Page 50 of Dark

Followed by a heart emoji, which was so un-Ethan-like that for a second, I chewed my lip, unsure how to react. Ever since the revelation Ben had forced him to form a dependence on silver, things between us had been… off. He’d spent the last few days keeping to himself, working extra shifts, trying and utterly failing to hide that something was eating away at him.

The clink of cups and gargle of the espresso machine screamed in my ears. I glanced over. Ethan had his back to me, busy frothing milk.

I pulled out my phone.

Me: I don’t want to get in the middle. So I’m just going to eat my chocolate doughnut and pass along the message that your brothers are worried.

A minute later, my phone buzzed.

Darth Roast: it’s nothing. Go back to desecrating our fall specials

Shoving my phone in my apron pocket, I stuck out my tongue at his back and grabbed the next order. Freaking. Zombie. Pumpkins.

* * *

Saturday night came in a blur of security sweeps, sound checks and last-minute changes to our set list. We had a packed house. My stalker hadn’t let up with the texts. We’d spent all week doubling down on promo for tonight’s gig, banking on the hope he’d want his creeper ass in on the action. And once he showed up at the club? We would finally end this.

With an unofficial slogan of Keep Austin Weird, people in the Live Music Capital of the World took their funky hipster vibe to the extreme. Socks and sandals were totally a thing. Food trucks and e-scooters had their own cult following. Most of downtown had more dogs than children. And wicked body art was a rite of passage.

Austin was a city that loved its food, football and most of all, music. Country. Tejano. Hip hop. Hard rock. No matter if your audience worshipped the vegetarian omelettes at Kerbey Lane or BBQ at Sam’s, or if they bled burnt orange, Aggie maroon, or Sooner red, folks in Austin were chill, and loved live music.

“You need anything?” Ethan leaned against a wall in the cramped backstage area. His dark hair was swept up and off to one side, a fitted Radiohead t-shirt hugging his pecs. Add in the hipster-artist-glasses thing? Totally hot enough to jump.

“You, gazing up at me on stage in ten minutes like a total fanboy.”

“That’s a given.” He trailed a single finger up my bare arm to the leather choker that covered my claiming mark, eyes lingering on my matching corset. “You look amazing.”

Leaning in, I bit his earlobe. “You can show me how amazing after the set.”

“Count on it.” Ethan tugged at the strap on his wrist cuff.

I lowered my voice. “Everything okay?"

“Fine.” He pushed away from the wall. “I’m going to go help Cal do another sweep of the floor.”

The stage door clanged shut. I sank back against the wall just as someone banged out the bassline to Birdland on the exterior door. Propping it open, I let Daisy Addiction’s drummer, Eun-ji, and bassist, Shondra, back in. There was barely time for me to question the serious WTF face Shondra was throwing my way before an arm shot out over mine, jamming open the door. I rolled my eyes.

Our booking agent, Jake Vandegrift, was thirty-something and good looking if you happened to go for that frat boy, whoring his way through Daddy’s money look. Spoiler alert: I didn’t. His father owned nearly twenty properties in the downtown district, providing his son the means to drive a BMW and party away every weekend out at the clubs.

“Wow, Hailey.” He sniffed, eyelashes doing this rapid-fire thing like a moth about to meet its destiny with a porch light. As if we all couldn’t tell he’d been doing way more than shots tonight. “You look hot.”

Because, ugh. Brain bleach. Behind him, Eun-ji pantomimed sticking a finger down her throat while Shondra none-to-subtly rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. Agent Cokehead collapsed onto a stool, too high to notice.

Shondra shot him the side eye. “Heard The Scream got in at Hole in the Wall last week.”

“Something opened up off the books. I’ve got other clients expecting me to pull strings for them, too. You girls understand how this business works.”

Subtle. And ugh. I wished I could say he was our first sleazy agent or manager. Clearly it was time to look for a new one. I exchanged a look with my bandmates just as a stagehand poked his head around the corner.

“Daisies, you’re on.”

Grabbing my guitar, I shoved past Jake to the stage.

The crowd roared, the lights momentarily blinding. Despite all the stress of the last few weeks, the hair rose at the back of my neck. Performing was a double-edged sword, the worst kind of high, one most of us in this business never stopped chasing. Daisy Addiction had built our following from nothing, from ugly nights opening for bigger bands where we finished out our set list while dodging beer thrown at the stage. I took nothing for granted. Not the fans. Not the hours of practice. Not my amazingly talented bandmates. And not the element of luck, so many other deserving groups never getting the break we had. I knew how fortunate we were to get to do something that we loved.

Tightening my high ponytail, I plugged in, and did a third recheck of my tuning. Layla hummed beneath my fingertips, her cold metal strings familiar to me as breath. Tucked below her neck, my cobalt-blue daisy tattoo swirled under the lights. I traced each petal, then raised my wrist to my lips for luck.

The floor was dark but I found Cal down near the front, phone out, recording. Ethan stared up at me, expression unreadable. I scanned the rest of the crowd, searching the sea of faces for anyone who stuck out. A girl with pink hair and a joker tattoo shouted to her girlfriend. Was she the blogger who’d interviewed Shondra? I was sure I’d seen them at two of our shows in the past six months. Did it mean anything? Stage left, a paunchy middle-aged dude with long, greasy hair met my eye and grabbed his junk. Asshole. I bared my teeth.