Page 115 of The Rogues

The screams get even louder, and Nicola laughs beside. “Holy shit, are they allowed to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Lark says. “Maybe their label is more lenient on it.”

The next words out of Cyrus’s mouth cause all the air to rush from my lungs.

“We hope you all enjoy! This song is called ‘Rosewood.’”

The song starts before I can get my bearings. I can feel the hesitation from my friends to say anything, both of them just as frozen as me. I exhale a shaky breath as the lyrics start.

Vicious midnight alibi,

you’re the only one for me.

Precious little butterfly,

you’re the one who sets me free.

“Oh my god, Josie,” Nicola says, her hand over her mouth. “They wrote you a song?!”

“I…” I’m not sure what to do. My heart beats wildly in my chest, the song a beautiful melody that makes me want to cry.

That’s when I smell it: singed saffron hanging in the air like a sad hymn warning me to turn around.

When I turn, Cleo is there, her eyes looking past me to the stage. Instead of anger as I expect, her features are sad, her lip wobbling before she stills it. “What the hell, Josie?” she says in a whisper.

Every time before, I’ve had the instinct to comfort Cleo, run to her side and make everything better for her. But now, even without the anger I’ve become used to, I can’t find it in me to placate her.

So I don’t say anything. I’m not her punching bag, and I’m not the real thing tearing her apart.

She gives me a look, like she’s expecting me to deny whatever’s happening, call it a coincidence, but I’m not going to do that.

My guys were brave enough to stand on that stage and claim me. Now, I have to do the same.

“They wrote me a song,” I tell her, my voice unwavering.

She’s shocked, or maybe a little bit hurt as she flinches. Then she turns and walks out, leaving us in the wing to simmer in the truth for the first time this entire tour.

Nicola squeezes my arm as I turn back to the stage, the song still blaring on, beautiful and powerful all at once.

They wrote me a song. They are telling the world who I am to them. I should be angry or worried about the consequences of it, but I feel nothing but relief. This is the most public claiming I’ve ever witnessed, and my omega is preening at the magnitude of it.

I love them so much that it splinters me open. This entire situation is weird, and messy, and hard to bear, but none of that matters. All I can see are them, leaving their hearts out in the open on the arena stage for me to pick up and cherish. And god, I am going to cherish them with every piece of me.

“They wrote me a song,” I repeat, tears in my eyes.

Lark puts out her arms and lets me curl inside. I don’t have to worry about this anymore. All I want to do is stand here and listen.

THIRTY-EIGHT

As seen on Punk-Tune TV

“It looks like there might be love in the air, folks. Vicious Velvet and The Rogues, famous for being at each other’s throats in the media, are officially halfway through their conjoined tour but things might not last much longer. Last night in Albany, things came to a head between the two rival bands when The Rogues started their show with an unprompted and unreleased song titled ‘Rosewood,’ leaving their audience stunned. Sleuths speculate that the song is about Vicious Velvet’s lead guitarist, Josephine Rosewood, who, rumor has it, has had a falling out with her bandmates recently. She was apparently seen looking ‘stunned’ backstage, an account given to us by a behind-the-scenes witness. They also said that lead woman, Cleo Del Rossi, was not too happy about it…”

“Well, you lot made a right mess of things,” one of our label’s execs mutter, their frown prominent on our computer screen. There are four of them present for this Zoom meeting, but I can’t remember any of their names. It’s not really my job to keep up with them, but it is our agent’s, who is sitting by us with a grimacing smile as he responds.

“Aren’t rock stars known for being messy, Emerson?” He grins, trying to form a connection so we don’t get our asses handed to us, but I couldn’t care less. Not after seeing Josie’s face after the concert, hearing her affirming words that she loved the song and consequences be damned.

We were all nervous, but Jamie and Remi had put a lot of heart into the new ballad and we couldn’t wait another second to perform it. It may not have been authorized, and it may have been a bit unorthodox to tell the world of our affections this way, but we knew we had to take matters into our own hands. Even if it was just a tiny seed of hope, we had to water the fuck out of it just in case.