CHAPTER 1
Daniel’s left hand rests on my waist. His right hand presses the wall behind me, supporting us both. He’s leaning in, eyes closed, lips parted. My chest tightens around the timpani-thumping of my heart. This is it. Daniel Teague is going to kiss me.
Someone exits the club through the back door, and the alley fills with noise, which ricochets off the walls, amplified in the empty corridor. I don’t look to see who emerged, but I hear them jog away from us, probably toward the entrance, or the parking lot. Before the door closes, I hear voices coming from the greenroom, which is a generous term for the sticky, closet-sized space where bands wait for their turn onstage. I think I hear Flynn’s laugh, then Cameron’s. They seem worlds away.
The door slams shut, and the alley is quiet again, but Daniel’s hand is gone. He steps sideways and falls against the wall next to me, looking up between the buildings at the light-polluted sky.
“Sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, as something inside of me deflates.
“No, we’re in a band together. I can’t—I mean—Jesus, I’m sorry, Nora. You should have punched me or something.”
“Nah, I’d have let you down easy,” I say, reeling myself back into this elaborate charade in which I am just his bandmate, his platonic friend.
He laughs. In these shadows, the dark circles beneath his eyes look like bruises against the unhealthy pallor of his skin. It’s clear he hasn’t been sleeping. Most days, I try not to resent Darcy for being the one he wants, but I have no problem resenting her for hurting him like this.
“You know what you need?” I bend down so I can look at his face, which is angled toward his feet.
He answers without looking up. “What do I need, Bass Girl?”
I wish he wouldn’t use that nickname. It feels too much like an endearment, makes it harder for me to play my part. But I ignore my accelerating heartbeat and say, “You need about thirty minutes in front of an adoring crowd.”
He steps away from the wall, looks at the back door of the Rowdy. “Then I’ve come to the right place?”
“You know you always feel better after a show.”
He looks at the sky again, and I wonder what he sees. The stars are obscured by the marine layer, which is creeping inland from the ocean. All I see above us is a flat, featureless blanket of clouds.
“But Darcy is—was—” I so do not want to hear whatever he’s going to say next. “Darcy’s special, you know? Maybe she’s it for me.”
I’m standing right here. How can he not see what we could be together?
The door opens again, and Flynn steps out, holding his drumsticks. His freckles are whitewashed by the dim light; his short curls look uncannily tidy. Daniel and I both shrink into the shadows, but he spots us anyway. “What are you two doing out here?” His sharp voice cuts through the spell that had briefly settled between us.
“Just getting some fresh air,” Daniel says, a little too quickly.
Flynn pauses, seems to measure the distance between Daniel and me. “Kraken’s on their last song. The solo section could take another fifteen minutes, but we should get to the wing just in case.”
“Yeah,” Daniel says, pushing himself away from the wall. “Thanks.”
He reaches the door first and holds it open for Flynn, then me. As I step forward, he touches my elbow, and I stop.
“Could you not tell Cam and Flynn about this?” he whispers.
“Of course.”
“Temporary insanity.”
“Obviously.”
He looks relieved as I move past him into the dense cacophony of backstage.
My sister would never fall for someone who’s clearly in love with someone else. She actually told me that once. It started as a conversation about The Great Gatsby, which I, full disclosure, didn’t read. Under normal circumstances, I can mention the title of a book, and she’ll launch into a helpful diatribe about the book’s merits and weaknesses; with a little prodding, she’ll also monologue about characters, plot, themes, and anything else I think might appear on a reading quiz. But when I asked her about The Great Gatsby, she just snorted and said, “Oh, my God. I hated that book.”
I remember my stomach sinking. I hadn’t even read the summary on the back yet, and the cover wasn’t at all illuminating. I could probably have skimmed the SparkNotes before class, but my English teacher that year had a Spidey sense for students who were regurgitating information from the internet. Panicked, I asked, “What? Why?”
Irene, who was sitting shotgun as our mom drove us to school, looked over her shoulder at me and asked, “You liked it?”
I hedged, “It’s okay, I guess.”
Our mom chimed in neutrally, “The Great Gatsby is a classic.”
Irene and our mom have identical wavy blonde hair. Irene pulled hers into a messy bun at the top of her head as she said dismissively, “Because of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes? What is it with literary critics and God metaphors? Equate an inanimate object or a sea mammal to the divine, and suddenly you’re a genius.”
I made a mental note: Doctor T. J. Eckleburg’s eyes are a metaphor for God.
Our mom looked at her. “Do you challenge the book’s literary merit?”
“I’m too busy detesting Jay Gatsby to worry about the book’s literary merit,” Irene said. “He spends his whole life pining for someone who has no interest in him. If he had a spine, or a brain, then he’d take his hard-earned new money and fall for someone way cooler than Daisy Buchanan, someone likable.”
“So, do you think fictional characters must be likable?” my mom said. She and Irene have discussions like this all the time. When my dad’s around, he chimes in, too. Even though my family and I look nothing alike, these are the moments when it feels most painfully obvious that I was adopted and Irene was not, because I never know what the hell they’re talking about. When called upon to contribute, I’ve learned to read the tone of their voices and make decent guesses about what they want to hear. Based on the sound of this particular question, I knew the answer my mom wanted was No.
“No,” Irene said. “But they do have to be interesting. And why should I be interested in a rich dude who’s pining after something shallow and basically illusory?”
“Ah,” our mom said, looking pleased. “But isn’t that Fitzgerald’s point? Daisy is the American dream—shallow, illusory. Gatsby is Everyman—compromising all in pursuit of it.”
I was taking notes on my phone by this point. I’d review them quickly before class.
“Okay, but then we’re talking metaphor,” Irene said. “If Fitzgerald wanted to discuss the American dream, then he should have written an essay. If he wanted to write fiction, then he should have made the characters more compelling.”
“Many readers do find Gatsby compelling, though,” our mom said. “His quest is our quest—delusional, doomed.”
“Whatever,” Irene said, effectively yielding the argument. “I just know I’d never chase after someone who didn’t like me back. I have better things to do with my time.”
Our mom smiled at her, reached across the center console, and squeezed her shoulder as she said, “That’s my girl.”
I, however, am clearly not my mom’s girl, because the second I saw Daniel, I started falling for him, even though the very next second, there was Darcy, standing by his side.
Backstage of the Rowdy is a mess of people. Tonight, Thursday, is Short Set Night, when four bands each play for thirty minutes, then one headliner plays for an hour. Tonight’s headliner, Horoscope, is a bigger name than usual. Their first album was great, but their second has gotten wider recognition. I’m sure they booked this gig before their newest singles started climbing the charts. The Rowdy must be a dive compared to other venues they can play now.
Because Horoscope’s on the marquee, the hallways are especially crowded. Everyone’s probably hoping for a chance to slip them their demo or invite them to a party after the show. But as far as I can tell, Horoscope still hasn’t shown up, and Daniel and Flynn are behind me, so I have to keep moving, be the one to push us through to the greenroom, which is thankfully empty except for Cameron, who’s sitting on the limp yellow couch practicing the opening riff of our first song.
As we enter, Flynn says, “I found them.”
Daniel ignores the irritation in Flynn’s voice and starts unpacking his guitar. “We don’t go on for five more minutes.”
“Yeah, that’s totally enough time to go over our set.”
“But we all know what we’re playing, right?” Cameron says. “‘Fetch,’ ‘Long Morning,’ ‘Figure Eight,’ ‘Soul Fire,’ and ‘Love You So.’ Easy.”
Cameron and Flynn are wearing similar outfits—jeans, black T-shirts—and Cameron’s thick black hair is just as well coiffed as Flynn’s curls. Somehow, though, Flynn looks like an accountant on casual Friday, while Cameron looks like he’s been transplanted from a Hollywood nightclub. It’s something about the cut of their jeans and the fabric of their shirts. Daniel and I have a slightly different look—tattered and fierce. I always wonder if people in the audience notice that out of the four of us, he and I match.
After a pause, Daniel says, “Let’s not do ‘Love You So.’”
Flynn widens his eyes. “You want to change the set now?”
“Wait.” Cameron looks to the side. “Where’s Darcy?”
Daniel shrugs, but at the same time he overcorrects the tuning of his A string. He’s trying too hard to pretend this isn’t a big deal.
“Oh, please,” Flynn groans. “If you and Darcy had a fight, you can pretend you wrote the song about Beyoncé. But we’re playing it.”
I tell myself I’m just being helpful by suggesting, “Or we could do our cover of ‘Blackbird’ instead.”
“We haven’t played that in a month,” Flynn argues.
But Cameron’s already running through the guitar part. “‘Blackbird’ is short,” he says. “We could do that and then finish with our cover of ‘No Rain.’”
“You want to do two covers in one thirty-minute set?” Flynn says. “I thought we didn’t want to be a cover band.”
I have my bass out and am digging through my gig bag for a pick as I say, “It’s just the Rowdy.” This is a valid argument. The Rowdy is the third-largest music venue in Huntington Beach, which isn’t known for its music scene in the first place. The guys and I all live half an hour south and inland of here, in one of the many quiet, manicured suburbs of South Orange County. We only make the drive up because the Rowdy is one of the few clubs that will let us gig without an album or demo. “And it’s hard to go wrong covering the Beatles.”
“We could open with ‘Blackbird’ and throw in ‘No Rain’ after ‘Figure Eight,’” Daniel says. “So we still finish with an original.”
I find a pick and stuff it in the back pocket of my jeans for later, then slap a run up the neck of my bass before saying, “Sounds good to me.”
When Cameron stands, he towers over the rest of us. Onstage, he’s the looming shadow on Flynn’s right, standing almost completely still while he shreds his guitar. “Let’s do it,” he says, clamping a hand around Daniel’s shoulder.
Daniel looks at Flynn, and something invisible passes between them. We’ve all been friends since the beginning of freshman year, but Daniel and Flynn go back further—Little League, I think, though it’s hard for me to imagine. Neither of them is the baseball-wielding type. There’s a pleading note in Daniel’s voice as he says, “Please, Flynn.”
Flynn sighs, then hits the wall twice with his drumstick. “Fine,” he says. He looks at me. “Fine. We’ll do it.”
Daniel nods. “Thanks.” He has a smile just for me as he plays a final chord.
The four of us file through the narrow hallway to the crowded wing of the stage. We circle up as the band before us plays its final chorus. Daniel wraps his arms around Flynn and Cameron, who have their arms around me. I love this part, when we bring it in before a show. There’s an invisible line drawn around the four of us, separating us from everything it excludes. Whatever tension existed in the greenroom, or at school, or in rehearsal, fades, and we become bigger than the sum of our parts. We’re not just four kids playing instruments; we’re a band.
“What’s the word?” Daniel asks, shouting over the noise from the stage.
I feel Flynn watching me, but when I look at him, he’s staring at our feet.
“Ignite,” he says.
Daniel asks him to repeat it, and he does.
The song ends as Daniel nods. “I like it. Ignite.”
“I do love a fire hazard,” Cameron says, but he seems distracted. For a second, I’m worried. Magic only happens when we cohere; that’s how we came up with the one-word idea in the first place. We pick a different one for every show, but for that night it’s our talisman. We weave it into the music. When our eyes meet onstage, we know what the other person is thinking.
“Ignite,” I say, tightening my grip around Flynn’s and Cameron’s waists.
“Ignite!”
“Ignite.”
The space between us is warm now. It crackles with energy. Thousands of bands just like ours are trying to get noticed, trying to make it, but in my heart, I know we’re different. We have a chemistry that can’t be learned or rehearsed. Maybe I spend a little too much time thinking about Daniel’s eyes, and his hands, and his—whatever. That’s not the point. The point is that I trust these boys above anyone else. We’re more than a band, even. We’re friends. We’re family.
“Okay,” Daniel says. “Let’s light this place up.”
We squeeze in for one more hug. When we break the circle, the sound of the audience floods back in. I’ll never get used to this. I never want to get used to this. I always want it to be exactly this terrifying, this thrilling.
We run onstage, and Daniel, Cameron, and I plug in our instruments while Flynn sits at the drum kit. Once Evan in the sound booth gives us the signal, we’ll be ready to start.
When I look at the audience, the first thing I see is Darcy. Her platinum hair is haloed by light from the bar, and she’s wearing a clingy red dress that accentuates her unnaturally tanned cleavage, which is probably visible from space. I’m sure Daniel sees her, too, but he’s doing a pretty good job of pretending he doesn’t. I try to look away, but she has that same quality he has—once you see them, it’s hard to stop.
I’m not surprised she’s here. She and Daniel fight all the time, but they always reconcile with a passionate make-out session and promises not to do whatever-it-was ever again.
Evan in the sound booth waves at us, and Flynn taps out a measure. “One, two, three—”
Right before Cameron and I come in on the first note, Daniel shouts, “We’re Blue Miles!”
I catch his eye.
Ignite, I think, and he nods.
We’ll set this place on fire.