On the sofa, Isaac was playing me lullabies, his fingers switching practiced formations over the fretboard. I watched him for a minute, watched his teeth close on the corner of his lip as vibrations danced beneath his fingers. I thought of every Kensington guitarist sitting under a tree in autumn with his guitar, trying to impress girls. It felt strange to watch in earnest.
The sensation of the end approaching closed in like parallel walls, and when they started crushing me, I loosed a breath, moving in, resting my head on his shoulder. The solidness of him helped the tiniest bit. Stop thinking forward. Relax. Be present . . .
It didn’t work. The hours ahead were too tight.
The music slowed, softened, and plucked into nothing. “What’s up?” he said, slipping his arm over my shoulder. I leaned back into the warm weight of it.
“Listen,” I said. He paused, waiting, but my words wouldn’t come.
He raised one eyebrow. “Listen to what?”
“I . . . never mind.”
After a second, Isaac asked, “Was that going to be the what-are-we talk?”
A laugh stuttered out of me. “No. But we can, if you want.”
“No, I’m not—let’s not,” he said. “It’s kind of nice not knowing.”
“Ignorance is bliss.”
“Whoa, dude, I’m so blissed out,” he said in a California-surfer-dude voice. “Ignorance is totally tubular.”
I fought back a grin that threatened to make my whole face hurt. “California’s too good for you, city boy.”
“Sure it is.” His hand on my shoulder drew me closer.
Voices echoed up the stairs. We jerked apart. I glanced at the clock—an hour had flicked past in fast-forward. I snatched up my miniature sideburns from the sofa arm and tried to stick the gummy strips back to my face, but they had lost all adhesive power.
As the doorknob rattled, Isaac flew to the door and leaned on it, pinning it shut. “Ahe-he-hem,” he harrumphed through the crack in the door. “Password?”
Protests rose behind the door. “Come on,” groaned Erik’s voice.
“Wrong,” Isaac said.
“Is it Eelectric Eel?” Jon Cox’s voice said. “Best album name ever?”
“You know, shockingly, I didn’t land on that one,” Isaac said. Bracing one hand against the wall to keep the door shut, he gave me an urgent glance back.
I gave up on the sideburns. “Agh,” I said, and flung them out the window as Trav’s voice said,
“Now, Isaac.”
Isaac pulled the door open. “Amazing,” he said. “Trav, you’re psychic.”
Trav gave him dagger eyes, nudging past toward the piano. I leaned my cheek on my hand, trying to look natural, as everyone piled in.
“Okay,” Erik said to the other guys, dropping into an armchair. “Fuck Elena, marry Ayana, kill Libby.”
Loud exclaiming from Jon Cox and Mama. Apparently a controversial choice.
“Wrong,” Marcus mumbled as he hoisted himself into the windowsill. He jerked his head, as if to get his nonexistent bangs out of his eyes. He’d cut his hair short a week ago, but the habit had carried over, leaving him with a new nervous tic to add to his extensive collection of nervous tics.
“Why are you killing Libby?” Jon Cox said. “She’s way hotter than Elena.”
“Because Libby stands for Liberty,” Erik said. “Imagine saying that in bed and hearing in your head, Liberty! Liberty!”
Jon Cox grinned. “You know nobody actually says each other’s names in bed, right?”
“Speak for yourself,” Mama said.
Nihal settled on the sofa beside me, looking pained. “I know so much right now that I did not ask to know.”
“Hey,” Mama said, his eyes falling on me. “Julian. Are you—what happened to your face?”
Everyone’s eyes lit on me, and a hush spread. I angled my face downward, avoiding the stares. “Nothing,” I said gruffly.
“He walked into a wall,” Isaac said. “But, like, repeatedly.”
I sighed, glancing around at the guys. “Me and Connor Caskey got in a fight, okay?”
To my left, Nihal grew rigid.
Surprise registered on the guys’ faces. “Jesus,” Jon Cox said, his eyebrows drawing together. “That’s drastic.”
Erik jumped in, too eager. “Did you win?”
I shot him an amused look. “Two music geeks beating each other up in an elevator? Nobody’s a winner.” Chuckling rippled around the Nest.
“You can sing, yes?” Trav said.
“Yeah. I’m a little stuffy, but it’s already better than an hour ago.”
“Good. Put on some stage makeup or something tomorrow.” Trav cleared his throat. “And everyone, make sure you’re there by five so we have plenty of time to warm up.”
Seven heads bobbed.
“That said.” Trav folded his hands. “Let’s move our—”
He stopped, his eyes falling to the corner where our equipment always sat, the monitors and the chest of mics. It was empty. “Did someone take that down to Arlington already?”
Awful silence spread. And I realized why, all of a sudden, the Minuets had been so intent on distracting us today.
Standing in the Arlington backstage area, I felt like I was reliving the evening of my audition, when Erik had led me onto the stage. The cascades of the spotlights.
Now, darkness smothered everything except for the ghost light that sat center stage. It cast dim slivers of light back here, onto the rack of music lockers, whose metal webbing covered clusters of musical equipment. Tucked into one cage was a deconstructed drum set, the hammered coppery flats of the cymbals glinting. In another, swaths of cloth wrapped up mixers and miniature keyboards.
Trav was rattling through the cages one by one, double-checking that none of our sound tech had ended up inside.
“How about,” Jon Cox said, “we ask the other groups if they have any equipment we could borrow?”
“Yeah, of course,” Mama said. “They’re totally going to turn down a golden opportunity to ruin our performance.”
“Pessimist,” Jon Cox said. “Let’s call some people. Even if we can just get hold of a beatboxing and bass mic, it’ll be something.” He looked at Erik. “You think the Measures might have any extra solo mics?”
“Maybe,” Erik said, not sounding convinced.
“Ulterior motive,” Mama mumbled. But he, Jon, and Erik took off, and Marcus scrambled after them. The four of them jogged down the upstage wall, past the rows of taut pulley ropes, into the open greenroom.
Trav had stopped searching the cages. He stood at the side of the stage, staring at a patch of ground like he was trying to set it on fire through sheer force of will. He was twisting the stud in his ear so violently that watching it made a sympathetic pang dart across my earlobes.
Isaac jogged over and took Trav’s wrist. He said something too quietly for me or Nihal to hear. We exchanged a look and turned away from the seniors.
After a minute, they approached us. Trav’s hands were back in his pockets. He was breathing more steadily.