Tessa and Jackie are guided backstage into a long hallway that’s lit with flickering fluorescent lights, and walls that are decorated with lipstick kisses, and the signatures of the people who have performed there in the past. Tessa doesn’t have the presence of mind to look at them and try and pick out names. Now that she’s being brought backstage, she’s starting to understand that this is all real. They’re really real. She’s actually been offered a job with a famous rock band.

She takes out her phone and realizes that her dad has sent a message.

 

Dad: Hope you girls are having fun! Love you xx

 

Tessa sends a couple of emojis back and then sends her own message to Dash.

 

Tessa: You’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!

 

He probably won’t even get it until he’s backstage with her, but she’d felt like she needed to send it. That’s what she does when she’s having a weird moment or needs to wrap her head around something, she messages D. It’s just that now… well, now D is the thing she needs to wrap her head around.

“I can’t believe you’re friends with Black Lilith,” Jackie says, shaking her head and giving Tessa a reproachful look. “What the hell?”

“I swear, I had no idea,” Tessa replies.

Harper looks over her toned, tanned shoulder with a raised eyebrow. “You didn’t?” she asks.

“I really didn’t.”

“Well, that’s a bummer. Now I owe Logan five bucks.”

“We didn’t think that Dash is as sneaky as he thinks he is,” Sersha adds. “He kept saying… ‘we can’t just send her a contract,’ ‘she doesn’t know who I am,’ ‘how am I going to tell her?’”

“We suggested just… you know… calling you?” says Harper.

“But then the boys decided to go for a grand romantic gesture.”

“It’s their thing.”

“We’re going to go ahead and apologize in advance for that.”

Jackie is watching the two women with her mouth open in awe, apparently soaking the information in. Tessa just wants to facepalm. She sends a text to Dash.

 

Tessa: Your friends are telling me all of your secrets.

 

They’re guided into a back room with long, comfortable-looking couches lining the walls and a heavy array of food on the table in the center of the room. There are sodas and fried chicken, but also a couple of baskets full of protein bars, fruit, and juice. Tessa notices Harper wrinkling her nose at the chicken as Sersha grabs a wing.

“You can have some if you’re hungry,” she tells Jackie and Tess.

Jackie falls on that spread like a bear on a honey tree, but Tessa’s feeling a little queasy.

“So, you guys know anything about what I’m supposed to be doing for you?” she asks, trying to get a normal, casual tone into her voice. She sits on the couch and winces when she realizes how unprofessional she looks in her black jeans and Ravenclaw bow. It’s one thing to wear these clothes to a concert and meet a friend, but this is technically a job interview. She hadn’t known that she would be meeting her potential employers today. “What the job entails, I mean?”

Harper sits next to her and opens a bottle of orange juice. “I think Logan or Mikayla can probably explain it better.”

“Mikayla…” Logan’s wife. Dash had mentioned that his brother had a sneak-attack wedding a few months ago. “Is she around?”

“She usually waits side stage to make sure that the roadies all do their jobs,” Harper replies. “She’s queen of getting shit done.”

Tessa’s phone buzzes and she checks the message.

 

D: im on my way dont let them tell u lies

 

Just as she finishes reading the text, the door on the other side of the room slams open and Black Lilith come crashing in. It is a literal crash. Logan and Slate fall onto their knees the moment the door opens, shouting as though they’d been fighting to get through first. Tommy comes through within moments, and he’s clearly moving too fast to stop because he only manages an “Oh, shit…” before he trips over Slate’s leg and lands on the other two.

Dash leaps over the three of them and lands in front of the table, where Jackie and Sersha are standing together and watching the pile of men on the ground.

“Suck it, assholes! Oh, shit…” his eyes go wide when he sees Jackie, “… there’s a minor. Watch your language.”

Jackie snorts and puts the bottle of Coke she’s been drinking on the table, resting her hand on her hip. “So you’re my sister’s special friend, huh?”

Tessa hides her face, while Harper shakes with suppressed laughter next to her. Tessa thinks that Jackie is being heroically restrained, considering how excited she’s been to come backstage and to meet the band. But there’s a difference between enjoying someone’s music and meeting your sister’s special friends, and Jackie was just doing her duty as Tessa’s sibling. She took it seriously, too. Scott would be proud.

“I don’t know what you mean, small person. Special friend? Don’t do drugs. Stay in school,” Dash says rapidly, sidling past her and the table as though he’s worried about turning his back on her. But when he meets Tessa’s eyes his entire face breaks into a wide grin and he rushes over to grab her off of the couch and pull her into another hug.

Just like during the concert, when Dash pulled Tessa into that hug, she immediately felt a surge of joy. She held his neck, squealed when he picked her up and laughed when he spun her around. He was so strong and seemed too giddy to know what he was doing, but also apparently aware of Harper and the table since Tessa’s flailing legs never made contact with either.

“You’re here!”

“I’m here!” Tessa agrees.

Over his shoulder, she sees the rest of the band pulling themselves up onto their feet. Tommy and Slate come forward and join Dash in hugging Tessa, wrapping her in two extra sets of sweaty arms. It isn’t until they join in that she realizes how sweaty Dash is. But she doesn’t mind it as much with him as she minds it with the others.

“Guys! Get off. You’re disgusting,” Logan says, pushing forward and giving Jackie a respectful nod as he passes her, which makes the girl blush a little. “Seriously, you’re literally dripping with sweat. She’s probably too polite to tell you to fuck off.”

“There is a minor in the room,” Slate screams in Tessa’s ear.

Logan sighs, takes out his wallet and gives Jackie a dollar. “She’s too polite to tell you to frick off,” he says to Slate.

Jackie shrugs and pockets the dollar.

“Mind your fricking business,” Tommy says.

“You’re all a bunch of frickheads,” Dash says.

Sersha and Harper are cackling as this goes on, and honestly, Tessa is starting to get uncomfortable, but if it means Dash letting go of her then she’s happy to stay exactly where she is right now.

Slate and Tommy let go eventually, and in a moment Dash does as well, though he remains close to her. He’s still grinning like a madman, and his hands twitch like he’s restraining himself from grabbing her again.

Logan steps forward to shake Tessa’s hand. “It’s really great to meet you,” he says.

Tessa sees a silver wedding band glinting on his left hand as it dangles casually at his hip.

“Dash talks you up all the time. I feel like I know you.”

“That’s very nice of him.” Tessa notices Jackie’s hopeful looks toward the band and says quickly, “This is my sister, Jackie.”

“Yes, we know about Jackie,” Slate says, coming around to pull Jackie into his side and give her shoulders a squeeze. “Dash tells me you want to ice skate to one of our songs?”

“I don’t… I didn’t… ” Jackie looks to Tessa, who nods sheepishly, admitting to telling Dash about it. In Tessa’s defense, she hadn’t known that D was Dash Todd, and that she was essentially telling the band that her sister was a huge fan of theirs.

“If you want, we can write something just for you,” Tommy says, coming around to Jackie’s other side and looking at her through his fringe with a gentle, hopeful smile. “That way, it’ll be completely original. No one else will be able to skate to it.”

“Nothing but the best for T’s family,” says Slate.

“Can we come and watch it?” Tommy asks excitedly. “I bet it would be awesome. We never thought a figure skater would like our music. Honestly, it’s really flattering.”

Jackie’s looking between the two men as though all of her dreams are coming true. On the couch, Harper has crossed her legs and is watching all of this with a look of nostalgia, as though she’s seen it before. Or maybe she’s been on the receiving end of it.

“This is a really cute shirt by the way,” Slate says. “But I think you’d look better in one of our shirts. To the merch!”

“To the merch,” Tommy and Sersha both shout like they’re about to go on an adventure.

They guide Jackie over to the corner where a box, overflowing with shirts and baseball caps, is waiting.

“They’ll be there for a while,” Logan says. “Sorry, I think your sister’s going to be smothered in affection. We don’t really, you know, have gears? It’s just off and on.”

“She doesn’t mind,” Tessa replies. She’s torn… part of her wants to sit Logan down and have him explain to her exactly what this job that Dash had lured her with entails, but most of her just wants to settle into the couch and finally have a conversation with the man she’s been texting for the last five months.

Logan looks between his brother and Tessa. His lips quirk up, and he says, “Look, we’ll talk about why you’re here in a little bit. Mikayla’s still wrangling people, and she’s better at explaining things than I am.”

“She’s better at everything than you are,” Dash tells him.

“Not true,” Logan says, though there’s a smile on his face that tells Tessa that he’s not annoyed or even really serious. “I can hold a handstand for five seconds.”

“How long can Mik hold one for?”

“As far as I know, she’s never tried,” Logan says airily. “Anyway, it’ll be better to wait for her. Dash, why don’t you make sure that Tessa’s settled, while I keep Slate and Tommy from killing the minor.”

“Sure,” Dash says, grabbing Tessa by her hand and pulling her onto the couch in the farthest corner of the room, away from everyone else.

Logan and Harper join the others at the box full of merch, and Jackie’s laughter fills the room as the boys begin putting shirt after shirt on her, to the point where she starts to look like a marshmallow. She’s also got a handful of dollars. Apparently, the Black Lilith boys have to pay up when they swear in front of minors.

“They seem amazing,” Tessa says.

“Yeah. They’re good eggs.”

They look at each other. Dash still has his hand on hers. He’s rubbing his thumb over the sensitive skin on her palm, right on the love line. Does he know that’s what the line is? Tess doubts it. The man in front of her doesn’t strike Tess as someone who’s into palm reading, and D had never given her that impression.

She keeps thinking of them as separate people.

Dash’s lips spread in a self-conscious grin. “It’s nice to meet you,” he says.

“You too,” Tessa replies. Though at this point, words don’t really seem to cover it. “I… well, I don’t really know what to say now.”

“I know,” Dash says. He glances over to see that the rest of the band is occupied. “I imagined this a whole bunch of times.”

“Me too.”

They fall silent, but it doesn’t feel awkward. It feels like one of those long silences she sometimes shares with her siblings, with an edge of anticipation to it that she’s never felt with anyone before. It’s like she’s known this guy for so long, and at the same time she can’t wait to get to know him.

Dash reaches up to touch her bow. “Blue and silver suits you.”

She pokes him in the chest. “Wouldn’t have expected a Hufflepuff to be rocking the Slytherin poster child.”

“There’s hardly any merch for us.”

And then they say, at the exact same time, “Cedric Diggory didn’t die for this.”

They lock eyes, and Tessa knows that she’s got the same stupid grin on her face that Dash has. That grin that means she’s met someone that she’s been looking for. That grin that means she’s delighted with what she’s found.

Dash pulls her a little bit closer, so they’re almost forehead to forehead. “Can I keep you?”

Tessa nods because she can’t quite find the words right now. He remembered her favorite quote from Casper.