Eleanor followed her across the field, past a tangle of tents, food trucks, and barefoot festivalgoers dancing.
When they reached a massive canvas tent near the side of the main stage, the girl flung the flap open and gestured grandly. “Welcome backstage.”
Inside, the light shifted—filtered through canvas, golden and dim. The smell hit her first: burned coffee, body odor, and something sweeter, more herbal.
Marijuana.
Men and women lounged on cots or sat—some on ground, others on a collection of mismatched chairs—sipping from enamel mugs and strumming guitars. A girl was braiding another’s hair. A boy with no shirt and too many bracelets was tuning a bass.
Eleanor stepped carefully over a tambourine.
She stood in the middle of the tent, one hand lightly gripping Roxy’s leash, watching the crowd move around her like a tide she wasn’t a part of.
“Eleanor!” The voice came from the back of the tent—a rich, bright tenor that cut through the haze.
A man rose from where he’d been crouched, tuning a guitar. He set his instrument down with reverence and moved toward her.
His shirt was a flowing, ruffled affair, open nearly to his navel, exposing a smooth chest lightly dusted with sandy hair. His jeans clung to him like a second skin. His feet were bare, toes ringed in dust.
He moved like he owned the earth he walked on.
Eleanor was jarred by his presence, his energy. There was something about the chiseled angle of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, those sea-glass eyes—green with a halo of blue, etched with just a hint of age lines.
He wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. She remembered seeing him in amagazine. A copy ofRolling Stonethat Nora had held out for her—with a full spread of this very man, Shep Moon, dubbed the Great Guitar God.
He stopped in front of her, all easy energy and effortless edge.
Silver rings glittered on nearly every finger. Beaded and leather bracelets stacked up his wrists. He reached up, sweeping back a mess of sun-kissed curls, then removed his floppy felt hat before offering her a theatrical bow.
“You are even more radiant up close than onstage,” he said with a grin that could melt a vinyl record.
Eleanor felt a jolt of something. Not just attraction—though, God help her, that too—but recognition. Of joy. Of being young and chosen. Of being seen.
Stretched out in front of her was his offered hand, and she took it. His palm was warm, rough with the callouses of someone who lived in music.
Time slid crabwise, along with her fingers curling into his. She was no longer in a festival tent in California. She was somewhere else—someone else. Holding the hand of a boy she had once promised everything to.
Someone she’d lost.
“Are you ready to sing with me, Ellie?” he asked.
The nickname hit her like a bell rung from deep inside her chest.
Ellie.
No one had called her that in decades.
Her lips parted, but no words came. Just that odd, heart-shifting ache.
Because she had heard that voice before.
Because someone else had once said her name just like that.
And because, for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t entirely sure if this moment was new—or a memory so real it seemed new.
“I’ve been waiting to,” Eleanor said, her voice suddenly steadied by soul-enriching memories.
Shep didn’t seem thrown off by her answer. He gave her an easy smile and said, “Well, today’s the day.” He gave her hand a playful squeeze before letting go. “Now, let’s get practicing so we can go out there and blow this joint straight to the sky.”
