A/N: You know it's not mine. I wish it was, but that doesn't change anything.

Chapter One

Going to the Grammys wasn't exactly a new thing for me. My band and I had been four out of the last five years. This year was the first time I'd been that I wasn't nominated for anything though. I was just presenting an award.

I got out of my seat in the fourth commercial break. I was instantly replaced by some out of work actress employed to keep the audience looking even. I always though that being a seat filler would be kind of a cool job. You get to go to all the awards and hang out with the stars. Of course, now I kind of get counted as a star, I can see that most of them are egotistical morons, but hey...

Backstage was a flurry of activity. I checked the green room schedule, and saw that there was a performance, two awards, another commercial break and then me. For some reason I was down to present the Best Jazz Album award. I had no idea why, but honestly, I didn't mind. All it meant to me was that I got a fat goodie bag full of $10 000 of free stuff that only nominees and presenters got. My bandmates would have to be content with the regular goodie bags, worth only $2 000. I sometimes wonder when my worldview got so utterly warped.

"Maddie!" I heard a voice call from behind me. There was Lynda, one of the few people in the business that I actually liked. She'd been our tour manager on our first tour, but now she was an assistant producer for this. She and I still kept in touch though, and met up as often as we could.

"Lyn! Hey! How's it going?"

"Terrible! This is my worst nightmare. One of my presenters is passed out drunk in the bathroom, two of the Rock Album nominees have disappeared off together somewhere, and that award's coming up in 10 minutes... Do I need to go on?"

"Pretty usual then."

"Yeah. Actually, it's better than last year. Not so many darn video feels for nominees who can't get their butts back to the US for one night."

I laughed. The previous year, my band and I were on tour in New Zealand and couldn't get back for the awards. To make it more difficult, we were nominated for 3 Grammys and they had to set up a live video link so we could accept an award if we won it. It was a total nightmare and it ended up not working at all for most of the ceremony. It did, however, work well enough for us to add 2 more statues to my trophy cabinet.

"True." I paused. "So Lyn, know who I'm up with? I've been trying to find out for two weeks, but no one in your office seemed to know..."

"Uhh, I guess it's last year's winner. I'm not sure who that is offhand, but I can find out for you if you want." Lynda started to look through the mountain of paper on her clipboard.

"Oh, don't worry about it. I guess I'll find out when he gets here." I could see all that paper going everywhere and Lyn stroking out. Not a good thing.

Moments after that, I was attacked by a horde of assistants. They fixed my hair, my makeup. They re-arranged my dress. I never get used to that kind of thing, but once in a while it's kind of fun.

"Madison?" a voice came behind me. I knew that voice. It was way too familiar, but it was impossible. Why would he be at the Grammys? I turned around.

"Ephram?" There he was. My ex-boyfriend. Not just an ex-boyfriend, but 'the' ex-boyfriend. The one I compared all the others to, the one I'd never really let myself get over. And he was standing right in front of me. I think my face must have been frozen in a mix between shock and horror.

"Hey!" He sounded pleased to see me. "I was hoping I'd get to see you."

"Ephram?" I repeated, kind of dazed. "Hi. What are you doing here?" I wasn't trying to be rude or anything. It was just shock.

Thankfully he just smiled. "Presenting an award actually. Best Jazz Album."

"We're presenting together?" I sounded incredulous. "Wait, that means... You're last year's winner. You won a Grammy?"

"No need to sound surprised! I know it's nothing compared to your 6, but still!"

"No, that's not what I meant. It's just... I didn't know."

"Huh? I know you weren't here last year, but I thought they had you guys on a video feed?"

"The darn thing broke down like five times. We missed most of the ceremony. And they don't repeat the entire ceremony in New Zealand, just the highlights, which..."

"Yeah, I know. Jazz Album isn't one of them, right?"

"Hey, you said it, not me."

"Man... It is good to see you Madison. It's been, what? 10 years."

"I guess." I didn't have to. It had been 9 years and 9 months since we'd broken up, almost to the day.

"Ok, you guys. You have 2 minutes." Lynda interrupted our reunion.

I pulled myself together, and tried my hardest to act like a professional. Of course, as jobs go, it's not that hard. Ephram took my arm and lead me to the stage door. Then we just had to get down the steps and to the podium without falling over, or doing anything dumb.

"Innovation is the lifeblood of music. Without it, we as an industry stand still, rather than boldly moving forward." I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes at the cheesy intro I was forced to read. They needed a better writer. "Jazz is a style of music that constantly pushes for innovation. It moves music to new places and the rest of the industry follows."

"The nominees for Best Jazz Album are..." Ephram had the easy part. He just had to stop and let the VT take over. Not that I don't like the VT. It stops people like me from looking like total morons when they mispronounce a name.

"And the winner is..." I opened the envelope and handed it to Ephram to read out.

"Charlotte Parker for Misconceptions."

A pretty black haired woman got out of her seat, hugged everyone within reach and headed towards the stage. By woman, I meant girl of course. She couldn't have been older than 20, and for that I kind of hated her. It wasn't a conscious thing, but I'd started disliking younger people when I'd turned 30. I had a horrible feeling I was just turning into my mother, and that was not a good thing.

We left Charlotte on stage, accepting her award, but not before she'd grabbed Ephram and pulled him into a hug. Back in the green room I raised an eyebrow at Ephram.

"You know her then?" I sounded jealous, which I had no right to. I hadn't seen him in 10 years.

"Huh? Oh, Charlotte? Yeah. I played on a couple of tracks on her album. She's dating a friend of mine."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. Not competition then.

"Are you going to the after party?" I didn't want to say goodbye quite yet. He'd been out of my life for far too long.

"Yeah, I'll be there. It's a free bar." Ephram paused. "Delia's going to be so psyched to see you."

"Delia? Delia's here?"

"Yeah," Ephram smiled. "She's my date tonight. It was great actually, she agreed to come right at the last minute when my wife couldn't make it."

And there it was, the word I really didn't want to hear. Wife.