“You’ll thank me later.” He’s still grinning, entirely unbothered by my death glare. “Just follow my lead. You’ve got this.”
He presses a microphone into my free hand and lifts his guitar. “You take the chorus.”
The first chord rings out, and I recognize it immediately.
Paper Bones.
Atticus begins to sing. His voice fills the small space, raw and unproduced, every imperfection audible in a way that studio recordings never allow. The verses tell a story I’ve heard before—someone building walls to protect themselves, someone learning to be soft again.
Then the chorus approaches.
He looks at me. One eyebrow raises slightly.Your turn.
My hands are shaking. The microphone trembles in my grip. I can feel every eye in the room fixed on me, waiting to see what happens next. Waiting for me to fail.
I can’t do this.
The thought is reflexive. Automatic. The same voice that’s been telling me for years that my singing is mediocre, that I’m only good for looking pretty and reading lines someone else wrote, that the dream my grandmother believed in was never meant to come true.
But Atticus is still singing, and the chorus is here, and he’s leaving space for me in the melody?—
I open my mouth.
The first note comes out shaky. Uncertain. A voice that hasn’t performed live in years, rusty with disuse and trembling with fear.
But it’smyvoice.
And as the chorus continues, something shifts. Muscle memory kicks in—the years of vocal training, all those hours spent in recording studios as a kid recording bubblegum pop, the skills I never bothered to keep working on because my mother decided acting was more profitable than music. My diaphragm engages, my throat opens and the tremor fades.
Atticus grins at me over his guitar, and I can see the satisfaction in his expression. He takes over at the next verse with that smile still on his face.
When the second chorus arrives, my voice is stronger and more confident.
And then we sing the final chorus together, our voices weaving together in a way even I have to admit is a nearly perfect harmony.
The final note hangs in the air, followed by a moment of silence.
Then the applause comes so loud and strong that I nearly stumble backward.
People are standing up. Someone near the bar is actually whistling. A woman in the front row has her hand pressed to her chest like she’s trying to keep her heart from escaping.
I look at Atticus. He’s watching me with the largest grin I’ve ever seen him wear.
“Told you,” he mouths, the applause still too loud for his voice to reach me even with the amplification of a microphone.
My gaze drifts across the bar, searching for the one face that has been my true north for three years.
Mason stands behind his camera tripod in the far corner. Judah hovers a half-step behind him, both of them cheering and clapping.
But Mason’s camera isn’t pointed at Atticus or sweeping over the crowd. The lens is aimed squarely at me, the little red recording light blinking steadily above the viewfinder.
My gaze flies back to Atticus.
His smile has a satisfied curl and there’s a knowing glint in those green eyes.
Smug. He lookssmug.
Not performer-high-on-applause smug. Not I-just-nailed-a-difficult-song smug. This is the expression of a man watching a plan come together. A man who set up some dominos and is now sitting back watching them fall.
