I opened the drawer markedZ. DO NOT OPENwith the blue tape Kit had respected so carefully.
I dropped the card inside. I slid the drawer shut.
I wasn't leaving.
When I walked back to the front, Alfie was tuning his acoustic guitar, humming a melody that sounded suspiciously like a lullaby version of a Clash song.
"Alfie," I said.
He looked up, beaming. "Yeah, fox?"
"That vocal track," I said. "The one you uploaded."
"The manifesto?" he grinned.
"Yeah. The compression is still trash." I smirked, leaning against the doorframe. "Come to the booth. We're re-tracking it."
Alfie dropped the guitar. He was across the room in two strides, scooping me up and spinning me around, burying his face in my neck right over the claim mark Euan had left.
"You're bossy," he laughed against my skin. "I love it."
"I'm the producer," I corrected, patting his cheek. "Now get to work. We've got a revolution to mix."
TWENTY-FIVE
Zia
The vocal booth on the bus was famously small, a converted wardrobe, essentially, lined with acoustic foam that smelled faintly of stale coffee and Alfie’s sweat. It was dead space. Acoustically inert. A vacuum waiting for sound.
I sat in the producer’s chair, which was really just the bench seat of the rear lounge with Euan’s portable rig set up on the table. The pain in my hips was a dull, rhythmic throb every time the bus hit a sympathetic vibration from the road, but I didn't mind it. It was data. It was a sensory log of the fact that the "triple match" wasn't just a theory Euan had cooked up in a spreadsheet.
"Comfort verification," Kit rumbled from my left.
He didn't wait for an answer. He slid a memory-foam pillow under my lower back and placed a fresh bottle of water within exactly three inches of my right hand.
"I'm mixing, Kit, not recovering from surgery," I said, though I leaned back into the pillow immediately. It was perfectly placed.
"You're doing both," he corrected, his voice dropping into that low, narcotic register that made the hair on my arms stand up. "Furniture is providing support. Ignore the furniture."
"Hard to ignore furniture that smells like espresso and trouble," I muttered, keying up the session file.
On the screen, the waveform of Alfie’s original upload sat there, jagged, clipping in the loud parts, the noise floor so high it looked like a mountain range of static. It was a disaster. It was perfect emotional vomit, but it was an audio crime.
I looked through the double-paned glass into the booth.
Alfie was in there. He had the headphones on, one cup off his ear, exposing the chipped black polish on his nails as he adjusted the pop filter. He looked terrified. Not stage-fright terrified, Alfie Riot lived for spotlights, butexposedterrified. He was wearing a vintage tank top that showed the bruises on his neck where I’d bitten him, shadows against the warmth of his skin.
He caught my eye through the glass. He flashed a thumbs up, but his thumb was shaking.
ASK.The letters were stark against his skin.
I pressed the talkback button.
"Can you hear me?"
Alfie nodded. "Loud and clear, fox."
"You look like you're waiting for a firing squad," I said. "Relax the shoulders. You're vibrating."
