I’ll do this for a while. Until the last of the adrenaline from the show has finally drained away, and my whole body aches, but in a good way, like after a long run, and I can just pass out, without the rest of my brain ever turning itself back on. I’m just getting down on the floor for the next round of push-ups when there’s a tap at the window.

I jerk up. My heart jumps.

Someone is outside.

At first all I can see is a shape. It looks human. It’s small and short-haired, and it’s pressed right up to the glass.

Then it lifts one hand in a little fingertip wave, and I realize that it’s Frankie Lynde.

And I’m standing beside my bed, out of breath, my mouth hanging open, in nothing but my ratty boxer shorts.

Jesus Christ.

I grab a pair of jeans from the laundry pile, yanking them up over my damp skin as I stumble toward the window.

She’s seen me like this before. Shirtless, out of breath. The memory makes my frozen heart start to thud again.

Rock-star face. Rock-star face.

I shake my hair out of my eyes and shove the window open. A rush of cool, damp air pours into the room.

Mrk? says Goblin from over my shoulder.

My window is just high enough that Frankie needed to stand on something to look inside. She’s rolled a stump over from the firepit out back. In the moonlight her hair is sleek and her skin is silvery gold and perfect.

Everything about her is perfect.

“Hey,” she says. She smiles.

My heart trips, but I keep my face still. “Hey.”

“How’s it going in there?”

“Fine. How’s it going out there?”

“Also fine. Although Sasha spilled some iced green tea on Mason’s phone, and now he might have to kill her. Or get a new phone. Whatever’s easier.”

In the background I can hear a shriek. “Stop it, Mason! That won’t bring your phone back from the dead!” There’s crunching, steps running through pine needles. Somebody laughs.

“Who else is out there?”

“Just me and Sasha and Mason and Gwynn. We might drive around for a while. The moon’s so bright.”

Of course Frankie isn’t alone. She’s never alone. That’s the kind of girl Frankie is: the kind who’s surrounded by people who love her every minute of every day.

Frankie is fun. She’s cool. She’s also the most beautiful human being I’ve ever seen in real life. If it weren’t for the music, a girl like Frankie Lynde wouldn’t even give me two seconds of her attention. She notices me for the same reason everybody else does, and I know it.

I’m not whining. I’m not. But I’m also not going to pretend something’s real when I know that if my guitar suddenly disappeared, Frankie Lynde would disappear, too.

“We were all at the show,” Frankie says. “Did you see us?”

Did I see them? I can’t remember. While I play, I focus on one face after another until all of them melt into one blurry gray face, and nothing sticks in my mind at all.