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“It’s not our house.”
“A gig is one thing,” he says. “A party is even more dangerous.”
“I’m pretty sure they’re one and the same here, Rei.”
“Well, we need to be careful.”
I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “You’re absolutely right. Let’s try not to worry about that for now.”
But as I look outside, past the band, at always the smiling faces, the pit in my stomach tightens with anxiety.
TRINE
We don’t really play outside most of the time. We’ve gone from tiny little bars and small venues to slightly bigger bars and bigger venues, but weirdly, this might be the biggest one we’ve ever played.
Of course, there aren’t as many people here as there could be if we had announced this with some anticipation. Still, I’m always surprised at how big the crowds we’ve been able to pull since the release of our album,Moses.
Alana is checking levels by the pool, her nose buried in her tablet. After she’s happy with everyone’s volume, she goes back to the drums. It’s a little weird, this isn’t a stage and we have no monitors so we can’t hear ourselves, but the girls were right.
It does feel really nice to be playing music.
The audience is just a bonus. I’m glad they’re here, I’m glad that they’re watching this, but we don’t need any of this. Alana has this gorgeous arctic white fender precision bass, much nicer than mine, which she lets me borrow sometimes. It’s as much fun to look at as it is to play.
“Do you guys wanna do a cover for soundcheck?” Kelly says. She brought her keyboard–that’s one of the only instruments Alana doesn’t just have on hand.
“What do you have in mind?” Bryony asks, looking over her shoulder so she can see her when she addresses her.
“Just a Girl?” Kelly asks.
Bryony grimaces. “Can we try something a little easier? We didn’t even warm up.”
“Basket Case?” Kelly says.
Bryony smiles. “You good with that, Trine?”
“Don’t ask me,” I reply. “I barely do anything, remember?”
Bryony rolls her eyes, smiling. Since that’s decided, all we have to do is gear up to finally play some fucking music.
It takes us a little while to get into it, but once we do, I think we sound pretty good. The sound isn’t great out here, but the crowd is getting into it, and it’s definitely nice to just play music. Since no one paid anything, it doesn’t matter if it’s a little bit of a disaster, and this is fun.
It’s nice to be thinking about how things sound instead of the fucking apocalypse.
We get into a groove pretty quickly. The audience seems to enjoy it, which makes it easier to play. My fingers feel a bit stiff, but the girls have obviously been practicing without me, which helps.
I pick up my head to search for the exorcists in the crowd. Rei stands in the back, a red cup in his right hand. He’s behind a few people I’ve never met before, but he’s taller than most of them, and that leather jacket and those black rimmed glasses would be hard to miss anywhere.
Misha stands next to him, his head cocked. I think he’s swaying to the music, but it’s hard to tell from here. Luke smiles at me when he sees me looking. Malon stands next to him, also staring intently, not doing anything. This dynamic is a little weird and I can easily get in my head about it, so I turn my gaze away from them.
I see some people sitting by the pool. It’s a little warmer than it was before, but I think that might just be because we’ve been performing for a bit, so it’s hard to know. I think I recognize a couple of silhouettes, but it’s too hard to tell from here.
The lights around the pool are dim. We start on a slow song because people are getting rowdy and this is Alana’s house. We normally follow her lead anyway, so it’s easy to do what she cues us to do.
But it isn’t just the tempo that changes. Something about the vibe changes. Something about the way everyone is watching us changes. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I don’t think so. Kelly fucks up on the tempo, which isn’t like her, going much faster than Alana is.
Alana slows down even more, but we try to push her along. It doesn’t work. The crowd approaches us, closing in on us. It’s normally fun. This is normally the fun part.
I’m not sure why, but I immediately know that something is genuinely, seriously wrong.
