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“I’m sure they’ll make me sign a nondisclosure,” Remy said. “And besides, given who she is, I bet I’ll talk to her twice, tops.”
“Yeah, but still. I’m good at my job. I’ll make sure it never leads back to you,” Celeste said.
“Stop it, both of you. Are you serious right now?” Val said, looking astounded that Remy and Celeste were talking with such certainty about the gig. “Why are you doing this? Is it about the money? Fuck the money. Right now, Remy, I could make fifteen thousand dollars if I changed the lyrics of ‘Everything but the World’ to ‘Everything but Colleen’ and played some Grammy exec’s wife’s tennis party—”
“Wait, what?” Celeste said. “What’s a tennis party?”
“I don’t know, she’s into me and tennis or something. My point is, I’m not doing it, because that’s not who I am. This kind of tour is not who you are. Unless you have some deep need to be a bubblegum tour drummer that I didn’t know about?”
Remy took a breath. He wasn’t ready to tell Val just how much he wanted to produce for others, how this was a chance to network, to meet people, to get his name out. So he simplified it into a summary that would make Val angry but wouldn’t make him explosive. “I just want to do it, brother.”
Less than thirty seconds later—just long enough for Val to delve back into stony, furious silence—a runner came to retrieve them. They played the show as they’d played it hundreds of times before, and for the first time in ages Remy liked each and every song again. His stomach clenched. What the hell had he done? Traded the danger he knew for the danger of a candy-themed stage set?
“Thank you, beautiful people,” Val panted into the microphone just before they launched into their last song—always better to say your farewells to the crowd before they mill away at the end of the set. “We’re Quiet Coyote, and we’ll be back in six weeks. Get your asses back here and see us again.”
He glanced back at Remy as he said this, a burning sort of expression in his eyes. Remy lifted the sticks high, rattled off the lick that sent Val into the first verse. Like he always did, like he’d always done, like they’d always been. Like they wouldn’t be at all, for six weeks.
Remy played on, because despite the worry spreading in his chest like a sickness, he didn’t know how to do anything else.
