His grin was crooked, and she should’ve rolled her eyes at his terrible timing and joke—but relief flooded her chest instead. Seeing him there, solid and focused, made her feel grounded. He lifted his arms protectively, creating space in the chaotic crowd. Taking the brunt of people running into his body but remaining still where she and her mother had been knocked aside.
“Let me help, Nora.”
Without hesitation, he reached out, taking Nora’s hand in one of his and her mother’s with his other. He shifted them slightly behind him—as if he were the prow of a ship. Nora let herself be pulled forward as Joe shouldered past people. She couldn’t stop glancing toward her mother, worried she’d fall again. And all the while, acting as a barrier, Joe moved forward with purpose. When Leanne did stumble, Joe caught her, easing her upright before she could be overtaken by dozens of feet again.
For a bizarre second, Nora thought of the Vietnam footage they showed on the nightly news. Young men wading through bomb smokeand screaming, pushing forward through the mayhem of war, unsure if they’d ever get out.
She pushed the images away with a shudder, knowing that a crush at a concert was nothing compared to war.
Then, suddenly, the crowd broke open. The air shifted. Cleaner, clearer, cooler.
They’d made it outside of the stadium.
Leanne bent over, hands braced on her thighs, sucking in heavy breaths like she’d just run a marathon at top speed. Nora’s chest squeezed tight at the sight.
“Mom?” Nora pressed a hand to Leanne’s back, afraid her mother might have suffered an injury and was breathing with pain rather than residual fear.
“I’m okay.” Leanne straightened slowly, wincing as she wiped at the sweat on her brow. “Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse but measured, and she gave a grateful nod.
“No problem,” he said. He tried to sound cool, but he too was clearly shaken by the crowd crush they’d just escaped. “I owed Nora here.” He tilted his head.
“Owed me?” Nora shot him a quizzical glance. “How?”
“For the Coke,” he said with a wink.
Heat bloomed beneath her skin, making Nora’s cheeks flush.
“You two know each other?” As Nora turned toward her mom, she noticed Leanne’s gaze had fully sharpened into parenting mode.
“No,” Nora said quickly, at the same time Joe replied, “Sort of.”
Leanne’s spine straightened a little more, an interrogation queueing up in her mind like festivalgoers at the ticket booth.
But Joe, who interviewed strangers for a living, held out his hand with confidence and offered a charismatic smile.
“Joe Dumas. At your service, ma’am.”
Nora’s mind whirled at hearing his last name. “Wait. Your last name is Dumas? As in Alexandre Dumas andThe Three Musketeers?”
Joe let out a short laugh. She thought she detected the slightest blush on his cheeks. “‘All for one, and one for all.’ Long-lost relation. And look at the three of us now—clearly something out of my great-great-great-something-grandfather’s novel. ‘Never fear quarrels,’” Joe quoted with a wink, “‘but seek hazardous adventures.’ Which I guess means I was meant to find you in a mutiny.”
Her mother held her tongue, but Nora could practically hear the questions bubbling up behind her eyes. She just knew when they climbed back into the Lincoln, the questioning would start firing off faster than the flame juggling act they’d seen at the Madison Square Garden circus last summer. Starting with,Was that the hot writer you mentioned meeting?But her mother broke eye contact quickly, whirling in a circle, her frantic gaze scanning the crowd, no doubt praying for a sign of Eleanor.
Nora rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arms, then brushed a tendril of hair off her cheek, still breathless from the turmoil. It suddenly occurred to her that if anyone had seen Eleanor Bell, it would be the journalist following the Grandma Rocker story like a heat-seeking missile. “How’s your story coming along?”
Joe’s face lit up. “The Dame of Rock and Roll killed it earlier. Did you miss her set?”
Leanne practically jolted. “You saw her?”
“Yeah,” he said with an air of nonchalance. “She was onstage with Shep Moon and his band earlier before they took off.”
“They made it out safely?” Leanne asked, her body stiff.
Joe nodded. “Pretty sure. The riot really only affected the crowd, not the bands.”
Her mother blew out a long breath, her shoulders lowering. “And she was with Shep Moon’s band?”
“Yeah. A full-on collaboration onstage. Like…planned.”
