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Michael left his bike at the arena because it was the only place in Santa Carla he was reasonably confident he could find twice.
There were other reasons, including the fact that David had told him to meet them there and his grandfather’s directions tended to involve businesses that had closed before Michael was born, but he preferred the first explanation. It sounded less like he had spent ten minutes deciding whether the invitation still stood when David hadn’t mentioned it again until that afternoon.
He needn’t have worried. Before Michael had finished getting off his bike, Paul was leaning out of the SUV’s open window, calling his name across the parking lot.
“Thought we were going to have to come get you.”
“I’m early.”
“Yeah, we’ve been waiting.”
Michael glanced at the clock on his phone, then back at him. Paul’s grin suggested this was not an argument worth pursuing. By the time Michael had pocketed his keys, Marko had opened the rear door and was moving something off the seat with considerably less care than its owner apparently wanted.
“Those are mine,” Paul said.
“They’re still yours. They’re over there now.”
Dwayne caught the displaced sunglasses from the front passenger seat without looking particularly surprised. David sat behind the wheel with an arm resting along the open window, watching Michael approach.
“You find us all right?”
“Eventually. Had to ask a guy where they keep the obnoxious musicians.”
“And he sent you here?”
“Immediately.”
David smiled, slow enough that Michael felt it somewhere below his ribs. That had been easier to manage when there was a phone between them. In person, he had to contend with the rest of David too, his fingers resting against the door, the blond hair shifting at his cheek, the attention that seemed to settle fully on Michael even while Paul was arguing behind him.
“Get in,” David said. “We’ll show you where to find the rest.”
Michael climbed carefully into the space beside Marko. His side protested when he pulled the door shut, a brief, deep ache he covered by adjusting the seat belt. He had taken something for it before leaving the house, enough to make ordinary movement less distracting, and he intended to remain ordinary about it for the evening.
Marko handed him a bag of sour gummy worms.
“Paul says you like these.”
Michael accepted them, surprised. “I do.”
“I said he mentioned them,” Paul corrected from the other side of the seat. “Once. Like a month ago.”
Marko looked at Michael with an expression that made it impossible to decide which of them was being teased. Michael opened the bag and offered it back, feeling absurdly pleased.
The drive took them past streets he had only begun to recognize, then toward the bright, crowded strip along the water. Dwayne pointed out a turn Michael should remember and another he should avoid unless he wanted to spend twenty minutes trapped behind delivery trucks. Marko supplied recommendations that were mostly food, while Paul interrupted with objections whenever he considered a place overrated.
David let them talk until Michael asked which of them he should believe.
“Me,” he said.
“You haven’t recommended anything.”
“I’m waiting for them to finish being wrong.”
It was familiar enough that Michael relaxed against the seat before he remembered to be careful. He had heard these arguments through speakers, sometimes with David holding the phone away so Michael could judge for himself, but being inside one felt different. Marko was close enough for their knees to touch. Paul leaned across him to dispute a detail with Dwayne. When David glanced into the rearview mirror, Michael knew he was looking for his reaction.
He had missed this without having had enough of it to recognize what he was missing.
The boardwalk was busier than Michael expected for a night that apparently counted as quiet.
He could smell frying food before they reached the first stalls, sweet dough and hot oil mixing with the salt coming off the water. Music drifted between the businesses, interrupted by bells from the arcade and somebody announcing prizes over a distorted speaker. Paul began telling him where they were going, changed his mind halfway through, and took hold of his wrist to steer him toward a stand he insisted Michael needed to try.
They made it perhaps twenty feet before someone recognized them.
Michael had been wondering how that would work. He knew what they looked like on a stage, knew how quickly people gathered when there was any suggestion they might emerge from a backstage door, but David only stopped and smiled when the young woman approached. Her friend took a photograph. Paul asked whether they had enjoyed the show the night before, and Marko leaned into the frame at the last second, earning an indignant noise from Dwayne.
Then they were moving again, the exchange folded easily into the evening.
“It’s always like that?” Michael asked.
“Sometimes people scream,” Paul said.
“Sometimes Paul screams back,” Dwayne added.
“They seem to like it.”
David glanced at Michael as they fell into step beside each other. “You’ll have to let us know if you get tired of stopping.”
Michael looked at him, caught briefly by the assumption that he would be around often enough for that to become a problem. “I’m the one who doesn’t know where anything is. You could leave me at a stall and I’d probably still be reading the menu when you came back.”
“We’re feeding you first,” David said, as though this had already been settled.
They bought food from a place whose owner recognized Dwayne and asked where they had been. Michael stood beside the counter while the others answered in overlapping pieces, naming cities and complaining about roads. It was strange to watch someone receive that information with the same mild interest his old neighbors might have given a trip to visit relatives. The man handed over their order, told Paul he looked tired, and instructed them not to stay away so long this time.
Michael was still smiling about that when Dwayne passed him his drink.
“What?”
“He told you to get some sleep.”
“Somebody has to,” Dwayne said.
They ate while walking, gradually slowing wherever the others found something worth showing him. Paul pointed out the arcade machine Marko was banned from touching. Marko disputed the ban’s legitimacy. David described a fight that had apparently begun outside a shop selling souvenir candles, though his version differed substantially from Dwayne’s and made himself sound suspiciously reasonable.
Michael listened, fitting the stories around the place. Santa Carla had so far consisted mostly of his grandfather’s house, the roads between it and the arena, and the handful of businesses where he had asked about work. The boys seemed to have a memory attached to every few yards.
Eventually, they reached a stretch where the music ahead had stopped resolving into a song. Someone was playing the same guitar phrase repeatedly, pausing between attempts while another person called for more level in a monitor.
Paul’s attention shifted at once.
“Oh, they’re setting up.”
A low wooden stage stood beneath a modest arrangement of lights, close enough to the flow of foot traffic that people could stop without committing themselves to watching. Four musicians were moving between instruments, cables, and a microphone that gave a short, unhappy squeal before the singer lowered its volume.
Marko looked toward David. Something passed between them that Michael couldn’t identify, but David was already changing direction.
“You used to play here?” Michael asked.
“Constantly,” Paul said. “They had to start telling us when to go home.”
“You ignored them,” Dwayne reminded him.
“Sometimes.”
David slowed at the edge of the stage, looking over the equipment with a smile Michael had seen less often than the one he used when he knew he was being watched. “That speaker used to cut out if anybody walked too close to it.”
“It still does,” the guitarist said without turning. “Please don’t-”
He looked up.
Michael watched recognition interrupt the rest of the sentence. The guitarist’s hand remained on the cable he had been adjusting while his gaze moved from David to Marko and then, with increasing disbelief, to Paul approaching the drummer.
“Oh,” he said. “Holy shit.”
Paul smiled at him. “That’s usually a good sign.”
The drummer had stood so quickly that the stool rocked behind him. Dwayne caught it before it fell, righted it, and began asking about the bass leaning against an amp. The singer came over with the guarded expression of someone trying not to get too excited before understanding what was happening.
David rested a hand on the stage’s edge.
“This where you’re playing tonight?”
“Yeah. In about ten minutes.” The singer glanced at the others, then back at him. “You- sorry. We were at the show yesterday.”
“Hope you got your money’s worth.”
The guitarist gave a startled laugh. Michael watched the tension leave the singer’s shoulders.
David looked back at the boys, then toward Michael before asking, “Would you mind if we opened for you?”
For a moment, none of the local band answered. The drummer looked at Paul as though he might explain the joke.
“One song,” David added. “If you’re all right with us borrowing your setup. We got our start here. Been a while since we’ve had an excuse to play it.”
The singer turned to the others. Their agreement came in a flurry that made Paul laugh, and within a minute Marko was asking the guitarist about his tuning while Dwayne discussed the strap on the bass.
Michael stayed where he was, half-finished drink in his hand, watching Paul crouch to inspect the pedals.
David looked down at him from the stage.
“You going to stick around?”
Michael lifted an eyebrow. “Depends. Opening acts can be pretty hit or miss.”
“Cruel.”
“I’ve heard good things about the drummer.”
David leaned closer, bracing a hand against his knee. “Keep that up and I’ll tell him.”
“You think I haven’t?”
The smile David gave him made Michael glad he had something to occupy his hands.
There was no announcement beyond David testing the microphone and asking the people nearby whether they had a minute.
At first, only a few turned. Then someone recognized his voice, and recognition spread through the loose cluster of people faster than Michael could follow it. Phones appeared. A couple walking past stopped so abruptly that the people behind them had to move around them, and somebody near the arcade shouted a question that David answered with a grin.
Michael stepped closer to the stage before the space filled.
From there, he could see all the adjustments that would have disappeared inside a larger show. Paul shifted the stool, tested the snare, and exchanged a look with its owner before changing something by a fraction. Marko rolled his shoulder beneath the borrowed guitar strap. Dwayne played a few quiet notes and listened carefully, then nodded toward the bassist.
David turned to look at them. He didn’t need to say anything. Paul raised a stick, counted them in, and the first chord moved through the boards beneath Michael’s feet.
Michael recognized the song immediately.
He had heard it at every Arizona show and again the night before, but he found himself listening differently here. Paul had a smaller kit. Marko’s guitar sounded rougher through the little amp, and the bass seemed to reach Michael through the stage as much as through the speakers. David’s voice remained unmistakable, even when he laughed at something Paul did during the first verse and had to come back in half a beat later.
The cable followed him across the stage. He stepped over it without looking, reached the edge, and found Michael directly below him.
Michael had meant to be sensible about this.
That intention lasted until David sang the next line looking at him.
He felt himself grin before he could decide whether to, helplessly aware of the people on either side lifting their phones. David’s expression warmed in response. Then he moved on, drawing the rest of the little crowd into the song, and Michael was left standing with a drink he had forgotten about and the distinct sensation that something had just happened to him in public.
Behind David, Paul caught his eye.
He played the transition Michael knew from a voice recording, changed the last beat, and watched for recognition. Michael laughed and pointed at him. Paul’s answering smile was enormous.
It was impossible to look anywhere for long. Marko had turned toward Dwayne, playing close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, and Dwayne was laughing at whatever he had said. David came back toward them during the instrumental, resting a hand briefly between Marko’s shoulders before turning to the crowd again.
Michael had seen them be good at this. He hadn’t quite understood how much pleasure they could take in it.
The song ended with a flourish Paul apparently improvised, judging by Marko turning around to stare at him. Paul spread his hands in innocence while the crowd cheered, and David waited for the noise to settle enough that he could speak.
“Thank you for letting us steal a few minutes.”
Somebody called for another. Other voices joined in, but David shook his head, still smiling.
“We promised one. These guys were kind enough to let us borrow their instruments, so you’re going to stay and listen to them.”
He brought the singer forward, introduced the band by name, and made him say where people could find their music. Marko handed back the guitar with a quiet comment that left its owner looking stunned all over again. Paul stood from the kit and immediately began talking to the drummer, demonstrating something in the air before laughing and giving him room.
Michael moved aside as they came down, aware that the audience had grown well beyond the handful who had been there before. Dwayne reached him first, accepting his own drink back from where he had entrusted it to Michael.
“How was the opening act?”
“Decent. Singer kept getting in the way.”
“I’ll mention it.”
David arrived in time to hear that, took Michael’s cup from his hand, and stole a drink before returning it.
“You’re both very funny.”
Michael looked at the cup. “You could ask.”
“Would you have said yes?”
“Probably.”
David’s fingers rested briefly against his as he let go. “I’ll remember that.”
The local band began their first song before Michael could find an answer.
They stayed near the side of the stage, where they could watch without standing directly in front of everybody else.
Paul listened with an attention that made Michael reluctant to interrupt him. Marko leaned toward Dwayne to say something about the guitar, then caught Michael’s expression and explained what he meant without making him feel foolish for not already knowing. David stood close enough that the back of his hand brushed Michael’s when either of them moved.
For a while, Michael let himself enjoy that without trying to decide whether it was accidental.
His own phone vibrated halfway through the first song. Sam had sent him a video.
Michael opened it to find David on the little stage, filmed from somewhere across the boardwalk. The caption contained enough exclamation marks to be difficult to read.
IS THIS TONIGHT?
Before Michael could answer, another message appeared.
ARE YOU THERE?
He took a photograph of Paul watching the drummer and sent it back.
Paul noticed. “Tell him I said hi.”
“He’ll never recover.”
“Good. Builds character.”
Michael was still answering Sam when David took his phone out. He glanced at the screen, pressed the side button, and put it away with so little interruption that Michael might not have noticed if they hadn’t been standing together.
A minute later, Paul checked his pocket.
His expression changed. He looked toward David, who gave the smallest shake of his head, then silenced his own phone.
Marko’s went next.
“Oh, he’s doing everybody,” he said, turning the screen toward Dwayne.
Dwayne looked at it, then took out his own phone before it could ring.
Michael followed the exchange with growing curiosity. “Who?”
“Max,” Paul said.
“Our manager,” David added, although Michael knew that already. He had heard the name often enough, attached to schedules and travel arrangements and things David sounded tired of discussing.
Michael glanced toward the phones held up around them, understanding. “He’s seen the video?”
“Apparently.” David slipped his hand back into his pocket. “What was Sam saying?”
Michael let himself be drawn back to the conversation. It wasn’t hard. Sam had several questions, most of which could be answered with a photograph that included David’s face, and David obliged by leaning into Michael’s space with an expression designed to make his brother worse.
The resulting picture was slightly blurred. Michael saved it anyway.
By the second song, the crowd had spread farther along the boardwalk. People approached from the arcade and the food stands, some already looking at their phones as though comparing the place in front of them with the one on the screen. A few asked for photographs. The boys obliged when they could, then turned their attention back to the stage.
David’s phone vibrated against his leg again.
Michael felt it through the brief contact of their thighs and looked down before he could help it.
“You need to get that?”
“No.”
David took it out, looked at the screen, and switched it off completely. When he put it away, his attention returned to Michael with a steadiness that made the question feel settled.
“You were telling me about your grandfather.”
Michael smiled despite himself. “I was telling you he thinks putting roadkill in the refrigerator is a reasonable thing to do.”
“His refrigerator?”
“That’s not a defense.”
“It is a little.”
Dwayne turned toward them at that, apparently unwilling to let David make this argument unchallenged. Soon Michael was trying to explain the household system while Paul asked increasingly unhelpful questions and Marko looked delighted by the entire arrangement.
For several minutes, he forgot about the calls.
Max arrived during the local band’s fourth song.
Michael noticed him because David stopped speaking.
One moment he had been leaning close to make himself heard over the music, his mouth curved around the beginning of a remark. The next, he straightened, and Michael followed his gaze to the man approaching through the crowd.
Max looked older than Michael had expected, neatly dressed in a way that seemed separate from the people around him. Nobody had to point him out. Paul’s hand stopped tapping against his thigh, and Marko shifted closer to Dwayne.
“Time to go,” Max said when he reached them. “Now.”
David held his gaze for a moment before smiling.
“They’ve only just started.”
“I’m aware. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
The words were quiet enough that Michael had to concentrate to hear them beneath the music. Max didn’t seem interested in raising his voice. He stood with the expectation that the others would make the effort.
David’s hand settled lightly at Michael’s back.
“Max, this is Michael. He worked with us in Arizona. Lives here now.”
Michael began to offer his hand. “Hi. It’s nice to-”
Max’s eyes passed over him, briefly enough that Michael wasn’t sure the introduction had registered.
“Your phones,” he said to David. “All four of them?”
Michael lowered his hand, adjusting his hold on the cup to give the movement somewhere to go. Paul looked at him, and Michael wished he hadn’t. He could manage an awkward introduction perfectly well without anyone seeing it happen.
“We were listening to the band,” David said.
“And before that, you were drawing a crowd without making any arrangements for it.”
Paul glanced toward the stage. “We played one song.”
“Yes. I’ve seen.”
“They asked,” Marko said, then corrected himself with an impatient movement of his hand. “We asked. They said yes. Nobody’s upset.”
Max looked at him long enough that Marko’s jaw tightened.
Michael had spent years learning the difference between a conversation and something that only looked like one. He recognized the shape of this before he wanted to, and found himself studying the condensation on his cup while pretending he wasn’t listening so closely.
David’s hand remained at his back.
“We’re finished,” he said. “Their set’s started. We’re watching.”
“People are coming here because you announced your location to half the internet.”
“We didn’t announce anything,” Paul said.
Max’s gaze moved to him. “Do you imagine that makes a difference?”
Paul looked away first, toward the drummer he had been watching so happily a few minutes earlier. The local band kept playing, unaware of the conversation taking place beside the stage. Michael could still hear the same song. He found that disorienting.
“We’ll head out after this one,” David said.
“You’ll head out now.”
There was a pause during which Michael became painfully aware of the space they occupied. People were looking over occasionally, some recognizing the boys, others simply following the movement of the crowd. David glanced toward the stage and back.
“Fine,” he said. “But we’re giving Michael a ride back to the venue.”
“I’m sure he can make his own way back.”
Max said it without looking at him.
Michael’s grip tightened around the cup. He knew the direction of the arena, approximately. He could find it on his phone. There was no reason for this to become more unpleasant on his account, particularly when he had only met the man thirty seconds earlier.
“It’s okay,” he began. “I can-”
“You came with us,” David said.
He turned toward Michael as he spoke, meeting his eyes long enough that Michael stopped. Then he looked back at Max.
“His bike’s at the arena. He’s new in town. We’re not leaving him here.”
“I didn’t suggest you leave him stranded.”
“You suggested he find his own way back.”
“David.”
The change in Max’s voice was slight. Michael felt David’s hand become still against his back.
Paul stepped closer. “It’s on the way.”
Whether that was true, Michael had no idea. Dwayne was already taking the empty cup from his hand, giving him something else to focus on while he disposed of it in a nearby bin. Marko watched Max with an expression that had lost every trace of the amusement he had worn earlier.
David took the keys out of his pocket.
“We’ll take him to his bike,” he said.
For a moment, Max looked at him without answering. Then he stepped aside.
“Straight there. We’ll speak afterward.”
David gave a short nod, but his hand moved at Michael’s back before Max had finished speaking, guiding him toward the edge of the crowd.
They stopped only long enough to catch the local singer’s eye between lines. Paul raised a hand. Marko pointed toward the guitarist and gave him an emphatic nod that made the young man smile despite the concentration on his face.
Michael looked back once.
Max was watching them leave.
The walk to the car was quieter than the walk from it.
Paul stayed beside Michael, asking whether he had enjoyed the band. Michael answered honestly, grateful for a question that didn’t require him to decide what he had just witnessed. They discussed the drummer for a minute while Dwayne walked ahead with David, but the conversation kept finding small gaps neither of them seemed certain how to fill.
Michael could still feel the place where David’s hand had rested against his back.
At the SUV, Marko opened the rear door and moved aside for him. Michael climbed in too quickly, eager to stop being the person everybody was waiting for, and caught his breath when his ribs protested.
Marko’s eyes flicked toward him.
Michael adjusted the seat belt. “Still sore.”
“From the furniture?”
“Yeah.”
Marko watched him for another moment before getting in beside him. This time, he left enough room that Michael didn’t have to brace against the door.
David waited until everyone was settled before starting the engine.
They drove for several blocks without music. The silence wasn’t hostile, but Michael found himself wanting to repair it anyway. He watched the boardwalk lights disappear behind them, trying to work out whether he should say something about Max or leave it alone.
“I really could’ve walked,” he said eventually.
David looked at him in the mirror.
“I know you can walk, Michael.”
“I just meant-”
“We brought you out,” Paul said, his voice gentler than Michael expected. “We’re bringing you back.”
Dwayne turned slightly in his seat. “You don’t need to worry about it.”
Michael nodded because arguing would make him exactly the problem he was trying not to be. He looked down at his phone instead. Sam had sent more messages, including another video of the song, this one close enough that Michael could see himself at the edge of the frame.
He hadn’t realized how openly he had been smiling.
Marko leaned toward the screen. “That one any good?”
Michael handed it over. Marko watched for several seconds, then made a dissatisfied sound.
“They cut off the end.”
“Probably because Paul was still playing it,” David said.
Paul looked toward the front of the car. “You’re welcome.”
The answer came so promptly that Michael laughed. Dwayne reached for the radio, and the next few minutes were easier.
Michael didn’t mistake that for everything being fine.
At the arena, David parked near Michael’s bike and got out before Michael had finished unfastening his seat belt.
Michael followed more carefully this time. The lot was quiet, the building dark beyond the security lights, and the sudden absence of the boardwalk made the evening feel farther away than it was.
He took out his keys while David stood beside him with his hands in his jacket pockets.
“Thanks,” Michael said. “For tonight.”
David glanced toward the SUV, then back. “Even the opening act?”
“Especially the opening act.”
That earned him a small smile, though it didn’t quite settle.
Michael turned the keys in his hands. He wanted to ask whether David was in trouble and hated how young the question sounded before he had spoken it. These were people who crossed countries for work, who could walk onto a stage and make strangers stop in the street. He had watched all four of them decide not to answer their phones.
He had also watched them stop smiling when Max arrived.
“I didn’t mean to make that harder,” he said.
David’s expression changed.
“You didn’t.”
“About the ride.”
“Michael.” David stepped closer, drawing his attention away from the keys. “You don’t owe him a walk across town.”
Michael looked at him.
There was irritation in David’s voice now, but it didn’t seem directed at him. David glanced down briefly, then reached to straighten a fold in the collar of Michael’s jacket. His fingers lingered there for a moment after the fabric was flat.
“We asked you to come out with us,” he said. “I wanted you there.”
Michael could have made a joke. He had become good at recognizing the places where David left room for one, good at giving them both a way to keep moving when a conversation approached something neither of them had named.
Instead, he said, “I wanted to be there.”
David’s hand rested against the side of his neck, his thumb just beneath Michael’s jaw. The contact was cool after the warmth of the car, familiar now in a way that made Michael want to lean into it.
“I know,” David said, and this time the smile reached his eyes.
From the SUV, Paul called, “Text us when you get home.”
“All of you?”
“Yes,” Marko answered immediately.
“There’s a group chat,” Dwayne reminded them.
“Let him make an effort.”
Michael laughed, carefully, and David let his hand fall so he could get on his bike.
They waited while he put the key in the ignition. When he looked up again, David was still beside the bike, watching with an attention Michael had spent months learning to recognize through smaller things: a message after a shift, a remembered detail, a call that continued even when there was nothing left to say.
Michael reached out and caught his hand before he could step away.
“Next time,” he said, “I’m picking the opening act.”
David’s fingers closed around his.
“High standards?”
“Apparently.”
David gave his hand a brief squeeze, then released him and moved back toward the car.
Michael pulled out of the lot with all four of them still there. At the exit, he checked his mirror and saw David standing beside the open driver’s door, waiting until he had made the turn.
When he reached his grandfather’s house, he sent the promised message before taking off his jacket.
Home. Thanks for showing me around.
Paul replied first, with a complaint that they hadn’t even reached the good arcade. Marko disputed which arcade counted as the good one. Dwayne told him to get some sleep.
David’s message came separately a few minutes later.
Still plenty left to show you.
Michael sat on the edge of his bed, one hand resting lightly against his side, and looked at the words.
Then you’ll have to ask me again.
He left the phone beside him while he unlaced his boots. When it lit up, he reached for it immediately.