera crew.
    “Allison Burch! Our first contestant to receive unanimous votes from all four coaches! How do you feel?” Danny asked, shoving a microphone under my nose and placing an arm around my shoulders. His woodsy cologne was overpowering.
    “I feel like I’m… going to pass out,” I said, perhaps a little too honestly.   My pulse was thumping in my veins as if someone was beating a snare drum inside my heart. I just wanted to sit down, just wanted to drink some water and calmly think through what I was going to tell my parents. Before I arrived at my