Page 74 of Reverb

“Send it,” he said.

“You don’t want to read it first?”

“No. I trust you.” He winced a little. “No more photos, though.”

He was so gorgeous that he should have his picture taken all the time, but fine. I’d just keep him to myself instead of sharing him. “No more photos,” I agreed.

“Once you send the story in, you’re officially my girlfriend,” Stone said. “That’s the deal.”

I felt a smile on my lips, because he was right. That sounded so, so good. Stone Zeeland’s girlfriend? Yes, please. “That’s the deal,” I said.

“Good. Let’s get naked. Want me to sign something? I’ll do it.”

I kissed him lightly, then squeezed out from under him. “No. Sleep it off and we’ll talk in the morning. I’m going to bed.”

He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “I’ll be sober in an hour or two, Maplethorpe. Then I’m coming to get you.”

He rolled over and was asleep in seconds.

I pulled his boots off and tossed a blanket over him. He didn’t wake up. Then I picked up my laptop, switched off the lamp, and retreated to my bedroom.

I put my laptop on the bed and tapped the keys to wake it up. I stared at the email I’d written to Davis with my story attached. It was ready to send.

Stone was right. Once I turned the story in, I wasn’t a journalist writing about him anymore. We were starting the next chapter. One where we were all in.

I stared at the email on my screen for a minute, thinking about that. Thinking about what was next.

Then I hit Send.

I couldn’t wait.

EPILOGUE

Eight months later

Stone

“We start with ‘Starshine,’” Axel said.

“No way,” Neal retorted. “We start with ‘Epic Landing.’”

Denver crossed out what he’d written on tonight’s set list so far. He pushed an empty coffee cup away and put the sheet back on the table. “We have thirty minutes,” he said. “We’ve changed this three times. This has to be final.”

We were backstage in San Diego, about to play a sold-out show. The crowd was out there waiting. We had no opening act, which was our usual drill. This was the final show of a two-week West Coast tour, and we were going to make it a good one. If we could just figure out what we were going to fucking play.

Backstage was always weirdly quiet this close to showtime, like being in the eye of a storm. There were no strangers standing around, no hangers-on. We were all sober, hunched over a crumpled piece of paper in Denver’s hand. It was one of those moments when the rest of it falls away and it’s just four guys in a band, sorting out this one problem before we went out there to play as hard as we could.

“Stone?” Denver asked. His pen hovered over the page. “What do you think comes first?”

I thought about the technical aspects—which guitar I’d start with, which sound I wanted first—and then I ditched that and thought about what would work best on this night, with this crowd.

“We start with ‘All the Way Down,’” I said.

“I agree,” Denver said, writing it down. “Next?”

“‘Epic Landing,’” I said. “Then ‘Where Did You Go.’”

Denver kept writing. The other guys didn’t object.

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