Page 255 of End Game

I laugh. “Ronan says earplugs.”

Dex throws himself backward onto the couch. “I left the state to escape this oppression.”

Micah pulls a small plastic case from his backpack and tosses it toward him.

Dex catches it.

Earplugs.

His face falls. “This relationship is abusive.”

“No,” Micah says.

“You packed them?”

“Yes.”

“Without telling me?”

“Yes.”

I lean against the bedroom doorway. “That's kind of hot.”

Micah looks at me.

My stomach does a small, inconvenient flip.

Dex points between us. “No. Absolutely not. We have somewhere to be in forty minutes.”

“Then stop pacing,” Micah tells him.

“I am metabolizing anxiety.”

“You're annoying the carpet.”

“I knew Chicago would change you.”

Some of the tension leaves Dex's shoulders.

Not all.

Enough.

The studio is nothing like Grave Intentions' rehearsal space.

I've been there.

It sits inside an industrial building outside Denver and smells faintly like dust, sweat, stale beer, and whatever died inside one of the vents in 2009.

This place smells like coffee and expensive wood.

There are guitars mounted along one wall, racks of equipment I don't recognize, a massive soundboard behind glass, and enough cables that Griffin would have a stroke over the trip hazards.

Austin is standing in the main room with a guitar when we walk in.

He looks up. “There he fucking is.”

Dex stops pretending to be nervous.