Page 92

Nobody looks at me twice.

I relax a little.

“Drinks,” I say. “What are you having?”

“Gin and tonic.”

“Good choice.”

“I’ll have the same.”

I return with two glasses. She accepts hers with both hands and gives me a soft, genuine thank-you.

Four men in their fifties, or even sixties, take the stage to warm applause. There’s no dramatic entrance or anything like that. They plug in with the calm efficiency of men who have done it ten thousand times.

The drummer counts them in.

They’re fucking excellent.

Tight in the way that only comes from years of reading one another without looking. The bassist sits a fraction behind the beat. The guitarist leaves space instead of filling every bar. The singer’s voice is all gravel and damage, and he knows exactly when to let it crack.

I glance at Bea.

She’s completely lost in it.

Her eyes stay fixed on the stage, chin tipped up, fingers keeping time against her thigh. She mouths every lyric, wearing a smile she clearly doesn’t know is there.

For once, she isn’t analyzing anything. She isn’t worrying, planning, or checking herself.

She’s just feeling it.

I should be watching the band.

I keep watching her instead.

Since Cascade, music has become another problem I’m supposed to solve.

Fix the band. Write the song. Recover the money. Prove I still have whatever made people listen in the first place.

Add Mabel, the Trust and the A&P final, and I can’t remember the last time I stood in a room and let music hit me without demanding something from it.

I close my eyes.

Bass in my chest. Drums beneath my feet.

Fuck.

I’d forgotten music could feel like this.

By the third song, the space in front of the stage has filled with bodies swaying, hands in the air.

Bea starts moving without realizing it. Her shoulders loosen. Her hips sway gently to the beat, drawing my attention down before I drag it back to her face.

“Dance with me.”

She turns, cheeks flushed and eyes bright. “What?”

I hold out my hand. “You heard me, Doc. Dance with me.”