CHAPTER EIGHT
VERONICA

The phone beeps from my nightstand as a video chat request pops up on my screen. I reach out to grab it before it vibrates off the corner of the tiny wooden stand and my shoulder seizes. Ow! That sudden bolt of pain is a harsh reminder of being trampled by a few hundred people last night. I smack the join button without looking at the profile image. When it stops buffering, the screen flashes and throws my face into the bottom half of the screen. Just as I go to yell at Alyssa or JT for waking me up so early, I let my eyes shift to see Travis Miller’s goofy grin filling the top screen. “Holy sh—” I screech, jumping out of the hotel bed and throwing the phone face down on the white down comforter. I scramble to find something decent to throw on instead of my pajamas. A plain black shirt and jeans are what I see first. That should work. If he asks, I’ll just tell him it’s casual Friday. Totally not a lie.

“Veronica?” he cackles through the speaker. “Where are you?”

Great.

“I am…” He can’t know that I’m already in Santa Fe. He’ll put two-and-two together and realize I work for the enemy before I can find the story that might get The Machine off their asses. “At work,” I say with every bit of formality, as one might expect to find in a conference room. The default into formal mode just happens sometimes, and it’s usually at the most awkward times.

“Right. Okay. But, uh…” he’s obviously trying to hide his laughter but doing a terrible job of it. “Why can’t I see your face anymore?”

“Because the phone is face down,” I say matter-of-factly.

His chuckle echoes in the sparsely furnished hotel room. I don’t have the money to pay for high-priced suites and the journal is not funding this little adventure, since I’ve already pissed Alan off. Where the hell is my tripod? I finally locate it at the bottom of my single piece of luggage, which I haven’t unpacked once since hitting the road. I prop the tripod up on the table and quickly grab the phone from the bed and lock it into place so it’s facing the plain beige colored wall, which could pass for an office wall. “See?” I ask, plopping down in the chair sitting on the backside of the table. “I’m here.”

“Do you always wear nineties boy band tees to work? That sounds like it must be a kick-ass job if you ask me.”

What? I look down and to my horror discover I did not pull out my plain black t-shirt, but I have a blonde boy band member who was the object of my teenage affections plastered across my chest. “Um…”

He holds up both hands and cackles on the other side of the screen. “No judgment. I’ve said it before, I always wanted to be a Backstreet Boy. I used to even practice some of their dance routines in the mirror.”

This is a nightmare. “Don’t lie. You still do that.” I couldn’t help myself. That opening was too good. “I don’t mean to be rude, but… How did you get my contact info?”

“From Griffin.”

I can feel my face distorting as I try to process this information. “And Griffin got my information from…”

“Vic.”

“Right…” Vic is their driver who brought me back to the hotel in Dallas after the emergency room’s attending doctor cleared me last night. He said I just had some nasty contusions and sent me off with a prescription for pain relievers, which I haven’t filled yet because I was too hopped up on adrenaline and didn’t feel anything until I crossed the border into New Mexico. By then it was too late to change my mind. I just kept going until I reached Santa Fe early this morning. “And Vic got my information from…”

He shrugs. “No clue. Vic is just good like that.”

“Okay. Um… So, I’m not entirely sure that’s legal.” I can’t help but laugh and feel just a little flattered by his apparent persistence in finding out how to contact me.

“Are you sure?”

I nod, slowly. “Yeah, I think it’s kind of close to stalking.” The investigative journalist in me is impressed with his dedication though.

He shakes his head. “No. I’m pretty sure it’s fine, especially since your profile is 

public.”

My lips purse together in a pout. “Okay, that’s fair.” I stare at the rockstar on the other side of the screen who is clearly waiting for me to make the next move with this conversation. “So… what can I do for you?”

He leans forward and rubs his hands together like he’s got a juicy secret he’s dying to tell. “We have a proposition for you.”

“Who’s we? You and your brothers?”

He nods. “Amaryllis as a whole.”

“Is this a please don’t sue us for getting trampled at our show kind of proposition?”

“No, it’s more of a help us, and we help you kind of thing,” he says.

Help? The biggest rock band in the country is offering to help me. “What kind of help are you offering? Help rarely comes free.” I’ve learned that the hard way in this business. If someone offers to help you, then they’re going to expect something from you in return and it will probably mean selling your soul.

“We do want something,” he admits without an ounce of shame in his tone of voice.

Of course, they do. “What’s the deal?”

“We’re tired of having to fight to maintain our right to a personal bubble. A tiny bubble, because we don’t mind living our lives in the spotlight, but still a bubble. Does that make sense?”

“Are you kidding?” I scoff. “In my line of work there is no such thing as a personal bubble.” I can’t help but think about Jenkins somehow winding up in the same hotel as me.

“So, you get it?” he asks.

“Yep,” I nod. “My editor threw my assignment to my rival when I told him I wanted to take a different angle and they’ve been crawling up my ass ever since.”

“Man, that’s harsh for a local newspaper. What was the angle?”

Shit. I forgot he thinks I work for a local black and white. “Um… Instead of covering the recovery of the local economy, I wanted to cover the return of the entertainment industry and how it’s just in time to help fight the growing mental health epidemic after over a year of lockdowns and bad news.” I hate lying and that was a big one.

“That’s an awesome topic. They should print that.”

I shrug. “He’s not going to. He took my rival’s piece and reassigned me, so I’m working on the story anyway and will find somewhere to place it after it’s written.”

“Would it help if you had exclusive access to one of the country’s best selling rock bands?”

“As in the top selling band of the last decade?” I ask, afraid to assume that he’s really offering me exclusive access to Amaryllis.

He nods. “The deal is, we give you the exclusive updates and headline worthy scoops, along with up-to-date tour news.”

“And what’s in it for you?” This offer is too good to be true. There’s a catch somewhere.

“We’re trying to train the press to give us our personal space and stop invading our private lives so much. There was a near miss that could have killed someone yesterday just because they wanted to get a picture of us on our bus. My brothers have families of their own now, kids are involved. It’s just too much.”

I squint at the screen. “I’m still not sure how that involves me.”

“We want you to break our news and when they ask how you got the exclusive, all you have to do is tell them is you respected our personal space and we invited you in because of that.”

That’s easy enough. “I can do that.”

“Would that help you with your editor?”

I’m not sure if it would help me with Alan, or not. He seems pretty set on the story he wants to run about Amaryllis. “It would help me secure my career, for sure.” I could take the pieces elsewhere and get myself out from under Alan’s thumb. It could even be enough to launch me back into investigative reporting if the exclusives are deep enough. “There’s more to it though, isn’t there?”

“Maybe,” he half-heartedly admits.

“What’s the rest of it?”

He sighs and clasps his hands together like he’s having to convince himself to tell me the rest. “The academy will announce their nominations soon. If we’re covered in negative press, we won’t stand a chance. They don’t want anything tarnishing their elitist club.”

“And with your biggest rival constantly in the press for breaking the law, you think you can swoop in and land the nominations by looking like the poster children for do-gooder rock-and-roll?”

“I mean…” He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s not exactly like that.”

I shrug. “I don’t blame you for wanting the nomination. I also don’t blame you for wanting to throw The Machine and their signed artists under the bus to do it.” A group of people walk past my hotel room’s window. The giggles and laughter are loud enough they echo through the phone’s speaker.

“What is that?” Travis asks. “Office party?”

“Smart ass.” I lean out of the camera frame and peek through the cheap blinds covering my window. “Looks like hashtag-rock-girl-summer is in full swing.” I flip the camera angle around, so he can see the girls and Amaryllis t-shirts. I cringe as soon as I realize how close I came to showing my hand as the Santa Fe Inn sign flashes in the background. Luckily, I pulled my hand back just before it landed in the camera view.

He laughs and turns a bright shade of red at the fandom appearance. “Are you still in Dallas? They must’ve been at the show last night.”

“Uh-huh,” I grunt, trying not to commit myself to saying that I’m still in Texas. My fingers reach for the Welcome to New Mexico brochure lying on the table and shove it further back to make sure it doesn’t somehow find its way into the camera angle. “So… when do you want to start this new arrangement?” I ask to change the subject.

“Our next show is tomorrow night in Santa Fe. Are you free for that?”

“Dallas to Santa Fe is about a ten-hour drive.” That’s not a lie. It’s a fact. Maybe a little misleading, but not a lie.

“You don’t need to drive that far,” he says, shaking his head and waving both hands in front of him. “We’re asking you for a favor, so the least we can do is handle the travel arrangements. If you’re free to cover us, we’ll take care of the rest.”

“I’m free, but I really—”

“Perfect.” He smiles and it lights up his entire face. I’m a little annoyed by how handsome he is. It’s distracting.

Focus! I yell at myself, internally.

“I’ll send you the confirmation number and forward you the e-ticket,” he adds.

“No.” I hold my hands up. “I don’t do airplanes,” I lie, so I won’t have to explain that I’m already in town and no one will be there to pick up the ticket in Dallas. 

He’s not listening.

“Fly safe and we’ll see you here tomorrow.” He ends the call, and my phone goes back to the home screen.

Why are men always so damn stubborn? I find the group chat with Alyssa and JT, then tap the button to send them a message.

Me: So… Travis Miller just invited me to cover Amaryllis exclusively. Don’t breathe a word to anyone.

Alyssa: OMG!

JT: You have to get me an autograph or your friendship card will be permanently revoked.

When I go to stand up, I’m reminded by a sudden twinge in my shoulder that the doctor told me to take seventy-two hours to recover before trying to do anything strenuous. I’ve got twenty-four hours before I’m due at the Amaryllis camp. Luckily, that’s only about a ten-minute drive from my hotel room. Something is better than nothing, I reason as I crawl back into the hotel room’s bed. My conscience is nagging me about telling him I’m still in Dallas. Lies and deception are no way to start a new business relationship. 

Technically, I didn’t tell him I was still in Dallas.

He just assumed.

We all know what they say about someone who assumes all the time… The thought makes me chuckle to myself as I drift back to sleep.

---

“Is this it?” My Uber driver asks as we pull up to a fenced area behind the event center. “They’re not letting anyone in until the gates open at six-thirty.”

The buses block us from being able to see much of anything, except shadows of people moving around on the other side. “I think so,” I say as I tap to pay for my ride on the app. I add a good tip because he didn’t make needless conversation and let me stay in my own thoughts the whole way here. The only time we had to make polite conversation was when he asked where we were headed and if this was the place or not. “Thank you.” The door closes behind me as I scan the lot, trying to find the security access gate. I check the message on my phone one more time, just to be sure I’m not losing my mind.

Travis Miller: Devon will have his team watching for you. The security access gate is on the east side of the lot. See you soon.

I don’t know east from west if I’m not looking at a compass, so I go back to scanning the fence line until I think I see a break in the pattern. It’s a little too far away to tell, but I make my way toward it until I hear a voice calling out in the distance. It’s repeating itself. I keep walking. I can’t tell what it’s saying, anyway. Oh, right. I remember I’m wearing my ear pods and yank one out to see if that helps clear things up a little…

“Veronica!” a deep voice calls from the other side of the fence. It’s Devon, the security guard who pulled me from the pit the other night. “Over here.” He yells, waving his hand so I can see him through the tiny gap between busses. I follow the direction his shadow is headed. I can see it through the gaps as we walk in the opposite direction of where I thought the access gate was. When we get to the edge of the lot, Devon’s face comes into clear view as he squeezes between the last bus on this row and the one backed up to it to block off the adjoining fence line. “We thought you weren’t coming.”

“What? Why?” I just confirmed with him yesterday. Why would they think I would be a no-show?

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just heard them talking earlier, and they thought you bailed, especially Travis.”

“Weird.” I pat the messenger style bag I have slung around my shoulder. “I’m here and ready to take on whatever story they want to give me.”

He nods and motions for me to follow him. “They’re over here.” He hands me a keycard with the band logo on it. “They have reprogramed the fences with our security lock code. This will get you in as long as Amaryllis is on this side of the gate.”

The sounds of equipment being loaded in and hooked up send steady charges of electricity through the air. Buzzes followed by hisses, which fade into nothing, also add to the energy building around the venue. I can see why someone would choose to immerse themselves in this life. It’s infectious. I’ve only been here a few minutes and I’m already feeling like I could start bouncing off the walls at any minute.

It’s almost empowering, a feeling like I could take on anything.

“Ladies and gentle-rockers, Millers and girls, look who’s here!” Devon bellows out as he pushes open a makeshift door on a temporary building that’s being used as a pre-show meeting room. It’s decorated in mandalas and bright colors accented with blacks. I’m guessing it was a mutual effort to create this space. There’s a mixture of personalities and interests coming through, but somehow it all blends and works together. I recognize the Miller brothers instantly, and one of the women I recognize as being the current keyboard player for Amaryllis. Her name is London. The romance between her and Griffin took the media world by storm. That was one thing every press outlet agreed on. They were supposed to be doomed from the start. The media got that one wrong too. It makes me wonder how much else they’ve put out about this group of brothers and their family that might just be a bunch of crap too. Travis is the first one to turn around and notice us as we walk into the room.

“You made it!” he sounds shocked.

“Of course, I did.” I reach out to shake his hand, which is just a sign of professional courtesy; but he reaches out with both arms and lifts me off my feet. “Why did you think I bailed?” I squeak out as his arms squish the breath out of my lungs.

Adair Miller scoffs, as Travis puts me back on my feet. “Because you didn’t pick up the ticket Amaryllis paid for.” Okay, he’s clearly going to be the difficult one here.

Griffin shakes his head and makes his way across the room to greet me. “Don’t mind Adair. He went feral during the lockdowns. We’re still trying to re-acclimate him to society.”

I recognize the woman sitting next to Adair as the friendly, purple-haired woman who helped me after Devon pulled me out of the pit. “Hi,” she says with what looks like a forced smile. It’s a different person than who I remember meeting only two nights ago. “Don’t mind me,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “I would get up to shake your hand, but I just feel like total shit.”

I nod, but apparently my face gives me away.

“Don’t worry, I’m not contagious.”

Oh. Every woman recognizes that look and those words. I’m glad to know she doesn’t have the plague that shut the entire world down only a short time ago but hope the morning sickness passes for her soon.

“So, what story are you here to cover?” Nash Miller asks from the back of the room where he’s been leaning since I got here. His eyes are studying me. I can feel his gaze waiting to assess my response. He must be their gatekeeper, and if I answer correctly, then I’ll get his seal of approval. Somehow, I get the feeling I need that seal of approval to go any further than I already am.

I shrug and paint on my best people-pleasing smile. You learn how to be a chameleon when you have to appeal to all different types of people to get the information you need with your next deadline looming. That’s one part of the business I don’t enjoy. “Travis said, Amaryllis would decide the story.”

He crosses his arms in front of his chest.

I guess that wasn’t the right answer.

“You’re willing to write whatever we tell you?”

Ah. He’s afraid I’m for sale to the highest bidder. I shake my head. “Not exactly. I’m here to listen and to see if there’s something worth printing.” Nash opens his mouth to object. But I don’t give him a chance. “If there’s nothing here, then I won’t run a story on Amaryllis at all, but if I find a story, then I’ll give you all the chance to read it before I send it to my editor. Travis also said he had some exclusives he wanted me to break. If those are newsworthy, then the same rules would apply.”

Nash’s expression hasn’t changed, but he uncrosses his arms and takes the few steps it requires for him to cross the room so that he’s standing in front of me now. “That sounds more than fair,” he says with his expression finally softening. He reaches out and shakes my hand as Travis pushes him back and stands between us.

“All right, all right. You’ve terrified our new team member enough for one day.”

I try to hide my amusement, but a giggle slips out. “Honestly, that was the least terrifying encounter I’ve had while trying to do my job.”

Travis gasps and clutches his chest in super dramatic fashion, which I’ve already come to expect from him. “What about our conversation yesterday?”

“Oh, let’s see,” I tease while holding one finger up at a time, mentally ticking boxes off as I go down the list. “First, you stole my contact information. Second, you video chatted me instead of just sending me a message or an email. Like, who does that?” I throw my hands out wide in feigned exasperation.

The women in the room groan and nod their heads in agreement. “Travis,” Carly interjects. “Travis always video chats. You’ve seriously got a problem on your hands with that one.”

I nod. “I kind of picked up on that.”

“Okay, okay…” Travis scoffs, motioning for me to follow him. “Enough of that, Travis is a weirdo stuff. Let’s go see your first story.” He walks off toward the back of the room, where there’s another exit leading to the other side of the lot. He pauses in the doorway, holding the black metal door open. “Are you coming?”

I wave awkwardly to the room full of rockstars, which isn’t weird for me at all…  and make my way over to the doorway. “Do they always stare like that?”

He shrugs and nods. “Yes, they’re always super annoying like that.” He raises his volume on the annoying part, so they all hear him before letting the door shut behind us. The walk to the venue isn’t that long, but it seems to be growing because of the awkward silence now that we’re the only two people around. I’m a journalist. Shouldn’t I have a list of questions to ask this guy? In fact, I did have a list prepared; but something in the way his mouth curves up in his signature smirk is making my brain turn to mush.

“What do you do when you’re not working?” he asks while still leading me toward the event center.

“I don’t know what not working looks like,” I say as my mouth twists into a scowl. “I haven’t had a day off in… Actually, I can’t remember the last time I took a day off.”

“That’s how it feels to me sometimes, too. I guess it’s a good thing we love what we do, huh?” he nudges me in the arm with his elbow.

I feel my eyebrows pinch together. “How do you know I love what I do?”

“If you didn’t love it, then you’d take a day off once in a while.”

Hmm.

“You’re kind of quiet for a journalist.”

I’m almost offended. Almost. “Is there a certain level of vocal exertion I’m supposed to hit to be counted among qualified journalists?” I tease.

He snorts and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I just figured someone who makes their living from words would talk nonstop.”

Oh. “Since I make my living with words, they aren’t exactly my favorite thing when I’m off the clock. Music is what I dive into when I need to escape,” I admit.

His eyes light up. “Yeah?”

I nod. “I remember being a kid and just disappearing into the music. Whenever I had something, I was struggling with or going through, music is what calmed everything back down on the inside.”

“Now that I can relate to.” He nods toward the stage entrance at the back of the building. “This is us,” he says, holding the door open for me again. “Griffin’s always been the primary lyricist for the band. Nash started helping more with that last year after he wrote the lyrics to the song that put us back on the map.”

“That one seemed to take off right away.”

“There’s something about love that makes a song grow wings.”

“What do you mean?”

He pauses and looks back at me, almost like he’s deciding if he should tell me what’s next. “Something we never told the media, or the fans, is that Nash wrote that song for his wife. It was how he proposed to her.”

“Oh, my goodness.” I grab my chest to keep my heart from flying right out of my rib cage. “That is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. The media would’ve eaten that up.”

He grins as he turns back around, leading me up the ramp marked Load-in with an arrow pointing up. “Carly’s begged him to let her build a marketing campaign around it, but he won’t. He wants it to stay something just between him and Ainsley, so it stays special to her.”

“I won’t tell a soul.” I cross my heart and make a three fingered salute. “On my honor.”

He smirks, just enough I can see it from the corner of my eye. “I don’t know why, but I already know you won’t. I think you are someone we can trust, and we don’t find that often.”

Maybe now is a good time to let him know why I didn’t pick up the tickets in Texas…

“Travis!” a woman’s voice calls out from behind us. “Wait! I think I found her!” She’s running up the ramp and dressed in a mid-thigh tight pencil skirt and bright red spiked heels. Her makeup looks like she just stepped off a photo shoot and her skin is flawless. He stops and turns as soon as he hears her calling his name. I’m confused by the frustration I feel at his attention being diverted from our conversation and onto her. I shake my head and remind myself why I’m here. This is a chance of a lifetime. Chill. The. Eff. Out. I repeat my mantra to myself at least a hundred times while they’re talking. She’s showing him something on her phone and they’re whispering back and forth. I’m trying to pretend it’s not awkward to stand here waiting for them to finish their private conversation. I catch her glancing up at me from underneath her long eyelashes. Before I can ask, what I can do for her, Travis looks up from her phone with defeat in his eyes.

“It’s not her. I would know it if I saw her. Thank you for trying though.” He tucks his head down so his chin is almost touching his chest as he starts back up the ramp, pausing when he reaches me and motioning for me to follow him.

“What just happened back there?” I can’t hold my curiosity in anymore.

He glances at me from the corner of his eye. “That’s kind of… private.”

“I’m a journalist, remember? You want me to show the heart of Amaryllis and help fight the smear campaign The Machine is spearheading, right?”

“I didn’t tell you any of that,” he says. “I told you that we wanted our personal lives back.”

I hold my hands up in a sign of peace and surrender. “You didn’t have to tell me. I see what they’re doing. And I see what you’re trying to do. The fans just need to know where the heart is, and the rest will work itself out.” I point over my shoulder. “Whatever just happened back there, that’s the heart.”

He purses his lips together as his eyes study mine. “I’ll think about it, but right now let’s just keep to the current plan.”

I nod. “Sure thing.” Whatever they were talking about is the story I want to cover. I make a mental note to make it a point to get to know the girl in the pencil skirt. She shouldn’t be hard to find, since she looked fairly out of place in the casual atmosphere surrounding us.

“Look at this,” he says, holding his arm open wide as we reach the end of the ramp taking a step out onto the stage he will perform on later tonight with his brothers. There are at least a couple hundred people broken up into teams swarming around the stage. They’re all yelling and calling out to each other as they do their work, but no one seems frustrated. “This is the real story.”

“I don’t understand,” I admit.

“You said you wanted to do a piece on the music industry and mental health, but your editor wants something on the upswing in the economy. This is both.”

“Explain,” I say, raising one eyebrow at the possibly unstable rock star standing in front of me.

He sighs and starts walking to the opposite side of the stage. “Hey, Mads!”

“What’s up, Trav?” a nice-looking man covered in tattoos and wearing a tight black shirt with a badge labeled Crew dangling from around his neck calls back before going back to his tablet and calling out directions to his team. “That’s Maddox,” Travis explains. “He took over as our production manager when Ridge… left.”

“Why do I feel there’s more to that story than just ‘Ridge left’?” I ask.

“Well…” He grips the back of his neck with his right hand. “He and Carly kind of had a thing, but when she and Adair officially got together Ridge couldn’t take it. He went back to New York.”

“Where is The Machine based?” I could guess.

“New York.”

“So, Carly’s ex is in bed with the enemy, and that doesn’t complicate things?”

“Oh, I’m sure it does.” He waves to someone else in the crew and gives them a thumbs up. “You’re doing an awesome job, Dean. Thank you!”

“Do you know everyone on the crew by their first name?”

“Of course,” he says, watching as Dean connects large cables together. The screens on either side of the stage flicker on. It’s weird seeing my face pop up on the live feed and I cringe. “This is where Griffin will stand,” he points to the X marked with tape on the stage beneath my feet. Dean is making sure the audience, especially the ones in the nosebleeds, will all have a clear view of him.”

“What about the rest of you?”

He laughs and points to the smaller screens lining the sides of the main arena. “He will connect all those screens and they’ll light up with our ugly mugs on them.”

“Whatever,” I scoff and shove him in the shoulder. “Modesty is not your strong suit, so don’t even try it now.”

He bobs his head back and forth. “I guess that’s fair.”

I’m seeing what he means about a story on the economy. They’ve employed a lot of people to give their fans the show of a lifetime and both of those things create a strong boost for the local economies. Touring from city-to-city spreads that boost to more locations. There’s one thing I’m not clear on though… “How does this apply to mental health though?”

“Every single one of these people has been with us from the start. We’re a family, not just me and my brothers, but our crew, our team. We couldn’t do any of it without them. The lockdowns kept this family on different sides of the country, but we’re pulling out of that and able to come together again. That’s important.”

“But it’s not the point, is it?”

He shakes his head.

“I’m learning there’s a lot more to you than the antics you hide behind.”

“Oh,” he gasps, cringing. “And the visiting team takes a cheap shot.”

Maybe. “Sorry,” I say through a grimace.

“Don’t be. You’re right. I like to have fun, but that isn’t who I am, it’s just part of who I am. Does that make sense?”

I nod. It makes more sense than I care to admit right now.

“Mads, how long do we have before sound check?” Travis yells back to their production manager.

Maddox scans the area and tilts his head just slightly as he seems to do the mental math to answer his question. “I think we only need another fifteen.”

“I’ll go let them know,” Travis says bouncing off in the other direction.

I follow him, without waiting for an invitation this time, as he leads the way back toward the ramp. “So, let me get this straight. You want me to put together a story that puts you and your brothers as the philanthropist types?”

“What? No.” His laugh echoes in the narrow hallway leading back to the exit. “I was hoping you’d write something with them as the focus.” He tilts his head as he jabs his thumb in the air, pointing behind us. “Without them, there is no Amaryllis.”

Of course, I would get stuck with the rock star who doesn’t want a story written about him after telling me to write a story about him. “I’m not sure—”

Loud cheers and screams come from the other side of the fence as Travis pushes open the door, leading us back into the lot behind the event center. “There’s one of them now!” Flashes of light and shutter sounds fill the air as reporters’ strain to see through the blockade.

Several heads are popping up, peeking over the tops of the busses, but they disappear just as fast. “How are they…?” My words trail off as I watch with a mix of amazement and amusement.

Travis snorts out a chuckle and waves his hand in the air. “C’mon, you all. The press time starts in forty-five minutes. Can’t you give us that long without putting us on the spot?” He shakes his head and leads me back to the temporary building where we started.

“Hang on a second,” I say, running over to the gate, where I now know I can get through to the other side. The lurkers aren’t even noticing me, but I see every single one of them through the lens on my camera as I crouch down behind them. The shot is perfect. They look like idiots, trying to scale the No Trespassing area by standing on each other’s shoulders. And there’s Jenkins…

I should’ve known he’d be in the mix.

His focus shifts for just a second, but it’s long enough. While his eyes are locked onto mine, I flip him off with a wink. He starts flailing and motioning for everyone to give him room so he can jump down from the top of the chain link fencing. Before he can even hit the pavement, I tuck myself back into the lot through the security access gate. The keycard Devon gave me earlier worked like a charm and Travis is waiting for me in the same spot I left him in. I wave my camera in the air like a trophy as I make my way back across the lot. “I got a good one.”

“A good what?”

“A good, clear shot of what needs fixed.”

His smirk twists as his eyebrows furl together. “Okay, then.” The door to the temporary building is already open, letting strange sounds seep out from the other side of those walls. “Wa-ooh. Aah-ooh.”

“What is that?” The sound repeats several times, growing louder each time.

Travis lets out a deep belly laugh that fills the small building. “You mean the Wa-ooh Aah-ooh?” He mimics the sound but overdoes it and sounds a little like a donkey.

Griffin pops his head out of the tiny bathroom tucked away in the corner. “Sorry, you two,” he says. “That’s just me warming up for the show.”

“You sound like you belong in the jungle when you do that shit.” Travis grabs a pair of drum sticks from a locker nestled into the wall by the door.

“At least I don’t sound like a jackass,” Griffin grumbles from inside the bathroom, still standing in the mirror.

Travis thumps out a beat on the back of the black leather sofa. “You sure about that, bro?”

“I have to warm my face muscles up before the show. It helps my voice open up,” Griffin explains.

“I tried that, too,” Travis says, shaking his head. “It didn’t help my drumming at all.”

“Something needs to help your drumming,” Adair says as he stalks back into the room, letting the door slam behind him as he does. “It’s been better.”

“Shut up.” Travis shoves his older brother in the arm. “You just worry about your bass playing and I’ll handle the heavy equipment,” he taunts him while alternating between arm flexes. “You don’t want free admission to this gun show.”

I can’t help it. My laugh bursts out. I know I’m supposed to be invisible when I’m on assignment, but…

“See?” Adair scoffs, pointing at me. “Even she knows those guns are a joke.”

“Adair,” Nash says, squeezing his shoulder as he walks past him, “aren’t you late for your manicure?”

“Oh, shit,” he grumbles, looking down at his smart watch. “I am.”

Nash taps the face of the watch. “You should get that thing to set a reminder for you. It’s kind of what it’s supposed to do.”

Adair flicks Nash’s finger off his wrist and rolls his eyes as he stalks back out of the building.

“We all have pre-show rituals,” Travis explains.

“Mine,” Griffin says coming out of the bathroom, “is warming up in the mirror. I don’t do a lot, but just enough so I know where my voice is at before we hit the stage.”

“A lot of vocalists warm up for a quite a bit longer than that,” I say, hoping they don’t think it’s rude for me to acknowledge the fact.

Griffin just shrugs it off. “What I do out there is full tilt for over an hour, so I don’t want to strain things too much before a show. It’s what works for me.”

Nash puts on a wireless headset and sinks into the sofa.

Travis points at his oldest brother. “His ritual is listening to his favorite guitar solos before a show. He says it gets his head in the right place to go up there and shred it because he hopes one day someone will play his solos as their pre-show ritual.”

“And what’s yours?”

Travis’s face turns a deep shade of red as his expression changes several times before he finally opens his mouth to answer the question. “It was getting a massage before the show. It loosened me up so I could attack the set.”

“Was?”

“Well…” he trails off as Griffin snorts.

“The last time he got a massage—” Griffin starts to explain but doubles over laughing.

Travis puts a hand over his brother’s mouth and wrestles him down onto the floor. “Don’t you dare tell her.”

He holds both hands up, clearly unable to fight back while laughing hysterically. “Fine,” he chokes out between laughs.

“Anyway…” Travis says, standing back up and dusting off his jeans.

“I can’t just let that go…”

“Can we let it go for now?” Travis cringes and peeks through one eye, which is only half-open.

I pretend to mull it over for a few seconds before I concede. “Fine, but we’re coming back to it before I leave.”

“Great,” he groans.

I’ve only known them for a couple of hours, but I’m already seeing how far off the image portrayed to the masses is from the actual people who make up this band.

Well… except for Adair. I think that one might be spot on, but it’s still too early to know for sure.

Why would a multi-nine-figure record label want to wage a media war on these guys?