Cam held it open for Lilith. On the other side was a dimly lit, narrow hallway.
“This way.” Lilith took his hand, gesturing to a poster with an arrow. They took a left and then a right, then found the row of dressing rooms with labeled doors: Love and Idleness, Death of the Author, the Perceived Slights, the Four Horsemen, and, at the end of the hall, Revenge. Lilith turned the knob.
Inside, Luis sat in a director’s chair, shoveling peanut M&M’s into his mouth, his feet up on a vanity. He had changed into a black cowboy shirt and white slacks, with a black fedora tilted low. His eyes were closed, and he was rehearing the backup harmonies to “Somebody’s Other Blues” under his breath.
On a couch in the corner, Jean was making out with his girlfriend Kimi, who looked great in her long cranberry satin dress. He broke away from their kiss for a moment to look up and give Cam and Lilith a peace sign.
“Ready to rock, man?” he said, adjusting the tan leather fringed vest he’d found at the Salvation Army.
Behind them, Cam’s guitar was propped against Jean’s synth, next to Jean and Luis’s tuxedos, which had been removed and hung up carefully—clearly by Jean’s girlfriend.
Kimi stood up and straightened her dress. “Time for me to scoot,” she said. From the dressing-room door, she blew Jean a kiss. “Make me proud.”
Jean reached up to catch the air kiss, which made Cam and Lilith burst out laughing.
“It’s our thing,” Jean said. “Do I make fun of you guys for getting into fights every fifteen minutes? I do not, because that’s your thing.”
Cam glanced at Lilith. “We haven’t fought in at least half an hour.”
“We’re overdue,” Lilith agreed. Then she put her hand on Jean’s shoulder. “Hey, thanks for putting up with all of our drama.”
“Nah,” Jean said. “You should see how Kimi gets when I don’t return her texts in under sixty seconds.”
“It’s prom!” Luis said. “When in the history of the world has the lead-up to prom not inspired major drama?” He pulled his drumsticks from his back pocket and practiced a drum roll on his thighs.
“Two minutes to show,” a voice called from the hallway. Cam leaned his head out to find Luc idling outside with a clipboard and a headset. He flashed Cam a lupine grin and lowered his voice to its true pitch. “You ready for this, Cambriel?”
“Born ready,” Cam said. Of course, that wasn’t true. He hadn’t even felt close to ready to win the wager against Lucifer until he’d held Lilith in his arms last night.
The devil laughed, popping a few of the lightbulbs in the ceiling with a cackle so grating it was inaudible to everyone but Cam. His voice went back to its fake smoothness when he announced, “All bands, report to your positions in the wings.”
Cam came back into the dressing room and closed the door, hoping the others couldn’t tell he was riled. He glanced at Luis in the mirror. The drummer’s complexion had turned sallow.
“You okay?” Cam asked.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Luis said.
“I told you not to eat all those M&M’s,” Jean said, shaking his head.
“It’s not that.” Luis was breathing shallowly, resting his palms on the vanity. “None of you guys get stage fright?”
“I do,” Lilith said, and Cam looked over to find her trembling. “Two weeks ago I would never have thought I’d be standing here. Now that I am, I want to be great. I don’t want to screw up because I’m nervous. I don’t want to throw it all away.”
“The thing about performing music no one’s heard before,” Jean said, tucking his Moog under his arm, “is no one knows if you screw up.”
“But I would know,” Lilith said.
Cam sat down on the vanity, facing Lilith. He touched her chin and said softly, “We just go out there and do our best.”
“What if my best isn’t good enough?” Lilith asked, looking down. “What if this was all a mistake?”
Cam put his hands on her shoulders. “The measure of this band is not a three-minute performance at prom. The measure of this band is all the steps it took us to get here. You writing those songs. Us learning to play them together. All our practices. Our trip to the Salvation Army. The lyrics contest you won.”
He looked from Lilith to Jean to Luis and found them hanging on his words, so he kept going. “It’s the fact that we all actually like each other now. And every time you threw me out of the band. And every time you graciously let me back in. That’s Revenge. As long as we remember that, nothing can stop us.” He took a deep breath, hoping the others didn’t notice the tremor in his voice. “And if we don’t succeed, at least we’ll have had this time together. Even if this is the end, it was worth it to get to play with you for a little while.”
Lilith tilted her head at Cam and gazed deep into his eyes. She mouthed something Cam didn’t quite catch. His heart soared as he leaned close to her lips.
“What did you say?”