DBakerBass: Same.I don’t know about LA.My friend works on a cruise line here and said she could get me a job on some of the Alaska cruises.I might do that.At least it’s music.
ElleryLuvsMusic: And you get to travel, you lucky asshole (insert heart emoji x 3)
DBakerBass: So…what happened with that guy?
ElleryLuvsMusic: What guy?
DBakerBass: That guy from the end of the night.Adam Schwartz or something?What did he want?
ElleryLuvsMusic: Wow, I’d totally forgotten about that.Some starlet poacher.Gag.Like I don’t know how manipulative those influencer mansion gigs are.Please.
…
DBakerBass: Cool.
ElleryLuvsMusic: Shit, my roommate just got back from the bar and is puking.I’ve got to go.Keep in touch.Yeah?Here’s my number.I don’t use IG DMs, except this is the only way I could find you.Too many creeps on here want to tell me they “like my smile.”
DBakerBass: Kick them all in the nuts.
ElleryLuvsMusic: Definitely.Talk soon.
…
DBakerBass: Definitely.
CHAPTER4
Now—Ellery
The last chordof the song harmonizes with the crowd’s echo, undulating through the Agora’s semicircular amphitheater.
Ellery tosses her head back, letting her curls fly in the breeze coming off the mountain behind them.It’s been a very, very long time since she has felt like this.Free and open and thrumming with possibility.
“Do you like that, LA?!”The crowd answers with a thunderous roar.“It’s my amazing band.Let’s hear it for them!”Ellery picks up the mic and turns to her friends.“Let me introduce you first of all to Selene over here on drums.”Selene riffs through a rapid percussion of cymbals and snare as the audience cheers its massive approval.“And Lorraine on keys!”An answering thunderous roar isn’t enough to drown out Lorraine’s talented fingers flying across the board.
Guilt floods through Ellery.Has she given her friends their due?Or did she stand by and allow the agents and producers to push her to the front and them to back up?That isn’t fair.It isn’t right.She never would have done that in the before times.Who has she become?A puppet with big hair that isn’t her natural color and uncomfortable footwear?
If she turns her head, she can see him.Dante, his support less than three feet away.He knows who she used to be.Selene and Lorraine too, they know who she was.Someone who used to fight for herself.Someone who used to let the music come first.
Tears rise to her eyes, and for the first time in almost two years, she lets them come.Who cares?Streaked mascara makes her look badass, and she has missed feeling this way.
She turns back to the audience, her eyes sparkling.Through the teary haze, the crowd is a curtain of people, listening, waiting.“Selene and Lorraine have been with me for years.They’re the most talented women I know.Tonight they deserve to shine.”
She hears the intake of a drawn breath behind her and turns to catch the look her bandmates exchange.“Yeah, you.You two don’t get to hide in the shadows.It isn’t right.”She catches Dante’s gaze and holds it, swallowing the lump in her throat.“None of you should.This is our last night on tour.Let’s make magic.”
There’s a stunned silence in the crowd, but it lasts less than a second before the audience surges into cries of joy and delight.
Selene and Lorraine look at Ellery, and she knows this is it, this is the right thing to do.
“Six years ago, Selene and Lorraine and I met up at a club downtown.We used to be equals.”The tears make her voice watery and she doesn’t give a single shit.“We still are.We’re still the Vendetta.Right?”
“Hell, yes!”Her brown eyes sparkling with the spotlight, Selene raises her drum sticks above her head and strikes them together.
Lorraine shakes her head, the scarf around her hair bright in the stage lights, but she’s laughing then nodding.She’s always been the one who rolls with the punches, jams with the melody, flexes to fit.
Fuck that.Tonight Lorraine gets to shine.
The knowledge that her friends are with her in this knits steel along her spine.This is going to work.
