"Fuck!" My voice rang out in the empty stadium, echoing off the metal roof.

"Newb? You okay?" Deuces called from his post back by Woody.

"It's fine. It's nothing," I grunted, bending my head down and tugging the cables back out agin. "Fucking amp shit the bed finally."

"You need to call the supplier?"

"Yeah. Hope like hell they can get it to us in time." I tapped my finger against my lips in thought. "Wait. I can probably re-wire this other one to do the thing..." I trailed off as the wheels in my head started turning.

Necessity is the mother of invention, and roadies might be the most inventive mothers of all. When I first started hanging around with the crew at a scuzzy club in Western PA, I had been surprised by how much of the set-up was rigged together with spit and glue. In my mind, I'd assumed they had some kind of magical powers. That was until I met Grassley.

He had one name, like Cher. In that corner of the world, if you said, "I was talking to Grassley the other day," everyone knew who you meant. He was the roadie king, but the kind of king who wore his crown at a cockeyed angle and had most of the jewels slapped on with gobs from a hot glue gun.

Uncle Gil was the one who first introduced me to Grassley. I'd been nervous at first, but instead of the growling, frightening road-demon I'd imagined, he exuded the calming aura of a cat in a sunbeam. With his cue-ball bald head and long, scraggly fringe around his ears, he looked like some kind of mad, Medieval wizard. And when you added in the perfectly round, blue-tinted shades he liked to sport to cut down on the glare from the spots, you half expected him wear a star-printed robe and shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips.

But Grassley was magic in a different way. He knew how to fix anything, and I do mean anything, and he taught me everything he knew. He was also magic to me because he was my friend from the start. A real friend. He didn't stare at my tits, he didn't try to get into my pants. He never tried to get anything more out of me than a good job well done.

Grassley had been the one who contacted Woody on my behalf. As I stood there, mentally drawing circuits in my head, trying to figure out where the amp had shorted out, I remembered the desperate phone conversation I'd had with him, trying like hell to keep the panic out of my voice. My stint working a leg of the Ruthless tour had ended and if I didn't find a job right then and there, I was afraid I'd end up back in Claybrook.

Turned out, he had something in mind for me immediately. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Absolutely nothing," I told him with a grin.

"There's this redheaded band manager who won't stop calling me," he said. "But my back's been acting up, and I don't think I can put in the kind of hours that this new gig needs. Feel like giving me a hand?"

"Who is it?"

"Do you remember Wrecked? Apparently they're reforming, got a new singer and everything. It'll be a nice earner for you."

Touring with the other band had been grueling. But it kept me away from Claybrook. "Okay," I had said "Where, and what time?"

I smiled to myself there on the stage. "What if I had said no?" I wondered aloud. I would have never met Niall. That seemed unthinkable now.

Jonah King was milling about, waiting to do his soundcheck as I stood there messing with the dead amp. I felt my throat tighten, old anxiety about being good enough, about being one of the guys, closing around my neck.

And then the fix suddenly jumped into my head like it had been there all along. "Got it!" I shouted, unscrewing the back of the cabinet and ripping out the shorted wire. I peeled back the plastic sheathing and coiled it around a new one, and popped it back into place.

"Where'd you learn this stuff?"

Jonah was suddenly standing over my shoulder. He might have been watching this whole time.

"School of life, I suppose," I said, screwing the back of the cabinet into place. I looked up at him. "You pick up a trick or two."

He shook his head. "Damn. Niall is a lucky guy."

My throat tightened again. But there was no malice in his eyes, no insinuation dripping off his lips. H knew about our relationship - we hadn't exactly been hiding it - but he didn't seem to think less of me for it. His handsome face wasn't all contorted mockingly, instead it just looked a little wistful.

I blinked. 'Thanks," I said, patting the top of the amp. "I'm a pretty lucky girl, too."