Chapter 1

Gil stood before the microphone and listened to the crowd. It was a dulcet-toned sound and he basked in the ovation and peered around at his band mates and they were basking, too. He stepped back and picked up his bottle and drank from it and smiled. We'll be back in forty minutes, he told them and Nick did a little thing on his drums that ended with a cymbal stop and Finn removed his Les Paul and sat heavily down upon the broken stool by his smp and sighed. Gil unplugged his Martin and stepped back to his station and sat a moment, too; then got up and went to the little stand he had set up on the other side of the played-out speakers and set the guitar down upon the trusses and came back. He picked up his beer and looked around. He drank and peered over at Finn who was brooding something fierce and looking like he had lost something very important.