"Okay fine, but I'm allowed to appreciate multiple bands."
"You're allowed. But you're not going to do it in front of me." Ravita checks her phone. "Five minutes. Get your cameras ready."
The Sirens open with "Service Topline," and the bass line drops through the floor. Everything else drops away—the reconciliation report. My phone up with the camera steady. Watching Riley tear through her drumkit kit with focused ferocity that gives me goosebumps. Her sticks blur. My hands shake right after I stop the recording.
"Did you see that?" I grab Ravita's arm.
"I did!"
"I can't stop watching this." Ravita says, rewatching on her own phone.
"It was so good," I said.
Marnie is just breathing, fanning herself. "I can't. I can't handle this."
My sister Jani is on stage left with her bass slung low, black hair falling across her face as she locks into a groove. She has no idea I'm here. Tonight I'm just a fan in a mask with her two best friends, screaming about the drummer.
The Sirens' performance lasts for forty minutes. It's never enough.
"That was," Ravita says when they exit stage left, breathing hard, "the best performance they've ever played."
"No it wasn't," Marnie argues. "That was good but the Brooklyn performance was stronger."
"That was ages ago."
"But it was the greatest set of my life."
The band changeover begins. Ravita's already texting.
"Let's pass on the Belladonnas?" I ask her, though I know the answer.
"Hard pass."
"Nooo, please?" Marie clasps her hands together, using her best puppy eye expression. "Just stay here we've paid already for these tickets."
"Okay, okay."
We've let it rest. Our group chat is based on unanimous enthusiasm—Riley, The Sirens. We don't do complicated feelings about rival bands.
The Belladonnas' crew starts rolling gear out for the changeover, and the floor roars anyway—louder than it did for The Sirens.
"I'll be back—merch run," I say, already up on my toes. Ravita gives me a thumbs up.
"Nothing with a Belladonna on it."
"Of course," I say, grinning, and weave off through the crowd on my own.
They aren't even playing yet—still setting up, a tech taping down cables while the bassist runs a low line in soundcheck.
I've got my phone up and my mask on, scrolling my Riley footage with half my attention and hunting for the merch table with the other half—which is exactly why I don't see the person stepping backward off the floor with an armful of cable until a hand connects with the side of my face.
Not my face. The mask.
The impact is hard enough that I hear the crack before I feel it. I feel my stomach drop. The ombré scales fracture along the seam where the gradient peaks. The strap breaks. Everything burns itself into memory: the mask separating, my soda flying, orange Fanta painting an arc through the air.
It lands on leather pants. Black leather pants, now streaked with a dark stain, belonging to a woman staring at the mess as if it has offended her.
"Oh my god, your pants—" The apology is halfway out of me before I even look down at my own hands and see the pieces. "You—you just destroyed it." My voice cracks right down the middle.