“You forget I have four sisters,” I say.
“I forget nothing when it comes to you. But I do still think you’ll have to get used to this. A road family.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Everybody likes you,” Liam explains, his lips quirked. “The musicians, the crew. They’ve all told me so.”
My limbs loosen. “I like everyone back.”
“Nobody flirted with you, did they?”
“Did my road family flirt with me? No, gross.”
“For real,” he says, eyes narrowing. “I’d like to know.”
“Just the guy with the snake tattoo on his neck.”
Liam stiffens. “Rinaldo?”
I smirk and say, “I’m kidding. I didn’t even meet a guy named Rinaldo. Or a guy with a snake tattoo.”
He doesn’t relax an inch. “It’s a python. Goes around his neck and then down toward his…”
“That’sterrifying.”
Liam rumbles out a laugh, then cracks the door open again and motions for me to join him in the concourse.
The atmosphere out here has completely changed. I hadn’t registered how long I’d been in that dressing room with Penelope and Misha—or, apparently, how thoroughly soundproofed it is—but as the noise from the pavilion reaches my ears, a switch flips.
Penelope isn’t a tiny woman housing stir-fry, crisscross applesauce, on the dressing room floor any longer. She’s Penelope Parker, a celebrity. A performer thousands of people came to see tonight.
The air smells like popcorn and beer. Dimming, pinkish sunlight beams through the concourse. It’s calm backstage, but the applause surges as Liam and I follow in the band’s footsteps.
“Put these in.” He hands me two earplugs.
It’s a mess of electrical equipment back here, yet somehow, we navigate to the perfect spot. I can’t see the audience and they can’t see us. My entire view is four people—Misha, Jake, Marlowe, Josiah. They settle into their instruments, fighting smiles as a large screen behind them projects a highlight montage of Penelope on her first tour. I have to crane my neck to see it from this angle, tipping onto my toes.
I stumble, and Liam’s hand goes around my front, drawing my back against his chest.
It’s dark here, in our private shadow, between a speaker as tall as Liam and a ladder that stretches high above us. Onstage, the videoends and the screen parts, then accordions away, revealing Penelope behind it.
The crowd erupts when the first song begins. Noise blasts from the speaker, but it’s all muted on the other side of my earplugs.
With one of my senses deprived, the feel of Liam’s body close to mine heightens. Air lodges in my throat. I lose focus on the scene in front of me, more compelled by his smell, sweet and lemony, and his touch—specifically, the way his chin catches in the crook of my neck, his stubble rubbing on my soft skin so gently I’m not convinced it isn’t an intentional arousal. His arm looped around my waist settles against my soft middle. Instinctually, I lean back on my heels into his steadiness.
The music changes. Penelope’s signature vocal fry mixes like a cocktail with syrupy notes and a thumping drumbeat.
Liam’s lips move softly over my shoulder as his head dips. Too gentle to be considered a kiss. Too firm to be anything other than his most restrained attempt. Even with the fabric of my shirt between us, I can feel the heat of his breath through it.
His nose and lips trace back and forth, back and forth in the same spot, like it’s some kind of inexorable, self-soothing ritual.
We can’t say anything. We can’thearanything. All we can do is feel. But when my body starts to feel like vapor, slowly going limper in his arms, Liam must belatedly realize what territory he’s entering. He lifts his head. Softens the grip on my waist, then releases me, taking a measured step away with a telling whoosh of air.
This must be what a fawn feels like when forced to stand on its own legs.
Liam can touch me all he wants. I’ll never mind any instance of it. But I need an outline of how and where and when I get to touchhim.
We stand near each other, our bodies radiating, until the halfway point in the set list, when Liam vanishes to check on some things and comes back with water. I gulp it down, enraptured by theband’s performance. The crowd is eating it up. Penelope’s frenetic dancing, her cheeky interactions with the others, the high notes shealwayshits. Toward the end of the show, every band member gets a solo, and that might be my favorite part—watching everyone showcase what they’re good at. Misha on the keys, Marlowe on the drums, Siah on his bass, Jake on his guitar. They’re stars, every one of them, and it’s palpable how much they love this.
