My life has come full circle.

Well, if full circle includes me with my hand over my mouth, feeling like I’m going to vomit. Because I might just do that.

I’m backstage with And Then, hanging around outside their dressing room at the Palladium Theater, just as I did back when I was fourteen at their very first show.

Only now I’m part of the band.

I’m officially their bassist.

I have been for a few weeks now.

And this is our first show.

It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve rehearsed with the band (not enough, in my opinion, it’s like trying to herd cats), or how many times I’ve done it on my own, I’m not ready.

How could I ever be ready for this?

“Breathe,” Brad says and I look up to see him staring at me with a bemused smirk on his face.

I try and breathe but all I can do is gulp for air. Does he even realize that he said that exact thing to me all those years ago in this exact same place?

It’s hard to tell with Brad sometimes. He keeps mainly to himself, even at rehearsals, and while he’s not stingy with the praise and has been pretty encouraging, it usually stops at that.

“I’m trying to breathe,” I tell him. “God, weren’t you this nervous for your first show?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I hardly remember it.”

“How can you not remember it? I think this will be branded in my brain for the rest of my life.”

He scratches at the stubble on his chin. Sexy stubble, I might add. Brad’s dressed pretty low-key for tonight’s show: a black t-shirt that shows off his muscles, black jeans just tight enough to show off his ass. His hair is pushed back off his face, his eyes are dark and smoldering as always. Sometimes I wonder how I’m able to play my bass, let alone talk to him, without drooling.

But I have an image to obtain and that’s one of being a consummate musician and a total professional. Of course I feel like I’m failing at both right now. Because, you know, wanting to vomit and everything.

“I’ll tell you that I remember playing the first show ever by myself. I opened for Iggy Pop…somehow.” He grins at me, flashing me his pearly whites that make me weak at the knees. “The stars aligned that day. My birthday. Anyway, that show I’ll never forget. But all the rest of the shows kind of blend in with each other.” He gives me a sly look, leaning in closer. What little breath I have hitches in my throat. “I’ll tell you something. Before every show, I go into a zone of sorts. It’s probably why I don’t remember them all so well. But it gets the job done.”

“Are you in the zone now?” I ask quietly, conscious of how close we are to each other.

“I will be in a few minutes. So don’t take offense if I seem a bit standoffish.”

“I would never. You do what you need to do…I’ll…just try not to throw up.”

He puts his hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. I feel waves of mild current flow through him to me, heating my skin. I know it’s all in my head but I’m feeling so alive right now so who knows. Everything is heightened for good or bad.

“You’re going to do great, Lael,” he says to me. “Trust me. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in you. You want to know the trick?”

“What?” Yes. Yes, give me all the fucking tricks.

“Show them no respect.”

I frown. “Ummm.”

He explains. “The reason you’re nervous is because you care too much about what they think. The audience. The crowd. This isn’t about them. They’re here to see you but you’re not here to see them. Give them no respect. Play for you. Don’t worry what they think. You have a story to tell and a show to give and you’ll do it because they’re here for you. Don’t forget that.”

“It sounds a little crude.”

He shrugs casually. “Rock and roll is crude, baby.”

I smile at him, feeling some of my nerves wash away. “That it is.”

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” he says with a wink, “I’m going to go into beast mode. I’ll see you on the other side. And remember, you’re going to do fine. Just be yourself.”

“And show no fear.”

“No respect, but that works too.”

Then he turns and walks off toward the back wings of the stage.

Oh shit. Oh shit, does that mean it’s almost time? What do I do?

I catch Arnie walking past me, his face furrowed in concentration, staring down at his phone.

“Arnie,” I call out, running beside him. “Where do I go? When do we start?”

He glances at me briefly. “Oh, it’s you. Just find the rest of the band.”

“Brad already went on stage.”

“He’s in the zone.”

“I know. So what do I do? How much time till we go on?”

He glances at the phone. “Two minutes, love.” Then he walks off.

“Two minutes!?” I shriek.

Just then the dressing room door opens and Switch and Calvi and one of the guitar techs step out.

“Hey, you didn’t run off,” Calvi says with a smirk.

“No, I didn’t,” I tell him, narrowing my eyes. “I’m ready. At least I think I am.”

“You’re ready as you’ll ever be,” Switch says, patting me on the back and turning me around toward the stage. “Come on, the stage is this way.”

Fuck. I’m not calm, not even in the slightest. The minute Brad went into beast mode and walked off, all my confidence went with him. I have to repeat to myself over and over again, as crude as it sounds, show them no respect, show them no respect.

By the time I’m waiting in the wings of the stage beside Switch and Calvi, Brad off in his own world, looking like a madman, I’m practically shouting the mantra to myself.

Show them no respect!

And yet there they are. I can see them, the audience. They are loud and the show is sold-out and absolutely crammed full, from the fans being squished against the barricade to the line of photographers between them and the stage, looking bored out of their mind as they wait, to the people up in the rafters practically leaning over the railings. This is utter madness.

This is my dream.

A mix of adrenaline and anxiety and pure fucking joy courses through my veins until I’m sure I might just explode right here and all that will be left will be Lael pixie dust. Something I’m sure Calvi would snort up his nose right away.

“You ready?” Switch asks as one of the techs goes out and starts adjusting Brad’s microphone, saying, “Check one, check two, check, check” and the crowd goes absolutely wild.

I shake my head, biting my lip though I can’t tell if it’s because I’m trying not to puke or trying not to smile.

This is unreal.

This is so unreal.

“Ready or not,” Switch says, “it’s show time.”

He glances across the stage where Arnie is standing, arms folded across his chest, and he nods, giving a signal.

“We’re not going to huddle or something?” I ask Switch in a panic, pulling on his sleeve. His t-shirt already feels soaked in sweat and he hasn’t even started drumming yet.

“Huddle?” he says, then his eyes turn salacious. “I’ll gladly give you a private huddle, darling.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and push him out of the way. “Pass. You go drum your drums.”

“You go rock that bass.”

And then Calvi stalks off onto the darkness of the stage, almost in a huff, and I know I have no choice but to follow and find my mark and my instrument, just as we went over during sound check.

It’s surreal.

That’s the only way to explain it.

I walk through the blue dark of the stage over to my bass while the crowd gets louder and louder. I try not to look at their faces, I try to pay attention to just the bass strap going around my shoulders.

But I can’t help but glance at the crowd. Harsh blue light shines down on them and I know they can’t really see me but they’re waiting. Waiting for when Brad walks on stage, when the main lights go on, when we launch into “Fuzzface” our first song.

I’m waiting too.

Heart pounding against my chest.

Stomach swirling.

Breath hitched in my throat.

This is it.

Then the crowd roars, a crescendo that climbs higher and higher and I feel like my soul is being lifted up on a wave.

Brad is on stage.

Though I can’t see his face, he glances over his shoulder at me and nods.

The lights go on.

We go on.

And just like that the crowd only exists to feed me. I go into my own version of beast mode. I am a monster that thrives on cheers and cries and the sweat of everyone in this theater.

I pummel the bass, whipping my hair around, putting every ounce of energy into every note and for now I feel limitless, like my energy has endless reserves that can never be exhausted.

And through it all, I feel intensely connected to Brad, more than I thought I could. I feel connected to everyone. On the stage, in the crowd. We’re all one, all feeding off each other, all lifting each other until we come together in the song.

It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had in my life.

And I know I want to keep doing this until the day I die.

***

“This is a little ridiculous,” I yell up at George, the driver of the bus.

As in the driver of my bus.

As in, I have a fucking bus all to myself because my father doesn’t want me riding with the rest of the band for who knows what reason. He probably thinks they’re a bad influence on me, as if I can be so easily coerced.

Either way, it’s ridiculous.

“I know,” George, a heavy-set guy with a perpetually sweaty forehead, says. “Believe me. Every single tour is an even greater pain in the ass. Why the hell can’t Brad fly? I mean, a private jet? Your father would surely get him a fucking private jet. So he’s afraid of flying? Just drug him up.”

“You know what they say about rock stars and airplanes,” I tell him, coming up to sit beside him in the passenger seat. I sigh as I look ahead of us, the back of the tour bus that the rest of the band is on. My band.

“This is just another way to segregate me from them,” I say, crossing my arms. I’ve been floating through most of the day on a high from last night but now that it’s stretching into the evening and we’re speeding up the I-5 to Seattle, I’m losing a bit of the buzz.

Mainly because I’m annoyed.

I don’t know if at this point it’s my father or the band who really want me traveling back here. After last night’s performance, I was certain that I would feel one step closer to the band. I certainly did when I was on stage.

But when we walked off stage after the encore, everyone went their separate ways. There were no pats on the back, no jobs well done. Nothing. It’s like the show didn’t even happen. We just got on our separate buses and that was that.

Fuck it. I don’t need the band’s approval to tell me I did a good job. I got enough from the media. I’ve spent most of day going through all the concert write-ups of the show, trying to see how we appeared to everyone else.

The good news is, everyone loved it. Specifically, they loved me. Sure some said that it seemed I hadn’t found my place yet on stage and was both a bit rusty and a bit green, but most said I brought a new energy to the band and that I was a breath of fresh air after Nick.

The bad news is, I’m not sure how much the band likes all the focus being on me, nor do I know how the fans feel. I mean, I should know, I’m still one of their biggest fans, even though I’m in it. But I also know what it’s like to love the original lineup and hate change. Nick was a dick but he was what they knew and expected. I’m not sure the fans know quite what to do with me yet and obviously there’s going to be a lot of talk over the fact that I’m Ronald’s daughter and probably bought my way in. Plus some rock fans can be pretty misogynistic when it comes to a girl wailing on the bass and holding her own. I think I’ll have to prove myself over and over again.

Eventually we stop at a hotel in Oregon for the night. We’re doing things the long way, driving up from LA to Seattle, then working our way down the coast. Normally Arnie and George take turns driving through these long hauls but in this case, since there’s now a stupid extra bus on account of me, we have to stop for the night.

At least it gives me an opportunity. The minute I exit the bus and see the band getting off their bus, I beeline it over to Brad.

“Hey,” I tell him, grabbing his arm lightly. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

His eyes light up when he sees me, which is a good sign.

“Sure, what’s up? How’s the bus?”

I pull him aside so that we’re out of earshot of Switch and Calvi who are giving us looks.

“About that,” I say. “I think it’s fucking ridiculous.”

He bursts out laughing. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“I’m serious. It’s costly and pointless.”

“It’s your father’s bill. And his wishes.”

“So? Do you always do what he says?”

He cocks a brow at me, studying me for a moment. I think I may have hit a nerve there.

“No,” he says. “You’re here because you wanted to be here fair and square. You won that audition.”

“What I mean is, I’m a grown woman.” At that, his eyes skirt down over my body and I feel myself blushing from head to toe. I swallow hard and push on. “And I can make my own decisions. It’s not up to my father to decide that I should travel in another bus, which not only keeps me purposely excluded from the band I should be connecting with, but adds to the stress of the journey. We could get places quicker on one bus with Arnie and George taking turns as they used to do.”

Brad sighs and runs his hand over his face. “I know,” he says, looking off toward the hotel.

“Plus don’t you want me to get to know you guys better? Become a real band? I can’t do that if I only see you on stage every night. Our music, our shows, they’ll be a thousand times better if I got to be around you all more often. We need to act like a unit. The audience isn’t stupid, they can tell when bands know each other, like each other. There’s a synchronicity in the air.”

He looks at me curiously. “Is that so? You were great last night.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I tell him pointedly. “After the show, you guys all just went your own ways.”

“We don’t sit around and congratulate each other.”

“Well I could use the encouragement. It was my first show with you guys. Shit, it was my first show playing to more than twenty people.”

“Well you did good,” he says with a nod. “And you’ll do better every night. And yes. I agree we should get rid of the bus. Hell. I want to get to know you better too.”

I bite my lip, trying not to smile. It’s funny how certain words and looks from him have me fangirling all over the place. I need to pull it together. I need to ignore that smile that makes my toes curl, those dark eyes that make my skin feel hot.

“But for tonight,” he goes on, “let’s get you checked in to your room. I’ll tell Arnie and George what’s up. Just so you know, we may have to have the other bus trailing behind as a decoy for a few more days.”

“Decoy?”

“Hey, I’m not scared about disobeying your father’s orders but I’m not going to fuck with anything this early in the tour. Believe me, your father has eyes everywhere. He’ll be asking about the bus for a while yet. You just won’t be on it.”

I laugh. “It’s still ridiculous then.”

“Welcome to the world of rock and roll,” Brad says. He places his hand at the back of my arm and steers me toward the hotel. “Come on, let’s get you settled in. Tomorrow we play Seattle, then Portland, then San Francisco. Those crowds are going to be insane, so you need your rest. The best is just ahead of us.”