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Groaning, she turns over and buries her face in her pillow. It feels like she never left. Already, the feverish thrum of playing in a sold-out venue feels more like something she saw on the telly than something she lived only three days ago.
She wonders how Florence is doing. The thought makes her stomach seize up, so she pushes it away.
It takes her twenty minutes to convince her limbs to move. She feels like she’s moving on autopilot as she shuffles around her room, gets dressed, brushes her teeth over the tiny sink in the bathroom. Parker looks up from the video essay on his phone when she drags herself into the kitchen to grab a protein bar from her stash in the cupboard.
“Oh,” he says. “You’re back.”
The smile she pulls together feels stiff and wrong on her lips. “I’m back.”
“You didn’t get any mail,” he says, and goes back to looking at his screen.
The chocolate brownie protein bar tastes like nothing and somehow seems to grow more dense in her mouth as she chews. Luca forces herself to choke it down while packing her bag for work. She takes her meds, makes a half-hearted attempt at styling her hair, and then her phone beeps at her that it’s time to leave.
Already, she’s so tired. She feels like the last three weeks have burned through all her cognitive resources. If she didn’t have a shift today, she knows she’d probably spend the day lying in bed and messing about on her phone in a prolonged state of executive dysfunction.
As she walks to the coffee shop, she wonders if her life has always felt this small, or if she’s only noticing how it chafes against her now that she’s had a glimpse of how much bigger it could be.
“There she is!” Jemma’s voice rises like a bell over the whirring of the coffee machine. “Our local superstar hath returned.”
Luca gives a weak laugh and lets herself be pulled into a hug. “I missed you too.”
Pulling back, Jemma gives her a once-over. “How are you? You look exhausted. Didn’t you only get back yesterday? What are you doing here already?”
“I’m fine. It’s good to be back.” Maybe if she repeats it enough, she’ll start to believe it.
With her hip propped against the counter, Jemma gives her an unconvinced look. “Are you fine? I saw what people have been saying.”
Luca’s stomach lurches. “What are they saying?”
“You know,” Jemma says awkwardly. “The industry-plant-nepo-baby accusations.”
“Oh.” Luca swallows against her rising nausea. If Jemma has heard about the rumors, that means they must’ve escaped the music bubble and seeped into the larger algorithm. Again, her thoughts wander to Florence. It’s her name in most of the headlines, her picture next to her dad’s like some kind of spot-the-difference game. She can’t imagine what that feels like.
“Are they true?” Jemma asks. “The rumors?”
“Which part?”
“Is Florence really thinking about leaving the band?”
Luca busies herself by tying on her apron. Her fingers feel clumsy, like drumming has already replaced the muscle memory of such a familiar movement. Her mind flashes back to a car ride at the very beginning of tour. I don’t think I’d be suited for a solo career. I like knowing someone has my back up there.
Luca knows Florence’s hunger—has seen it in late-night conversations in lobbies and grueling practice sessions in the overheated basement of The Hare and Oak, in the way she looked at her father’s Glastonbury performance and prowled their dressing room before every show. There is nothing Florence wants more than this. Luca thinks she would give up a limb for her dream to come true.
Luca doesn’t think she would give up the band.
“No,” she tells Jemma. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, good.” Jemma brightens. “I had a whole argument with my boyfriend about this. I just couldn’t imagine it. Not when you two are dating.”
At that, Luca almost drops the mug she’s just taken from the dishwasher. “What?”
“Come on.” Jemma laughs. “The videos? It’s impossible to miss.”
It hurts more than it probably should to shake her head and say, “It’s not real.”
“What do you mean it’s not real? You two are literally—”
“She doesn’t want me.” The words fall from her mouth like a handful of marbles slipping from someone’s hand, a sudden, jarring clatter.
