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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ana arrives at Rav’s flat half an hour early, bouncing with excitement. “Loving the smoky eye,” Rav says, indicating her makeup with a swirl of his finger. “The shirt is a surprise.”

It’s merch from the Nicks’ first tour, a black sleeveless number with the logo from Alien Nation printed in gold on the front. Rav can’t recall ever having seen Ana in a T-shirt, let alone a concert tee.

“Do you have any idea how rare this is?” She hugs herself. “Trust me, people are going to be so jealous of this shirt. Important people. VIPs!” She seizes Rav’s shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. “We’re VIPs ! At a Nicks concert!”

He’s never seen her this worked up. “Who are you and what have you done with Ana Rodriguez?”

She swats his arm. “So I’m a little excited. I’ve seen every Nicks tour that’s come through town, but this? VIP tickets?”

“Ah, so you owe me.”

“Please. You’re so far in the hole you’ll never climb out. Now pour me a drink.”

They walk to the show. Ana’s already got her VIP and backstage passes around her neck, big glossy cards dangling from a bright yellow lanyard. Rav asks her if she’s going to keep it for always, and she flips him off.

The mood outside the venue is jubilant. Fans converge on Madison Square Garden from every direction, pouring out of Penn Station and piling out of cabs, clogging sidewalks and stairs, all smiles and selfies and excited chatter. A few pockets of bright light mark the TV cameras in the crowd. Tonight’s event was a big story even before the shooting, billed as the long-delayed encore to the Concord show. Rav wonders what’s going through Jack’s mind backstage—whether he’s as jubilant as the fans, or in a darker place. Either way, Rav suspects this show will be incredibly emotional for him, and for the rest of the band, too.

He and Ana pass through a special VIP entrance, where they’re scanned and searched and scanned again. The heightened security is comforting. He’d feel even better if he had his service weapon, but it would have been a huge hassle to get authorization, and besides, he’s no bodyguard. Better to leave the close protection to the professionals.

There’s a little hospitality bar in the VIP area, and Ana makes straight for it. “G and T?”

“Perfect.”

Rav scans the small crowd of VIPs. He recognizes a couple of television stars, along with an ancient-looking creature he’s fairly sure is a famous musician from eons past. The guy is wearing leather trousers and blue-tinted glasses, and he’s so desiccated he looks like he could blow away in a stiff wind. “Hey, is that Richard Rock?” a girl murmurs conspiratorially to Rav. “I thought he was dead.”

“I’m not entirely sure he isn’t.”

“Right?” She snort-giggles before hurrying over to get a selfie.

Ana returns with their drinks, plus an autograph on a cocktail napkin. Rav opens his mouth to tease her about it—and then he spots Robert fucking Pattinson across the room. “Oh my god,” he hisses, clamping his hand around Ana’s elbow.

She looks momentarily surprised, and then she grins. “Oh, right. You were a Twilight kid, weren’t you? Should we ask for a selfie?”

“No. Yes. Oh god, he’s looking this way. Don’t look. ”

She’s loving this. “Who are you and what have you done with Rav Trivedi? Wait, does Jack know you’re a Robert Pattinson stan? Is he gonna be jealous?”

“I beg you to stop talking immediately.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to—” The rest is cut off as Rav yanks her toward the tunnel leading to the arena floor.

An usher directs them to a cordoned-off area near the soundboard. There’s a fair bit of distance between them and the stage, and Rav is a little disappointed until a helpful bystander explains that the sound is always best near the mixing desk.

“Holy crap,” Ana whispers as the guy walks away. “Do you know who that was?”

“Someone terribly famous?”

“Timothée Chalamet! He’s only been in everything for the past few years. Man, you’re hopeless!”

Rav scans the arena, turning full circle to take it all in. It feels strangely small down here, surrounded by the stands. Small and exposed, and he can’t help feeling a flutter of anxiety, but he knows it’s irrational. Whatever else he may be, Joe Miller is no master criminal. His photos have been fed into MSG’s facial recognition system, and every cop in town—not to mention every Nicks fan—is on the lookout. He wouldn’t even make it through the doors.

The stadium is only half-full when the warm-up act goes on, an indie rock group Rav has of course never heard of, but who Ana assures him is going to be huge any day now. The crowd gives them a warm send-off when their set is over, but it’s not until the house lights go down twenty minutes later that the real noise begins, a swell of cheers that lasts for several minutes before fading into hushed anticipation. A few stray whistles sound, and then a recording fades in, a slow, pulsing hum, ambient music rising and falling softly like a distant surf. Phones wink on in the darkness, thousands of pinpricks of blue-white light. It’s eerily beautiful; Rav has the strange impression of floating in water, gazing up at the stars. And then, in a whoosh of sound, the bass comes in, and the kick drum. The crowd claps along as music builds in the darkness, a ringing guitar folding in—until the beat drops and the stage lights flare, golden and blinding.

The place goes apeshit .

The band appears in silhouette against the glare, and there’s Jack, striding up to the mic, guitar slung low at his hips as he belts out the first notes of “Sound Off.”

The next ninety minutes are surreal.

There are twenty thousand people in that building, and each and every one of them is riveted on Jack. They scream for him. Cry for him. Sing along with him. They surge toward the stage like iron filings drawn by a magnet every time he comes near, reaching, straining, calling his name. He’s like a priest up there, or a god. It’s a religious experience for these people—and for Jack, too. Rav sees it on his face, the way he closes his eyes and tips his head back when twenty thousand voices sing his words back to him. There’s no other word for it but ecstasy , and Rav can’t begin to imagine what it feels like. He can’t even sort out what he’s feeling, the staggering dissonance of trying to reconcile this glowing deity with the flesh-and-blood person he knows. A teasing lover in a kitchenette. A shaken friend in a hospital waiting room. Faded jeans and bare feet, white knuckles on a railing, a whispered fuck in the heartbeat before he comes.

“I can’t believe that’s your boyfriend !” Ana screams in his ear at one point.

He’s not my boyfriend , Rav starts to say, but it feels stupid and meaningless. She’s not listening anyway, too busy singing along with “New World Order”—her and everyone else in the building.

No I / I won’t cry / Not for a lie / That was never mine

And I / I won’t die / Not for a lie / That was never mine

Jack talks to the crowd now and then. Engages in a bit of banter with his bandmates. It’s not until the first encore, though, that he mentions the elephant in the room, the reason this show is such a big media story. The crowd senses it coming, quieting down instinctively as he steps up to the mic after the last notes of “Green Screen” fade away. “We want to thank you all for coming. It’s been a hard road these past few weeks. Out there.” He points toward the exits. “In here.” He taps his chest. “But we’re still standing.”

For the next several minutes he speaks—eloquently, like the poet he is—about the fans coming together after the Concord show. About their love and support after the shooting, and how much it meant to him. He talks about Mo—“I know you’re watching backstage right now, man, and we love you”—eliciting a full minute of cheers for the bodyguard.

He pauses, gaze on the floor. He’s sweating under the hot lights, and Rav is absolutely not fantasizing about tasting the salt on his lips as he trails kisses down that tattooed torso, because that would be inappropriate in this solemn moment, like making out at a movie about D-Day, which he has certainly never done.

“Hate has its moments in the spotlight,” Jack says. “But all of us standing here tonight are proof that it never wins. Whatever they break, we rebuild. Whatever they take, we take back.” He raises a hand in signal to the band. “Because we’re stronger than hate. Stronger than fear. We live. We love. We rise.”

Sarah cracks her drumsticks and they kick into “Rise,” and it’s bedlam. The crowd is heaving, leaping up and down with their hands in the air; Ana is doing it, and Robert Pattinson and Timothy whatshisname, and Rav manages to hold out for a moment or two until the whole thing breaks over him like a wave, and whatever happens after that will be strenuously denied at the office on Monday.

The vibe backstage is almost as electric as it was out there, celebs and other VIPs milling about, booze and music and a few controlled substances Rav and Ana pretend not to notice as they grab drinks of their own. Ryan Nash is first to emerge from the dressing rooms, in torn jeans and a leather jacket, every inch the rock star. His bodyguard, meanwhile, looks like she’s on the red carpet, clad in a sleek ivory pantsuit so formfitting Rav wonders where she could possibly stash her sidearm. Then again, maybe she doesn’t need one: those heels could definitely take a man out, and that chunky Cartier ring is basically a brass knuckle.

“Detective,” says a familiar voice, and Rav turns to find Charlie Banks, beer in one hand, phone in the other, chest hair billowing proudly between the lapels of his printed silk shirt. He clinks the neck of his beer bottle against Rav’s champagne glass. “Hell of a show, wasn’t it? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a band vibe with a crowd like that. Want me to show you to the dressing rooms?”

Rav does, very badly. He glances at Ana. She makes a scooting gesture, so Rav follows the manager to the dressing rooms. Mo stands at Jack’s door, looking very Dwayne Johnson in a pale blue suit with matching arm sling. He knocks and sticks his head in, and then he tells Rav to go on in.

Jack is fresh out of the shower, hair wet and skin flushed, whether from hot water or the rush of the show, Rav can’t tell. He suspects the latter, given the glassy look in Jack’s eye. The room is small, and Jack prowls it like a restless animal. He doesn’t say anything at first, and Rav wonders if he should be here. If maybe Jack needs a few more minutes to come down from this high, to shape-shift from supernatural being to ordinary man in faded jeans. He starts to ask whether he should come back—and then Jack crosses the room and kisses him. It’s fierce and needy and everything Rav wants from him, and he gives it right back, drawing Jack’s body against his. Then he does what he’s been dying to do all night, sinking to his knees and ripping open the buttons of Jack’s jeans. He doesn’t care if he looks like a supplicant kneeling before a god. In fact, he kind of gets off on it—which is a little weird and something he’ll maybe unpack later when he’s capable of higher thought, but just now he commits himself wholly to the singular goal of getting Jack to breathe that beautiful little fuck he’s been replaying in his head all night.

He gets something even better: his own name, spoken in a shivering whisper as Jack grips his shoulder. And when he kisses Rav after, there’s a fierceness to it that makes Rav so hard it hurts. Jack’s already tugging at his fly, backing him onto the tiny sofa, and he returns the favor with that same animal enthusiasm.

They slump there for a second, recovering. “Thanks,” Jack manages eventually. “I needed that.”

“My pleasure,” Rav says, and damn does he mean it. Is dressing room sex always this intense? Further investigation is required. For science.

“Uh-oh.” Jack snorts out a laugh. The knees of Rav’s navy-blue trousers are smudged with dust from the floor. Jack starts brushing at it, both of them snickering like naughty schoolboys, and then they kiss for a bit. Jack asks if he liked the show, and Rav tells him, quite sincerely, that it was the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. Then they tidy themselves up and head out to join the party.

They don’t even make it to the bar before the fawning starts. Everyone wants a piece of Jack. Rav, meanwhile, might as well be invisible. No one is rude, exactly; they just forget he exists within moments of meeting him. Jack doesn’t go out of his way to remind them, either. He’s careful not to stand too close, and when he introduces Rav, it’s always in neutral terms— my friend , or my buddy . Rav gets it, he really does, but it grows tiresome rather quickly. He peels off after a while, and he’s fairly sure Jack doesn’t even notice.

Ana finds him at the bar. “Get some?” she asks with a cheeky grin.

“Mind your own business. And yes.”

She gives a sorority-girl squeal and orders two beers. “I think I might be on the right track myself,” she says mysteriously before abandoning him to sidle up next to a cute platinum-haired girl with a crooked smile.

Rav lingers by the bar, taking it all in. His Instagram feed is a surreal echo of things he just witnessed in real life: Jack posing with Richard Rock, #Legends. Jack and Claudia with a couple of basketball stars, #Nicks&Knicks. It’s a little overwhelming. These people are all just so achingly cool , with their tattoos and blue hair and ironic penny loafers, and here’s Rav in Boss chinos and a striped button-down. (With trainers, but still.)

He’s just about to order another drink when Jack turns up beside him. “There you are. You just vanished.” His gaze falls to Rav’s mouth, and he sighs. “It’s torture.”

“What?”

“You. Standing there, in the flesh for once, and I can’t even touch you.”

Rav smiles awkwardly. “You must be used to that. Having to be discreet in public.”

“Used to it, yeah. And tired of it.” He leans against the bar and looks out over the party. “To be honest, I don’t much care what the internet says about me, but I wouldn’t do that to you. The last thing you want is to be all over Instagram again.”

“Ah, so you’re keeping your hands off me for my sake.” He’s teasing, but Jack’s expression is earnest.

“Mostly, yeah. There’s no avoiding the spotlight for me, but you’d be crazy to put yourself through that if you didn’t have to. Especially with Miller—”

“No.” Rav gives his hand a discreet squeeze. “We are not talking about him tonight. We are drinking champagne and basking in the adoration of these glamorous people. And then…” He lowers his voice. “And then you’re taking me home, and when I’m done with you, you won’t remember your own name.” He hits Jack with his best come-hither look—which, strictly speaking, is less come-hither than I’m going to fuck you senseless —and it’s pretty safe to say Jack is not thinking about Joe Miller anymore. His pupils dilate, and he glances away with pink in his cheeks.

“That sounds… yeah.” Jack’s throat bobs through a hard swallow. Rav wants to nibble on it. “Give me an hour, and then we can, uh…” He pauses awkwardly while the bartender leans in to top up Rav’s champagne. “We can do that thing you mentioned.”

“I’ll be here,” Rav says airily, and takes a sip of his bubbles.