“What?You just give the motherfuckers whatever they ask for?”Skye asked, wiping her arm over her sweaty brow.
“No,” Zara said, hopping up on top of the amp Skye was trying to move.“I usually just go find someone with a simpler request.It’s too much work to talk someone out of wanting world domination or a humanity-ending plague.”
Zara picked at her nail bed.“I mean, sometimes I’ll say, ‘You sure you don’t just want a bigger penis?’And then they usually nod, and I endow them.Sometimes, just for funsies, I’ll even send the really repressed little fuckers a daddy to screw their misanthropic ways right out of them.”
“What a humanitarian,” Skye said, chuckling.
“I know, right?”
Skye pushed the amp Zara was sitting on out of the way and shrieked, “Found it!”
She tugged the kick drum out from behind the equipment that looked like it hadn’t been touched or moved in two decades.It’d be a waste of time to wonder how it got back here.
“Tell the wannabe rock stars that soul bargains are like genie wishes.If they get too greedy, it’ll blow back on them.But one song on the Top 40 and two months of streaming is safe.Then you tell them that it’s up to them to take their band to the next level.Make it sound like the American Dream.We’re giving them an opportunity, but they have to do the hard work to find success.”
Zara hummed.“So you want me to sell them the same false promise their government sells them?”
“Yep.”
Zara shrugged.“Okay.”Flames brightened the dusty, dank room, and she sifted away.
Skye lifted the kick drum and exited the back room.She waddled down the hall and handed it over to one of the crew members.
“Skye found it!”someone cheered.
The entire backstage applauded, and Skye waved a gracious hand.The crew went back to preparing for the show as Ollie and Liam jogged over, West following behind.
Ollie kissed both sides of her face.“You’re the best, Skye.”
“We’d literally be lost without you,” Liam said.
“Or ripped to pieces by pissed-off fans,” Ollie said.
“No worries,” Skye said.
West said nothing, but he dipped his head in appreciation, and then the three hiked up the stairs to the stage.
Remi appeared by her side with his arms crossed over his chest.He wore black ripped jeans and a leather jacket, along with his beat-up combat boots.Skye had seen the show enough times to know that the jacket would be discarded by the end of the first song to reveal his bare, tattooed chest and black suspenders over each shoulder.
The women would all scream.A few would shout that they wanted to have his babies.At least one of them would faint.
Skye would have rolled her eyes at the spectacle this man created, but most days, she was just watching from backstage, trying not to be the one who fainted.
The man in question rolled his eyes at her.“And Skye saves the day.Again,” he muttered.“Shocker.”
Before she could respond, he walked away, taking the stairs to the stage two at a time.
The fog machines kicked on, and a flash of light lit Remi up for a moment before he disappeared into the darkness again.
His deep, sexy voice rasped out his hello.The crowd went ballistic.The band started their first song, and the stage lights worked in time to the music.Skye’s magic hummed in her veins, drawing her forward.She went up the stairs and peeked out from the edge.She couldn’t stop herself.
Remi was made to be a performer.He slipped into the mosthimversion of himself when he held a microphone.His smiles were easy; his jokes were smooth and slick.A seduction.The crowd ate up every second.He danced and sang and worked the stage, climbing on the amps or falling to the floor and writhing around as the sexy metal songs called for.
Toward the middle of the set, the band looped through different versions of the beginning of a song to build anticipation in the crowd, giving Remi a second to drink some water and wipe the sweat off his face.
His back to the audience, his eyes connected with Skye’s as if they were magnetized.Intensity drifted between them, and it struck Skye straight through the heart, trapping her in the snare of his gaze.
She didn’t recognize the emotion building in the pit of her stomach.It wasn’t anger, but there was a slice of it.It wasn’t possession, but there was a dash of that too.It couldn’t be sadness, but an almost melancholy flavor lingered.She didn’t know the name of this emotion, and she didn’t know how to make it stop.
