Smoke plumes from the machines by the stage. Bonnie will be on that platform soon. Her blonde and pink hair will be accentuated beneath stage lights, her figure illuminated against the Young Decay logo at her back.
How many times have I fantasized about tasting her against one of those drums? Hearing the little gasp she makes when she’s touching herself…
The image has me blowing out a breath.
I wonder what her before-show ritual is.
It’s one of the few spaces of hers I’ve yet to see, a part of her I haven’t memorized. It’s a blank space in the map of her that occupies my mind, body, and soul at all hours of the day and night.
My hand creeps to my neck as I feel the space heating at the overwhelming thought of touching her one day. Of finally tasting the thing I’ve obsessed over for a decade.
“Everything look good from there, Gem?” my boss, James, says over the radio in my ear.
I blink out of the trance, mildly annoyed at the interruption of such a perfect fantasy. However, the call prompts a smile to my lips.
Her sacred ritual is within my reach.
Being near her without the mask isfinallyat my fingertips.
That’s where my new job has put me.
I press the com button on my radio. “All good from here,” I report back.
Because everything seems fucking perfect.
“Head backstage. I want the band to get a good look at who will be saving their asses after today since we didn’t get to have our meeting,” James says. “Reed especially. I hope you wore your running shoes.”
“I made sure to lift extra yesterday, too, since you mentioned his stage diving,” I say, and James laughs into the mic.
“Yeah. Stage launching, more like. Come on backstage. They’re finishing up rituals. When they’re ready, you’ll be escorting Reed to the sound stage again. Let the team around there know before you come this way. Reed wants to walk the middle aisle on the first song,” he says.
“That sounds safe,” I reply sarcastically.
“Welcome to the Mayhem,” James says. “See you in a few.”
“Yep.”
Rock, their sound guy, fist bumps mine and nods. “Have fun chasing Chaos,” he says with a coy brow.
I nod, give him a smile, then head down the steps.
By the time I reach the grass, I already want to vomit.
Anxiety weaves through my veins, causing me to stretch my fingers and crack my neck. I’m fantasizing about the way Bonnie might look at me when we’re once again face-to-face, wondering if she’ll remember me from all those years ago or if I’ll just be another person she passed by.
Whether she recognizes me or not makes no difference.
She’s already mine.
CHAPTER ONE
BONNIE
Behind my closed eyes,I feel the music’s heartbeat strumming through me. I know the time. The double-beat. The way I would drum this song, were it mine. My hands move on their own, sticks hitting against the dressing room counter and twisting in the air between my fingers in a show habit I’ve formed.
The cat-ear, noise-cancelling headphones over my head drown out the rest of the room—not that any of our before-show habits are particularly noisy, but still… My playing on the counter is probably the loudest of all. I know Zeb, our guitarist, is air-punching the wall with his true crime podcast playing. Reed, our maniac lead singer, is in the corner meditating and stretching. And Mads, our bassist, is more than likely walking laps around the backstage area wearing his mask and blasting classic rock tunes in his headphones.
The anticipation leading up to the show is one of my favorite parts. A half-hour completely uninterrupted. No questions. No press. No worries other than clearing our fucked up minds of the shit normally weighing on them so we can get on that stage and lose ourselves.
