The Rock Star Wrote Every Song About the Size 22 Girl at the Merch Table novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Merch Table
Maggie Doyle sells shirts on her first night with the Hollow Pines in Pittsburgh, and the singer signs her arm and says every song on his record is about her.
The first thing Jude McCauley ever said to me was "Say that again."
I was counting the cash box at the end of my first night on tour, with a pen in my teeth and a roll of quarters in my fist.
The arena in Pittsburgh was emptying out behind me.
Fifteen thousand people had just screamed every word of an album I knew by heart.
I'd sold ninety-one T-shirts, twenty-two hoodies, and a poster to a man who wanted it signed for his mother.
"I'm sorry, what?" I said.
I took the pen out of my mouth and looked up.
Then I forgot what a pen was.
He stood on the other side of my folding table, still wet from the stage, in a black T-shirt that stuck to his chest.
His auburn hair hung in his eyes.
He had green eyes, a jaw, and forearms covered in tattooed handwriting.
I had seen that face on my phone case for a year.
It looked a lot better in person, and that was rude of it.
"The price," he said. "Say a price."
"For what?"
"Anything. A shirt."
"Tees are thirty," I said slowly. "Hoodies are seventy. Posters are twenty."
He closed his eyes.
His hand came down flat on my table.
"Again," he said.
"Tees are thirty."
Behind me, Stevie dropped a stack of hoodies on the floor.
Stevie is my best friend and my roommate on this tour, and she has no volume control.
"Okay, creepy," she said, "but he's literally the singer, so I'll allow it."
He opened his eyes and looked at me.
"What's your name?" he said.
"Maggie."
"Maggie what?"
"Doyle. I'm the new girl. The old girl quit in Columbus and my boss sent me."
"Maggie Doyle." He said it like he was tasting it. "Give me your arm."
"Excuse me?"
"I want to sign something, and you've got a lot of nice skin and I don't have a pen."
I held out the pen.
He ignored it.
He took my wrist in his left hand and turned my arm over so the inside faced up.
His thumb settled right on my pulse, and my pulse did something stupid.
His hand was warm and rough and enormous, and it wrapped all the way around.
He uncapped a marker with his teeth.
He wrote across my forearm in big careful letters, and I felt every stroke of it down to my knees.
It said: THIS ONE'S YOURS.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
My voice came out lower than I wanted.
He didn't let go of my wrist.
"You're a size 22," he said.
I blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm guessing. Twenty-two, maybe a 24 in a men's cut. Tell me if I'm wrong."
Heat climbed my neck.
"I'm a 22," I said. "Why are you saying that to me?"
"Because I can't stop looking, and I'd rather you hear it from me than wonder." His eyes went down my body and back up, slow, with no apology in them at all. "You have the best body I have ever seen in my life, and I want to put my hands on all of it."
Stevie made a noise like a teakettle.
I stood there with my mouth open and the marker still wet on my arm.
Men don't say that to me.
Men say "you have such a pretty face," and then they look at the wall.
"Are you drunk?" I said.
"I haven't had a drink in four years."
"Then are you running a bit?"
"I'm not." He finally let go of my wrist, but only to rest two fingers under my chin. "Every song on that record is about you, Maggie."
The arena lights hummed over us.
Somewhere behind the curtain, a stagehand dropped a cable and swore.
I laughed, because it was the only thing I could do.
"That's a good line," I said. "Is it for everybody, or just the ones at the merch table?"
"It's only for you."
"You've never met me."
"I know," said Jude McCauley.
He didn't look away from my face.
"Ask me how."
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