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  “There are a few things I still want to play around with,” Titus says, “but it’s great, bro. Really, really great.”

  “Agreed.” Shane nods. “Badass song, Blackwood.” His drumsticks are still tapping out the song’s rhythm.

  I nod, relaxing a little.

  This is the first song I’ve ever written. I’m pumped. I had no idea it was going to be such a rush, this part of being in a band. Who fucking knew I’d love writing songs?

  It came to me on the drive. I kept thinking about what Adam said earlier.

  Sky was a real surprise.

  She’d surprised me too. I hadn’t expected to kiss her. Twice. And the phrase stuck with me. By the time I reached Venice, I had a few verses and an idea for a melody for “Surprised by the Sky.”

  Skyler inspired it indirectly, but the song isn’t about her. It’s about being so out of it, you don’t even recognize the sky—the very thing that’s everywhere. That starts at the ground, at your feet, and goes on forever. It’s about making a mistake so big, it changes what you see and breathe and even move through. It’s about being lost and not knowing how to stop being lost.

  I’ve basically written the opposite of a love song, but it’s cool. I love the song already, and it’s only going to get better. And it’s not like Skyler will ever know she inspired it.

  “Let’s play it again,” I say.

  We spend another hour and a half working on getting the song right. By the time we wrap it up at midnight, we’ve got it locked in.

  Pizza is ordered. Beer and whiskey start flowing. Everyone texts their girlfriends to come over. Except for Titus and me. We’re the single guys. So we hit the whiskey pretty hard, especially when the girlfriends arrive, because there’s nothing else to do.

  The guys are happy with our rehearsal tonight. I can tell, because Reznick sits at the table with Renee, and Emilio and Evie are there, too. They pass around a joint. Weed’s not my jam, but to each his own.

  Nora’s practically straddling Shane, who’s sitting on one of the amps.

  “Whoa,” Titus says next to me. We’re witnessing some serious PDA.

  We usually get the couch, which we call the Titanic because it’s huge, grayish white, and starting to do a nosedive on one side. It’s so disgusting, Titus and I are the only ones brave enough to sit on it.

  “Yeah, whoa,” I say, passing him the whiskey. “Musss be nice.”

  “Seriously. That’s why you gotta land ’em when you’re young. Shane hooked up with Nora when they were still in the womb or some shit.”

  “So they’re twins?”

  “What?” Titus looks at me. Then it dawns on him, and he kills himself laughing.

  After a little while, he joins the others at the table, but I lay back, feeling comfortably numb. I go over the song in my head, playing around with the lyrics. My voice is a deep baritone, and I have a natural growl in the lower part of my register. There’s a perfect spot in this song to dig into that.

  “Grey!” Renee yells at me from the table. “Stop being so antisocial! Come join us.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Do you want me to call Jamie?”

  That’s Renee’s best friend, who I hooked up with last month over the course of a weekend when Adam and Ali went to Vail. I got some action. I love it when they travel.

  Except when they come home early and bust me for trashing the place.

  Damn it. Why did I do that?

  “She’s into you, Grey. She still wants you to text her.”

  “Wow,” I say. It’s my standard answer when I want to say no but shouldn’t. Works every time. People don’t know how to interpret it. It shorts them out.

  Renee looks at Titus. “What does he mean, wow? Is that good?”

  He knows my trick but gives away nothing. “Not sure, Renee.”

  I have no interest in getting involved with a girl I can barely remember. But I wouldn’t mind a girl’s company right now.

  A soft body, sweet lips.

  Shiny pink hair.

  Yep.

  Wow.

  Chapter 10

  Skyler

  I drag Beyonce out onto the apartment’s cramped balcony, to serenade the parade of random folks passing through our little alleyway on their way to Venice Boulevard. The night sky has a reddish hue, with lacy clouds drifting above the brightened windows of the surrounding buildings. Palm trees lose their dimension in the darkness, become flattened silhouettes in the amber beams tossed up by ground lights.

  Sam, a homeless dude who’s gathered up our recyclables for as long as we’ve been here, gives me a thumbs-up as I play the opening notes of “Say Something,” letting the low sad notes fill and soothe me. He sways and I smile, and we lock into a moment together that almost—but not quite—settles my nerves. Still, I can’t shake free of this feeling—like my insides want to fly away without the rest of me.

  “Nice job, maestro,” he calls. I smile and keep playing, watching him sway, his bags stuffed full of bottles that rattle their own tune as he trudges off.

  My thoughts shoot out in every direction. Part of me feels elated, almost giddy, at how well the audition went. And that kiss. Grey pulling me against him, his mouth covering mine. It keeps coming back to me, over and over.

  But then came the ride home. Mia chattering at us—nervous and excited. And Beth and me, awkward suddenly. Not ourselves. Her audition went well, too. Mia had only great things to say. She promised they’d want us both back, but that feels so weird. It should be Beth. Only Beth. She’s the star, ready to rise. I’m the barista. The cute one behind the counter with three lines. I’m not a lead. I play the cello. I don’t act.

  Only I guess I do. Or at least that I can. And that is mind-boggling and exciting and terrifying all at once.

  I move into “Bittersweet Symphony,” a favorite of Mia’s, though it always makes me wish I had a band, something that could produce the Verve’s broad, sonic sound to prop me up as I play. Alone, it sounds even more plaintive and so, so sad, even when I kick it up to a harder rhythm.

  My phone brightens beside me. Mom calling. I hit a weird sharp note and stop playing to answer.

  “Well, he’s off again,” she says, after the hellos. He being my dad. “A European tour, whatever the hell that means. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

  It’s always the same. My poor mom, trying to hold things down on the horse farm she inherited from her parents. Mom, who has anxiety attacks in grocery stores. Who can be fine one minute and paralyzed the next. And my dad—never able to settle. Never able to just be in any place for long.

  “I’ve got the road in my bones, love,” he told me about a million times when I was a kid. And I always imagined it literally—like his bones and organs were actually overlapping highways that wove through his body, filling him with this endless desire to be somewhere else.

  When he came home, it felt like Christmas. He’d bring toys and postcards, matchbooks from clubs all over the world. But while he was gone, everything dwindled. The food. My mom. It would all go from sunny to shadowed to bleak until he stepped through the door once again. And we never knew, not exactly, when that would be. When he’d come or when he’d leave again.

  “You’ll be okay,” I say, lamely, hauling Beyonce back into my room and shutting the sliding glass door. I’m done for the night.

  “How?” she asks. “I need help, Skyler. I can’t do it again. Not this time.”

  I flop onto my bed, cramming a bunch of pillows behind me to settle in for a while. Part of me wants to rush in and tell her about the audition, to assure her that I’ll be able to send money soon. That I can take care of her. But I don’t know that yet, and I don’t want to make a promise I’m not sure I can keep.

  “What about Scotty?”

  “Your brother’s got enough troubles,” she tells me. “Three boys and no mom to help care for them.”

  “Maybe he could pay you to take care of the kids?” I suggest. He’s got
a great job, and he gets some of Jordan’s benefits. “They’re over at your place all the time. Couldn’t you help each other out?”

  I hear a harsh exhale, which means she’s started smoking again. Crap. She went a year and a half this time.

  “I’m not going to ask your brother to pay me to watch my own grandchildren. That’s ridiculous.”

  “But he’d be happy to, I’m sure. If you just asked.”

  “Can’t you just come home, Skyler?” she says. “I’m asking you. Help me make something of this place. It could be just like it was when I was a girl, if I just had a little help.”

  “Mom, I don’t know anything about running a place like that, and—”

  “That’s not true. You’re so smart. You can do anything.”

  Anything but avoid this conversation, which plays out once a week at least, and a hell of a lot more often when my dad’s gone.

  “Mom, I have my music.”

  “So? You can still have your music in Lexington. You can do all of the same things here. Teach. Play clubs. It’s no different.”

  “It’s completely different.” But I can’t tell her how, not really. I can’t say it’s different because here I can breathe. As cruddy as things can be, as uncertain, it’s all mine. My own solo project.

  We talk at each other for a little while longer, neither of us really getting what we want from the conversation. It’s almost painful not to talk about the audition, to rush in with the excitement of it all. But again I can’t. Not until I know it will amount to something. And besides, she doesn’t want to hear it. She just wants to be heard.

  So, I stay on the line, and I listen, interjecting at all the appropriate places. I stare out at the deepening evening and find my fingers moving along to a song that begins to weave through my brain. Not a song I know. Something of my own creation. Something new and original that belongs only to me.

  I enter the kitchen the next morning to find myself hug-tackled by Mia, who seems to be transporting her possessions to Ethan’s one box at a time.

  “You got it, Sky!” she exclaims, surrounding me with a tangle of springy flower-scented curls and very nearly knocking me on my ass. “I mean, you and Beth. And someone else. A girl named Lydia Weitz, but who gives a crap about her? You got it! I’m so happy! And it’s crazy, isn’t it? You and Beth, I mean. The two of you.”

  Ethan laughs. “Hey, Curls, maybe you ought to let Sky breathe a little.”

  He’s sprawled at our little dinette table, his long legs and broad shoulders filling half of our dinky kitchen. It’s a little distracting how gorgeous he is, and paired with Mia’s ridiculous beauty, it’s like they’re some kind of perfect relationship sun that you can’t stare at for long for fear of searing your retinas. More than that, you just feel the way they love each other beaming at you, so bright and intense. Just being around them makes me happy and nostalgic for something I’ve never had.

  “I’m just so psyched!” Finally, she lets go. “I’m sure you’ll get some part, which is great. We’ll get to work together all the time!”

  Even though there are three other perfectly good chairs available, she plops down on Ethan’s lap and helps herself to a bite of his breakfast burrito, which, much to her chagrin I’m sure, is a little too complicated for her to dissect before eating—one of her favorite pastimes. “You really surprised them, Sky. And me. I didn’t want to make a big deal of it in front of everyone. But you slayed it. You just brought so much to the moment. Like a buttload of heart.”

  “Thanks,” I say, heading for the coffee. A buttload of heart feels like an anatomical impossibility, but I get it.

  I pour myself a cup and try to get a handle on my emotions. I’m excited, though part of me wants to tamp down that feeling, to underplay it. Maybe it’s because I’m happy but not really surprised. I felt the energy in the room. I knew I’d done something extraordinary.

  “Did it feel awesome?” Ethan asks, giving me that laser-focused look I’ve come to identify as his game face.

  “What? The audition? Or finding out about this?”

  “Either. Both.”

  I wave a hand. “I mean, I guess the audition felt pretty good. It was . . . ​It was . . . ​unexpected like Mia said. Like I didn’t know I had it in me.”

  “Well, I knew,” Mia says, smugly. She slides the burrito in my direction. “Want some?”

  “Hey,” says Ethan. “That’s mine.”

  “Like you didn’t have two on the way over!”

  “I know, but”—he smiles a sly little smile and whispers something in her ear that ends with “made me hungry.”

  “Sorry.” She giggles and kisses a spot beneath his jawline. “Not sorry.”

  “Where’s Beth?” I ask. “Did you see her?”

  Something flashes across Mia’s face. I can’t quite read it. Concern, maybe? “Yeah. She just went out for a run. I told her before you got out of the shower.”

  “Was she . . . ​excited?”

  Mia nods. “Totally. And she was . . .” She takes another bite and chews for a second. “She was super happy for you, too.”

  “Really?” Why can’t I believe that? I know Beth wants good things for me. She’s the one who got me into acting in the first place. But I try to imagine how I’d feel if Beth spent six months taking music lessons and then got called in for principal cello at the LA Philharmonic.

  “Of course, Sky,” Mia says. “How can you even ask?”

  I shrug.

  “What’s bugging you?” Ethan asks in the same tone I imagine he uses on the little kids whose soccer team he coaches. It’s direct and full of concern, which makes me immediately want to blurt everything. Between the two of them, I stand not a chance in hell of keeping my thoughts to myself.

  “I know it’s dumb, but I feel like I’m taking something away from Beth. She’s worked so hard, and I . . . ​I’ve literally been acting for like five and a half months. I don’t know a frickin’ thing, and she’s been training since she was fourteen.”

  “And she’s amazing,” Mia says. “She killed the audition, too. It’s not like your talent siphons off hers. You know that.”

  I nod. “I know. But it doesn’t seem fair somehow. I feel like I should bow out or something.”

  “You can’t do that,” Ethan says. “First of all, it’s condescending.”

  “Ethan—” Mia starts.

  “No, I mean it. If you pull out, it’s like you’re saying she couldn’t get the part any other way, and you don’t know that.”

  He has a point.

  “I just can’t stand the thought of competing with her,” I say. “Especially not for something that means so much to her.”

  “Obviously, it means something to you, too,” Ethan tells me. “Or you wouldn’t have auditioned. Right? It’s not only about the money, is it?”

  Good question. I think about that moment with Grey, that feeling of strength and mastery, of taking possession of another person—Emma—and bringing her to life. It felt so good, like filling myself with sunshine. It made me feel almost the same way as playing the cello does—that pleasure of being good at something, of giving other people pleasure with my skill.

  “No,” I concede. “It’s not all about the money. But—”

  “No buts. Do you want it? That’s the one and only question.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I want it.”

  “Then that’s it. Not competing is a cop-out. It’s beneath you, and it’s not fair to Beth, either. You’re in it. If you don’t go all in, you’re half-assing it, and you don’t want to play that way.”

  “Jesus, Ethan.” I look at Mia. “Is he always this intense?”

  “Pretty much. And you know he’s right. Right?”

  I look at the two of them, and what else can I say? “Right.”

  Chapter 11

  Grey

  It’s Saturday night. The guys in the band are all going to a show at the Whiskey a Go Go. And I’m still work
ing for Adam.

  This isn’t a job. It’s slave labor.

  Granted, the past few days weren’t terrible. On Thursday, Adam handed me the keys to the brand-new black Mercedes coupe I’m driving now and told me to take our costume directors, Bernadette and Kaitlin, wherever they wanted to go, which was mostly Beverly Hills. Friday was more of the same.

  It was fine. Bernadette and Kaitlin like taking long lunches to talk through all their “wardrobing strategies,” and I can always get behind food. I liked driving them all over better than reading lines all day. But I also felt like I was missing out on the real action back at the studio.

  I did hear about the film every night at home, though. Brooks has practically moved back in with us. If he’s not at the studio, he’s parked at the kitchen table with Adam going over schedules and budgets and script changes, each a million times over. All they do is work. Adam even missed our standing Saturday morning surf session today to go over casting strategies with Brooks. Again.

  I guess over the past two days one of the other possible-female leads came in to read with Garrett Allen for the role of Emma Beautiful Emma. Lydia something or other. And no one liked her.

  Tonight is the next audition with Skyler and a girl named Beth at my brother’s house. Adam and Brooks want everyone to feel super comfortable so they had this idea to cater dinner at the house and do the final reads in a more intimate setting. Apparently, Garrett doesn’t drive and he just lost his assistant, so I got roped into chauffeur-mode again tonight. Hence the Mercedes and my bad attitude. I’m literally going to be fighting traffic both ways in this ridiculous car that’s completely not me. But I guess driving around in a brand-new F-150 is beneath the famous Garrett Allen.

  I climb into the Mercedes and commence hauling my ass all the way down to Brentwood. On the plus side, every hour I’m on the clock gets me closer to paying off my brother.