Dakota Rhodes

Backstage at the New York venue felt like controlled chaos pretending to be organized. Cables snaked across the floor in messy black lines, stagehands moved in fast, clipped directions, and the distant thump of sound checks from another act rattled through the walls. Somewhere beyond the curtain, an audience was already gathering. Dakota Rhodes stood slightly apart from it all. Her fingers hovered over her phone without really reading anything on the screen. It was more of a habit than a function at this point. She leaned back against a flight case, posture relaxed in a way that didn’t match the tension coiled beneath her skin. The performance was an hour away. She had done this enough times that the mechanics of it were second nature—walk out, breathe in the noise, and become someone louder than the crowd. She told herself it wasn’t nerves. It never was. It was anticipation. It was ritual. To her left, Derek was making a complete disaster of himself. The drummer had cornered one of the stagehands near a stack of equipment cases, grinning like he was proud of every terrible word coming out of his mouth. His flirting was loud, overconfident, and objectively painful to witness. The stagehand looked like she was trying to decide whether to laugh or call for backup. Sydney’s laugh cut through the noise from across the room. The lead guitarist was already halfway through her fourth beer, and leaning against a stack of gear. She lifted her drink in lazy mock support before calling him something that made him stumble over his own words even harder. Roid, as always, was somewhere in the middle of it all, completely unbothered. The bassist sat nearby, tuning quietly, posture loose and grounded in a way that made him feel like the only stable object in the entire room. He barely reacted to the chaos unfolding around him. Sydney’s laughter, Derek’s spiraling attempt at romance, the rushing crew members—none of it seemed to touch him.