Page 11 of Hard Rock Desires

“Yeah, but these ones are more rabid than usual,” he said. “Did you see how many bras landed at my feet? There had to have been half a dozen.”

Damn. I’d only had the one. But I’d had more signs with marriage proposals and paper airplanes with phone numbers written on them, so I supposed we were even.

One of the venue staff came up to us and gestured down a hallway.

“We’ve got the artist lounge all set up for you,” she told us. “There’s drinks and food, along with some VVIPs waiting who showed up early.”

“VeryVeryImportant Person?” Finn snickered. “How many levels of fan do we have?”

“These ones paid a lot of money to meet you,” the staff member said. “We kept it to around thirty VVIPs. Once you’ve done the meet and greet, they’ll be ushered out.”

“That’s not too many,” I said. “Shouldn’t take too long.”

“Unless it’s all guys here to thirst over Anya again,” Finn muttered. “Then they’ll never leave.” He spoke up louder so the staff member could hear. “How many of those fans are girls and how many are guys?”

She looked down at the clipboard in her hand. “From the guest list, looks to be about half-and-half. There’s also a handful of women the bouncers picked out to let backstage.”

“I get first dibs,” Finn announced.

“On who?” I asked. “We haven’t even laid eyes on anyone yet.”

“On whoever I call dibs for,” he replied. “There were some fine women out there tonight.”

I snorted and punched him in the shoulder. “Asshole. I thought you already called that assistant.”

“I can call more than one,” he said.

We arrived at the small lounge area and found a handful of people already waiting. They were all girls. Eyes lit up on every face. We were the first band members to show up.

“You ladies have fun tonight?” Finn asked with a wide grin.

“Yes!” came a chorus of voices, giggling and awestruck.

“Who wants us to sign something?” he continued.

There was a rush to form a line as the staff member handed me a black marker she’d pulled from her pocket.

I did my usual thing: signing, hugging, and taking selfies, along with all the smile-and-nodding when someone got excitable and chatty.

“Ohmigod I just looooved your new album,” one of the girls gushed as her entire body quaked. “Your indie stuff is amazing, but this one was just on a whole other level!”

“Thanks,” I grinned. “Getting signed really changed things up for us.”

“I was so worried you’d lose your unique sound, but these songs were soyou,it was like you’d taken the best parts of every song from before and mashed it into this one amazing experience!” The words bubbled out of her mouth in one breath.

“Glad to hear it,” I told her. “We worked hard to—”

I stopped. A shock of honey-blond hair appeared out of nowhere. It was only the back of her head, standing by herself near the doorway, but I recognized her.

The girl from the alley.

“Sorry, love,” I told the fan in front of me, handing back the vinyl record I’d signed for her. Our label really had gone all out for our first album with them. “Be back in a sec.”

I strode right up to Honey-Blond. She had her head down, buried in her phone. She didn’t seem to notice as I came up from behind her. Her hair hung over her face, hiding her eyes.

I recalled earlier that night, before the concert, when we’d been talking outside. Those pretty blue eyes had looked like a roiling ocean, waves crashing violently as she battled some inner demon. But as we talked, that ocean had calmed until it was steady and peaceful.

I wondered what her eyes would look like right now, after watching the concert. I always put everything I had into my performances, but knowing she was out there, watching me strut around with my guitar, had done something to me.