“Both! And I have to find Velvet right now,” I said. “They need her… the room that’s a color. Grass. Shamrocks. She’s late. Judge. They need her onstage ASAP.”
He blinked at me. “Greenroom.”
“Yes!” I said, then cradled my cheek. “Ow, my eye.”
“Damn. Really am sorry. Listen, you need me to help you look? I’ve been to this shitty thing a bunch of times. They always set it up the same. Where is she?”
“If I knew that—”
“Okay, dumb question!” he said, smiling a little. “She’s somewhere out here?”
I explained as quickly as I could and pointed out the greenroom. He understood and was already craning his head to search for her. “Easier if we split up. Can cover more ground. Give me your number so we can communicate.”
“Sounds like a ploy to get my number,” I said, looking around.
He snorted lightly and handed me his phone. “Trust me, I’ve been scheming all kinds of ploys to get your number—this was destiny or angels or something. Type it in, Jane, and let’s find your lost princess.”
A few seconds later, he took off, dark head of curls disappearingin the crowd, and a text appeared on my phone that just said:It’s me, your savior. Add me to your contacts.
I rolled my eyes, too panicked to be truly mad, and went in the opposite direction.
How hard could it be to find one rock socialite? As I dialed her number and listened to it ring without end, I looked for small cliques of people and her telltale armful of bangles, listening out for her infectious laugh, but she was nowhere. She’d said she was hungry, so I tried the food trucks. Not in line there. Not eating at the tables.
Most of the crowd had made its way down to the front of the stage, and the crew was done with their equipment testing. That couldn’t be good. I checked the time. Fourteen minutes had passed. A cold sweat washed over me. She was going to blame me for this. I couldn’t wrangle her. This was my job, and I’d failed.
My phone buzzed with a text:Got her.
SWEET MOTHER EARTH.
He didn’t say where he was, so I ran back to the greenroom, threading my way through the crowd as they filed toward the stage. By the time I made it there, I was drenched in sweat and close to having a heart attack. But I saw him holding the greenroom door for her as she laughed. Her eyes were open super wide, her lashes like a painted doll’s, and she was bizarrely energetic.
“Velvet!” I called.
She didn’t even hear me. “Let’s get this show on the road!” she was saying in a superbly cheerful voice. “Battle, baby! Let’s ring that bell!”
As the door shut behind her, the young volunteer who was guarding it had a mildly horrified look on her face.
“Where was she?” I asked Fen.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Doing a mountain of coke in the bathroom with Erika Jones.”
“Wh-a-a-a,” I whispered, completely freaked out.
“It’s practically snowing up here,” he informed me oh-so-casually. “Can’t walk two steps without tripping over someone offering me to do a bump with them.”
I didn’t know what to say to any of that. This was beyond my pay grade. “I need to make sure she’s…” Not making a fool of herself. I started to tell him goodbye, then I changed my mind. Not sure why. Maybe because he’d already been helping. “Can you wait for me?”
The hard lines around his eyes softened. “I’ll be right here.”
I spent several stressful minutes inside the greenroom, waiting for Velvet while Carol held her and the other judges’ attention, but when the crowd outside roared, it was too late. I followed like a puppy as Velvet bounced out a different door to the judges’ platform.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
“Never better!” she assured me, exiting the room. “Let’s battle some bands, people!”
Then she was gone. I didn’t know what to do. They wouldn’t let me follow her out the door—that headed straight up some stairs to the judges’ stand. All I could do was drink my body weight in bottled water. So I left.
Fen was still waiting for me outside the greenroom. Something leapt inside my chest when I saw him leaning against the building, maybe because I expected him to have gotten bored and bolted.
