“Oh bollocks.” Freddie sighed as he took it from him. “I really do have to keep better track of it.” Every other member of the band nodded at once, clearly in agreement. “Cheers.”
“Sure,” Niall said with a smile. It seemed a little forced to me, but maybe that’s just what his smiles were like? I didn’t have a big enough sample size to tell. Then he looked over at me and raised an eyebrow. “We do have to get to rehearsing.”
“Of course,” I said, nodding. This was a professional band, after all, here to do a job, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. Especially since the performance going well was crucial to Freddie impressing this manager. “Good luck,” I said, glancing around at all the band members. “Break a leg!”
Alfie waved at me cheerfully. “Nice to meet you, Cass,” Tristram/Doug said, giving me a smile. But Niall didn’t look up, just scrolled through his phone, clearly otherwise occupied.
“I’ll walk you out,” Freddie said, holding the door open for me. I thought I saw Niall roll his eyes at that, but I was already walking through the door and couldn’t be sure. Freddie glanced down at his phone, then looked up at me with a smile. “The manager confirmed,” he said. “She’s going to be there.”
“I mean, I could have told you that.”
“Oh right,” he said, shaking his head. “I keep forgetting you know the future.”
I laughed at that. “Just for this one specific instance. But I think we should be okay now. We stopped Alfie from eating the shrimp, you’re not going to eat anything…”
“I’m really not,” Freddie said fervently. “I wonder what it was last time?” He pondered this for a second, then shook his head. “Who knows.”
“I’ll let you rehearse.” Niall had seemed annoyed enough about losing time, I didn’t want to make it even worse. “It’s an important performance, after all.”
Freddie nodded. “It’s strange, isn’t it? To know that your moment of destiny is just around the corner.” He blinked, and his expression was one I recognized. Sure enough, a moment later, he was patting his pockets, like he was looking for his notebook. “That could be a good lyric.”
“Here,” I said, pulling the pen out of my bag, along with the piece of paper.
“Freddie,”he read off it, then looked at me, eyebrows raised.
“I just wanted to make sure I remembered,” I explained, feeling my cheeks get hot. “When I was trying to tell you that we’d met before.”
“I don’t think anyone’s ever given me a list like this before,” he said, looking back down at it, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “It’s really…”
“Weird?” I finished with a half-laugh.
“Amazing,” he said at the same time, and I looked up at him in surprise. “I mean,” he said, and I could see that he was also blushing slightly. “It means someone likes you, right? If they’re paying attention?”
I looked at him, feeling my heart beat faster. He took a half step toward me, and I took one toward him, closing the space between us. He reached out and tucked the lock of hair behind my ear. He didn’t pull his hand away right away, but let it rest there, right by my cheek, turning my hair around his fingers. “Cass,” he started, then took a breath.
“Oi!” Niall stuck his head out ?the door, making both of us jump, and I took a step back. “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, even though his tone said the exact opposite, “but we do have a show to do, superstar.”
“Right,” Freddie said, nodding. “There in just a moment.” Niall disappeared back into the green?room, the door slamming behind him harder than seemed strictly necessary. “I really should go.”
“It sounds like it,” I agreed.
“But maybe I’ll see you afterward?”
I nodded, smiling at him. “I hope so. Good luck—you’ll do great.” I gave him a nod, then started walking out the way we’d come in.
“Cass?” Freddie called, and I turned around. I couldn’t help but notice how much I liked the way he said my name. It might have been the accent, but I didn’t think it wasjustthat.
“Yes?”
“What’s this?” he asked, pointing toward the bottom of the page. “This thing about home being a sweatshirt you’ve outgrown?”
“It’s a song lyric.”
“I love it,” Freddie said, looking down at the paper. “Who wrote it?”
“Well—you did.” He glanced up at me in surprise and I smiled at him. “See you later.” Then I turned around and headed back down the hallway, the words feeling a little bit like a promise. And as I rounded the corner, I hoped they would be true—that now the performance was saved, and maybe when I walked through the doors, it would be into a future that unspooled in a straight line, instead of circling around in an endless loop.
As before, the crowd was starting to gather in front of the stage. The music manager was in the back, at her same spot. I could see the countdown clock and realized why Niall had been so insistent on getting me out of there—the band was set to go on in fifteen minutes. What if this was going to be the last loop? What if I’d fixed things?
