Marching season is out, but the competition is only heating up.
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Section leader applications for the next marching band season at Halston University are officially open, and percussionist Bay Rodriguez wants the role.
Bay's only competition is Ca...
noun. a continuous slide upward or downward between two notes.
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I'm clocking off of my shift to take a ten-minute break.
I slip out from behind the bar, skirting the edge of the dance floor, heading for the personnel door. Then my name rings out from the microphone. "—finishing off the night, the Foxhole's own Bay Rodriguez!" announces Haniya, one of my co-workers on duty. "T-minus two minutes."
I most certainly did not sign up to play.
My head snaps to the stage, eyes wide in disbelief. I mouth, What?
Usually waitressing or behind the bar, tonight Haniya is responsible for Live Music Fridays. Onstage, she smiles secretively and cuts her gaze to a table across the room. Callum's table, where he sits with five of our bandmates.
Oh, the motherfucker. His audacity is unbelievable, throwing me onstage in my break just so he can test who's the better kit drummer. My face twists into a glare. Callum's watching me, too, expression inscrutable.
How long has he been watching me?
Haniya turns up the volume of the pop hits playlist streaming through the speakers. Compared to the performances that have been enchanting the Foxhole tonight, even though it's more polished and produced, the dance songs feel cold and synthetic, holding none of the energy.
Changing trajectories, I start cutting through the crowd. Pushing himself to stand, Callum excuses himself from his friends and starts towards me. My furious strides meet his laid-back ones, right in the middle of the dance floor.
"What the fuck? Did you do this? I'm working," I hiss.
He has to lean close to hear me over the music, the chatter, the ambient noises of drinks being poured. His nose nearly skims my cheekbone. "Not now, you're not."
"What if I chose to take my break another time? What if the bar needs me?"
"I tipped your co-worker to cover you," he shrugs.
I glance at Haniya, who is readjusting the positions of the microphones onstage. She notices after two seconds and raises her hand in the okay gesture, smiling approvingly. I can practically hear her voice inside my head: not bad, girl.
"Oh, my God," I snort, my lips widening into a betrayed half-smile before I can help myself. Haniya always loves a show.
And Callum already charmed and/or bribed her into doing this. Typical. Too late to hide my smile from him, I press my fingers into my brow bone, protesting, "That doesn't matter. I don't know any songs, and I can't improvise like you, and I don't even have an accompaniment—"
