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‘Good luck tonight.’

We went to Music City Burgers and Liam was right: their fried pickles were excellent. The food didn’t calm the knot in my stomach, though.

‘You look like you might actually murder someone this time,’ Brooke said lightly, dragging one of her French fries through a puddle of ketchup.

The accusation, and the rich red of the ketchup, forced me back to a place I really didn’t want to revisit right now.

‘Jessie?’ Brooke asked, clearly worried by my sudden shift in mood.

I shook my head. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yeah.’ I reached out and stole one of her fries. ‘I’m good.’

‘Are you ready for later?’

‘No,’ I said, forcing myself to give her a smile instead of lingering on the intense flashback that was still threatening to smash through my defenses.

‘It’s only three songs, Jessie. You can do three songs.’

We’d found an acoustic duet version of ‘Thunder Road’ on YouTube, and I thought it was almost better than the album version – and we’d listened to the album plenty over the past couple of weeks.

‘Do you think they’ll put a bucket next to the stage for me, in case I need to puke?’ I said lightly.

Brooke laughed and kicked me gently under the table. ‘You won’t puke.’

I pushed my plate away, not wanting to look at the food anymore now that I was feeling sick from thinking about being on stage.

Brooke caught my eyes and smirked, like she knew what was going through my head. She probably did. She knew me better than anyone.

We had time to go back to the hotel and change, and I wanted to touch up my makeup since it had sweated off in the heat of the day. Even though the hotel was only a fewblocks’ walk from the bar, the humidity in the late-afternoon air had me sweating again.

‘I’m not sure I’m built for the South, you know,’ I said, blowing my hair off my face.

Brooke laughed. ‘Let me choose what you wear tonight?’ she asked.

I unlocked the hotel room door and pushed it open, releasing a burst of blessed cool air.

‘From what we already have with us, right?’ I said cagily, knowing what she was like.

‘You’re always so suspicious,’ she said. ‘But, yeah, we don’t have time to go out and get something new.’

I didn’t own anything particularly outrageous, so at least I knew Brooke couldn’t do much damage.

I took a really quick shower and washed my face, put my underwear back on and brushed my teeth. When I went out into the room, the AC made me shiver, and all the hairs on the back of my arms stood up.

Brooke had set out my black dress from Goodwill, a pair of black tights, my black Doc Martens and a black short-sleeved shirt from her own wardrobe.

‘It could be worse,’ I murmured.

‘Trust me,’ Brooke said, floating past me to take her turn in the bathroom.

There was a second mirror in the main part of the bedroom, over the desk, so while Brooke fixed whatever needed fixing, I sat down and started on my makeup.

I’d gotten used to the shorter hair now, and the blonde, and I’d figured out how to do my eyeliner with soft flicks atthe corner of my eyes. I really didn’t look like Mouse anymore. That felt like relief. Like bone-deep relief.

Brooke came out of the bathroom intightblack jeans and a black tank that scooped low over her boobs.