Standby Cue Love
A shy tech. A bold actress. And a secret that threatens to take center stage.
Rae Kim is happiest where no one’s watching, hidden in oversized hoodies, behind the curtains, and in the backstage shadows. A college theater kid to her bones, she helps light the world onstage, quietly dreaming of the day she’ll get to shape it herself. But from the wings, she sketches life around her instead of taking the leap to live inside it.
Delaney Rhodes was born for the spotlight, and she’s thriving there…even if the rest of her life is also a performance. On campus, she’s becoming the student everyone knows, the one who never misses a note or forgets a mark. She’s spent years perfecting the art of seeming fearless while keeping the parts of herself that feel too messy, too risky to name, safely hidden.
Tech week for Rent is supposed to be exhausting, not life changing. But a few stolen glances and one inadvertent gesture turn into late-night escapes that become breathless moments on the theater rooftop, where the campus is quiet and the stakes of real life are beyond the fourth wall.
What Rae and Delaney feel is real. But sharing it with the world? Unthinkable, especially when Delaney’s controlling ex threatens everything they’ve built without even knowing Delaney has moved on. Rae clings to her first taste of true love until a heart-shattering revelation turns it into the greatest betrayal.
They only have one chance to rewrite the script. Choose each other beyond the shadows, choose to step into the light, or lose everything, including each other.
In a world built on lighting cues, scripted lines, and fleeting moments, can they want enough to risk being seen—really seen—together?
