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  “Dang it, Katie. Do I need to slap you in the face? We got the backstage passes because he expects you to be there! If I were to show up with someone else (no matter how cute said someone else was), I’d be kicked out on my fat butt. You have to come.”

  And with that, Katie relented. She knew Heather was right. When she was honest with herself, Katie knew that she hesitated out of fear of having to face Johnny. But another part of her wanted to see him, wanted to talk to him, wanted to know everything was okay. Heather didn’t have to twist her arm after all.

  So, after they left Sonic, Heather drove to the radio station and went in with Katie to claim the tickets. True to his word, Johnny made sure there were backstage passes included. There was nothing personal in there, though, and the only information written on the outside of the note was what Katie had provided to the radio station: One Katherine Logan would pick up said tickets and bring her driver’s license to verify that she was who she claimed to be.

  But Heather wasn’t satisfied with just getting the tickets. They went shopping at a mall. Katie hated shopping, especially at malls, because they were always crowded and expensive. But this one smelled like cinnamon popcorn, so she just followed Heather around, enjoying the air. They went into a store called My Gothic Closet, and Heather gasped, marching a few feet into the store to a rack full of lingerie posing as clothing. Heather chose a short-sleeved, sheer, lacy black top, then stared Katie down. “Now you.”

  Katie shook her head. “Uh-uh. I can’t afford this stuff.”

  “I’m buying, young lady.”

  “Oh, Heather. I can’t let you do that.”

  Heather ignored her and started rifling through another rack. She held up one black blouse after another, on occasion holding one up to Katie’s torso. Katie smiled, continuing to shake her head. Finally, Heather pulled out a red and black corset. It had thin black straps and the fabric was a rich brocade. She held it up to Katie. Katie protested. “This is a little extreme, don’t you think?”

  Heather scoffed. “For a metal concert? Not even.” Katie grimaced and waved her hands, as if pushing it away. Heather tilted her head and tried to glare as if at a naughty child. “At least try it on, for heaven’s sake.”

  Katie sighed. “Fine.” She shouldn’t have. The corset fit like a glove and hugged her curves. It wasn’t too tight, but it accentuated what little she had. It made her breasts look at least a size or two larger and made her waist look even tinier. It made her look really good. She looked at herself in the dressing room mirror. She’d thought she’d have to buy something to wear with it, but it looked fine with her blue jeans. She walked out of the room to see what Heather thought.

  Heather was leafing through yet another rack, holding another hanger with a heavy jacket in royal purple and black. Katie cleared her throat to get her attention, but Heather was humming to herself. “Heather,” Katie called.

  Heather turned around and squealed. “Oh, my God, Katie. You have got to get that! You look like a freaking model!”

  Katie shook her head. “No, I shouldn’t.” She turned around, fishing the tag out from the back of the corset. “What’s that say?”

  Heather looked at it. “You don’t want to know.” She walked around to see Katie’s face. “It’s my treat.”

  “No way. I know this stuff costs a fortune.”

  In a sing-song, Heather said, “I’ve got daddy’s credit card!”

  “Then definitely not!” Katie laughed and marched back in the dressing room. When she pulled it off, she glanced at the tag. Wow. It was costly. Almost two hundred bucks. Katie wasn’t the kind of person who made a habit of spending a lot on clothes, especially a single top for a special occasion. But, she reasoned with herself, she was going to be seeing Johnny for the first time in almost a year. He was worth dropping a little extra cash on. Besides, she wasn’t spending too much money on school, what with her fellowship and all. Needless to say, by the time she rejoined Heather, she’d already decided to do it. Heather tried to pay for it herself, but Katie wouldn’t let her.

  When they got to their apartment, Heather made Katie promise to “do a little extra” with her makeup and hair. “No ponytails and no light ‘I-am-a-grad-student’ makeup. If this guy means that much to you, then prove it. Make your hair look nice, and wear some extra makeup. It’ll be nighttime, and there will be bright lights everywhere. You don’t want to look all washed out and pasty.” Katie was grateful right now that Heather was her roommate and friend. She knew she wouldn’t be seeing Johnny tonight if not for that girl. She’d have to do something nice for her later.

  * * *

  “Front row seats, my fat butt!” Heather exclaimed as she and Katie were jostled in the mosh pit. Still, they were at the foot of the stage, and Katie suspected it was because she was short and cute. Most of the guys in the pit, for the opportunity of touching the small of Katie’s back as they guided them forward, helped the two women closer to the stage. In fact, the last guy to help them to their current spot kept trying to start up a conversation with Katie. Poor guy—he had no idea his competition. But Heather didn’t allow much to happen, because she kept talking to Katie.

  Before the show got started, Katie looked around the amphitheatre, drinking in the lights, sounds, and the faint smell of pot smoke in the air. It had been a few years since she’d been to a concert. The last time, in fact, was with Johnny, and it was about a year before his self-induced rehab in her apartment. They’d made the drive to Denver to see Slipknot in concert. Afterward, Johnny said he’d never attend a concert again. Slipknot was great, but fans who recognized Johnny in the mosh pit kept hounding him. Johnny didn’t mind the attention, but he thought it was rude and inconsiderate to the band onstage, and he was also frustrated that he couldn’t enjoy the show. On the street, Johnny had no problems blending in with a crowd, but in an auditorium of metal fans, he couldn’t stand a chance. So, for the first time in over a decade, Katie was attending a concert without Johnny.

  The first act—Bitch Slap—got Heather and Katie in the rock concert mood. Katie had been nervous, ready to chew not just her fingernails but her entire fingers off, but listening to Bitch Slap’s raw hardcore sounds helped her relax. Being in the pit, though, Heather and Katie couldn’t relax for long. They got pulled into motion—group head banging, dancing, getting up close and crowded with dozens of sweaty, noisy fans. Both women let themselves get swept away in the fun and movement, feeling the music inside them. Katie was glad that Heather had been thinking straight the entire afternoon. She’d stopped by a drugstore on the way to the concert and purchased a couple of cheap foam earplugs and gave Katie a pair to tuck in her jeans pockets. “Just in case it gets too intense,” she’d said.

  Of course it did. They were as close to the amps as any fan could get, and it was loud. It was so loud, they could feel it in their chest, their bones, their hearts. So when the music started blasting, Katie put the earplugs in and smiled, because she could still hear the band perfectly. Boy, did she owe Heather big.

  The women enjoyed the first band—a relatively new one on the rock scene, but from what they saw here, these guys would be around for a long time. They were good on the radio, but they were on fire onstage. So by the time Shock Treatment had their opportunity onstage as the second act, both women were glistening with a fine film of perspiration, their black eyeliner slightly smudged, several small hairs out of place—a vision for any male metalhead.

  They reclaimed their places at the foot of the stage as Shock Treatment began an insistent rhythm. The band began playing a song that was not on their new album, so Katie wondered if Johnny had written too much to be contained in a CD or if he was writing constantly, and this song would be on their next effort. Katie could hear the definite sounds of Johnny’s style, but it was different from anything else she’d ever heard from him. It did have a definite “maturity,” for lack of a better word, and Katie knew Johnny had gotten everything in this new band that he’d wanted.

>   And there he was, almost close enough to touch. The women were slightly off center of the stage to the left, and that’s where Johnny was standing, shredding his guitar. Katie heard behind her that he had his fans there. Loyal J. C. Gibson fans didn’t care that he had a new band, as long as they could hear him play his Les Paul like no one else could. She looked over and up at him. He was a sight to behold: Black combat boots, black vinyl pants, a red wife beater that said, “If it’s too LOUD...” in white lettering, little white thunderbolts animated around it, and Katie was pretty sure she saw a new tattoo in the jungle already engraved on his left arm. She couldn’t make it out, though. Johnny was focusing on his guitar but then looked up at the fans. He stuck out his tongue (reminiscent of Gene Simmons), smiling, his nose crinkled, a message to his fans, telling them he was in his element, having fun, and was hoping they were too.

  Katie wondered if he could make out people’s faces in the audience from where he was. She knew from her limited times onstage (in a high school play and at awards assemblies) that sometimes the lights were so bright that it was difficult to see anything but the insistent white orbs of light beating down on them. Instead of worrying about Johnny, she tried to treat this night like any other concert, focusing on the singer, watching the other band members play, but she was drawn back to Johnny time and time again and finally gave up looking at anything else. Johnny was the guy she came to see, so she was just going to watch him.

  Wow. She hadn’t been to a concert featuring J. C. Gibson in a long time, so long, in fact, that she was having a hard time remembering when it had been. She’d never been to a Scathing Vengeance concert, had never had the chance, so it had to be at least five years ago. She’d forgotten what an entertainer Johnny was. He had been right—there was no need for him to be the frontman. He belonged right where he was—at his axe and only his axe, and also behind the scenes, shaping the entire sound and feel of Shock Treatment. And she’d forgotten just how impressive he was to watch. He had a charisma onstage. He was always charming in person, but onstage he was a god. Katie stood still and held her breath during his guitar solo—he played almost the entire thing in a series of hammer ons and pull offs, his right hand rarely touching the strings. He’d tried once to teach Katie some chords, and while she was able to do some strumming, she never had the strength—nor the patience—to play without a pick. Johnny made those sorts of maneuvers look easier than they really were. He made playing the guitar look as simple as walking across a room. And for Johnny it really was that easy.

  Next, the band played the first single off the CD, a hard and heavy song called “Battlefield.” Katie wasn’t entirely sure, but it sounded like Johnny’s take on the media. She’d have to ask him sometime if her interpretation was correct or way off. Katie was continually impressed by the singer; his name, if she remembered correctly, was Kiefer Steele (Katie figured his name was a stage name too—it just sounded too tailored to her). His mixed voice on the CD didn’t do him justice—yes, on the CD his voice was beautiful, smooth, melodic, and fully metallic as fans would expect, but he had a husky quality onstage that wasn’t captured on disc. And, as at other concerts, Johnny always varied the way his songs sounded when he played onstage. He told Katie once, “If fans want to hear it like it sounds on the CD, why the fuck do I even have to be there?” She couldn’t argue with that.

  As the fans screamed at the end of their new favorite song, Johnny threw out his two-fingered salute, signaling to his fans that he got the message. Kiefer said, “Thank you, Colorado! We love you!” to which the fans began a new wave of screams and howls, and then the band started a new song.

  Another new one, this one slower and more melodic with a lot of minor, haunting chords. Katie grew more and more impressed with Johnny and his new band as the evening wore on, especially hearing the music that hadn’t been released yet. Because it was slower, she was able to hear and understand more of the words with this song than the first one. The frontman sang in a lower key for this song than with the previous one, and Katie thought she heard him sing, “Off with the gauntlet, I strip myself bare / Drop the chain mail; you don’t seem to care. / You stab my heart; your dagger goes deep. / So I lock my soul away in the keep.” Katie smiled, enjoying the Medieval (if corny) references, trying to figure out what the song was ultimately about. At first, she was put in the mind of the facetious Tenacious D, but the song grew serious. When she heard the chorus, she thought she might have a good idea of what the song was alluding to: “You were always my friend, so why did you hurt me? / One fateful night that should have been everything. / You threw it away, and it’s all over now. / Never thought you would harm me, didn’t think you knew how. / But the wounds, they go deep…deep...deep.” Ouch. Katie had no proof, but those words felt like they were directed at her, reminding her of the “deep, deep, deep” hurt she put on Johnny. She looked over at Heather, hoping to get confirmation, but Heather’s eyes were pasted on the lead singer. Katie couldn’t have gotten Heather’s attention if she’d been semaphoring onstage. She sighed, then allowed her eyes to slowly drift up to Johnny in the other direction. Johnny’s gaze was already on her, for the first time that night that Katie had noticed, and when Katie’s eyes locked onto his, he smiled and winked, then strode to center stage to lay down a sorrowful guitar solo for his insatiable, screaming fans.

  * * *

  Heather had long been over being upset over where the two women had been perched for the show. All three acts had been enjoyable, and after Shock Treatment left the stage, Heather had actually come out of her daze, long enough to inform Katie that she was “in love” with Shock Treatment’s lead singer. She pretended to swoon, then giggled and began moshing again.

  Now that they were backstage, Katie almost felt like a third wheel. Johnny had said hi and allowed Katie to introduce him to Heather, but he had then wandered off, playing host to myriad fans and press and various musicians from all three bands, posing for the occasional picture and sipping at a beer in a red plastic cup. Heather was engaged in genuine conversation with Kiefer, and from what little Katie overheard, she guessed they were hitting it off pretty well.

  It was funny, she thought. The hunky blond football-player type who’d been hitting on her in the mosh pit had asked her to join him and his buddies at his place for an after party. When she told him she and her friend had backstage passes, he looked at her as though she were a groupie slut. Sadly enough, she was starting to feel that way—used, bored, and unwanted.

  She filled up her cup with some beer from the pony keg in the corner. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to get a small buzz on and pretend everything was okay or just be a grown up about it and tell Johnny she wanted him to spare just three minutes of his precious time so she could tell him she was sorry. And, if not, maybe they could do it some other time. Since she’d started school again, her time was indeed important, and she frankly didn’t want to spend it staring at lukewarm suds in a cup in a room that smelled like dirty socks in the din of drunks (who thought their voices were at a normal range) and fans whose ears were still ringing from the concert. If she had a chance to talk to Johnny tonight, Katie had already decided not to tell him everything on her mind, couldn’t bear to tell him everything she and Heather had talked about. God. She had been so stupid. Of course Johnny had gotten over it. She could tell that just by watching him right now. He was surrounded by a group of skinny little twenty-somethings in the corner, just like when they were in high school. Katie was a good friend, but Johnny couldn’t be bothered because she wasn’t a bevy of admiring anorexic blond girls who giggled at every stupid-ass thing Johnny said.

  Jesus. She was jealous.

  That’s it. She took a deep breath, swallowed what little beer she had left in her cup, and walked over to Heather. Heather pulled her head away from Kiefer to look at Katie, a sure sign of what a good friend she was. Katie lowered her voice. “I’m going to head on home. You go ahead and stay.”

  “Katie! Are you serious?
WTF?”

  In spite of herself, Katie grinned at Heather. Heather just could not bring herself to drop an eff bomb, no matter how effective it could be. She literally had said, “Double-ewe tee eff?” So Katie responded in kind. “What the eff is that I have to teach tomorrow morning, remember?”

  “Yeah, but not till eleven, right?”

  Katie sighed. “Yes, but I’m tired.”

  Heather looked at her in the eyes and brought her face close, their noses touching. In between clenched teeth, she said, “Kate Logan! I know you have not said a word to a certain person about what we talked about.”

  Katie didn’t move her face and just said, “Yeah, I know.”

  “And so you can’t go yet.” Katie rolled her eyes. “And, besides, he’s coming over here.”

  Katie felt her eyes grow wide. Shit. She had already resigned herself to not saying anything and now...well, now she would have to say something. Johnny stood beside them and hunched over, his knees bent, hands on his thighs, lowering his head so that his eyes were level with theirs, his grin growing wider as the two women turned their heads to look at him. Kiefer was still standing beside Heather, smiling, a stoned grin on his face, waiting to resume their conversation. Katie wondered why she didn’t have the talent Heather did, that ability to make people comfortable and willing to talk about themselves on any level, for hours on end. Heather was an every woman’s Barbara Walters. And that talent had one particular guy quite interested.

  Heather was also Miss Manners this evening. She smiled at Johnny and said, “Excuse me,” turning back to face her new friend, leaving Johnny and Katie alone.

  “So, what brings you to a place like this?”

  Katie couldn’t help herself and started laughing. “Does that line really work?”

  Johnny was still smiling. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to use it.”

  Smooth. And if she hadn’t been his friend for so long, had been a girl he’d just met, she would have been completely turned off. But she wasn’t there to be picked up; she was there to talk. So, how to ease into the conversation? She just nodded, feeling a little uneasy, and took a sip of the beer that, for some weird reason, tasted faintly of bananas. Johnny kept talking. “So, you’ve been chomping at the bit. What were you wanting to talk about? Or were you just wanting to hang?”