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When Sofia hit the final note and gentled it slowly to silence, she opened her eyes and took a step back, as if to give Coco room to judge her.
Felix looked at me and grinned, like we were sharing a secret, and my heart beat faster.
“Damn,” Theo said, finally, breaking the silence. “That was fucking awesome!” He glanced at Coco. “Right?”
Coco nodded.
“Okay, look, if Riven isn’t into you, then you should a hundred percent use my studio to cut an album, jeez,” Theo said.
“Thank you, I really appreciate that,” Sofia said, smiling at him.
Coco was still staring at her, but it was unclear whether she was angry or impressed. Sofia waited patiently for her verdict.
Finally, Coco nodded.
“I’d like you to come in and audition with the band,” she said, and Sofia’s face lit up.
“Yeah?” she said, looking slightly less than confident for the first time since walking in. “That would be amazing!”
“No promises,” Coco said. “But your voice is a good fit for us, and you’ve got great energy. And I can’t say I wouldn’t love to have another woman in the band. Do you write songs?”
“Yes,” Sofia said. “I can come prepared with a few if you want?”
“Yeah, okay,” Coco said. She shook her head and turned to Felix. “You’re fucking lucky your sister really could sing. Don’t pull any shit like this again.” She flicked her fingers at him.
“I’m really sorry, again,” Felix said.
“Okay, okay, I gotta jet,” Coco said. She took Sofia’s contact info and gave Theo another hug. “Nice to meet you,” she called to me as she walked out the door.
A little of the tension went out of the room, and Theo smiled.
“That was seriously awesome,” he told Sofia. “They’d be nuts not to hire you.”
“Damn, thanks,” she said.
“I gotta run too,” Theo said. Then he turned to me. “Call Caleb about Thursday?”
I nodded but stayed behind the bar.
“?’Kay. It was great to meet you both. I feel like I’ll probably see you again.”
“Hey, Theo?” Felix said. “I wasn’t lying before. About being a huge fan. I didn’t want you to think I just said that because of the audition. I think your music is amazing.”
Theo ducked his head self-consciously and thanked him again.
“Theo,” I said, as he started to walk away, and held up his sunglasses.
“Oh, oops, thanks.” He grinned at me, waved at us all, and loped out the door.
There was a beat of silence after the door closed, then Felix and Sofia shrieked and ran to each other, talking at the same time and clutching at one another, any semblance of cool completely evaporated.
I put the dirty glasses on a tray under the bar and toweled away the rings of condensation they’d left behind. I wiped slow circles over the wood until it shined a blobby reflection of myself back at me, then looked up.
“Hi again,” Sofia said to me. “Thanks for everything.”
I shrugged. I hadn’t done anything.
“Glad it worked out,” I said.
Felix lingered for a moment and I thought he might strike up a conversation again. But all he said was “What do I owe you?” as he fumbled his wallet out.
I waved him away and he murmured thanks.
“It was…nice talking to you a little,” he said finally, shoving his hands in his pockets. I nodded. “Well…bye, then…”
Sofia hooked her arm through his and started talking excitedly before they even hit the door.
“Bye,” I breathed as the door closed behind them, leaving the bar silent and empty in their wake.
Chapter 2
Felix
I was vibrating with energy as we left the bar, a cocktail of anxiety, relief, and exhilaration far more potent than the gin and tonic I’d downed. Sofia had my arm clamped in hers and as she pulled me away from the building, I looked back just once. Through a shaded strip of window I could just see Huey’s large form silhouetted where we’d left him. His hands were braced on the bar top, powerful arms and shoulders tensed, head hung between them.
“Holy shit!” Sofia yelled, dragging me away from thoughts of the mysterious man. “I can’t believe that just happened. I can’t believe we just met Theo Decker and Coco Swift and oh my God I sang for them!”
It rushed over me then that my plan—my swing-for-the-fences, Hail-Mary, other-risky-sports-metaphor-y plan—had actually worked. And it had been big. Bigger than when I’d talked Mr. Musgrave, my little brother Adrian’s algebra teacher, into letting him redo half the semester’s homework with a tutor so he wouldn’t fail—never mind that Sofia and I had been the tutor, and the reason he’d been failing was he couldn’t decide which he hated more: algebra or Mr. Musgrave.
Bigger than talking my way into a job at the diner when I was fifteen and acting like I thought it was perfectly normal to be paid in envelopes of crumpled cash.
