Page 43 of A Taste of Bliss

“That’s one of our best songs, and not to mention has my drum solo. We gotta keep it. It’s our heaviest song and this is a metal festival.”

“Well, we’re not taking ‘You Can Always Reach Me’ off the set list. That’s not going to happen.”

“Fine, then we’ll take off ‘Fractures,’” Tubbs says, whirling his drumstick around his fingers.

Taser picks up one of Tubbs’ wire brush drumsticks and points it at him. “Hell no, that’smysong.”

“Your song?” Amelia arches her eyebrow. “Just so we’re clear here, all the songs are mine. I wrote them.”

“Parts of them,” Tubbs says, rolling his eyes. He’s not wrong. He wrote all the drumming music to the songs and Jordan has some song credits as well from their earlier years playing together.

“We aren’t getting rid of my solo, okay?” Taser says, crossing his arms.

Dericia rolls her eyes and gets up off the couch. “Bliss, give me a call when they’ve all got their egos back in check, okay?” She heads out of the garage and I let loose a sigh as I repack a box of vinyl EPs.

“I hope you weren’t counting on selling a lot of merch, guys, because we don’t really have any,” I say, motioning to the four boxes in front of me. One box of T-shirts. One box of vinyl. Two boxes of CDs that really don’t sell anymore, which is why there are two. “And we don’t have time to order more.”

Amelia shrugs. “You know this isn’t about money.”

Taser laughs, but it’s hollow. “Maybe not for you, Miss Succubus Blood, but it would be nice for the rest of us.”

“The money will come in,” I say, trying to ease the tension this festival is bringing to the surface. I can feel my magic rising,ready to try to influence everyone back into a calmer, more agreeable state, but I don’t unleash it. If I did, I would have to feed that much sooner, and despite my promise to Amelia, I really don’t want to. “All those songs stay on the set list, okay?” I tell them, looking over at Blake, who gives me a shrug as if to say I’m on my own here.

“Take off ‘Butterflies.’ It’s a longer song with lots of atmospheric pauses and I think it’s better for whenever you end up doing an acoustic set some day.” I stare my sister down, trying my best to look as in charge as possible.

Amelia sighs, flinging herself down next to Blake on the couch and draping her long legs over his lap, pouting. “But I love that song.”

“Amelia,” I say in exasperation.

“Fine, fine, we’ll do away with ‘Butterflies.’” She waves a hand dismissively.

I look to Taser and Tubbs. “Everyone good with that?”

“Yes ma’am.” Tubbs grins, flashing white teeth at me. “Look at you being all manager-y.”

I snort out a laugh. Taser comes over and slings an arm around my shoulders. “Your first ever Goddess’ Trance conflict back on the job and you resolved it in less than two minutes. I think we should keep her,” he says, smiling at me. I give him a tentative smile back and make an excuse to shuffle out from under his arm.

I check my email on my phone as I move to start inventorying our gear. I need to tell the festival if we’ll be bringing our own or if we’ll need to use in-house stuff. We definitely need their front-of-house sound engineers, and we probably need some more tech guys to help set up and break down our set, but I think we’ve got enough mics for all the stage inputs we need.

Though none of this I actually know for sure. I’m going off videos I watched about sound engineering, and since this isliterally something one can get a degree in, I’m not sure if I’m making the right calls. Once the band can afford to pay someone, we need a sound engineer for sure, not to mention technicians and a monitor engineer. The list is long.

“Oh my stars.” I almost drop my phone as I reread the email, hardly believing my own eyes.

“What?” Amelia jumps up from the couch, followed by the guys, and they all crowd around me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” I show her my phone so she can read the email. “We’re opening for Voracious Maw.”

I look over at Taser instinctively. He knows my slight obsession with their music. Though he doesn’t know that this aligns perfectly with the task I’ve been given. If we’re opening for them, that could be my way of getting close enough to Wrath to steal whatever I’m supposed to steal. Maybe the wraith also pulled these strings.

“Awww,” Taser says sweetly. “Your boyfriend will be there, with his sexy mask.”

I punch him lightly on the arm but laugh, forgetting I’m mad at him. “He’s not my boyfriend. I just really love his voice.”

“He does have a sexy voice.” Taser shrugs.

Amelia’s eyes find mine over the phone. She doesn’t look pleased. “Bliss…”

“Yeah?”