Gavin’s guitar cuts out in a jumble of sound, and for a moment he tilts his head back, eyes closed like he’s counting to five. He probably is.

“It’s D-flat, E-flat, F,” he says. “Just a regular fucking F chord, mate.”

I look down at my fingers on the neck of my guitar. I’m not sure what the hell they’re doing, but it’s not a F chord, so I rearrange them into one and strum.

“Got it,” I say, my voice tight even to my own ears.

“You sure? Do you want it written down or something?”

“I said I’ve got it.”

“Because you haven’t got it the last several attempts we’ve made.”

I take a deep breath and clench my jaw, counting to five myself. It’s nearly six in the evening and we got here at eight-thirty this morning, and aside from fifteen minutes to scarf down lunch we’ve been playing nonstop, just the four of us in this room. We’ve played Alleyway Saint about twenty times in a row. I can practically see everyone’s nerves fraying.

Ten feet away, Darcy is sitting in a metal folding chair, left hand silently forming chords on the neck of her bass, not looking up at Gavin and I bickering. We’ve said about five words to each other all day. She’s barely made eye contact with me, and even worse than Gavin being kind of a prick right now, that’s like sandpaper under my skin.

“I’m fine, just start at the chorus,” I snap.

Gavin glances back at Joan, who nods, then counts off, and we start playing again.

Normally I know this song by heart. We’ve been playing it for years, and every note should be practically ingrained in my fingers. Usually they are, but today’s a fucking unusual day.

We finish the chorus, loop back into the second verse. I’m staring at the wall, making myself concentrate on the task at hand. Not on Darcy, who’s wearing a dress with Doc Martens and no bra.

Not on the night by the river, with rocks and pie. Not on how I half hate myself for thinking it might work and half still think that it might, because the desire hasn’t gone away. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

The band heads into the bridge. D-flat, E-flat, F, and then I look over at her just as she glances at me.

And her finger slips, the note going bad, then the next one’s off the beat.

Gavin stops playing and throws his hands in the air, then rests them on his head, turning in a circle, the cable on his guitar dragging behind him.

“Jesus Holy Christ,” he says, shouting at the soundproofed wall. “I could have sworn we were a band who’d played this song a million fucking times, not some buskers come in from off the street who—”

“Gavin,” Joan says, and we all turn to look at her. She’s sitting perfectly upright on her stool, drumsticks in one hand, her hair pulled back, reading glasses on.

The three of us are silent for a moment, like we’re suddenly aware that we’re having a family fight in front of a stranger. Which we kind of are.

“We’ve been practicing all day,” she says, her voice calm and reasonable. “You and I just got in late last night, why don’t we call it for now and come at this fresh tomorrow?”

Gavin shoves hand through his hair, heaves a sigh, then crosses his arms. He’s obviously stressed about this, and I think the slavedriver part of his personality — the one that was a surprise when he finally kicked the heroin — would rather we stay here until we either all get it right or kill each other.

“I think Joan’s right,” Darcy volunteers. “We’ll all be less grumpy if we sleep on this.”

“I’m not grumpy, I just want to fucking—”

Darcy rolls her eyes.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“Trying to get something right isn’t being grumpy, it’s—”

“—Yeah, I’m just inspired as shit right now to get this right and you getting in my face about it is really helping, Gavin—”

“—Apparently rather than consider practicing, the two of you have spent the past weeks fucking around!”

“I couldn’t fucking lean back in a chair for a week! I still can’t play standing because the strap rubs against my back!”

Gavin paces back and forth for a moment, clenching and unclenching his hands, shaking them out because he’s been playing for eight hours straight. There’s silence in the room. Darcy closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

“I just don’t want us to embarrass ourselves when we go out there again,” Gavin finally says, forcing his voice calm.

“Gavin, you used to—”

“I think Joan is right and we should all head back to the lodge, get some rest,” I cut in. Darcy glares at me, but I’m pretty sure she was about to bring up the fact that back in his heroin days, Gavin nodded out on stage more than once, and that’s not a fight we need to have right now.

“Works wonders, I swear,” Joan says, pushing her glasses up her nose with one drumstick.

Gavin covers his face with his hands, then runs them both through his hair.

“Fine, you’re fucking right,” Gavin mutters, pulling his guitar over his head. “Everyone go take a fucking nap, we’ll get back at it tomorrow morning. Bright and early, yeah?”

He practically throws the guitar into a case, grabs his own jacket, and in about thirty seconds he’s fuming out of the practice studio, leaving the door open behind him.

Darcy and I look at each other again, then we both look at Joan.

“Sometimes I miss the heroin,” Darcy says. “It did calm him down.”

“He’s a real dickhead sometimes,” I add.

Joan just chuckles, standing and cracking her back.

“Girlbomb goes to therapy twice a month,” she says. “All three of us together. Don’t worry, I’ve seen some band fights.”

Darcy stands from her chair, puts her bass down, and stretches. Her dress rides up her thighs by a few inches, the top going tight around her breasts, and my mouth goes dry.

“But you’re still together,” Darcy points out, and Joan laughs.

“Ava once tried to set Nadine on fire,” she says, heading for the door. “They didn’t speak for a year. Trust me, you all aren’t doing so badly. At least when you got set on fire, Trent here put you out instead of literally fanning the flames.”

“He’s still an asshole,” I say, putting my guitar down on a stand. “And he can be a real high and mighty motherfucker sometimes, like he’s never fucked anything up.”

Joan just looks entertained as she opens the door.

“You should try meditating,” she says. “It’ll help with some of the anger. See you guys tomorrow morning.”

And with that, she’s gone, leaving me in a swirl of desire and irritation and sleeplessness that makes me feel like someone’s going at my brain stem with a cheese grater.

I can’t play these songs right, I can’t talk to Gavin without getting into a fight, I can’t even fucking look at Darcy without popping a boner, and she can barely look at me.

The two of us walk out of the room in silence, shutting the door and turning off the lights. We walk to the outside door of the old airplane hangar in silence, Darcy a step ahead of me as I try not to watch her legs in that dress.

It’s a long fucking walk, or at least it feels that way, and every step is worse. Fucking excruciating.

This can’t go on. It can’t. She pushes open the door to the outside — it’s raining lightly — and as the cool air hits my face, I think: I can’t undo this but maybe I can fix it.

“Hey,” I say, and Darcy turns. She just looks at me, doesn’t say anything. “Can you catch a ride back with Gavin or Joan?”

“Sure,” she says. “Why?”

I have an idea of how to fix this. It might be a stupid idea, more stupid than throwing rocks into the river and yelling, but it’s something and I need to goddamn try.

“I’m gonna take a walk. Clear my head. You know.”

She opens her mouth, like she’s about to ask something else, but she just nods instead, then walks toward the parking lot, waving one arm at Joan.

I watch her walk away for a moment, then duck back inside.