This fucking family…
I love every single one of them.
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I decided to tell them what happened to me. Definitely tears, maybe a little rage, at least one‘why didn’t you tell us?’However, the latter didn’t cross any of their minds. What I ever did to deserve this group of people in front of me, I’ll never know.
And glancing at Gemma, I know it’s all complete.
This is everything I’ve ever searched for.
And it’s going to last forever—or at least, as long as Stella doesn’t have a heart attack with what we’re asking her to accomplish right now.
“Okay, wait, hang on,” Stella says a few minutes later. “I need to… So, you want to fabricate a new set list, possibly new set elements, new intro, feature one of your new songs, and you want it—let me get this right—before RagnaRock?”
“Yeah.”
“That sounds right.”
“I just have one question for all of you,” she says. “Have you lost your minds?!”
“Whoa, Stella, easy,” Reed teases her.
“I… I don’t even have enough words—god, it’s too early. I need more coffee,” she mutters. “Who is going to read the intro?”
“We will,” Mads says. “We can record it in the studio. Each of us saying different lines.”
“Do like… heartbeat intro. Someone saying like ‘we’re not going to make it, should we say a prayer’ or something like that. And then, we go into a prayer to the rock gods about like… their past and what the beats mean to us and everything,” Reed goes on.
“Please tell me you have more concrete plans than that,” Stella says.
“By the time you make some calls, we will,” Mads promises.
Stella sighs. We can hear her clicking keys on her keyboard, and we wait patiently.
“So… that’s a yes?” I ask after a few seconds.
Stella curses under her breath, and we all grin at each other.
“Okay, let me make some calls—”
“Yes! Stella!”
The four of us jump up to celebrate, high-fives and cheers all around.
“Stella! Stella! Stella!”
“Okay, now, wait, wait—” she says quickly. “I can’t promise anything. You know Rock is going to hug you and kill you all at the same time. I need lists, specs, all the ideas—and not vague ones or half-ass thrown together ones. While your people will want to collaborate with their own spins, I still need you to be sure of things. It has to be firm, okay? I’m going to get in touch with Tag and Rock first and go ahead and get a meeting. Tag might call you this afternoon or just want you in person tomorrow, and he might tell you to fuck off. Which means, I’ll need you back in LA first thing in the morning to figure out all of this. Gemma?”
Gemma leans around me. “Yeah?”
“Are they good for travel?” Stella asks.
Gemma glances around the room, her gaze finally landing on me, and her concern softens.
I nod because I know she’s waiting for me to agree.
“Yeah. They’re good,” she sighs.
Reed punches the air.
