Chapter Nine #3
The most direct route is through the pit, so I enter the sparse space in the middle of the venue.
The break between songs should’ve been a reprieve for me to safely cross, but the band immediately launches into their next number, and that, coupled with everyone around Dax realizing who’s amongst them, begets chaos.
I elbow men twice my size out of the way as Dax politely ducks his head, trying to get to me.
But he’s too tall, too recognizable, heads whipping in his direction, a ripple going through the crowd as the word spreads.
The first breakdown in the song hits right as I make it to Dax, my hand finding his like a magnet.
The crowd surges back as the pit presses out on all sides, and we ride the wave of momentum.
Hands grab at Dax, but I barrel through without stopping.
The crowd spits us out near the VIP barricade, and the security guard steps aside as soon as he spots Dax coming.
Once we’re safely backstage, I spin around to Dax.
“I’m so sorry—”
I don’t bother finishing my apology. Dax’s head is thrown back, hand on his abs as he belly laughs. I could get drunk on the sound of it.
“Fuck,” he wheezes, his gaze finding mine. “You went into a pit to save me.” For half a second, I think he’s going to tell me that was stupid, but he just shakes his head, smiling so hard his eyes crinkle. He cradles my face between his hands. “You fucking badass. Thank you.”
I don’t know how to respond. Adrenaline from, well, everything courses through my veins, so I just nod. “Anytime,” I say weakly.
We stand there, his thumb gently tracing along my cheekbone, like the moment in the pit where everything else fell away, but this time we’re much, much closer. His gaze bounces all over my face, like he’s collecting clues. As if it’s not completely obvious.
I know we should say something, but what is there to say?
Everything.
Nothing.
He’s my assignment. Nothing can happen here. We had a moment, but that’s all it can be.
A tortured sound rumbles deep in his throat, and his hands fall from my face, but not before a ghost of a touch trails along my jaw, his knuckle guiding my chin higher in promise.
Dax opens his mouth, but before he can speak, we’re interrupted.
“Hey,” Marcus calls.
I nearly jump out of my skin. I must’ve invented teleportation because I blink and I’m a foot away from Dax. Marcus and Dax are having another one of their silent glaring conversations.
Marcus jerks his head for us to follow him, and we fall into step behind him. Dax guides me in front of him, his hand ghosting along the back of my T-shirt before falling away.
He doesn’t touch me again for the rest of the night.
I remind myself it’s for the best.
“See you in a bit,” Wes, lead singer for Immaculate Conceptions, calls over to us before queueing up to go on stage.
Today is one of those days that feels like an entire week. I feel alive. I feel wrung out. I’ve felt every emotion under the sun in the past few hours.
After the openers finished their set, the supporting act put on a divas-of-the-’90s playlist that had the entire crowd raving while the roadies flipped the stage.
I longed to join in, but after I finished swapping contact info with the openers—they are without a doubt going on my next Artists to Watch list—Barrett introduced me to Wes.
He gave me his contact info, and my fingers are buzzing to draft up a pitch to John for tonight’s show.
I’m not supposed to be working on anything else but my Final piece, but fuck it. It feels good to be excited to write.
A hush falls over the crowd as the lights dim, announcing the start of the last act of the night. When one of the crew members comes over to where I’m standing with the Final guys halfway through the first song, I realize Wes’s comment was meant for Dax, who is now being fitted with a mic pack.
“That—He—Are you—” I inhale sharply, feeling only halfway inside my own body.
Despite my inability to form a proper question, the slow grin spreading across his face confirms he understood me completely.
Dax has done a handful of features on other artists’ tracks, but this one is old. They recorded it after that first tour, when Final opened for Immaculate Conceptions, the tour that put Final on the map. IC has played the song live before—but never with Dax.
It takes a lot to make me fangirl these days, but I’m fully fangirling right now.
IC paved the way for bands like Final. This is metal history in the making, the two of them taking to the stage together for the first time ever.
I’m so grateful I already got Wes’s contact info. John is going to kiss my feet tomorrow.
“When?” I ask Dax.
He takes one glance at how tense I am and smirks, stepping aside for me. “Next song.”
I bolt. I’m not watching metal history be made from the wings. I walk as quickly as I can without raising alarm, exiting backstage just as the first song ends.
The crowd has pushed so far forward that it’s empty in front of the raised sound booth in the middle of the floor, so I post up in front of it as Wes has the crowd make some noise for the opening acts.
“Columbus,” Wes calls over the mic, “we’re gonna play an old one for ya. Hope that’s okay.” Enthusiastic cheers ring out in response. “How many of you fucks are Final Revelations fans?” The sound is deafening. “Well, then: You’re fucking welcome.”
The band kicks in seamlessly, and the energy in the crowd is palpable.
It’s one of their older hits, but almost everyone in the crowd is around my age or slightly older, and this song is quintessential to the scene.
They’re screaming all the words along with Wes, but you can see the craning of heads to try to see into the wings as the song approaches the first chorus.
When Dax comes out, I press my back against the wall, needing the support as the explosion of sound hits me. I’m grinning so hard it’s embarrassing. It’s him, it’s this song, it’s this night, it’s everything.
It takes a solid twenty seconds before the crowd calms down enough to even be able to hear Dax’s low growls under Wes’s clean vocals.
When not singing, Dax is toying with all the other band members, playing air guitar with the bassist and kissing the drummer on the forehead in a way that’s far too sweet for the impending brutal breakdown.
As Wes parts the crowd down the middle in preparation for a wall of death, Dax comes to stand beside him, one leg propped up on the riser, surveying the crowd with a cocksure expression.
My competency kink is thriving.
The lights go out, drenching the venue in darkness and silence.
In time with the slow chug of guitar, the lights come back up.
The crowd, which Wes split like the Red Sea, rushes out from both sides, colliding in the middle.
Dax lets out a long, low note, one foot still propped on the riser as he arches his back, holding the guttural for longer than should be humanly possible.
The song pivots back to Wes, but my eyes are only for Dax. He rests his arm on his knee, surveying the crowd with a smile, the red lighting giving it a sinister glow.
He looks so happy it makes my chest ache.
The feeling refuses to subside for the rest of the night, and I’m beginning to suspect this man’s happiness may be intrinsic to my own.
By the time we climb into the back of Barrett’s SUV, I’m wrung out, raw. I don’t have anything left in me. I can’t bring myself to care about being further behind schedule on my article. The night was too perfect to worry about things like deadlines.
When Dax collapses next to me in the third row, I’m too tired to worry about our no-man’s-land.
When we hit the highway, he stretches sideways in the seat and opens his arms, offering me his chest to rest on.
I don’t have the bandwidth to overthink it, readily accepting the more comfortable option for the long drive.
I’m wiped, sorer than I should be after doing nothing but standing for a few hours.
This can’t be the same body I used to attend dayslong festivals in.
I don’t know how long we lie like that, both of us buzzing with equal parts adrenaline and exhaustion.
All I can think is how right this feels, how we needed this—a night to just be Sloane and Dax, and not the reporter and her subject.
A night with no pressure, no expectations, to let our hair and our walls down.
The rest of the guys are rehashing the night, and I don’t know how they have so much energy, but then again, they haven’t been awake nearly as long as I have.
I fall asleep, or I was about to fall asleep—I’m not sure. I’m vaguely aware of Dax speaking, his words impossible to make out over the steady thumping of his heartbeat, my ear pressed to his rib cage. I hum in question.
“Are you awake?” he asks quietly, his long fingers threading through my hair in the way he knows will put me to sleep in seconds.
“No,” I mumble sleepily.
His laughter rumbles through his chest.
I try to inject faux alertness into my voice, but my tongue is heavy and the words come out slurred. “What’d you say—before?”
When he doesn’t answer right away, I tilt my head back so I can look at him.
I poke him between the ribs, and he grabs my hand to stop me from doing it again.
I raise my head slightly, my chin poised to dig into his chest in the way that he hates, all these little quirks we had coming back to me like riding a bike.
“Don’t,” he pleads.
I narrow my eyes at him before resting my cheek against his chest once more. I’ll give him five seconds before I make good on my threat—
“I asked,” he begins quietly, the arm around my back coming up to brush my hair off my face before twirling a lock of it around his finger, “if you regret it.”
“What?”
“Us.”