EPILOGUE | Encore
The final chorus shook the floor beneath my boots.
I stood in the wings with one hand pressed against my headset, watching Midnight Theory play to a room full of people who already knew every word. The album had been out for less than a week, but thousands of voices rose with Leo’s as though the song had belonged to them for years.
Kadir stepped forward for the bass break.
He no longer remained near the darkest edge of the stage, half hidden behind Leo and the lighting rigs. He moved into the wash of white light and played the riff that had begun in the lodge studio, shoulders loose, head lowered as the sound rolled through the venue.
Wesley changed the rhythm beneath him.
Six months ago, Leo would have turned around or forced the song back into its original structure.
Tonight, he glanced toward Wesley, smiled, and adjusted the next line to meet him.
Kadir followed. The three of them stretched the section together before returning to the chorus at exactly the same moment.
I stopped pretending to listen to the production assistant speaking through my headset.
“Dasha?”
“I heard you.”
“What did I say?”
I watched Leo reach the final note. “Press room in twelve minutes. Photographer gets four. No individual interviews until after the group session.”
There was a pause.
“Correct.”
“I’m excellent at my job.”
The crowd erupted as the song ended.
Wesley stood behind the drums and threw both sticks into the audience. One immediately bounced off the lighting barricade and landed back onstage.
He looked down at it.
I closed my eyes.
The three men came offstage carrying enough heat and energy to change the temperature backstage. Wesley reached me first, wrapped both arms around my waist, and lifted me before I could move the headset microphone away from my mouth.
His shirt was soaked through.
“You’re disgusting.”
“You loved the show.”
“I can love the show without absorbing it through your sweat.”
He set me down but kept his arms around me. His grin remained so open and pleased that my irritation never had a chance to become convincing.
Leo arrived next. He took my face between both hands and kissed me in front of two stagehands, the production assistant, and a woman from publicity who had long ago stopped reacting to our inability to behave professionally for the first thirty seconds after a show.
I pulled back when he tried to deepen it.
“You have press.”
“I just performed for ninety minutes.”
“And now you have press for twelve.”
“That feels exploitative.”
Kadir reached us last, his bass already handed off to the technician.
He touched my waist and waited until I looked at him before leaning down to kiss me.
His mouth stayed against mine for only a few seconds, but his thumb moved once beneath the edge of my blazer, finding bare skin with enough familiarity to make the hallway disappear around us.
When he pulled away, his eyes moved over my face.
“Good?”
I nodded. “Very.”
The answer changed something small in his expression.
Behind him, Wesley had begun explaining his lost drumstick to the stage manager as though the barricade had intentionally interfered with the throw. Leo was drinking from someone else’s water bottle while denying it belonged to anyone.
I straightened his collar and took the bottle away.
“Press room.”
“Wait.”
Leo caught my wrist before I could direct them down the hall. He exchanged a glance with Kadir and Wesley, neither of whom looked capable of hiding anything.
That concerned me immediately.
“What did you do?”
“Why do you always assume we did something?”
“Experience.”
Wesley was already moving toward the dressing room. “It isn’t bad.”
“That’s what you said before I found black nail polish ground into white carpet.”
“We learned from that.”
Kadir opened the dressing-room door.
A rectangular package rested on the center table, wrapped in black paper with enough tape to survive shipping overseas. One corner had been torn and repaired with a strip of silver tape that did not match anything else.
Wesley noticed me looking at it. “Leo wrapped it.”
“I finished wrapping it,” Leo corrected.
I removed my headset and set it beside the package. The paper came away in stubborn sections, sticking to my fingers before Wesley tried to help and tore half the remaining sheet at once.
Beneath it was a dark wooden frame.
For a moment, I only saw the paper inside.
The lyric sheet had yellowed slightly around the edges despite being only a few months old.
Leo’s handwriting slanted across the center, interrupted by crossed-out words and arrows.
Kadir’s notes appeared near the bass section in smaller, neater writing.
Wesley had marked the rhythm along the margin.
My own handwriting occupied the bottom corner.
Let each answer before anyone edits.
The final lyrics had been written more carefully than everything surrounding them.
I’m fighting feelings that I can’t controlPushing and pullingI should let go.Keeping you near, soI’m not alone.
My vision blurred before I reached the final line.
Wesley noticed first and immediately wrapped himself around me from the side.
“Oh, no.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re crying.”
Kadir stepped closer and wiped beneath one eye with his thumb. His stage makeup had begun fading around the edges, and his hair was damp against his forehead. He looked exhausted and completely calm.
Leo pointed toward the frame. “The glass is protective.”
I stared at him through the tears.
“I’m explaining that crying on it won’t cause damage.”
“That was your concern?”
“It was one concern.”
Wesley tightened his arms around me. “He practiced what he was going to say when you opened it.”
Leo’s face changed. “You were not supposed to share that.”
“He had a whole speech.”
“It was not a speech.”
Kadir looked at me. “It was a speech.”
I laughed before the tears had fully stopped, which made Wesley hug me harder and nearly pushed the frame against my chest.
The publicity director appeared in the doorway. Her gaze moved across the four of us, the torn paper, and my face.
“You have press in seven minutes.”
The publicity director disappeared without waiting for a response.
I placed the frame carefully on the table and began restoring order.
Wesley’s hair had flattened on one side beneath his headphones, so I pushed my fingers through it until it looked intentionally messy.
Leo had lost one of the rings he wore onstage and wanted everyone to stop while he searched.
Kadir’s jacket was hanging behind the dressing-room door exactly where I had told him it would be.
Within minutes, all three looked presentable.
Leo watched me straighten Kadir’s collar.
“You transitioned back into manager mode very quickly.”
“You gave me the gift.”
Wesley picked up the frame. “Should I carry this?”
“No. Put it back.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“You threw a drumstick at a barricade ten minutes ago.”
“The barricade moved.”
Kadir took the frame from him and returned it to the table.
I opened the door and pointed toward the hall.
All three men filed out.
Leo paused beside me, kissed my temple, and lowered his voice enough that the others continued without hearing him.
“You liked it?”
I looked back at the lyric sheet. The page held the beginning of the song, the beginning of the band learning to listen, and the moment I had stopped standing outside what they were creating.
“I love it.”
His smile appeared slowly.
Then he stepped into the hallway and immediately complained that Wesley was walking too slowly.
By the time press ended, the venue had nearly emptied.
The frame rested across my knees in the back seat while Kadir drove us away from the loading entrance.
Wesley sat on one side of me, reading reactions to the show aloud from his phone.
Leo sat on the other, correcting every quote attributed to him even when the posts included video proving he had said the exact words.
Someone had uploaded the altered bass break already.
Wesley replayed it for the third time.
“You rushed the return,” Leo told him.
“The crowd liked it.”
“The crowd likes fire.”
“We didn’t have fire.”
“Because Dasha said no.”
I looked up from the frame. “Dasha said no because the insurance company said no.”
Kadir’s hand left the steering wheel at a red light and reached back between the seats. His fingers settled over my knee before the light changed.
Wesley lowered his phone. “Pancakes.”
Leo looked offended. “We just finished a show.”
Kadir turned onto the next street without participating.
I glanced at the navigation screen.
He had already entered the address of the diner.
Leo noticed a moment later and began objecting. Wesley celebrated. Their argument filled the car while the framed page remained steady beneath my hands, holding all four sets of handwriting behind the glass.
They were still difficult. Loud, stubborn, distracting, and impossible to manage in exactly the same ways that had once pulled them apart.
I held the frame against my chest and let them argue over pancakes.
They were still my band.
More importantly, they were still mine.