I took my seat on the stool next to Jimmy and folded my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking.

Every single nerve in my body seemed to be humming at the same frequency. Something buzzing in the back of my brain was making the hair on my neck stand up. It had nothing to do with Jules, I told myself. It was because it was finally, finally coming together.

All of my hard work was for this moment.

We were starting to record.

"All right," Jimmy drawled in his thick New Jersey accent. He smelled like aftershave and his breath was tinged with coffee and garlic. "Ready, Red?"

I hid my grimace at being called Red and nodded. "I'm ready. Are they?"

"You tell me," he said, gesturing to the main studio.

The guys were each at their stations, deeply engrossing in tuning. Jimmy flicked a switch and suddenly I could hear him over my monitor. "Let's do this one live," Jimmy called. "We got the whole studio miked up so we can get everything. I'll see where we're at with levels on playback."

"You guys ready?" I added. My skin was humming. The first time I heard Wreckage, I knew they were it. I had never managed a band before, but I'd marched up to their dressing room and announced that I was working with them from then on. It was love at first listen for me.

But I'm not a fan. Not a groupie, not even back when I was dating Noah.

No, I'm always working. All my life, if I found a band I loved, I started working for them immediately. While other girls were content to sit in the front row and scream for their idols, I was backstage, harassing the club managers for more dates. I was handing out flyers before big shows, selling merch. Music was always the background noise to the business at hand.

I rarely got to watch the bands I loved actually do their thing.

But that's what I was doing right now.

I'd been at a few of their rehearsals, heard them working on the new material when they played it at underground shows and guest appearances. But I'd always been busy working for them, pressing the flesh and making connections. This was the first time I'd really get to sit down and hear what they'd been working on.

"Wanna start with this?" I heard Ewan say on the mic. He was pointing at his battered notebook and I ached to see what was written there.

"Sure, I like that one," Hudson said. "Good warm-up. Right in my range."

"Your range is like four fucking octaves, dude," Ewan pointed out. "Isn't everything in it?"

Hudson grinned modestly.

"Oy, don't encourage his ego," Jules called from his kit.

I flicked on my mic. "It's not his ego I'm worried about," I said into all their headsets.

Niall and Ewan laughed, and I grinned, turning to catch Jules's eye.

He winked at me.

Fuck it. I was feeling excited.

I winked back.

He grinned, then raised his sticks, counting off, "a one and a two and a..."

I snagged my lower lip in my teeth and bit ever so slightly, blinking rapidly.

He started with a rat-a-tat on the snare drum, almost a marching beat. Then Jules added in the kick drum, adding a low thrumming bass note to the rising chaos of drumbeats. I closed my eyes and heard the song swell up around it, Niall's bass setting a throbbing counterpoint to that insistent beat before Ewan's sinuous guitar slithered upwards a series of shimmering, ringing notes.

The music kept swelling, up and up, like a tsunami racing towards a shoreline, but the expected break never happened. I opened my eyes, feeling the tension of that still rising beat. I leaned forward, waiting for Hudson to cut in with vocals and relieve the suddenly unbearable frission, but he still swayed in place, his feet planted. I could feel myself leaning forward, literally at the edge of my seat, frantic for that musical release. Jules looked up from his kit and his dark eyes were nearly black with something that I didn't want to give a name to. On fire, I whipped my head away from his gaze and at that exact moment the rising tension of the music suddenly froze. Hudson fell forward into a deep lunge and belted out a wild, keening wail that made every hair on my arm stand on end and then the rest of the band joined in on that note, cresting that wave and crashing together before ebbing back down again into the chorus.

I leaned back, panting. I hadn't smoke in years but I had a sudden, desperate need for a cigarette. "Holy shit," I shouted in the too small space. "Aren't they fucking spectacular?" I looked around wildly, certain that everyone in the booth was seeing the magic I was seeing. We were making magic. I was sure of it. And what's more, I was part of it.

But Jimmy scowled. "They're too fucking loud," he complained, nudging the controls a bit. The song was whipping up again, building up to that same unbearable tension as before, but this time all I saw was Jimmy's fierce frown.

He suddenly flicked the PA system on. "Cut!" he yelled.

A ringing silence filled my ears. All four guys looked to us. Hudson was breathless and eager, his eyes shining with the triumph, but the three Brits were more seasoned. I could see the resignation seeping into their expressions.

Jimmy leaned back and interlaced his fingers on top of his head, shaking it slowly. He leaned forward and flicked the PA on again. "Ewan, play an open chord?"

Ewan obliged. Jimmy fiddled with his board. "Again?"

Ewan strummed once more.

"Give me an E," Jimmy asked, jotting a note down on a piece of paper and passing it to a tech. "Okay, now a G. Again." Ewan strummed. "Again."

Hudson looked at Jimmy, his eager expression fading. As Ewan kept strumming his eternal G chord, Hudson's face fell further and further and some of my own excitement ebbed away. We were clearly in the hands of a rabid perfectionist. It was one thing to know that ahead of time, when I was booking the studio time on the recommendation of other managers and label insiders.

But it was quite another to be sitting here with him as he shit all over my band's music.

"Jules," he snapped over the PA. "Phil here's gonna come and replace the head on your snare. All I hear is hiss on the playback. And Ewan, how old are your strings?"

"I replaced them yesterday, mate."

"Replace them again, you're dull as hell."

I saw Ewan's nose twitch, but he doggedly set about restringing his Gibson.

Hudson looked at Niall with an expression just like a kicked puppy dog. "Shit man," he sighed and sagged onto his chair and looked over to Jules, who motioned him to switch off his mic before he said anything.

So I didn't hear it, but I could definitely read his lips when he asked Jules. "When do we get to play music again?" I saw Jules shrug and glance over at me, sitting next to Jimmy and I felt a strange wash of guilt come over me for sitting up here.

I should be out there. With them. My band. My guys.

Boundaries, I reminded myself, and grimaced. And with one last, longing glance towards the guys - who were now laughing at something Jules was saying - I sat back on my stool and resigned myself to spending the next two months smelling the garlic on Jimmy's breath and not having any part in the magic after all.