Chapter 2 #2
“Consonants together,” I coached. “It’s not li-fe, it’s li—f.
Land at the same time. Again. Again. Good.
Now more air on the vowel. Yes, Finn. Less warble, Julian.
Elliott, you’re allowed to exist; stop apologising.
Milo—if you riff without permission, I will glue your vocal cords together with superglue. ”
Milo gasped. “Artist abuse.”
“Accurate,” Zane said. “He hates us all equally.”
I didn’t hate them. I hated that we weren’t yet what I could hear. I hated my own chest for tightening every moment when we almost reached it.
“Galileo,” I said at last, resigned to the chaos.
“The goal for today is not to perfect it but survive it. Finnley and Sebastian take the top ping. Milo and Zane double the middle. Tenor descant underneath—Elliott on the moving line, Julian sustain. Baritones on pedal; Max, you and I treat the bottom like a heartbeat. Breath plan at bars—Oliver?”
“Seven and ten,” Oliver supplied. “Silent inhale. Drop your jaw on ‘Magnifico’ or we’ll strangle the vowel.”
I gave him a grateful half-smile. “Okay. Stand. Bodies tall, ribs soft, tongues lazy. Rhythm internal. On my cue—”
I cut them in.
It was chaos, but purposeful chaos this time.
Finnley over-brightened on the first Galileo and corrected by the second.
Milo nearly giggled and then swallowed it into a clean ping.
Zane’s eyes widened, but then he rode the overtone.
Elliott’s moving tenor line wobbled and then steadied as Julian leaned a whisper of harmony under him, supporting him like scaffolding.
Oliver and Liam did something that felt like magic—minor, major, minor, suspension—and the room’s air changed texture.
Max’s bass throbbed. I placed my own note so precisely it felt as though I was putting my whole body on a shelf and trusting it would hold.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even good, objectively. But for two measures, maybe three, the overtones turned the rehearsal air crystalline.
Locked.
Click.
It lit my nerves as if someone had struck a tuning fork under my sternum. I had to swallow twice before I could speak.
No one spoke.
Finnley’s mouth was open, his eyes huge.
Milo pressed his hands to his cheeks like a kid at a fireworks show.
Zane looked genuinely moved and immediately masked it with a shrug he didn’t quite pull off.
Sebastian exhaled through his nose as if he’d been proved right about something important.
Elliott’s eyes glistened which he said was due to allergies.
Julian’s posture softened, a quiet concession.
Liam grinned so wide he looked a little ridiculous but perfect. Oliver wrote nothing.
Some moments didn’t need notes.
Max bumped my shoulder with the back of his hand. The gesture spoke loudly.
Hear that? You did that. We did that. It’s real.
I nodded once, then retreated quickly into brusqueness because if I softened at all I might embarrass myself by feeling.
“Okay,” I said, my voice only a little hoarse. “That’s what we’re chasing. Take two.”
The air filled with groans, theatrical and sincere.
“We just had a religious experience,” Milo complained. “You can’t make us do it again.”
“I can and I will,” I told him. “Because right now it’s an accident. I want it to be on purpose.”
“Spoken like someone who irons his socks,” Zane said.
“I don’t—” I began, and then realised that yes, I had ironed socks once, for an outfit, but that was no one’s business but mine. “From bar twenty-two.”
We worked. We faltered. We fought. Sebastian clucked his tongue.
Milo pouted. Julian weaponised cadence. Oliver solved a tuning problem by rewriting breath spots on the fly.
Liam invented a joke about baritones being the middle child of music that shouldn’t have been funny and was.
Finnley learned to tune his brightness to the room instead of his feelings.
Against all my expectations, Zane became brutally useful when he started calling everyone out evenly, including me.
“You’re dragging, Captain Clipboard, and I’m only saying it because you look as if you’ll combust if I don’t.”
Max translated for Zane. “He means it with love.”
I found myself smiling once but pretended it was wind. Then I tried to look pissed at what had apparently become my nickname, and failed miserably.
It’s what Cameron once called a germ of endearment.
Thoughts of Cameron had no place in that room, and I quickly shoved them out the door. I did not need distractions, and Cameron was a distraction wrapped up in a hot package.
Too hot to handle. I didn’t need that kind of heat either.
By the last half hour, my shoulders hurt, and my brain was full of overheating circuits. My pencil had no eraser left. My water bottle was empty, and I was ninety percent certain I’d drunk half of Milo’s at some point. I’d told people to stop and start so many times the words had lost all shape.
I lifted my hand for what I promised myself would be the final time. “All right, this is it. Top to bottom, with no stopping. Nobody dies. If you do die, do it quietly on the rests.”
“Noted,” Julian said.
“Funeral pianissimo,” Zane added.
I inhaled, and heard the room inhale with me. I brought them in.
It wasn’t smooth. The first verse wobbled, and the first harmony spread like butter left out too long.
The “Mama” hit somewhere left of soul and right of sincerity.
The rock section threatened to rip off its own leash before Liam’s baritone pulled it back.
The “Galileo” was a near-disaster followed by a miracle, followed by two bats colliding with a chandelier and then, suddenly, the chandelier refracting the light just right.
At the end, our breaths spent, our throats raw, sweat beading at our temples, we landed together on the last chord, ten men exhaling into unity.
Silence.
Outside, a siren Dopplered past. In the corner, Max’s phone vibrated against a chair like a tiny impatient cricket.
I lowered my hand, very slowly.
“Holy shit.” Milo’s whisper came out reverent.
Elliott pushed out a shaky little laugh and immediately covered his mouth as though he’d burped in church.
Julian’s snark didn’t arrive in time to save his fondness.
Finnley blinked away tears he didn’t apologise for.
Oliver pushed his glasses up and nodded once like yes, that’s a thing that can exist. Liam made finger guns at the ceiling and then elbowed Oliver as if to say you did that.
Zane pretended to inspect his cuticles. Sebastian inhaled as if he wanted to keep the sound in his lungs longer.
Max clapped, one broad sound that made the room jump. “First rehearsal,” he said. Then he grinned. “And we didn’t die.”
“Give it time.” It came out softer than I meant. I glanced around the circle of faces, these men we’d chosen, who had chosen us back, and let the feeling crest. What surged through me wasn’t joy, not yet, but something quieter and more dangerous.
Hope.
I cleared my throat. “Notes.” I flipped my clipboard to a clean page and realised I’d filled them all. I wrote in the margin anyway. “Finnley, brighten less on ‘little.’ Zane, you’re a baritone tourist; commit to your lane. Milo, runs happen when I say they happen. Sebastian—”
“Perfect,” Sebastian said.
My lips twitched. “Almost. Which is my favourite insult, by the way. Oliver, that breath plan was great; roll it to the group chat. Liam, whatever you did in bar fifty-six, do that forever. Elliott, come see me about vowel shape. I want to move you from bright eh to pure e. Julian? Nice restraint. Keep it.”
Julian put a hand to his chest. “He complimented me. Someone write this down.”
“I did.” Oliver was already typing on his phone.
Max flung an arm over my shoulders and reeled me in like a big brother. “Captain Clipboard?”
“What?”
“You did good,” Max said simply.
I felt the words land where the music had rung, inside my ribs. I shrugged as if they weighed nothing. “We still have a long way to go.”
“Sure. But now we know which direction is forward.”