“Rock Chicks, wouldn’t live without ‘em,” Stel a muttered into her mic with a smile down to us and the crowd roared again. Stel a looked away from us to the arena. “Seeing as we’re home…”

She didn’t finish, the crowd didn’t let her; they belted out a whoop that was deafening.

When they calmed, she went on, “As I was saying, seeing as we’re home…” Another deafening whoop but Stel a kept talking this time, “we’re gonna do it like we did it before. None of this new shit we’ve been doing, we’re going vintage.”

The crowd went absolutely nuts.

“Holy f**k, they’re gonna tear the place down,” Vance shouted from behind us but the Rock Chicks ignored him, mainly because we’d likely be right in on any “tearing the place down”.

“Though, not that vintage,” Stel a went on. “Just a little something I like that says it al .”

Stel a looked behind her to Pong at the drums then to her left at Leo and Hugo then to her right at Buzz and she nodded. Then Stel a, Buzz, Leo and Hugo al stepped up to their mics in a line at the front of the stage.

“This is for Kai,” she told the crowd and, since everyone knew Mace, being hot as he was and being famous in his past and being famous for what went down with Stel a in Denver and being famous because those books came out and, wel , again being hot, the crowd descended into bedlam.

The minute she finished saying Mace’s name, the guitars and drums started. They started hard and they started loud and I felt the thril of them in my toes, straight up my body to the very ends of my hair.

Stel a lifted her mouth to the microphone and started to sing Blink-182’s total y kickass, rockin’ love song, “Al the Smal Things”.

The Rock Chicks banged our heads and jacked our hands in tandem with the beat, arms lifted high in the air and when the boys in the band took to their microphones and sang, Na na, na na, na na, na na na-na, na na, na na, na na, na na, na-na, we sang it with them.

Stel a had stepped back from her mic to jam, her own head banging with the “na na’s”. Then she riffed, dancing graceful y, swaying her body, so cool it was unreal.

Then she stepped back to her mic to sing as everyone in the entire stadium sang with her.

Leo, Buzz, Hugo and Pong went into the “na-na’s” again and we al danced and sang with them as Stel a went off, working the stage, working the crowd, nodding and smiling to her fans.

“Jesus,” Luke muttered behind me. I turned to him and his eyes were locked on Stel a.

He’d never been to one of her gigs except the ones where he was protecting her and al the Rock Chicks and he’d been kind of busy during those.

“She’s the shit,” I shouted at him and his eyes moved to me.

Luke was about to speak when something caught his eye and he looked up again.

I turned back around and saw Stel a at the mic. The music had slowed in order to own the crescendo and her eyes were looking to her right, not to Buzz but offstage.

“Get out here, babe, I wanna kiss you,” she said into the mic but she most definitely wasn’t talking to the crowd.

She stepped back from the mic, once, twice, her body facing forward, her head twisted to the side, al the while she played her guitar and then, al of a sudden, the smile on her mouth went radiant.

I looked to my left and saw Mace was walking out onstage. His eyes were on Stel a, a smal smile on his face and he was shaking his head, walking slow, looking good (as usual).

Al the Rock Chicks and Hot Bunch stopped dead and stared as Stel a swung her guitar behind her back, ran the rest of the distance between her and Mace and launched herself at him.

He caught her, hands at her ass, her arms wrapped themselves around his neck, her legs wrapped around his hips, he tilted his head back, she tilted hers down and she kissed him.

The crowd shouted, screamed, whistled, they were nearly louder than the music as Buzz, Pong and Hugo kept singing “na-na’s” and Leo took over the lyrics.

One of Mace’s hands left Stel a’s ass and went up her back and into her hair to cup her head.

Then he broke the kiss and, with a huge smile on his face, he leaned over at the waist like he was going to drop her. Stel a held on tight, threw her head back and let out a piercing, laughing scream that we could hear, even over the crowd, her hair swept the stage and her guitar hung off her back.

They stood there like that, both laughing into each other’s faces, oblivious to the tens of thousands of people watching them, total y into each other.

My heart went into my throat. I leaned back against Luke, his arm moved to wrap around my chest and we watched two people we both cared a lot about.

They were in love, they were healed and most of al , they were outrageously happy.

I thought, for the rest of my life, I’d never forget seeing them horsing around and laughing onstage in front of a hometown crowd.

I never wanted to forget.

I didn’t have to worry.

Someone caught them with a camera. Mace bent over holding Stel a and laughing. Stel a wrapped around him, her magnificent hair fanned on the stage, her guitar hanging off her back, her head thrown back, her neck arched…

Her smile lighting up an arena.

The picture was on page fifty of the next edition of Rolling Stone.