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The seat next to me on the plane ride home from Cancún was empty, but not for long. After a little while, Adonis joined me. I had been playing guitar with Adonis and the Delegation for about a year by then, but our journey together really began at that moment, as we started sharing our lives and falling in love while defying gravity in the bright blue cloudless sky over Mexico.
We started off with small talk, chatting about music and the trip we had just taken. Adonis's sister, Mercedes, had treated me and some of the other band members to a vacation in Cancún in exchange for writing a Coca-Cola jingle for Adonis. Adonis had started representing Coca-Cola before I even met him; we had written a jingle with a Reggaeton beat so that the Coke commercial would sound like an Adonis song.
"Come to Mexico with us, Selena!" Mercedes had urged when I hesitated. "We're gonna have so much fun."
She was right. We did. It was also the trip that changed our lives forever.
Up until this point, Adonis and I had always been friendly around each other, but professional. I was closer to his older brother, Angelo, who played bass in the band and had a warm, wry sense of humor. With Angelo, I was comfortable enough to joke around, but I maintained a certain distance from Adonis.
Adonis was barely twenty years old when I first joined his band, but he was already a seasoned professional entertainer. He had just signed with Capitol EMI, which was starting up its Latin division, and had a voice that went right to your heart.
Many singers hit the correct notes in a song. Still, they lack something. I don't really know exactly what it is. Maybe their singing a song like they're telling you a story, but they should be asking a question instead. Or they're growling when they should be purring.
Whatever a song required, Adonis could do it all and still bring more. He was smart and picked up lyrics right away. More importantly, though, he had a musical range that went from a deep growl to a high soprano, and he could convey raw emotion with his voice, whether he was singing about love, loss, betrayal, or anger.
When Adonis sang, it was always as if he sang directly to you. Everyone who heard him felt that. He had more stage presence and control over a crowd than anyone I'd ever met. It also didn't hurt that he was very handsome and attractive, and had a body filled with muscles that could stop traffic.
When my girl friends found out that I was playing with Adonis's band, they always teased me about his looks. The first thing out of their mouths was always something about how fine he was. I can't count how many times I heard them say, "Girl, how lucky are you! You get to stand right behind him in the band and watch it all going on right there in front of your eyes!"
"Yeah, yeah," I'd say. "But the important thing is that he can sing."
Since joining the band, I hadn't had the chance to spend time alone with Adonis. We were always in a group, whether we were onstage, on the bus, going out to eat if we were amped up after a show, in the studio, or playing video games.
