8. Tiny Moves
EIGHT
TINY MOVES
Halle
It’s the second day in a row that I’ve woken up from dreaming about Cade sitting across from me at Varsity, and the third day in a row that I’ve woken up from dreaming about Cade in general. I avoided thinking about the dreams yesterday and the day before, but now, after another night of them, I think I need to start unpacking what they could mean. I don’t want to confront the truth, scared that my crush on Cade could have made its way back to the forefront of my mind.
But maybe that’s not it—dreams can mean anything. Or nothing at all. Right?
I need a walk to clear my head, but for all I know, it could still be the middle of the night—I never forget to pull my blackout curtains shut before bed. I reach for the curtain closest to my bed and am blinded by the morning sun that always shines directly against my window—confirming it’s not the middle of the night and it’s an acceptable time to get up on the weekend.
I change into leggings and a sweatshirt, still needing a warm layer this time of year in the city, especially in the morning, you can’t let the Seattle sun fool you. While I’m putting on my running shoes, I peek at the calendar hanging on the wall above my desk to make sure I don’t have any forgotten plans for the day. There’s nothing on today, but I can’t help but see how many Tryhard related plans I have going on tomorrow.
The heaviness sets into my shoulders, feeling the pressure to figure out whatever it is I’m feeling about Cade right now. I don’t know how I’m going to manage being around him again tomorrow, yesterday was awkward enough getting lunch even with Mel and Abbott around as a buffer. I could barely look at him in our small group, how am I supposed to function at band practice when he’s inevitably going to be looking and sounding as attractive as ever?
Realistically, I know that one day isn’t going to be enough time for me to figure out what I’m feeling, but I’ll at least try to think about it.
I slide my headphones on and make my way to the door. I make sure to grab my keys off their hook by the door, so that I have my emergency alarm and pepper spray—just in case.
I make it a couple blocks away from the house before I have to switch to listening to an audiobook instead of the three playlists I have tried and failed to listen to. I press play on the book Mel hasn’t stopped trying to get me to read for weeks. Escapism is not a want, but a need right now; I think the most I was making it into any song before skipping was 30 seconds, because every song managed to bring my brain back to?—
Cade.
Walking out of Jubilee Records.
I hustle to make it into the coffee shop a little farther up my side of the street before he has a chance to see me. My head-clearing walk has not been as Cade-less as I intended it to be.
After ordering my usual iced vanilla latte with oat milk, I pace around by the pickup counter. It’s 7:30 in the morning, Jubilee isn’t even open yet—what was Cade doing there so early? And how’d he even get in? He used to work there, and has a good relationship with Jerry, the owner of the shop, so he probably still has his ways.
When I moved to the city and needed a job, he quit and a position just so happened to open up for me. He says he didn’t do it for me, that it was to spend more time songwriting—I don’t believe him. But still, this early in the morning? It’s one thing for me to be up early, but Cade? He’s not even remotely close to being a morning person. It’s why being a rockstar is the perfect life path for him.
“For Halle,” the barista calls out, snapping me out of my thoughts.
Drink in one hand, keys in the other, I head out the door and start walking back home, because let’s face it, this walk was only making things worse. While I’m waiting for a crosswalk sign to change, I hear feet falling fast behind me. I slide my pepper spray to the “unlocked” side while I turn to see who’s running up behind me. Relief washes over me when I see that it’s just Cade, but my heart still drops to my stomach with anxiety.
Cade.
Joining me on my Cade-less walk, how ironic.
“You’re lucky, I almost used this on you!” I dramatically wave my pepper spray in the air while we cross the street.
“Who’s to say you still won’t?”
“What were you doing at the shop so early?” I change the subject.
“Who’s following who now?” he jokingly accuses. “Jerry asked me to come in before hours to help him get some of the new audio equipment set up for an in-house recording studio.”
Jerry’s got a lot of side quests—he’s also a music history professor at the university, which is how Cade met him the fall of his freshman year. They bonded over their appreciation for the history of rock and roll, and partway through the semester he offered Cade a job. Creating a studio space in the shop seems to be his newest quest.
“A studio? For real?” I grab Cade’s wrist and turn him to face me, ignoring the burning feeling on my fingertips, stopping us in the middle of the sidewalk. “Jerry mentioned something in passing last week about it, saying it would be ‘neat’, but I hadn’t heard about any real plans to make it happen yet.”
He’s staring back at me in delight, smiling like there’s so much more he wants to tell me, but he doesn’t say anything, he just turns on his heels and starts walking back toward the crosswalk. Every couple steps he stops and turns his gaze over his shoulder, waiting for me to follow. I wait until he gets all the way across the street to start catching up to him. There’s nothing on my schedule for the day after all, so I decide I might as well play into his shenanigans for a little bit.
The traffic light changes right before I make it to the corner, and we both laugh to ourselves about having to wait for the walk sign again. There’s something electric between us as we stand forty feet away with nothing else to do but look across at each other. Not even the cars passing by are a distraction worth stealing our attention.
I don’t know what’s crossing his mind as he holds my eyes with his, but I can’t help but feel like I’m living out a romcom movie moment in real life. His lips are pulled together in a tight but gentle smile, his head’s bobbing from side to side, and he’s humming a tune I can barely hear.
The light changes and the audible “walk” that comes from the speaker snaps me back to reality. I hurry across the street to join Cade. We start heading toward Jubilee and I’m wondering what song he was humming, wanting to imagine what would be playing in the background of our imaginary movie, and what kind of yearning feelings the characters would be having revelations about.
Maybe it’s the first scene where the friends think they could become lovers. And maybe the perfect song hasn’t been written yet.
I use my key to let us into Jubilee and Cade leads me through the dark shop into the new studio space before flicking on the lights. My breath hitches as my eyes register the sight around me. Guitars mounted on one wall, noise canceling foam on another, keyboards, mics, audio interfaces, there’s everything anyone could ever need to make a song in here.
“Ruby’s going to love this! I don’t know how I’m going to keep her out when we’re supposed to be working.” I look around the remodeled space in awe and think of my coworker turned best friend.
She started working at Jubilee about a year and a half ago, just a few weeks after me. We were originally scheduled for most of the same shifts, but once Jerry realized how fast we became close friends, he separated us “for our own good.” At first I was sad about it, but it gives us the opportunity to let our friendship flourish outside of work.
“Ruby’s making music?” Cade asks with a confused face.
“No. Well, not yet.”
“Not yet?”
“She wants to start a podcast. You know Ruby.” I accidentally say this like he should know this about her. But I can’t imagine she’s told anyone this outside of me and Mel.
Ruby’s always on the hunt for a new project. She has a background in music and acting, she went to some performing arts school in California before she moved up here. She’s also dabbled in videography, but her heart lies in front of the camera, not behind it.
She says that she’s been meaning to start a podcast since before they got popular, but just hasn’t gotten around to getting the equipment for it. And now that everyone and their mother has one, she’s slightly turned off by it, but I think the appeal of a studio at Jubilee will officially win her over.
His face looks even more confused. I guess he and Ruby don’t really know each other. They only interact at Pitch parties, and even those are just passing moments. It’s my mission this year to play friend matchmaker with two of my closest friends. This thought kind of stops me in my tracks, but the more that I think about it, the more that I realize it’s true. Cade has somehow worked his way into my exclusive best friend circle.
“I guess I don’t know Ruby as well as I thought, I had no idea.”
I can tell that he feels bad. He’s always had a good memory. He remembers the stuff that people tell him and locks it away some place in his brain, then will check back in about it later. He loves making people feel seen and like what they say means something, so I know it bothers him to not know something like this about someone in our friend group.
“Well I’m sure you’ll cross paths with her a lot more now that you’re going to be fighting for studio time,” I joke and try to lighten his mood.
Slowly but surely, I know Cade and Ruby are going to become good friends, they have so much in common I’m surprised they still haven’t talked much. Even Mel and Ruby clicked super fast, which was unexpected because nobody thought they would get along. Ruby is so unpredictable, spunky, and chaotic, and Mel is extremely organized and has her life perfectly planned out. Somehow, the first time I had Ruby over for a girls night, everything fell into place so naturally.
We all have different ways of explaining our friendship dynamics when we meet new people. I made a theory that if you took Mel and Ruby and put them on a Venn Diagram, I’d be the intersection of their respective circles. Mel thinks she and Ruby could have become friends on their own, and Ruby admits that I’m the glue—which is her way of saying her and Mel would not have become friends on their own.
“Speaking of studio time…” Cade draws out, like he always does when he’s thinking about how to ask whatever question he has.
I make eye contact with him and raise my eyebrows. “Go on,” I press for more details.
“I know I’m springing this on you, but I want to re-record some vocals for the EP this week now that I can get better audio quality in here. If you’d be free to help, after hours of course, I’d really appreciate you being around as another set of hands…and ears.” He delivers that last bit with added charm.
“Anytime!” I commit, then realize I just signed up to spend a lot of time alone with him this week.
“Great. We’ll start tonight.” He winks.
Tuesdays are the only day I’m scheduled to work afternoon-to-close with Ruby. I like to call them my Ruby Tuesdays. I’m clocking in and all I can think about is how badly I could really use a normal feeling Ruby Tuesday right now. I’ve felt out of routine since I’ve started spending my early mornings and late nights in the studio with Cade. It hasn’t been bad by any means, just different .
I’ve been missing my morning coffee with Mel before she takes off for class, and watching reality TV with her before bed. In lieu of Mel time, I have a never ending stream of butterflies. Cade looking at me, Cade winking at me, Cade guiding my hands on the switches and sliders of the recording equipment. Everything he does fuels the fire growing inside my chest.
I’ve never told Ruby about my childhood crush or any of the romantic almosts between me and Cade, so she thinks nothing of the fact that we’re starting to spend a lot more time alone together. I must be better at hiding my feelings than I thought because I expected her to at least have small suspicions. All she said when I told her about the studio sessions was that she “wished she had a guy best friend.” Usually I’d say something like “I love it, it’s the best,” but if someone were to ask me right now, I don’t think I’d recommend it.
When we hit our first lull in customers, Ruby declares that it’s time for girl talk.
“So, update me, what’s going onnnn with Seannnn!” She moves and grooves, accompanying her sing-songy words with body rolls and finger snaps.
“Sean!” Since I’ve been spending so much time with Cade, I kind of forgot about Sean, so her question takes me a bit by surprise. “Yeah, we’ve been texting a lot, but we haven’t seen each other again yet, you know it’s only been a few days and he’s got school…and baseball…” I trail off.
“And? What else? I know there has to be more, like, what have you been texting about? Has he been flirting with you? Have you been flirting with him? Please tell me you’ve been flirting, I would love to read those texts.” I know Mel and I are nosy, but Ruby straight up worms her way into everyone’s business. She’s a little more intimidating than Mel and I are, so people usually give in.
“Maybe?”
“It can’t be just a maybe, Hal. It’s yes or no. Is there flirting?”
“I think so, but I think it’s so different from what I’m used to.” I’m used to mixed signals and being called someone’s little sister, but I catch myself before I say all of that.
“Used to? Halle Cooper, you haven’t dated or even situationshipped with anyone in the entire time that I’ve known you.”
She has a point.
“You’re right, I’m probably just overthinking it. It’s fun sometimes but it also feels a little dry, or like we don’t have enough in common to keep up a meaningful conversation. Not every couple has an immediate spark, right?” I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but I think even Ruby is going to tell me to move on.
She scrunches her face and the next thing I know she’s running around the checkout counter and steals my phone out of my hands. She’s going to be severely disappointed by the lack of flirty banter when she goes through our texts.
“Hm,” she mutters to herself, visibly thinking hard about something.
“What is it? You can be honest.” I give her permission to be brutally honest despite knowing she would’ve been with or without it—that’s one thing I really admire about her.
Sure, her honesty can be brash, a little much at times, but she’s unapologetic about it. Her tone and delivery is something we’re working on, but her honesty is what I love most about her.
“Not to be rude…” this surely can’t be good for me, “but why is his name spelled like that?” She erupts into laughter.
“Like what?” I can’t help but join, her laugh is always contagious.
“With an ‘ea’ instead of an ‘aw’, you know, the way it should be spelled.” She scowls. I don’t know what her experiences with Shawns include, but her tone suggests that there’s lots of Ruby lore yet to be discovered.
“You’re ridiculous, I’ve seen plenty of Sean's and Shawn’s, it’s not like there’s actually a right way.” I almost laugh, but the look on her face tells me that she’s being serious.
“Well, your Sean looks like it would be pronounced or frequently auto-corrected to seen , and if I was Seen , I would think you weren’t interested in me at all. Spark or no spark, your texts could use some flirting workshopping, no offense.” Clearly there’s no convincing her that there’s truly another right way to spell it.
I roll my eyes when she finishes her rant. I’m suddenly feeling very not in the mood for this conversation right now. “How about you and Mel both help me on Friday? We could have a girls night?” I’m mostly suggesting to buy some more time to figure out how I’m really feeling about both Sean and Cade.
“You know I can’t say no to a sleepover. As long as there are sweet treats!” She’s beaming.
I’m sure she’s excited to see Mel, our girls nights every so often are some of the only times they actually get to hang out with how busy Mel is. If we didn’t live together, and if she wasn’t dating my brother, we’d probably be in the same boat.
And now I have an excuse to not spend Friday night in the studio with Cade.