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Faith nodded but didn’t say anything as the music played on. The song ended and he opened his mouth, but she held up a finger to stop him before he could speak. The next song was different in mood. Slower. Sexier. More … wistful. The band had been moved to the background, leaving Nessa and a single guitar and someone on keyboard chasing each other around with a stripped-down melody that somehow still packed a punch.
It was a great song.
When it was done, he kind of wanted to hear it again but Faith clicked a few keys, then closed the laptop.
“What did you think?” she asked.
“It’s great. They’re great.” He almost envied Nessa. That first-album fearlessness that everything would be perfect. He’d had that once. So had Faith. He reached for the computer, and Faith handed it over without a protest.
“Leah’s great,” Faith said. “She’s the one producing them. Nessa’s got talent but she and her band were still really raw when I chose her. Leah’s the one working the magic here.” She tilted her head up at him. “Maybe you should ask her to work with you.”
He froze in the middle of opening the computer.
“What?” Faith demanded.
Busted. “Nothing”
“Oh no, I know that look. And I thought Leah was acting weird around you. What did you do?”
No way he was getting out of telling her. “She came to see me, the day after I got back. She asked if I’d consider using her to produce a couple of songs.”
Faith scowled. “And you said no. Dumbass.”
“I was looking at other options.”
“Like the guy who came up with that poptastic nightmare?” she said nodding at the computer. She sounded disgusted. “Did you even listen to any of Leah’s stuff?”
“No.”
“Well, now you know better. So apologize for screwing up, grovel abjectly, and ask her to work with you.”
“Grovel abjectly?”
She nodded emphatically. “It’s what men who’ve been so dumb should do. Women too.” She grinned at him. “Though, in my experience we don’t do things that require groveling quite so often.”
He got the feeling they weren’t only talking about Leah any more. But she was the more immediate issue. Groveling to Faith and Mina might take a bit longer. “I?—”
“Don’t go all weird and male and stubborn. Apologizing is a key part of any relationship.”
“Leah and I don’t have a relationship,” he said, the words spilling out a little too fast. Best to cut that line of thought off in Faith’s head before she sniffed out any of his and Leah’s history. He didn’t think Leah had ever told Faith about it. Faith would, for sure, have had words to say on the subject of him sleeping with her best friend. And she’d never mentioned it. So, he didn’t want her finding out. Or noticing anything like the weird moment there’d been in the kitchen last night when he could have sworn Leah had been giving him “take me now” eyes. Unlikely. But unlikely or not, he didn’t want Faith getting anywhere near it.
“You’re friends, you big dope. Or you used to be. That’s a relationship,” Faith pointed out.
“It’s also what makes working with her kind of complicated.”
“You’ve worked with friends before. You work with Eli. So what’s the problem? Is it because she’s a girl? Friends with boobs are still friends, Zach.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Unless her boobs are a different kind of problem?”
“No!” It came out too loud. “Not a problem.” He bent his head to the laptop, hoping Faith wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t exactly telling the whole truth.
“Good. Because she’s just divorced.”
He looked up. “Wasn’t that final like a year ago?”
“Who told you that?”
“Lou,” he said. Faith’s mom, who was also more of a mom to him than his own had ever been, had kept up her usual steady stream of information about what was happening on Lansing via e-mail and the occasional phone call. He didn’t always pay attention to all of it, but he kept up with the big picture. Somehow that had always included filing away the stuff she told him about what was happening in Leah’s life. “She also said it was amicable.”
Faith sat up a little, toying with the honking big diamond on her left hand. “It was. That doesn’t mean Leah feels nothing. She’s a little singed around the edges, I’d say. She doesn’t need to be messed around.”
