The band had just finished their final bow, sweat slicking their skin, hair clinging to their faces as they waved to the roaring crowd one last time. The lights dimmed, instruments hummed into silence, and they filed offstage, exhausted but buzzing from the electricity of the show.
A breathless crew member met them in the wings, clipboard clutched tight, headset askew. "You've got about five minutes before the storm hits. It's coming in hard—like sideways rain and wind gusts hard. You should move."
Lindsey blinked. "We have five—?"
"Go!" Karen shouted, already tossing coats and jackets at them like a quarterback slinging passes. "We are not getting stranded in a loading dock in Boise."
They moved fast—at least, fast by band standards. Stevie refused to run, though she did shuffle quickly, her signature platform boots clunking as she tried to keep up without toppling over.
The group poured out into the parking lot like a stampede of road-weary rock legends, each dragging some combination of wet hair, stage clothes, gear bags, and mild panic behind them.
Unfortunately... five minutes had passed.
The storm didn't knock politely—it pounced.
Thunder cracked like a whip in the sky, and then the heavens opened with the fury of a thousand angry drum solos. Rain dumped in sheets, thick and instant, soaking them in seconds.
"Welp," Christine deadpanned as her blouse stuck to her skin, "we missed the window."
"You think?" Stevie yelled, clutching the sides of her jacket as her boots squelched against the pavement like soggy bricks.
They hustled to their cars—comically late—and hydroplaned their way through the slick streets to the hotel. By the time they stumbled through the revolving doors into the grand marble lobby, they looked like drenched rats wearing designer leather and decades of unresolved creative tension.
The lobby's ambient lighting flickered once, twice—then gave up entirely.
Click. Buzz. Silence.
"Great," Mick muttered. "Perfect ending."
Stevie stopped just inside the entrance, blinking as emergency lights bathed the space in a dim, flickering glow. She took one look at the dark elevator bank and threw her arms out dramatically. "I'm not climbing thirty-seven flights in these boots," she declared, peeling them off one by one with exaggerated effort. "These things weigh seven pounds dry. Right now they could sink a yacht."
She held one up for emphasis. It made a wet thunk when she dropped it on the marble floor.
"Congratulations, Boise," she added. "You've just witnessed the Titanic of footwear."
The hotel staff, quick on their feet, emerged with fluffy towels and steaming mugs of something vaguely herbal. Someone even set out a tray of warm cookies, which John devoured with the desperation of a man wronged by the sky.
Guests began trickling down from their rooms, phone flashlights in hand, murmuring about the outage. Someone lit a dozen candles across the front desk and a staff member propped open the ballroom doors for airflow.
The band congregated near the grand piano, half-wrapped in towels, half-laughing at their soaked state. Stevie, barefoot and newly liberated from her waterlogged shoes, plopped down dramatically on a velvet couch and said, "I vote we live here now. We perform nightly. House band. No stairs."
Christine, still drying her hair with a towel, wandered over to the piano and idly played a few soft notes. Her fingers moved instinctively, and soon she was humming—low and slow.
It was "Storms."
Stevie looked up sharply, her head cocking to one side. A grin tugged at her lips. "Really?"
Christine smirked but didn't stop.
Lindsey grabbed an acoustic guitar someone had leaned by the concierge desk—likely one of theirs that had been carried in during the mad dash—and began to pluck along.
Mick started tapping an empty glass with a spoon, keeping rhythm. John thumped gently on a suitcase that hadn't yet made it up to the room.
Without fanfare, the band eased into the song together—harmonies tight, notes precise, the music washing over the lobby like a warm blanket. Guests gathered silently, staff paused in their tracks, and even a barking dog on the sixth floor seemed to settle down.
One song turned into two.
Two turned into three.
By the fourth, the crowd had grown larger, faces peeking from stairwells and shadowed hallways. Someone had opened a side door and the night air filtered in with the scent of rain and pavement.
Then came the fifth song.
They returned to "Storms"—full circle. As Stevie stepped forward barefoot, towel over her shoulders like a cape, she sang the line that had become legend:
"I have always been a storm..."
Click.
The lights returned with a soft mechanical hum. The chandelier above flickered to full life. The HVAC kicked in.
The band paused.
Stevie blinked.
The crowd erupted in cheers.
Christine turned from the piano with a small laugh. "Well, guess that line really did blow the fuses."
Lindsey nodded, strumming a final chord. "You're like a weather witch."
John said, "Can we go upstairs now? I think I've grown moss."
Stevie looked down at her soaked clothes and bare feet. "Only if someone carries me."
Mick offered a half-hearted "Nope."
Karen, finally catching her breath in the corner, just laughed and handed Stevie her boots like a soggy offering. "We should keep these in a museum. The boots that braved the Boise monsoon."
And with that, the band gathered their drenched gear and slowly made their way to the elevators—now glowing and open—leaving behind a lobby full of clapping guests and one very confused front desk clerk who would later swear that Fleetwood Mac had just played a candlelit concert during a blackout, and no one had believed him.
But everyone who was there knew better.
They had always been a storm.
