Her Love Came Too Late novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The First Post

The night before the Ardmore show, Marin Granger sat in Russ's glass office on the fourteenth floor and watched numbers climb.

Russ had a screen on the wall that showed them all.

Forty-one million streams of "Stage Door."

Every date on the tour sold out.

A line of brand deals waiting, each with a number beside it that made her stomach turn.

"This is the best month of your career," Russ said. "Tomorrow night, the hometown show, is the cherry on top."

"I'm going to tell them."

"Tell them what?"

"That he's my husband. That he's not a stalker."

She held on to the arm of the chair.

"That the song is about him."

Russ did not argue.

He leaned back and smiled at her, patient and kind.

He had smiled that way when she was twenty-six and playing to eight people.

"Marin. Sweetheart. Can I show you something?"

He tapped his tablet and turned it to face her.

It was the post that had started the whole page, five years old.

A photo of a man in a grey coat, laughing in the doorway of a bar, taken from inside.

Some man waits outside every show I play. Scary.

Under it was her name, in the account's tiny gray font.

She had posted it from her own phone at one in the morning, after Elliott drove her home.

She remembered the night.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Her Love Came Too Late from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.