Page 24 of Reverb

THEN

Sienna

After the humiliation of the stay in Detroit, in which I’d found Stone embarrassingly sexy, I had no choice but to rationalize. He was a musician, I reasoned. Years of studying music had taught me that musicians had some kind of black magic when it came to women. No one understood this problem—the musician problem—but even the creepiest, ugliest musician could cast a spell. Stone was a guitar god, and he was neither creepy nor ugly. Hence, it was inevitable that as a straight woman, I would at some time feel sexually attracted to him.

I really had no control over it.

Everything would be fine.

Those thoughts gave me an idea for my next article. From my nights spent in the audience at Road Kings shows, I knew that they attracted a lot of women fans along with the men. I’d observed those women—because I observed everyone—and they weren’t just there because the band was hot. They came in groups and had a good time. They’d taken the trouble to buy a ticket and come to a concert because the music moved them. Because it transported them, just as it did the men.

That led me into a deep dive of Road Kings lyrics. Plenty of bands appealed to both sexes, but how exactly did the Road Kings do it? How much of it was calculated? What were the songs actually about?

It was a great concept, and I couldn’t work on it in the hotel room where Stone could walk in anytime, glaring at me and distracting me. After the second Boston show, I found an all-night diner and set up in a booth with my laptop, my earbuds in and a snack at my elbow as I typed up a sketch of the article.

I was deep into the work when a shadow crossed the edge of my vision—a large, familiar shadow. I blinked away from my screen as Stone dropped into the seat opposite me in the booth.

I took one earbud from my ear, pausing the music I was listening to. Tonight’s show had been great—the band had their energy back. They’d stopped arguing, and they’d been so in sync that tonight’s crowd had nearly hit the rafters as they danced and sang along. For a second, it was hard to reconcile the man who had so brilliantly whipped up the crowd with his playing with the man who sat across from me, scowling at me under the fluorescent light.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

He took his time staring at me before he answered. “It’s a diner. I’m gonna eat.”

“Did you know I was here?” I asked.

Stone shrugged.

“Are you tracking my phone or something?”

“Nope.”

So he wasn’t going to talk. What else was new? “Well, I’m busy. I need to work.”

“So work.”

“I will. Can you stop glaring at me, please?”

He rolled his eyes, and then the waitress came over. I heard him order a burger before I put my earbud back in, blocking him out. I looked back at my screen again.

I wrote some more, but I was starting to get mad. Here I was, trying to figure out the meaning of Road Kings songs, when a Road King was sitting right across from me with all of the answers in his stubborn, gorgeous head. He could tell me everything I wanted to know, but he refused to.

I stopped my music and took my earbud out again. Stone’s burger had arrived, and he was devouring it, casual as all hell. Like he and I hung out together after every show.

“Where are the other guys?” I asked.

Stone shrugged, his mouth full.

“This is insane. Don’t you have a woman to sleep with after the show?”

I brought this up far too often, and I was embarrassingly aware of it. Stone was never the one to bring up groupies, only me. I refused to ask myself why it mattered.

He ignored the question as he swallowed his bite of burger. “What are you writing about?”

“You and your stupid band, what else?”

That amused him. He didn’t exactly smile, but the corners of his eyes crinkled, which was big for Stone. It made him even better looking when he did that. “What exactly?”

Fine. If he was going to interrupt me, he could help me get this article done. “Why do so many women listen to the Road Kings?” I asked.

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