Page 40 of Reverb

I nodded. I knew much of this story from Neal, who had told his side in one of our interviews. Neal and Raine had spent years apart while he’d pursued music and she got married, then divorced. Now, during this tour, they’d reconnected at last, and Raine and Amber had moved into Neal’s house. It was honestly romantic, two people who had been meant for each other for a long time finally getting together.

“I’ve always tried to be the responsible one,” Raine was saying. “I’ve always had all the details lined up, a plan. Neal is the opposite of that. He just lets things roll. He makes plans on the fly. He likes to have fun. So it seems like we’re too different to work, right? Like we don’t have anything in common. But he’s more mature now. He knows how to be serious about me and Amber, but at the same time, he’s still that carefree guy who’s a little bit wild.” Her gaze went unfocused. “Lord, he’s hot.” She blinked. “Don’t print that part.”

I made a show of picking up my pen and writing Neal is hot in my notebook, even though I was recording this conversation on my phone, which was sitting on the table between us.

“Very funny,” Raine said.

“It’s the musician problem.” I said the words without thinking too much, but Raine’s eyebrows rose. “You know, the weird pull they have on women. I don’t think anyone can explain it.”

“There’s definitely some black magic where rock stars are involved,” Raine agreed. “But tell me. Are you speaking from personal experience?”

She was looking at me like she knew. But she couldn’t possibly know, could she?

She wouldn’t know what had happened in my attic, unless Stone had gone blabbing—which he wouldn’t do if you tortured him with hot pincers. But did she know about our roommate situation on the road? How?

If Raine knew, who else knew?

If Soundcheck found out, my job could be in trouble.

“My job is to write about musicians,” I said, my voice surprisingly calm, considering how much I was panicking. “I’ve observed this problem many times. I don’t need to experience it to know it exists.”

There. That wasn’t a lie at all, and I didn’t have to admit that I’d been naked in Stone Zeeland’s lap, and I’d ridden his amazing fingers, and then I’d gone down on my knees.

The musician problem, indeed.

In the days since it had happened, I’d tried to feel bad about it. I’d tried to let the guilt in, the shame—and nothing had appeared. What we’d done was all kinds of wrong, and yet if I could go back in time, I’d do it all over again. Actually, I’d have gotten to the point much faster, so that Stone and I could have time for a larger variety of activities. That was how much fun it had been.

I wasn’t worried about my professional output when it came to Stone. What was going to happen—was I suddenly going to lose my sense of perspective because I’d had an orgasm? Was I going to ditch all of my principles and write a story about his dick size? If I was honest with myself, I’d never worried about the act of fooling around with Stone. I was only worried about anyone knowing about it.

And what did he think? He wouldn’t tell anyone, especially not his bandmates. Soundcheck would never hear it from him. If there was one thing you could count on Stone for, it was impenetrable silence. He didn’t even talk about things that weren’t his personal sex life.

But maybe, after thinking about it for so long, he’d gotten it out of his system. Maybe he’d gotten what he wanted and had his fun. Maybe, to him, I was just another one-time thing.

That thought gave me a sharp pang of panic.

“Look,” Raine was saying. “I know we all mistrusted you at first. The band was pretty hard on you. But I’m coming around to liking you, Sienna. At least in my case, you can see why it took me a while to try.”

I shrugged and turned the recorder off. Neal and Raine were very protective of their daughter, and they didn’t want me writing about her or publishing any details about her. I got it, and yet I said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but Amber doesn’t interest me. She’s very nice, but she’s not a central part of my story. She isn’t a Road King.”

Raine blinked at me, surprised.

“So maybe,” I continued, “you could trust me to understand what the important parts of the story are, and which ones to leave out. Maybe you could trust that I’m not out to ruin some young girl’s privacy. Maybe, for even a few minutes, just one of you could give me the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming I’m evil, an idiot, or both at once.”

Instead of getting bitchy at that, Raine looked thoughtful. “Okay. I get that.”

But I wasn’t done, because once I got going, I really got going. “I understand that I’m younger than you, and I’m relatively green, and you don’t have any reason to think that I’m good at what I do. But I assure you, I am. I spent ten weeks on the road with your boyfriend—with all of them—and even when they didn’t talk to me, I was very observant. I talked to a lot of other people. I know these guys better than any of you think I do. I figured out who William Hale is. And most importantly, I know their music.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I saw every Road Kings show, and I know their music better than you do, better than Amber does. So I’m glad that you’re talking to me today, but I don’t actually need an interview with you. I’ve done just fine without it so far, and if you don’t talk to me, I’ll still write my piece and it’ll turn out amazing. Because that’s how good I am.”

Raine was smiling by the end of this speech. She didn’t even look offended. “Sienna,” she said, “please, please tell me you talked to the guys in the band like this.”

I picked up my coffee, which was mostly cool. “I may have yelled one or two lectures at them. It was a long tour.”

“No wonder they like you.”

That surprised me. “Do they?”

She laughed. “If they didn’t like you, they would have left you in the dust at the side of the road.”

They almost had—except for Stone. Stone could have ignored me in New Orleans, or he could have driven me to the airport and bought me a one-way ticket home himself.

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