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Tabbi picked up the Zippo and turned it over in her fingers. "I heard you talking about that indie. After Amy."

Hakeem felt his chest tighten. "That was a private conversation."

"You had it at the bar during a shift. Nothing said at my bar during a shift is private. It's all material."

The word material hit him like a slap, though Tabbi couldn't have known why. He swallowed.

"Did you submit?" she asked.

"Not yet."

"Why?"

He didn't answer. The honest version was too long and too tangled in a man's handwriting and a manuscript, and the specific way self-doubt had started wearing Antonio's face. The short version felt worse: he was afraid the tape would be bad and the rejection would confirm what he'd been quietly suspecting since Las Cruces stopped being enough.

Tabbi set the lighter down. "Record a self-tape. Send it. Let them say no if they're going to say no. But stop rehearsing your self-flagellation before you've given them the audition."

The sentence landed with Tabbi's usual surgical efficiency. She offered no warmth beyond what the truth itself provided. Hakeem sat with it for a second, feeling the shape of it press against the thing he'd been protecting.

"Okay," he said.

"Tonight."

"You and Layla are the same person."

"Thank you."

"That was not a compliment."

Tabbi smiled crookedly, which for her was equivalent to a standing ovation. "Go home. Do the tape. Stop coming to my bar on your days off looking like a man who needs someone to yell at him."

"You didn't yell."

"I don't need to. You hear me anyway."

He took the side exit because it was closer and because the main room, with its empty stage and dark sets and the dusty smell of old curtains, would have been too on the nose. The alley behind The Last Cue smelled like a dumpster and jasmine in equal measure, which was the most honest thing Los Angeles had ever offered him.

He pulled out his phone. There were two texts from Layla, sent at two in the morning, like ransom notes from a woman being held hostage by her own curiosity.

LAYLA:

okay so i just looked it up and toni sanchez has literally ZERO online presence. no instagram no twitter no author photo anywhere. i went down a whole rabbit hole. who IS this person and where does she get the right to destroy me like this

also have you read the other ones? mercy house can't be the only good one right

He typed back.

HAKEEM:

there are three other standalones. all good but mercy house is the best

there was supposed to be a sequel to it last year actually. never came out

which is annoying because the wait is killing me

He stared at that last line for a second, then sent it anyway. Beneath it, he typed:

tabbi just told me im wasting my life at the bar