Simon Watts is a slimy fucker.

I was hired by his former business partner, not him, and he resents the hell out of it. Had he been in the office that day, I’d never have gotten the job.

Girls, as he puts it, are secretaries and promotion props, not pyrotechnicians, stage hands, roadies, or designers.

They are to look pretty and fetch his coffee and tell people he isn’t in.

And he’s smiling at me with the same smug expression as Steve, still no nickname. Because the rest of the crew can’t stand him.

I have a nickname. It was just that Grady is the only one allowed to use it. Skeet called me fire woman as a joke, just once, and the glare Grady shot his way could have turned Medusa herself to stone.

All of this is fine by me.

“Due to recent…misconduct, let us say, we have decided not to send you back out on the road with Bourbon Suicide. Or any other concert tours or stage shows.”

“And what misconduct is that? I wasn’t aware of any complaints.” This is the argument Lass and Terrel suggested I use. They were ready and waiting to back it up.

“I don’t suppose anyone would complain until he decides he’s had enough fun. Really, Evie, what were you thinking, that he’d be interested in you as anything more than a novelty.”

I shoot him a fake smile of my own. “My personal relationships are not this company’s concern.”

“They are when they make this company look bad. Which you have now done twice. There will not be a third time.”

I try for diplomacy. “I’m not sure what you’ve been told, Simon, but as we’ve kept our relationship private, your source did not give you an accurate account of what it is.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is. Reputations make or break this business, and reputations are all about how things look, and it looks like you’re screwing a client. Again. I’m running a staging effects company. Not a whorehouse.”

I’d believed Grady when he insisted the opposite was true, that what something is matters more than what it looks like.

Maybe in his world it does, but not here, in my world. Our two spheres intertwine, but they are not the same.

I steel myself. This wasn’t over yet. “The two circumstances are entirely different.” Simon knew what happened on the musical production, how the tour manager went along with my ex’s account to keep his diva happy. Simon didn’t care then, and he doesn’t care now.

This fits his agenda so much better. “As detailed in this section of your employment contract, anything that may cast doubt on the professionalism, including employee client interactions, is grounds for removal.”

“Are you firing me?” Please let him be firing me. I’ve only got two leads on other positions, but they’d do while I sue this ass for wrongful termination. I may not win, but Terrel talked to the band’s business manager, and he talked to their lawyers, and they think I have a shot getting a settlement. Simon so hates when his name is in the papers for lawsuits.

“Not at this time.” Another smug grin. Because he has something else up his sleeve. “There are still eight months left in this contract. Since we sent another tech to take Sparks’s place, you’ll be filling in as assistant on some of our upcoming film and television projects.”

He slides my contract across the desk and points to a section marked off with a sticky flag. “As part of the noncompete clause, you wouldn’t be able to work as a pyrotechnician until those eight months are up. And your contract is discharged.” A process he could drag out for months if he wanted to, and he wants to.

My eyes narrow and my head starts to pound. Sharp pains shoot into my skull.

No doubt he’s been planning this since Sparks told him he can’t tour anymore. That’s what took so long to hear from them with a decision.

BlastFX – one. Evie – zero. Again.

Simon leans back in his chair and settles his perfectly manicured hands on the pants of his tailored trousers. “The office girls will be in touch when they have work for you. Now get out of my office.”

I barely contain the rage as I make my way through the building and out to my car, eyes following me the entire way. Some with pity, some with a disappointed head shake, some wondering how long before they can use me to get another job.

The driver’s door of my beat-up hatchback has a bum latch, and it takes four tries before it closes. Angry hot tears are streaming down my face before I make it half a mile.

I fucking knew better, and now I’m trapped doing less than corporate picnics.

And the worst part is, I can’t even cry on Grady’s shoulder.

I don’t answer my phone until I’m locked in my apartment. Which required getting around Sparks, who’s ready to wire and detonate the entire BlastFX facility.

I have to send a few emails. Check my bank account and make a new, leaner budget. A million tasks, every one written in my disaster plan notebook. I’d started it the night of my parents’ funeral, when I swore I’d never let chance get the best of me again.

Yeah, a fourteen-year-old couldn’t always do much about their situation, but this notebook had gotten me through my first heartbreak, my first bounced check, signing my first apartment lease, the deaths of both grandparents, and had enabled me to build a decent-sized nest egg.

Good thing I hadn’t splurged on a hotel in Vegas.

Though I hadn’t needed to. Because Grady had stepped in.

I square my shoulders. The temptation is there, to let him take care of it while I hide under the covers and stress eat, but I can’t take advantage like that. Even if it is kind of his fault.

Except it’s not, not really, but anger is tearing up my insides, burning hotter with every second and I have to get it out somehow.

Running five miles doesn’t do much, but at least I’ve burned off the calories from all the stress eating I’m going to do.

My phone is blinking. I swipe the screen and there’s dozens of calls, messages, and social media notifications. Most of them are Grady, but there’s a few from each of the band, plus Lass, Darcy, and Terrel.

It rings again while I’m holding it. Grady.

“Where have you been?” he asks, concern lacing his voice. “Fuck, I was about to fly out there.”

“You have a show tomorrow night.”

“I’d manage to get back in time. What happened? Some new guy showed up. Apparently he was waiting at a hotel since yesterday until he got the word to report for duty.”

I fill him in, including how Simon planned the whole thing.

“Fucker.”

“Yeah.” My laptop is up and running and I ping him for a video chat. His face, looking a little tired, appears on the screen seconds later.

Our phones click off.

“We’re going to take care of this, Evie. Don’t worry. Just pack a bag and get back here.”

I blink at him. “I don’t have a job there anymore, Grady.”

“So?”

“So I have bills to pay.”

“I’ll cover them. Come hang out, get your bearings.”

“With the guy who took my job? Humiliation much?”

The thought hadn’t occurred to him. “The only one who should be humiliated is him. Terrel’s trying to get the guy up to speed, says he’s not real bright. Just what we want in the guy who detonates shit near our balls. We’ll get him smashed and throw him in a closet or something and you can do the show.”

He’s trying to be funny, but nothing is funny right now. “There’s a detailed cue list in a plastic sleeve in the bottom drawer of the control board’s road case. That should help.”

“Thanks. This is going to suck.”

“Can you refuse to take the guy? Make Simon send someone else?”

“We tried. He said he doesn’t have anyone else. Managers and lawyers are on it, but we’re sold out. The show must go on.”

Fresh tears sting my eyes. The only ones who aren’t replaceable are the five guys in the band. Everyone else is a cog making the machine run.

For a moment, I almost forgot I’m only support staff.

“Hey, hey. What’s with the tears?”

I swipe the back of my hand over my eye, twisting an eyelash in the process, which just makes everything worse. “My whole career just fell apart, what the fuck do you think is with the tears?”

His hands keep appearing in frame, like he’s trying to touch me, then remembering there’s a screen and a few dozen states between us.

“It’s not falling apart. You’re great at what you do. This is a setback. A temporary one. Use vacation time, whatever you’ve got, just get on a plane while we fix this.”

“I don’t have vacation time!” I slap my hands on my desk and my laptop jumps. I’m practically wailing. “I used it to see my brother and his family over the holidays. Not that I should have bothered.”

They were staying with my sister-in-law’s family and were more interested in spending time with them. Not that we really had anything in common to talk about.

“Okay. I’m sorry. I know you’re upset, but this isn’t that bad.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” My tone is snarky, but I can’t help it. He has a car that costs more than I make in two years.

“This isn’t easy for me, Evie. It’s killing me being over here and you’re not and I can’t help.”

“It’s not fucking about you!” I wail, standing up and starting to pace.

“I didn’t say it was.”

“For someone who feels so bad, you sure are calm about it. Nice to know I don’t even rate a heightened response.”

He doesn’t respond and I risk a glance at the screen. His eyes are closed and his jaw works, like he’s grinding his teeth and counting to a hundred. “I’m trying to solve the problem here. Going off isn’t going to do that.”

“Get that from your mama too?”

“I did, matter of fact. She’s working right now, but I can call her and have her stop by later.”

“Your mama can’t fix everything, Grady!”

“This isn’t fixing shit either!”

“I fucking knew this would happen.” I kick my bag and it knocks into my desk, jostling the laptop again.

“Settle down before you break your laptop.”

I can’t afford a new one. Or a new phone. Or even to fix my car. Not until my contract expires and I can find a new job. One without an asshat boss.

“Why couldn’t you just leave me alone! Everything would have been fine, but oh, no, rock star Grady Baker can’t stand not being the center of attention, even if it wrecks someone else’s life!”

“Wrecked your life?” He’s standing up now too, screaming at the screen, his voice projecting like it does onstage. “How the fuck did I wreck your life? By wanting to take care of you? By making you laugh? How about you turning my fucking world upside down and then acting like you can just leave and everything will be fine?”

“I didn’t want to leave, they replaced me!”

“And I asked you to come back! This isn’t all about your damn job, Evie. What about us?” His eyes are wild as he leans closer to the camera. “What are you going to do about us?”

“You think I’ve had time to think about that?”

His breath saws in and out, his mouth opening and closing several times. “Not important enough to make a plan for, huh? Then don’t fucking come at me about wrecking your life. You can’t spend your life planning for every fucking possible disaster and not actually living, you know.”

“Don’t tell me about disasters! Don’t tell me about everything falling apart. You have no idea, with your naked skateboarding and parties and family out the ass.”

“You want family? Then get the fuck back out here!”

“Don’t put your bullshit long-distance crap on me!”

“Evie,” he growls.

“Just…just…fuck off!” I slam the laptop closed, ending the call.

***

“And that’s why long-distance relationships are a fucking joke!” I scream at the screen, a black square where Evie’s image just was.

Spinning, I search the room for something to throw. Something to smash. Something to make the seething anger tangible.

Everything I pick up, I put down, unbroken.

I haven’t thrown anything in anger in almost a decade. Since I hit James with a lamp and gave him a concussion. Instead I grab the edge of a table, the wood creaking under my hands as I step back and let my head hang between my arms.

A good blood rush may make me dizzy enough to refocus.

I’ll just get on a fucking plane and go take care of this shit. What’s the point in being rich if I wasn’t going to use it?

Before I can book a ticket, there’s a series of knocks on my door. Four of them, overlapping each other.

“So, finally reached her, huh?” Dodge calls through the door.

I wrench it open and all four of them are standing there. “Why do we even give you a microphone?” Bax pushes his way past me and throws himself across the bed.

“Not in the mood. Get out.”

The other three walk in and make themselves comfortable.

“We just gonna get to the point, or do you want to dance around it for a while?” Dodge props his chin on his hand.

“Have we heard from the lawyers yet?”

“That’s one point, anyway,” Noah says. I flip him off.

“It’s doable, but it’s going to cost us. A lot. Especially if we want it done quickly.”

“How much is a lot, exactly?”

Bax pulls out his phone and reads off a number. It’s higher than I expected, but manageable. “Fine. Tell them I’ll get it together and to start proceedings or whatever.”

“Hold up here.” James turns his chair around and straddles it. “Did you just insinuate that you are going to pay for all this? Yourself?”

“I didn’t insinuate it, I fucking said it.”

“For a woman you just had an epic screaming match with.” There’s no question in Noah’s statement.

“It was pretty brutal, dude,” Bax adds.

“And the whole floor heard you.” My gaze turns to Dodge, who thumbs over his shoulder toward the door, and the hallways and rooms beyond. “Like, everyone. Sure it wasn’t intentional, but good move not telling her we’re breaking a contract. The moles are out welcoming the new guy.”

“Can’t believe we have to put up with those fuckers until this is settled.” Got to agree with James on that one.

Bax finishes tapping at his screen and tosses his phone to the bed. “Done. And fuck you if you think you’re eating the cost of this. It’s bullshit. It’s been nothing but bullshit with that company for years now. Your mom is getting a firm look for not telling us about Watts’s assholeness sooner.”

“And dude,” Dodge says, “whatever you do, do not let Suzy go over to Evie’s until the dust’s settled a bit.”

Three heads nod in agreement.

I slump to sit on the foot of the bed, after I smack Bax’s boots out of the way, and drop my head into my hands. “What the fuck am I going to do?”

“Well, since we pretty much just decided on the solution to the business problem, and the answer will still be fuck you if you even dare start in on paying for this yourself again, guess you just have to decide on the personal problem.”

Dodge interrupts. “When did James become the wise one? Isn’t he still the broody, bitter one?”

I raise my head, looking from one to the other. “What are we, television band archetypes or something?”

“Oh, I call dibs on the heartthrob then, since Grady’s off the market and all.” Bax nudges me, hard, with his boot.

I flip him off over my shoulder.

“Anyway,” James continues. “Since not once have you mentioned an end to the relationship, you better start thinking about how it’s going to work if she doesn’t come back to work here.”

“Long distance relation—”

One drummer’s hand, two pillows, and my thankfully empty laptop bag hit me.

“What the fuck?”

Noah starts ticking off names of guys we know in other bands. Soon Dodge starts adding names too, then Bax, though he has far fewer.

“Haven’t guessed what they all have in common yet?” James asks. I lift my hands, palms up. “You’ve had a rough day. Let me help you out. Every single one of them is in a successful, long term, long distance relationship. If all of them make it work, so can you.”

“You made a list.”

“Don’t make it weird, dude. It was a drinking game.”

“Naked drinking game?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

“Is there another kind?”

Maybe, after we’d been together a while, Evie and I could make long distance work. But first, I had to get her back on this tour, naked drinking game problem solving and all.