Sebastian swallowed. “What is‘young-people pop’supposed to mean?”
“You know, the kind of music old folks like us don’t understand anymore.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. It’s music. You either like it, or you don’t.”
“Well, can we listen to it?” Laura chimed in, finally sitting down. She grabbed the smallest sandwich on the plate.
Sebastian pulled a face, then took another bite to keep himself from saying something he’d regret. He brushed his kneeagainst mine, almost as if asking me to take care of that part of the conversation for him.
“I have it here,” I said, pulling out my phone.
“This is so cringe,” Sebastian mumbled, his mouth still half full.
“Hey, don’t antagonize us. Maybe we’ll like it,” Dany said, still holding his mug in front of his mouth.
Laura reached over and nudged the mug toward his lips, making him take a sip. “If you meant what you said earlier, we’ll hear it sooner or later anyway.”
Sebastian kept chewing but nodded at me.
I played the demo of the song we wrote together after our spa trip. For the full three minutes and forty-four seconds, we all listened without saying anything. Laura smiled the whole time. Dany’s face didn’t move a muscle. When the final notes faded out, I stopped it before it could play the next song. One was enough for now.
The silence that followed was broken only by the soft clunk of my phone hitting the table when I set it down.
“Well, that’s the direction,” I said after a while. “There are nine more like that, though we tried to show as much variety as possible.”
“That makes sense,” Laura said.
Another five seconds passed with no one speaking. Sebastian chewed his last bite of sandwich a little too long and only swallowed when Dany set his mug down on the table.
“I like it,” Dany said, pressing his lips together.
Sebastian sighed. “You don’t have to pretend.”
“No, I mean it. It’s good. To think you did that in just a week… I like this way more than…” Dany cleared his throat. “Well, I like it a lot. You did a great job. What are your plans now? Do you want to send it to record labels?”
“Not yet,” Sebastian said. “Even if it’s good, it’s hard to get labels to listen without a following on social media. So we’re planning to upload it online and build some buzz. Once we have some traction, it’ll be a lot easier to get it in front of the right people. But for that, we first need to have the songs properly mastered in a studio, which takes time and money, and as you know, we—okay, mostly I—have neither.”
“If there’s anything we can do to help, let us know,” Laura said.
“Thank you, but no,” Sebastian replied sternly. “We already have a plan. We’re going to run a crowdfunding campaign to raise the money for studio time. It’s a good way to connect with people. We’ve also thought about playing a concert. I have some connections in Las Vegas I could reach out to.”
“Las Vegas,” Dany laughed. “That’s a big plan.”
“But it’s doable. We’ll schedule the concert after my finals. This way, it won’t interfere with my degree and will give us enough time to build some excitement. We also need more time to actually practice playing together, since we’ve mostly just recorded stuff and never had proper rehearsals.”
“I have no idea how you pulled that off then, but I’m proud of you,” Dany said. “Really, I mean it. I’m not just saying that.”
“I know,youdon’t.”
They glared at each other, but after a second, they both broke and burst out laughing. Their voices rose together, filling the room with an easy calm before tapering off at the same time.
Sebastian scratched his chest, still smiling, and then glanced at me. He held my gaze long enough to make it clear he thought the moment for the next truth had come.
My heartbeat sped up, but I still nodded for him to go ahead. As we had established earlier, it was better not to keep secrets.
“There’s one more thing I want to tell you,” Sebastian said, his gaze lingering on the half-empty sandwich plate.
Laura intertwined her fingers and placed them on the table. “We’re all ears.”
