Page 4 of Reverb

Stone raised a hand, palm out, as if I’d spoken. “I’m not trying to screw you, all right? My room has two beds. I’ll barely be there, anyway. I’ll get a second room key, and we can mostly avoid each other. That way you have somewhere to stay until this mistake gets worked out. Okay?”

“Absolutely not,” I practically shouted in his face.

“Why not?”

Was this a real question? How egotistical could one spoiled rock star be? “Journalistic integrity, for one.”

“This won’t affect your journalistic integrity, because I won’t be talking to you.”

“Well, that’s great. Congratulations. It’s me that has to maintain integrity, not you.”

“You will,” Stone said, because life was infuriatingly simple for men like Stone Zeeland. “We’re just sharing a room, not talking or sleeping together.”

I sighed, leaning back in my seat and briefly closing my eyes. “My god, are you actually this dense? It doesn’t matter if we’re sleeping together, Stone. Everyone will think we are. That’s what matters.”

It seemed, incredibly, that this had not occurred to him. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the rasp of his beard loud in the quiet car. I tried not to let the sound annoy me.

“No one will know anything if I switch my room to a different floor,” he said.

“You can’t,” I shot back. “The hotel is fully booked.”

Stone gave me a look that said, Do you think I can’t get what I want, whenever I want it? I felt the urge to scream all over again.

“I’ll talk to them,” he said. “They’ll swap me with someone. Let’s go in.”

“I’m not going in with you,” I snapped. “Were you listening to what I just said?”

“Just sit on a chair in the lobby while I talk to the front desk. No one will know you’re with me.”

“What about my luggage?” My suitcase was in the trunk. Too late, I realized I seemed to be actually negotiating this, as if I was considering it. Then again, it was either this or I slept in this car.

Besides, it was just for a night, two at most. There had been some mistake at the hotel. When I got it cleared up, I’d have my own room again.

“Bring your suitcase,” Stone said. “Once I get things settled, we’ll go up separately. You’ll have your own key card. Got it?”

He put his hand on the door handle, but I said, “You can’t be serious about this. What if you want to bring someone back to your room after a show?”

Stone turned to me, and if anything, he glowered even harder than he had before. “That’s enough outta you, Maplethorpe,” he said. “Now, get the fuck outta this car and go sit in the lobby until I get you a key.”

He got out, slamming the door behind him. I watched, still in a sort of shock, as he circled the front of the car, those familiar black jeans and that familiar belt buckle. Then he opened the driver’s door and stood there. Waiting.

I sighed. “Fuck my life,” I said.

“That makes two of us,” Stone said. “Let’s go.”

TWO

NOW

Stone

There was glitter. Too much fucking glitter.

I thought I’d gotten rid of it all. I’d showered multiple times, washed my clothes. Combed it out of my hair. Rinsed it from my beard. I’d found it in my socks, my armpits. Now, two weeks after I’d been glitter-bombed, as I lay on a weight bench at the gym ready to lift, I found a speck of glitter on my biceps.

I stared at that shiny pinpoint on my skin with murderous rage, my workout forgotten. Someone was gonna pay for this. That someone would be the members of Seven Dog Down, the band that had sent the Road Kings a glitter bomb hidden in a bottle of champagne backstage at the final show of our tour. We’d opened it ten minutes before going on, and we’d had to play the entire show covered in glitter, all four of us.

I didn’t care about that, at least not much. It took more than a shot of glitter to keep me from playing a killer show. It was the fact that, weeks later, I was still living with this shit, finding it in random places—it made me mad. I could not fucking get rid of the glitter. Seven Dog Down were on tour in Europe right now, but that didn’t make them safe. At this point, I’d gladly hire a hit man and buy him a plane ticket.

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