Page 9 of Reverb

I thought about that as I took another swig of beer. “Well, it’s working. Tonight’s show was amazing before it got shut down.”

Stone rubbed his fingers over his beard, the sound surprisingly loud. He took one of his long pauses before speaking. “It was pretty good. I slipped up during the ‘Starshine’ solo, though. I don’t know why.”

I gaped at him. I’d nearly wept during the ‘Starshine’ solo. “It sounded good to me. To everyone.”

Stone shook his head, and it wasn’t an act or a ploy for compliments. He was displeased with himself. “I had the same problem at sound check. I’ve been playing that song for fifteen years. Tonight wasn’t good enough.”

So he was a perfectionist, then. I knew the feeling. He also seemed talkative, so I pressed my luck. “What’s your favorite song to play?”

“Why do you want to be a music journalist so bad?”

I blinked. “What?”

“There are easier jobs.” Another glance from him, unreadable. “Jobs that make more money. Jobs you could probably do. Jobs that don’t require weeks on the road, eating fast food while dealing with a bunch of assholes.”

I’d been asked this question before. My parents thought I’d make a great teacher, like them. The guys in journalism school thought I was there because I wanted to fuck rock stars—or fuck them. Every job interview I’d had, every meeting with an editor, had had the same question running beneath it as a subtext. What the hell do you think you’re doing in this business?

But Stone’s question was different. He wasn’t asking why a woman would want to do this job. He was asking why anyone would want to do this job. So—because I was tired, because I’d downed a whole beer, because for once, he wasn’t condescending—I gave him an honest answer.

“Music is the only thing I’ve ever loved,” I said.

Stone scratched his beard again. He didn’t reply, the bastard.

I put my beer bottle down. “I’m going to bed,” I said. “But before I do, I’m going to ask you one last time. Are you going to try to sleep with me?”

Stone turned his dark eyes to mine, and I knew he understood. We’d spent one platonic night together, but that didn’t matter. I was still here. He was famous, he was much, much bigger than me, and we were alone in his room at three o’clock in the morning. I was broke, a nobody, with nowhere else to go. I wasn’t stupid about how the world worked.

And neither was he. He didn’t bother with performative outrage. “I’m not going to try and sleep with you,” he said. “But I’m going to stay out here for a while. I can never sleep after a show.”

I held his gaze with mine for a moment, and then I nodded. And I went into the room to bed.

FOUR

NOW

Stone

The band met in the studio in downtown Portland where we’d recorded two of our three albums years ago. I was the last to arrive, which is saying something when you play in a rock n’ roll band, where no one is known for being on time.

This wasn’t a recording session—we’d just come off a ten-week tour and we were nowhere near being ready to record yet. It was a jam session, where we’d play with ideas, test arrangements, and generally fuck around. This kind of thing is a musician’s favorite pastime. Fans see us when we’re onstage, or they hear the final product of a recording, but they don’t see all the hours we spend goofing off and making noise, spitballing riffs and lines and beats.

No one watches musicians do that kind of thing because it’s boring to anyone but us. But today, for the first jam session of the new album, our engineer, Roy, was there, sitting in the booth. I poked my head in. “Hey, Roy.”

Roy raised his giant takeout cup of coffee. “Stone! Hey, man!” He grinned behind his big, bushy beard.

There was another man in there, sitting in a chair in the back. I hadn’t noticed him before. I frowned. It was William Hale, the big-money venture capitalist who had bankrolled our tour and was going partners with us on the new studio. He was also partly bankrolling the album. He was wearing dark sweatpants, a tee, and sneakers, as if he’d just come from a workout. He was staring down at his phone, typing something.

I waited him out. As my irritation rose, I kept my body still and my gaze level, directly on him. I did not like the money guy—who wasn’t even a musician—sitting around while we wrote songs. He didn’t intimidate me. I didn’t care how important he thought he was. I wanted him gone, and I wanted him to know it.

He finally finished what he was typing and glanced up. His expression was a little startled. Hale was in his early thirties, fit and clean-shaven, kind of nerdy. I could take him.

“Hey, Billy,” I said.

He blinked. “It’s Will.”

“Sure.” I let the word hang there, sucked in by the silence. I held Hale’s gaze. I thought he’d cave immediately, but instead he stared back at me. I gave him a little credit for that.

“We good?” I asked him.

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