The Rules

"You let her stay," Dex says when you come back.

"She's the opening act."

"I know she's the opening act."

"Then why did you send me to throw her out?"

He doesn't answer. He's sitting on the couch tuning an old sunburst guitar, head bent, hair hiding his face. His fingers are long and quick on the pegs. He plucks a string, frowns, turns it a quarter inch.

"To see what you'd do, Ava," he says finally.

"And?"

"You came back without her and without crying." He plucks the string again. "That's new."

Marnie walks you through the NDA in the production office, which is a folding table and three phone chargers.

"Page four," she says. "You don't talk to press. You don't post. You don't take photos backstage, not even of the catering. You don't tell your mother what he eats for breakfast."

"He doesn't eat breakfast."

"Exactly the kind of thing you don't tell your mother." She flips to the last page and taps the line. "Sign."

You sign.

Marnie takes the pen back and holds it up between you like a pointer.

"Rule number one," she says. "Don't fall for him."

You laugh. She doesn't.

"I'm serious, Ava. Number three fell for him. Spent two weeks bringing him tea and reading his moods like tea leaves, then he snapped at her in Phoenix and the next morning there was a story online about his 'dark secrets.' Half of it was made up. The other half shouldn't have been anyone's business." She chews her gum harder. "Everybody falls a little. It's the face. It's the voice. It's the way he looks at you like you're the only person in the room for exactly three seconds. Don't."

"I'm not here to fall for anyone. I'm here for ten thousand dollars."

"Good." She clicks the pen. "Rule two. Wherever he is, you know where he is. Rule three. If he says he's fine, he's lying."

You meet the rest of Hollow Saints in the catering room, where the band is fighting over the last bag of salt-and-vinegar chips.

Cormac Arden, the bassist, is all elbows and eyeliner in a moth-eaten cardigan. He takes one look at you and groans. "Oh no. She looks competent. I've got fifty on Boise."

"Dex has twenty on Portland," you tell him.

"Then we're both losing money." He offers you a chip. "Welcome to hell. The coffee's good."

Benny Lowery, the drummer, is huge and bearded and reading a paperback mystery with a cracked spine. He looks at you over the top of it, nods once, and says, "Hey." Then he goes back to his book. You like him immediately.

The last one stands up when you walk in, which nobody else did.

"Rafe Dunmore." His handshake is warm and his smile is warmer, the kind of smile that has dimples in it and knows it. He's golden in a way that makes you think of beaches: sun-streaked hair, tan forearms, a jaw that's almost as good as Dex's and eyes the blue of a swimming pool. If Dex is a storm, Rafe is the weather after. "Don't let them scare you. Dex is all bark."

"Dex bit the last one," Cormac says.

"Dex snapped at the last one. Big difference." Rafe pulls out a chair for you. "Seriously. I've known him since we were fifteen. He's going through a lot. If he gets to be too much, come find me. I'm the translator."

You thank him. You mean it. It's nice, after the day you've had, for somebody to be nice.

Behind you, a voice that sounds like a mountain clearing its throat says, "You the new one?"

You turn and look up. And up. The man in the doorway is at least six foot five, in a black T-shirt that says SECURITY in polite white letters.

"Ozzie Mbeki," he says. "If anybody bothers you, Ava, tell me. If he bothers you, also tell me." He considers. "I won't do anything. But I'll listen."

At 8:52, eight minutes before Hollow Saints goes on, the world ends.

"My ears," Dex says. He's in the wings, pacing. "Where are my ears."

The in-ear monitor pack. The little receiver that lets him hear himself over two thousand screaming people. It's not on the clip on his belt. It's not on the table. It's not in the case.

The monitor tech is pale. Marnie is on the radio. Cormac is patting down his own pockets for no reason. Dex is gripping the back of his neck with one hand, and something in his face has gone tight and strange, like a wire about to snap.

You stop. You think.

He tuned the sunburst guitar on the couch this afternoon. He had the pack clipped on then. You remember because it caught the light when he leaned forward.

You run.

Dressing Room A. The couch. You shove your arm down between the velvet cushions, past a guitar pick, a hair tie that is definitely not his, and a quarter, and your fingers close on cool plastic.

You sprint back with it held over your head like a trophy. The monitor tech nearly kisses you. Dex takes the pack, clips it on, and looks at you for one long second.

He doesn't say thank you.

He says, "Couch?"

"Couch."

Then the lights go down, and two thousand people scream, and he walks out into the dark.

You've heard Hollow Saints before. Everybody has. Their songs play at gas stations and weddings and in the background of TV shows where people break up in the rain.

You've never seen them live.

The first chord hits you in the ribs. Then the lights come up white and Dex is at the front of the stage with a microphone in his fist, and the sound he makes isn't singing exactly. It's more like he's telling two thousand people a secret, at the top of his lungs.

The girl next to you in the wings, someone's girlfriend, puts her hand on her chest.

He's a different person out there. Loose and fierce and beautiful in a way that almost hurts to look at, sweat in his hair, head thrown back on the high notes. He stalks the edge of the stage and the front row reaches up like he's the sun. Rafe tears through a solo and Dex leans back against him, shoulder to shoulder, and they grin at each other like they're fifteen again.

You stand in the wings for ninety minutes and forget to check your phone even once.

So that's the fuss.

After the encore, the corridor is chaos. Sweaty roadies, champagne nobody's drinking, Kira laughing with her dancers. Marnie's radio crackles.

"Where's Dex?"

Nobody knows.

He's not in Dressing Room A. Not in B. Not on the bus. Ozzie checks the bathrooms. Rafe shrugs and says, "He does this. He'll turn up."

Rule two. Wherever he is, you know where he is.

You find a door marked ROOF ACCESS, propped open with a drumstick.

The stairwell is cold and smells like rust. At the top, another door, also propped. You push it open into wet wind and the orange glow of the city.

He's there.

Dex is standing on the ledge of the roof. Not behind it. On it. Arms loose at his sides, toes at the edge, four stories of empty air between his boots and the alley below.

He doesn't turn around.

"Don't," he says quietly, "come any closer."