Muse for the Rock Stars

Chapter 1

Roxie

“Come on!” I said over my shoulder. “I want to get closer!”

My friend Meghan let out a groan. “Rainknife isn’t coming out for a while. We still have the opening band to wait through.”

“Fine,” I said, stopping before we reached the crowd that had gathered by the stage. “But you’d better come with me when Rainknife comes out. I didn’t pay for floor tickets just to stay all the way back here during the concert.”

“Deal,” Meghan agreed.

We toasted our drinks, then gazed around the concert venue.

We were down on the floor, with stadium seating rising up around us in every direction.

The cocktails we had purchased were watered down, which was extra disappointing since they cost twenty bucks each.

Concert prices had gotten ridiculous in recent years.

But it was worth it to see Rainknife!

Back in high school, they were our favorite band.

We played them every morning on the way to school, and had seen them live six times over the past decade.

Their first album was even playing in the car when I lost my virginity.

My memories of that boyfriend weren’t exactly happy, but the song still made me smile in memory.

Meghan and I had made a pact to see them whenever they came to Austin, and we hadn’t missed them yet.

“How’s work?” I asked.

“Boring.” Meghan rolled her eyes. “My boss is still being an asshole about that promotion. I don’t want to talk about it. What about you? How’s the freelance graphic design world? Got any fun gigs lately?”

“Nothing particularly fun,” I replied. “The number of gigs I’ve gotten has slowed down, but that happens every year. It’ll pick back up around the holidays.”

“Are you good until then?”

“Oh yeah, I’m making ends meet,” I reassured her. “And I have enough in my savings to cover if things don’t pick up. But this concert is the last big purchase I’m making until next year.”

“At least you don’t have to go into an office. When we aren’t busy, I still have to sit in my cubicle and pretend like I’m busy. It’s the worst.”

“That does sound awful. How are your hormones? Are the fertility drugs still wreaking havoc on your body?”

“The mood swings have mellowed out,” she answered. “Honestly, the toughest part has been cutting out all caffeine, alcohol, and junk food. Jeff did it too, since it’s supposed to boost his sperm count.”

“Please don’t ever make me think about Jeff’s sperm again,” I said with a laugh. “But also… are you sure you’ve cut out all alcohol?” I lowered my eyes to her drink.

“My fertility diet is on pause tonight. It’s Rainknife, Roxie! Of course I’m drinking! But don’t tell Jeff.”

Suddenly, the lights in the arena cut out and the crowd cheered. Four shadows walked on stage and picked up their instruments, the thrum of a bassline filling the arena.

“It’s just the opener,” Meghan said, disappointed.

While they began to play, I glanced at my watch and did some mental math. If the opener was just now starting, they wouldn’t leave the stage until ten. Which meant Rainknife wouldn’t come out until ten-thirty at the earliest. I wasn’t going to get home until after midnight.

Fortunately, I could sleep in as late as I wanted tomorrow. The benefits of being a freelancer who could choose her own schedule.

“Stop looking at your watch and thinking about when you’ll get home!” Meghan complained. “You’re twenty-nine. You don’t have a bedtime.”

“You’re right, sorry.” I glanced toward the stage as the music grew in volume, the lead singer beginning to sing in a voice like deep velvet. “They’re pretty good.”

The song rose with a pulsing bassline that we could feel more than hear, like a heartbeat waking up under the floor of the arena.

The guitars slid over it in bright, chiming strokes that sounded both dangerous and dreamy.

The lights above snapped into rhythm, the shirtless drummer locking in with a tight, confident crack.

Now the whole arena shifted from talking to listening.

At first they swayed, cautious heads nodding like they were testing the temperature of the music, but the chorus hit with a clean, soaring hook.

Then the crowd really got into the music, raising their hands into the air and screaming with excitement.

It was a whole vibe.

“They are good!” Meghan said in surprise.

“Come on!” I said, grabbing her wrist. “I want to get closer!”

I tugged her toward the crowd that was pressed in tight around the stage, and fortunately she didn’t fight me. I squeezed through the other fans, leading Meghan closer and closer, until finally there was nothing else in front of us except the railing that separated us from the stage.

I gazed up at the lead singer, who was only ten feet away, and my breath caught in my lungs.

Seeing him for the first time was like getting caught up in the gravity of something dangerous and beautiful.

Pressed up against the barricade, I was so close I could see the sheen of sweat on his skin, and the dark tattoos that crawled up his arms like a tapestry of stories.

He gripped his electric guitar like it was an extension of his own body.

The first chord hit, low and brutal, and I could have sworn the note rattled straight through my ribs and into my heart.

But I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t look anywhere else but at the face of the man singing into the microphone.

His hair hung in damp, dark strands over his forehead, and his eyes cut across the crowd like he was an emperor looking out at his adoring masses.

“Holy shit!” Meghan said. “Look at the front man!”

I barely heard my friend—that’s how intensely focused I was on the lead singer. Every time his fingers slid along the strings, every time his mouth parted like he was about to sing or bite something, my body answered like it needed him before my brain could catch up.

For the rest of their opening song, I stood there, breathless and stupid, letting him ruin me from ten feet away without ever touching me.

The song ended, and my trance-like state fell away. I screamed with such excitement and intensity that I probably looked like one of those women seeing The Beatles play on the Ed Sullivan show for the first time.

“Wow,” Meghan said.

“No kidding!”

My eyes searched the rest of the stage, passing over the muscular bass player, and the slender shirtless drummer, and the pink-haired female keyboard player. There, on the largest drum, was the band name.

Cherry Midnight.

“How have we never heard of them before?” Meghan asked.

“I don’t know!”

“Hello, Austin,” the lead singer said into the microphone. He had a deep, smooth voice that practically purred. “We’re Cherry Midnight. Thanks for coming out. This next song is about finding love in all the wrong places.”

The bassline thrummed to start, followed by the crack of drumsticks. Then the guitars crashed to life with a grunge-like sound that reminded me of Nirvana.

Once again, I was mesmerized. The lead singer had a captivating quality like Mick Jagger or Robert Plant. He quickly brushed back the dark hair from his eyes before diving into the song.

And his eyes locked onto me.

For the next four minutes, it felt like he was singing directly to me. Because his eyes never left me. The song ended and the next one began, and once again it seemed like he was giving me my own private concert.

I even glanced behind me to make sure he wasn’t looking at someone else. But when I returned my eyes to the stage, the lead singer pointed his guitar pick at me while singing the lyrics, “It’s you I dream of, it’s you I crave…”

“I think he likes you!” Meghan shouted over the crowd noise.

The rest of their set was a blur. I guzzled the rest of my drink, then jumped up and down and screamed like I was Cherry Midnight’s biggest fan. And maybe I was, based on the way the leader singer kept smiling down at me.

My entire body was alive for every second of the performance. I’d never experienced anything like this before, not even the first time seeing Rainknife.

“We’re Cherry Midnight. Goodnight, Austin!” he roared at the end, and the fans all around me screamed back at him.

Disappointment flooded my body that the show was over… but then he walked over to the edge of the stage, just five feet away. He nodded down at me, then tossed one of his guitar picks in my direction.

Before I could catch it, the guy next to me snatched it out of the air and let out a cheer.

“Bro, what the fuck!” Meghan shouted.

“He tossed it to me!” the guy argued.

“Bullshit! It was for my friend with the enormous rack, not you!”

But I barely heard them, because the lead singer was climbing down from the stage.

It happened fast; I blinked and suddenly there he was standing right in front of me with only the barrier separating us.

While maintaining eye contact, he took my wrist and held it up until I opened my palm.

His fingers were covered in rings, and a dozen bracelets adorned his wrist—some made of metal, others of leather or string.

Then he placed another guitar pick directly into my hand and closed my fingers around it.

“Don’t forget me,” he whispered, and for a moment it was like we were the only two people in the world. “Because I’ll always remember you.”

Then he smiled, climbed back on stage, and strode away.

The lights in the arena came on, and the cheering was replaced by a thousand individual conversations among the fans.

“I never thought I’d say this,” Meghan shouted, “but I don’t know how Rainknife can follow that performance.”

I opened my fingers. The guitar pick was black with white letters spelling out CHERRY MIDNIGHT in a fun, unique font.

“Did you see how Riot was eye-fucking you the whole show?”

“Riot?” I asked.

“That’s the lead singer’s name!” Meghan held up her phone. “Riot Kane. I looked up the band.”

“He wasn’t eye-fucking me all night,” I said dismissively.

“Uh, he most certainly was!”

“He occasionally looked at me because I’m in the front row,” I said. “And because this low-cut top shows off my biggins.” I gave my chest a squeeze with both hands.

“He gave you his guitar pick! He literally climbed off the stage to make sure that asshole—” she paused to flip off the guy next to me, “—didn’t steal it! His guitar pick, Roxie!”

“You’re right. We’re practically married, now,” I said sarcastically.

“I don’t understand how you’re keeping your cool right now.” Meghan glanced over her shoulder. “I’m going to get us some more drinks. Are you staying here to guard our spot?”

“Obviously,” I said. “I want to be this close for Rainknife!”

Meghan pushed her way through the crowd and was gone from sight instantly.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. My heart was pounding. Despite my protests, Meghan was right: Riot had been eye-fucking me throughout the entire performance. Like the entire show was for an audience of one: me.

I was actually kind of sad that it was over. I would’ve emptied my entire bank account just to hear Riot sing one more song to me.

Leaning on the barrier, I Googled the band.

Cherry Midnight was from Seattle, which didn’t surprise me since that matched their grunge vibe.

They’d only been performing for three years, and were about to start their own solo tour.

Their next two shows were in Houston and Fort Worth.

I wondered how expensive tickets would be.

It might be worth the drive, even if I had to pay for a hotel room, too.

“Excuse me?” a security guard behind the barrier said. “Ma’am?”

I immediately pulled away from the barrier and held up my hands. “Sorry, I was only leaning on it to rest my legs. I promise I won’t do it again.”

He was shaking his head, which made me panic with the fear that I was about to get kicked out.

Until he said, “The band wants to meet you.”

I blinked in shock. Surely I had misheard him over the crowd noise. “The band?”

“Cherry Midnight,” he confirmed. “They’re in the dressing room backstage. And they want to see you. Right now.”