“Do you need a drink?”
“No, I’m… I am good.”
I touched a hand to her arm. “I’m looking forward to it.”
She looked like she’d never had a problem in her life, standing up taller and beaming. “Well, don’t expect too much,” she said, but she looked like she’d suddenly tripled her self-esteem.
She could have it.
Stephen Shale got in the room before too much longer, wearing a knit sweater vest, and he did a double take when he saw me. “Hey, boss—oh. H-hi, Ms. Warrick.”
“Hello, Stephen,” I said. “I hear you have a special song.”
“Oh, uh, y-yes, ma’am. Well, I don’t know whose song it is, but Ms. Branch says we can use it. It was just sitting there in the studio when I came in the other morning, I told my momma about it, she said it was like kismet, like it was made for me.”
“Oh, was it?” I said, giving a soft smile out of the corner of my eye at Julie. She wouldn’t look at me, her face flushed pink. She had stayed overnight in this studio the other night… so then this song had come out of that. Alone and all out of options, out on the street with nowhere to go, she’d thought of me. “Well, let’s see what kismet has in store for us.”
I knew Stephen Shale had a nice singing voice, but frankly, I hadn’t been prepared. Not only was it a different genre than before, but he belted out this big, beautiful voice that was nothing like what I’d heard from him before, and I felt it like it wrenched something deep inside my chest, a wistful, aching feeling at the sound.
And it was a song for me. A bittersweet goodbye, grateful for everything I’d done for her and for making this time special, steeped in regret for having done me wrong. And even though it was Stephen’s heart-wrenching voice that sang it, I still felt every word of it coming from Julie.
I should perhaps have been embarrassed. I was… put together. Typically, at least. I was paid to look like I was, if nothing else. But I stood there with tears shimmering in my eyes as Stephen sang, and when he finished, I had nothing in me except slowly bringing myself to clap, almost…exhaustedly,like I’d just finished a run.
“What do you think?” he said, turning to me and sitting with his hands folded in his lap, and he went wide-eyed when he saw me. “Oh, gosh, I-I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“Take the fucking W, dude,” Julie laughed, her voice also thick, as she clapped him on the shoulder. “I hope you’re ready to perform this, because you’re going to be our headliner.”
From the look on his face, you’d think Julie had asked him to land an airplane. “U-uh, y-yeah. Sure I’m ready. I was b-born ready.”
A voice crackled through the room from the speaker, and Stephen Shale jumped with anI’m sorrythat was swallowed up by Amber’s voice. “That was fucking tight, bro.”
“You can hear me?” Stephen said, and I heard Amber sigh.
“Dude, I’m in the booth, of course I can hear you.”
“Aw, gee.”
I spoke up, taking a breath to steady the tears out of my voice. “Looks like Miss Boss was right about you, Stephen,” I said. “That was a hell of a performance.”
“You think so?” He stood up, trying to swagger and doing a bad job. “Well, heh, if you think so, Ms. Warrick.” He tried to lean all cool and casual against the piano, pressed the keys by mistake, and jumped at the sound.
A knock came from the door before it swung open, and I saw Julie smile at the door before her expression turned to horror, and I followed her gaze to see exactly the cause of the horror: Amber, in the front, perfectly unremarkable.
And behind her… well. Even though I’d never met the man, I assumed there were only so many men with gold tracksuits and tattoos that saidKINGMAKER.
“Dude, what the fuck,” Julie said, and Amber frowned.
“Huh? I thought you two were friends?”
“Yo, yo, Julie,” Kingmaker said, going to dap her up. She left him hanging, and he awkwardly transitioned into a slap on the shoulder. “You got the posture of a king. I knew you’d pull it off. And Stephen Shale, my man,” he said, going to dap him up too and failing this time too, when Stephen seemed confused, and Kingmaker fist-bumped him instead, both of them awkward about it. “I knew you were the real deal.”
“Ms. Branch said you told her I ain’t shit.”
“Aw, nah,” he scoff-laughed, and then he scoff-laughed again, louder and faker, and then he did it again, even louder and even faker. “That? Nah, nah. Nobody ever became a king without some opposition. I had to say that to feed your fire. Deep down, all along, I knew you had it in you.”
Stephen Shale was a genuinely rare musical talent, a vocal virtuoso, and bless his heart, painfully gullible. “Aw, you mean it? You really thought so?”
“Psh. Of course, brother. You’re about to tear up this city. How’s it feel to become a king, my man?”
