Page 75 of Hidden with a Rockstar

"You don’t even play bass.” I laugh.

"I don’t but I’m a fan now." Ravita grins. "I'm glad she's treating you right."

"She is."

"Good."

I'm on the couch—our couch, the one that started as a sickbed. Rhonda is in the kitchen, making dinner.

"Tell her the bridge on the new single should have been longer," Jani says through the phone.

Rhonda, from the kitchen: "Tell her she's wrong about everything."

"She can hear you," Jani says.

"Good."

I put the phone on speaker and Jani and Rhonda argue about bridge construction while I eat my dinner.

Rhonda sets down the spoon and comes to sit behind me on the couch, her chin on my shoulder, still arguing with Jani.

I interlace my fingers with hers. It’s just the two of us now, finally, in the open.

On the shelf by the door, the old siren mask still sits—cracked scales, snapped strap. I keep it there on purpose. As a souvenir to remind me of the time when I met my favourite person in the world.