Page 126 of Loaded

I whip the sheet music out, but Octavia’s looking at me like I’m speaking Swahili. “Right here?” she hisses. “I haven’t even warmed up.”

I shrug and start to play. I’m banking on her training kicking in to override her shock and dismay.

It works, mostly. She misses the first cue, but that’s fine. I do a little doodle and swing back around. She catches it this time, and we’re off. All in all, the dynamics and showmanship can’t compare, but it sounds alright.

“Do you have anything else?”

“We just tried a new song for the first time today,” I say.

Octavia’s shaking her head. “I’ve sung it exactly one time. You have whole sections with no lyrics yet.”

“What about those two you wrote the week before the contest?” Jake tosses his head at the box.

I sigh. “Fine. We could do those.”

In the end, Adam Forrest is very persistent. We perform at least a dozen songs for him before he plops down on the couch, staring at his hands. “He wasn’t kidding.”

“About what?” I ask.

“The face. The songs. The voice.” He shakes his head. “Exactly like you said.”

Jake shrugs. “I don’t exaggerate that stuff.”

“He exaggerateseverythingelse,” Adam says. “So I’m sure you can excuse my incredulity.”

“Not everything,” Jake mutters.

“Look.” Adam stands up suddenly. “You two need to come do what you just did for me, but for the label. I can get you a meeting tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I ask. “I have work tomorrow.”

“So do I,” Octavia says.

Adam stares at us.

Jake’s shaking his head vigorously behind him, like he’s suffering from some kind of seizure.

“I can call in sick?” Octavia asks.

“I guess I can too.”

“Good. So you’ll be in Hollywood, at the studio tomorrow at two.”

“They can just fly back with us,” Jake says.

“How fun for us,” Adam says.

And just like that, we’re hopping a ride on the studio’s jet to California. Octavia insists on hauling two-thirds of the stupid box with us, even though I told her most of the songs are junk. She sorts them into two piles on the flight over.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“This pile is the ones that need to be reworked.” It’s got half a dozen sheets of paper in it.

“What’s that one?” I point at the stack of almost a hundred pages.

“These are my favorites.”

I roll my eyes. “Very funny.”

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