We play like he’s a scout, like he’s a meter that tells the truth. I don’t look at him until the bridge of “Crimson High,” and when I do, I catch him watching me like the room is less loud than my face. The light hits his jawline and puts a little silver in his eyes. My hands don’t shake, but they think about it.
We end, and the room hangs in a silence that’s only ever good or catastrophic. Ollie clears his throat. “You’re ready,” he says. That’s the same phrase he gave me on the couch, and I should not feel as proud as I do hearing it twice.
“Notes?” Miles asks, half teasing.
Ollie thinks like it’s a real question. “Maybe cut three seconds between the first and second song. Don’t let people clap without realizing they’re clapping. Make them chase you.”
Miles blinks, then points a pen at him. “Noted.”
Drew leans back, impressed. “He’s right.”
“Of course he’s right,” I say before I can stop myself, and feel my ears heat because I sound like a teenager with a crush.
We run the transition again—no breath, a splash of cymbal into the opening riff—until it snaps like a trap. Drew records a thirty-second teaser on his phone: a smear of light, the silhouette of my bass, Eli’s sticks flashing. He holds it up. “Caption?”
Miles says, “Minimalist. ‘Seven days.’ Date. Lantern tag.”
Drew counters, “How about ‘prepare to cry tears of joy.’”
“Seven days,” I say. “Lantern tag.”
Drew posts it before I can second-guess how naked it feels to announce something you haven’t earned yet.
The next hour is sawdust and sweat. By the end, my throat is a little raw, Eli’s hair is somehow wetter than water, and Drew’s fingers have that faint red dent where strings punished skin. Miles packs with surgical care; he will disassemble you if you touch a coil he has already coiled.
We spill into the alley, steam rising from us in the cold. Ollie hangs back with me while the others argue about pizza versus burritos. He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to. He’s close enough that his sleeve grazes my wrist when the wind nudges us together.
“You looked alive,” he says.
“I am alive,” I reply, and he gives me the patient face he uses when I’m being myself on purpose.
He tips his chin at my throat. “Hurts?”
“A good hurt.” I roll my neck. “I’ll drink tea. Miles will microwave honey and tell me I’m a fool. I’ll pretend to listen.”
He’s quiet for a beat. “I want to be there.”
It comes out like a confession. I know what it cost him to say it. He can’t be seen at a club off campus with a queer rock band and no plausible deniability. He can’t be in a room where a phone could turn a moment into a story he isn’t ready to explain.
He’s already risked that once, but that was with the cover of his teammates. But more than that, he has a super-early bus to head to a game on Saturday night. If his coach discovered he was out the night before, there’d be hell to pay.
I shake my head, gentle. “Don’t risk it.”
His mouth tightens. “I want to.”
“I know.” I let my arm brush his again, a whisper of contact under the streetlight. “We’ll make the walls shake hard enough that you’ll feel it from anywhere.”
He huffs a laugh. “Cocky.”
“Correct.”
Drew yells that democracy has selected burritos. We pile into Miles’s van; Ollie bows out, touching the brim of his cap at me like we’re in a movie from the fifties. I watch him go until the taillights turn a corner and the alley looks ordinary again.
The next sevendays are speed and grind. We build rehearsal into our bones. Mornings, Miles texts new click tracks and obsessive notes (he’s right; he’s always right); afternoons, we run the set until the transitions feel like breathing; evenings, we break gear down and pack it back up, because the only way to be fast is to be practiced.
We print DIY flyers at the library and pretend not to notice the student worker rolling his eyes at us. We argue about fonts and end up with the one that looks like it has dirt under its nails. We stick them where we won’t get fined: cork boards, phone poles, the café I work at where the patrons secretly love me because I don’t charge regulars for double shots.
The teaser post from the garage gets a sprinkle of likes and a handful of comments we read out loud in ridiculous voices. Someone from freshman lit replies,Didn’t know you were in a band??and Drew responds,We’re a rumor that sounds good.Drew puts up a story of his guitar picks with the captionSix days to chaos.Miles just posts a photo of a setlist and writes6at the top like a threat.
