Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62972 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 315(@200wpm)___ 252(@250wpm)___ 210(@300wpm)
Conal assured me that they’ll be ready for round two once the concert is done. “Performing always gets our motors revving, babe.”
I’m not complaining. Apparently, I’m the kind of woman who gets turned on by having covert sex in a dressing room with strangers just a few feet away on the other side of the door.
I’ll be their number one groupie, now and forever.
Maybe, just maybe, I’m not such a bad fit for this rock-n-roll life after all.
I smile as I take a few shots of the opening band from just offstage, in the wings. I’m pretty confident in my style now, and I’m putting together collections of photos, with an eye to maybe releasing some books in the future. I’m also getting requests now from magazines and websites to license my images. It’s so exciting that my hobby is turning into a career, and it’s so much more rewarding than crunching numbers.
My mom and my sisters and Bliss, along with Ember’s men, are in the audience with VIP passes. So are my in-laws, the Currans. We’re all going out to eat afterwards.
It’s going to be a great night.
CONAL
I’m pacing in our dressing room. The opening band did a good job of getting the audience warmed up, and they’ve just finished their final number of the night, so I’ve got that keyed-up energy that always hits me when it’s almost time to go onstage.
Getting it on with Hazel in the dressing room didn’t take the edge off at all; instead, it focused my energy, amplified it. I can tell my brothers are feeling the same. We grin at each other, sharing the anticipation, feeding off the rising tension that we’ll propel back out into the audience with every number.
All of this is happening because of Hazel. Sure, we would have put out some kind of album without her; we’re professionals, we work hard. But if we’re honest—and the three of us have talked about this over these past months—before Hazel, we were feeling trapped.
That’s the problem with success—it brings a lot of good things, but it boxes you in, too. People want you to keep delivering the same winning product, over and over. Audiences, yes, but especially record company executives.
It made it too easy to coast, to go for the sure thing instead of challenging ourselves and risking blowback. We still loved our music, loved connecting with audiences, but we were starting to get frustrated creatively.
And then Hazel swept into our lives like a breath of fresh air, and revitalized everything. The new album hasn’t just been a commercial success; the music critics have had plenty of good things to say about it, too, with several mentioning how our sound has matured. We never put a record out with critical success as our goal, but it’s nice when it happens, like the cherry on a sundae.
So it’s fitting that we’re introducing a new song tonight, during the concert … one that Hazel hasn’t heard yet.
She’s our muse, our light, our everything. We’ll never stop singing about her.
RAFE
I’ve always said I didn’t need drugs, because I had my music. Performing for a live audience was the biggest high in my life.
Now it’s in second place. Still incredibly special, but nothing’s as wonderful as being with Hazel.
My phone pings with a text message. It’s Celeste: Have a great show!
We’re friends these days. She’s got a new man in her life, her acting career is going well, and I’m really happy for her. Alan was a jerk, but he did us both a favor breaking us up—just not in the way he intended.
The North American leg of our tour will last a while, but before we jet off to other parts of the world, we’re going to take a break and just be with Hazel. Yes, she’s traveling with us on the tour, but out here we’re constantly surrounded by other people. We need time to be together, just the four of us.
All our priorities are different now. Our parties are few and far between, and not the wild events they used to be. People bring their kids! Which is awesome. I hope we can start a family with Hazel before too long.
Whatever the future holds, I know it’ll be golden. Every day seems to be better than the one before now that Hazel’s in our lives.
The changeover’s almost done; any minute now, we’ll get the call to go onstage. I roll up onto the balls of my feet and down again, ready to take on the world.
BRON
My brothers and I have had our differences over the years—hardly surprising—but never when we’re performing. When we’re onstage, it’s as if we become a single organism, we’re so in sync with each other. It’s always made concerts a blast, an experience that we couldn’t have any other way.