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“Wow, you’re actually good, who would have thought?” he says.
He’s wearing a white tee and looks not a day older than seventeen. He’s twenty-two, like me. Underneath the short sleeves, his arms are covered in tattoos, his skin already pink from the sunburn he got yesterday.
“The piece is not his,” Miki says drily, coming in the door. He sounds half-asleep. “Wait, let me talk to him. I got this.”
Oh, sweet summer child. You don’t got this. No one does.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch him fling his long body on a couch, scrunching music sheets underneath his flip flops. His long mane is getting unmanageable again, but he refuses to trim it. He insists he wants it long in order to be able to do headbanging on stage—he has yet to.
“You ok, Issy?” he asks in a fake baby voice.
“Don’t call me that.” I don’t even look up.
He throws one of my own pencils at me, and I pretend I didn’t see it; I just keep playing.
Music rooms have always been a safe space for the three of us—away from fans, from managers, from girls. They are a space where we can create, brainstorm or, if we don’t feel like working, to just hang. To exist. But not today.
Spencer ordered one of the rooms in his yacht to be turned into a music room just for us. There’s even a baby grand in here. I can’t believe this guy’s kindness. The room is perfect. Outside the large square windows, a blue dawn is dragging the fluffy clouds low over the water, the sun turning pink in the horizon. My brain is on fire. I didn’t sleep more than ten minutes last night. Suddenly, I’m so overwhelmingly tired.
“Is Skye also coming over?” I ask.
“I only texted Miki,” Jude says, his eyes searching mine.
I sigh in relief, and he sees it, nods.
“And Miki is here. Talk to Miki,” Miki says.
“I’m going to hit Miki,” I hiss and he lifts his hands up in mock defense. “Ok look, it’s too early in the day to be doing this. What do you guys want from me?”
“Why did you have a stroke at the hot tub last night?” Miki asks. Always straight to the point.
“I did not have a stroke.”
Dammit, I think.I have to tell them.I don’t know who this girl was or what’s happening to me, if I’m finally losing my mind or whatever, but they deserve to know.
“Fine. Why did you faint, then?” This from Jude.
Then again, they are idiots, all of them, and I owe them no explanation whatsoever.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jude says quickly. “I shouldn’t have said that. But I’m worried about you, dude. Are you having an exhaustion meltdown? People have them on tours, you know. And you’re looking a bit skinnier than usual. Maybe we should cancel…”
“No, no, it’s nothing like that.” I try not to let the panic seep into my voice.
Cancel? That word does not exist in my universe.
A universe of my mom still hurting about my dad’s death and now on top of that, losing her health and her career… Of my little brother working his ass off across the ocean when he’s barely of legal age… Of all this team of musicians, technicians and assistants depending on this tour to put bread in front of their families… Not to mention my addiction that I barely escaped with my life.
Cancelling is not an option.
I get up, draping a towel around my shoulders. I’m wearing gym pants and a white vest. I ditched my shoes right after I abandoned the effort to pretend to work out.
“I hit the gym an hour ago, thank you very much,” I tell Jude. “And skinny or not, my abs are rock hard.”
“Dude, you do not want to compare abs with me,” Jude chuckles, his hand already lifting the bottom of his shirt. Such a show off.
Then again, we all are.
“All right, all right,” I lift a hand to stop him. “There will be no lifting of the shirt. Settle down, I’ll tell you.”
