Dane and Zion

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

~Dane~

       Zion hasn't performed at Hummingbird for a while. Not because he didn't want to, but because he was normally busy. Sometimes, it was because of work and other times, it was because we were working on a song. 

       But today, Zion said he wanted to perform a song there. I asked him what song he was going to perform, but he just told me it was a surprised.

       I was wondering if it was the song he accidentally wrote down on his demo list, but I wasn't going to question him about it. If he wanted me to know what song he was going to perform, he would have told me the moment I asked him.

       Oh, well. Whatever song he was going to perform, I knew I was going to love the performance. I just loved watching Zion perform. He was so talented and had so much energy on stage. You could see how much he loved music and performing.

       I met up with Zion and his friends, plus Alika, at Hummingbird. The first thing I noticed when I got to the table they were at was that Zion had a guitar with him. I guess he was going to be doing an acoustic song, which only made me think even more that he was going to be singing a song he had been working on his own. None of the songs we wrote together were acoustic. Sure, he could probably easy turn one of them acoustic, but he had told me he loved how energetic the songs were.

       I didn't think he would want to sing any of them acoustically.

       Before the open mic started, the six of us decided to order some wings for us to split. However, once the food got here, Zion refused to eat any. "I don't think I'm able to stomach anything right now," he said.

       Miguel looked at Zion suspiciously, his eyes narrowed as he seemingly scanned Zion up and down. "Who are you and what have you done to Zion?"

       Zion furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

       "You said it in a way that makes it sound like you're nervous," Miguel said. "Since when do you get nervous?"

       "Yeah," Marjani agreed. "You once said that getting nervous is for chumps."

       "I'm not nervous," Zion said. "Who said I was nervous?"

       "Then why can't you stomach anything right now?" Miguel asked.

       "Why can't you stomach anything right now?" Zion shot back.

       "Now you're getting defensive?" Miguel asked. "Yeah, you're definitely nervous about something."

       "You're nervous."

       "The more defensive you get, the less I believe you."

       Zion didn't reply with anything else. Miguel was right; the more defensive Zion got, the less believable he was. I didn't really believe him either. He was clearly nervous about something, but I wasn't going to question him about it. If he didn't want to tell us why he was nervous, then I shouldn't ask him about it.

       Too bad his friends didn't think about it that way.

       They just kept questioning him about it, but Zion was trying his best to avoid answering.

       So I decided to try to change the subject for Zion's sake. I could tell he really didn't want to tell everyone why he was nervous, but since it was rare for Zion to get nervous apparently, his friends were just way too curious about what was going on.

       "Oh, did Zion tell you guys that we went a demo to two recording studios?" I asked.

       "What?" Divya asked. "No." She looked at Zion. "Why didn't you tell us?"