Page 15 of Knot Their Opening Act

In a haze and a blur, I finish the set, smile, tuck my hair behind my ear and duck my head, then walk over to the front of the stage. With the applause and eager stomps forFABLE NOW!roaring through my head, I kneel down before the three girls and hand each a pick I used tonight.

“Thank you for getting me through this. I owe you one.”

They all grab my hand and I shake theirs. This is the best part of the night. And, I figure, the best thing I will experience for the next six months.

It’s surreal to watch a ginormous version of myself running backstage on the screen until I turn and disappear into the dark. When I’m away from the crowd’s eyes, I grab onto Caylee waiting in the wings with Ash behind her, beaming wide.

“You did amazing!” she squeals.

I shudder from the sweat running down my spine that, I’m sure, is not just from my stage exertions, nor is it from my phobia being triggered by the massive crowd. I somehow survived all that. What’s actually happening is far worse.

“I have to call Viv.”

CHAPTER8

Kai

I’mamazed she’s survived her opening slot, but from the looks of her, it didn’t go down as well as she’d hoped. She storms past then stops when she draws level with me, where I’m standing in the backstage area talking with the guitar tech.

“You have something to say?” she snarls.

I didn’t realize I was staring but Jan, the guitar tech, nudges me in the side with his damn pointy elbow. “Yes,” I say. “You managed to get through it. Well done. Sixty-seven to go.”

That did not come out the way I hoped.

How did I hope? I have no idea because right now, my entire head feels like a cloud of opium’s been pumped into it. Every nerve ending is in a state of overload, and my thoughts are a jumble.

Jez narrows her eyes at me, throws a look to Jan, then flicks those violently-blue daggers back my way.

“If you have nothing more encouraging to say as the experienced one in this exchange, strutting around like the unflushable toilet that you are, then I would just as soon you not bother speaking to me.”

Bizarre, because she’s the one who stopped. But she seems as out of sorts as I feel, watching her hurry off with her assistant at her side.

Ash jobs over to her and speaks in her ear. I can’t see her face from here, and frankly, mine is stunned into stone. She nods her head, returns his high-five, and carries on, presumably to her dressing room.

Ash heads my way while Jan sniggers about our incomprehensible exchange. The former shoots me a distressed look as he jabs a thumb at the stage which I guess means lessGo get ‘em, Tigerand probably more like,Go fix the mess she’s created.Though I’ve no idea if she created a mess. The crowd’s going nuts for us currently, but I refused to watch Jez’s performance.

If she scrubbed it and wiped out, I don’t want to hear the anger or exasperated told-you-sos from our fans. If she was a raging success, somehow I feel like that’ll come back to me in many a snarky comment. I have no interest in either.

Thomas and Nico watched, and Holden, as usual, napped. They were all in our dressing room but I paced the corridors, listening to the ebb and flow of the crowd outside, and had a quick phone call pep-talk with Enzo Flynn, from Arcadia.

Don’t be so hard on her, he’d said.She’s had to put up with what you lot did to her, and she’s still bounced back enough to make it here. There’s more to her than you can see. Give her that credit.

“Thanks a lot,” was all I’d said, but probably didn’t sound nearly as sarcastic as I’d felt.

Enzo is a good guy. I’d met him first, before Nico, and then saw their old band play dozens of times at the club that used to stand at the end of my street. When their first band parted ways, it was Nico I’d pinched for mine. Enzo was set up well with Grayson Cove’s lot in Arcadia Echo, and Nico was an extraordinary rhythm guitarist. Focused, steadfast, and funny as hell. But since Arcadia flew off to global success and Fable on Fire was mainly only amassing British fans back then, Nico’s always seemed to feel he had something to prove. A bit of a chip, but really, a friendly one. He and Enzo are cousins, after all, and their family’s blood seems to run thick.

But Enzo’s words an hour earlier aren’t exactly the ones that warm my heart. I saw Ash’s footage of the queue outside the door four hours earlier. The crowd was almost completely Fable fans to a man, and it was time I had to admit that what we’d done—what I’d done—to Jesamine had only made her stronger. It had brought her here. Could I face a similar situation, if I were in her shoes?

And if I’d kept my trap shut and she’d run her course inTen to One, who knows? She could be waiting tables, sitting behind a desk, or be opening for Arcadia instead of us. Or Arcadia could be opening for her.

The girl has talent. She has looks. Damn, does she have looks. Those long, slender legs, those hips maybe slightly wider than her frame would suggest. That dazzling mane, those full lips. And those hazel eyes, sparkling with energy and determination.

And stubbornness. Probably enough to match my own.

When she’d first walked out of her dressed room, I’d been standing in the shadows of the loading dock area, phone attached to my ear, Enzo rambling in it from the other end. Jez hadn’t seen me, but I’d seen her sweep out with confidence for miles, those painted-on jeans and that open-back halter top. From behind she looked half naked, and her single sleeve of tattoos on her left arm made me melt. I’d never seen so much of her skin before. She looked like a fucking angel.

How could Inotnotice any of those things? And all of them together made it impossible for my dick to not wake up and start its ascending protest against my trousers. Especially when she passed me, and the scent of her—the scent, and those perky nipples pressing against the silky fabric of her top—turned a key inside me.

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