Back in The Float, Breanna had taken Lance’s seat.

“Hey Wildman,” she said, hitting him with her tractor-beam smile. “Who were you talking to?”

“My mom.”

“Whoa,” Rocco said. “Wildman has a mom.”

“Crazy,” Meebs said, chewing fries. He’d ordered a grilled cheese.

“Let me get you a chair,” Breanna said. She grabbed one from a nearby table and wedged it between her and Rocco. Lance sat. He did not want this chair.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Got to work together, right?” She poured him a beer, slid it over. Lance did not touch it.

“I just want to make sure our stories are straight,” she said. “With the police.”

“Goddamn earthquake,” Rocco said. Beer sloshed in his glass. Silverware pecked at the sides of plates.

“Hey.” Breanna planted a hand on his knee. “Relax.”

Lance felt every one of her nails through his jeans. Tingling raced up his thigh in a warm, pleasant way. He wished it hadn’t felt like that.

“C’mon,” Meebs said, reaching for his wallet. “Let’s bully the jukebox.”

“Good plan,” Dakota said.

The two of them slid out and stacked up a playlist and everyone drank more. Another few pitchers and the whole crew was laughing. How could he be afraid of Officer Perkins? Or anything at all? He’d hide in the walk-in. Jump a train. And how could he stay mad at Breanna? She was pretty and quick and kept saying Wildman. Dakota was talking to him, looking at him. Music played, and the latest in a string of ’90s pop ballads faded out on the jukebox.

“Hey,” Rocco said. “Did you just ugh?”

“Ugh?” Lance asked.

“Oh yeah,” Dakota said. “Just then, you said ugggggghh.”

Breanna laughed.

“Oh, right,” Lance said. “That song.”

“Hey! I love that song,” Meebs said.

“Just the ending,” Lance said, raking a hand through his hair. “Songs should end.” Fingers against his scalp felt good. He ran his hand through his hair but wished the fingers belonged to someone else. He stared at Dakota.

“Don’t all songs end?” Dakota said.

“Oh no. Not in the twenty-first century they don’t. Songs don’t end anymore. They just fade out!” His hand struck the edge of a plate, catapulting his fork. It crashed into Meebs’s water glass.

“Hey-ooo,” Meebs said.

“I’ve seen that look before,” Rocco said. “When I stepped on his cheeseburger.”

“It’s lazy,” Lance said. “A song should end on a specific series of notes. You put together a whole composition. Hook, verse, chorus, bridge, and then what? You just repeat yourself and turn down the volume? It’s not an ending. It’s lazy.”

“Hey everyone,” Rocco said. “Lance cares about this.”

“I mean, would you do that in a book? Just write the same last sentence over and over again? And what about art? Like a painting—”

“Art,” Meebs said to no one in particular.

“Play us a song,” Breanna said, leaning forward.

“Yes,” Dakota said. “Please.”

“I need my horn,” Lance said, pounding the table.

Mason was behind the bar, filling a pitcher.

“Mason!” Lance shouted.

“Hey,” Meebs said, tapping his arm. “Don’t get eighty-sixed.”

“Wildman.” Rocco chuckled.

“Mason!”

Hearing his name, Mason jolted to attention. Then he saw Lance and went languid. Slow and floating. No rush. He sauntered toward their table with a fresh pitcher. Lance tried to meet his eyes.

“Check out that table,” Mason said, pointing to the two young couples from earlier. Their pint glasses were empty, plates cleared. “Check out their feet.”

Under the table, their shoeless feet looked like strange little animals, huddled together for warmth. The group looked full and a little sick.

“Mason,” Lance said.

“Dude. If you ask me about the horn again, I’m tossing it in the dumpster. You’ll get it.”

“I wasn’t even going to ask you about the horn,” Lance said. “What horn?”

Rocco’s first real laugh broke free. Lance had never heard him laugh like that.

“Yeah?” Mason said. “So what do you need to ask me, Wildman?”

“Has anyone ever won a thousand dollars?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Everyone,” Lance said.

“You want to spin the wheel, ace? Take off your shoes.”

“No. I’m good.”

“I’m good,” Mason said, then laughed. “You could win a thousand bucks. That would leave you up nine-ninety.”

“Yeah,” Lance said, looking at the American flag. “That stupid bet.”

“What?”

“The shoe bet,” Lance said. “I mean, I can tell you where you got your shoes?”

“Is it stupid? Or are you stupid for taking it?”

Mason’s voice, tangling with something red and fibrous, tightening down over his temples. Mason stepped closer, towering, eyes small and dark.

“You got an answer for me, buddy?”

Lance’s thoughts, skidding on adrenaline. A little math. Rough calculations.

“I’ll make you a bet right now.”

“Yeah?” Mason said, eyes shining. “Let’s hear it.”

Lance reached across the table and took Breanna’s wineglass.

“Hey, there’s still—” she started. Lance gulped the last of her wine and set the glass in the center of the table.

“I’ll bet you I can break this glass without touching it,” Lance said. “And without touching the table.”

“I could do that,” Rocco said. He threw Lance’s fork, which struck the glass with a clang.

“Jesus, Rocco!” Breanna said.

“And without throwing anything,” Lance said.

“You’re going to break this glass,” Mason said. He picked it up, looked it over. “Without touching it. Without touching the table. Without throwing anything.”

“Yeah.” Lance nodded, considering micrometers of thickness, the mouth’s circumference, the strength of the stem. It would be close.

“Bullshit,” Mason said.

Rocco and Meebs got excited and set some rules. Lance couldn’t leave the bar, nor use anything that wasn’t already in The Float. If there was a question about the winner, the group would vote.

“Okay,” Mason said. “How much do you want to bet?”

“Ten bucks,” Lance said. “I want my ten bucks back.”

The whole table laughed. Strangers were stopping mid-conversation and coming closer. An audience.

“Ten bucks?” Mason said, puffing up. “How about a thousand?” Lance’s heart stuttered. Throat clenched. People were watching now, and the attention of the crowd trapped him and Mason like two bugs in a jar.

“I don’t have a thousand dollars,” Lance said.

“Bet your car,” Mason said.

A mosquito whine in Lance’s ears.

“It doesn’t run,” Lance said slowly.

“I’ll take it as scrap.” Mason’s little smile. Those eyes. No real color at all. The surrounding faces were like tiny spotlights, heating him up. Burning his cheeks.

“It’s on,” Lance said.

Applause, hoots. Meebs drummed on the table with his hands.

“Bring me my trumpet,” Lance said.

“What?” Mason asked.

“I’m allowed to use anything in the bar. So bring me my trumpet. Now.”

Mason argued, but the group forced him to go. Rocco went along, Just to be sure. Everyone in The Float had circled around their table. Their mumbling spun around words like thousand and car and Wildman, then the world narrowed to a tulip-shaped wineglass with lip prints like tiny pink tire treads. A good target.

He hadn’t done this in two years. The first time, it took over an hour. He’d blown the Wild Thing in Jonathan’s basement until his cheeks were puckered balloons and his bottom lip was stretched and screaming, ready to pop and wreck his embouchure for life. Those long, high notes. They could do that.

Lance reached for the glass.

“Hey,” Meebs said. “Can’t touch it.”

“I haven’t started yet.” He held its base against the table, dipped his index finger in beer, then traced the rim until it made a bright, metallic squeak. He pressed harder, listening, curling his fingers forward and back around the lip until the sharp sounds smoothed themselves into a long, resonant ring.

The glass trembled at C-sharp.

“Hands off the glass,” Mason said.

“Hands off my horn,” Lance said.

He snatched the horn from Mason, just like that. A coolness washed over him, pouring down his neck and shoulders, opening his lungs. His horn. That familiar weight. He unsnapped the case and it was fine, everything fine, polished and ready.

“Wild Thing,” Meebs said. A statement of fact. No one laughed.

The instrument snapped into Lance’s hands. His thumb, clicking into the saddle; second finger, snug in the ring. Perfect. He touched his lips to cool brass, angled the bell toward the wineglass. He blasted a quick test note. The stem trembled like a nervous dog.

“He gets a minute,” Mason said. “That’s the rule.”

“There’s no time limit,” Lance said.

Mason was talking, then Lance blew and kept blowing. His horn was the only sound. Brass and hot air, lips buzzing, stinging, lungs squeezing air through the leadpipe and slipping around the scale until he found C-sharp, already panting. Too much beer. He pulled the mouthpiece away, remoistened his lips.

“No way,” someone in the crowd muttered.

Impossible.

Forget it.

Voices. He’d erase them by playing harder. His lips buzzed. He hit C-sharp right away and rode the note hard, until the glass was singing back. A high-pitched, warbling cry—a summer cricket, a broken refrigerator. Lips throbbed, glass singing louder. Blood burned in his face and his knees went slack and a dark tunnel squeezed in around his eyes. Floating, falling.

The glass popped like a rifle shot.

Shattered glass pinging off flatware, spraying pebbles all over the floor. He was breathing, trying not to faint. Swimmy in the room and oh the screams! Applause! Shaking, and it was people shaking him. Hands on his back. Cheers and ringing between his ears. He opened his eyes. Mason, shaking his head. Mason, saying:

“No way. Nice trick, but no way.”

“What do you mean No way,” Rocco said.

“He touched it,” Mason said.

“No he didn’t,” Meebs said.

“Yeah he did,” Mason said, standing tall.

“Touched it with what?” Rocco asked.

“With air waves.”

“Air waves?” Stone said, squeezing in. “Air waves, Mason?”

“Let’s vote on it,” Dakota said. “Who thinks Lance won the bet?”

Dakota, Meebs, Breanna, Rocco, and Stone raised their hands.

“You weren’t even here, dumbass,” Mason said, punching Stone in the chest.

The group stared at Mason, a hard ring of faces.

“Okay,” Mason said. His brow smoothed. He snapped on a smile. “You win buddy.”

He gave Lance’s hand a swift pump.

Another round of cheers, hands slapping Lance’s back and shoulders. He could pay for his car! He could stay at the Trainsong! He’d use the Wild Thing to shatter his phone and do whatever the hell he wanted!

“Pay up, bitch!” Meebs said. He was bouncing, hair flopping. Ready to drop on all fours and gallop around the bar.

“I will,” Mason said. “But there’s no time limit on the money either. Right?” Mason squeezed Lance’s shoulder. A sticky, unpleasant feeling. Then he wove off through the crowd. Disappeared behind the bar.

“He’ll pay,” Rocco said.

“Has to,” Breanna said. “Too many witnesses.”

Breanna touched Lance’s back and everyone was happy, sitting around the table together. Faces, so bright. And all these people, their glances and congratulations charging him up until everything was so smooth and light that he could tip off his chair and drift through their warm current and never touch the ground. Then the bar was closing, and Lance was outside.

They were all bunched together by the front door, waiting for Stone.

“Leave his ass,” Rocco said.

“His brain,” Meebs said. “He has problems with his brain.”

“I’ll get Stone,” Lance heard himself say.

That might’ve been a mistake. Back inside, the wooden floor was uneven. He tried to hold steady. Neon lights floated in red, gold, and blue slashes, scribbling the air like fluorescent markers, wobbling around the face of the man behind the bar. Mason’s father. Mason’s father, now talking to him.

“What?”

“I’ll bet you ten bucks I can tell you where you got your shoes,” he repeated.

And for a startling moment, this man was Mason and Lance had been trapped. Time had flung itself forward thirty years, and he was still at The Float. Lance looked down at his hands. Not wrinkled. He looked past his hands to his shoes.

“Baring, Washington,” Lance said. “I got my shoes in Baring, Washington.”

“Okay, wise guy.” His mouth puckered. “What do you want?”

“Can I talk to Stone?”

“Stone’s working.”

But there was no one in the service window. Just a to-go box in a plastic sack. The front door rattled. Coming in behind him, two women. One was tiny, bird-boned with a gray thimble of a head. The other was overweight, an avalanche of orange hair, thick arms and legs. They looked like a pair of comedians, except neither one was smiling.

“We’re closed!” Mason’s father shouted. “Closed, ladies!” They kept shuffling forward, like they couldn’t hear or didn’t want to. What was wrong with them? Mason’s father stalked down the bar and disappeared, leaving Lance alone. The women were coming straight for him.

“Stone!” Lance called into the kitchen. “Stone!”

Stone’s face popped into view. The bandages were gone. The skin around his eyes was purple and wet-looking, but he was smiling. In the little rectangle of the service window, he looked like a tragic theater puppet.

“What’s up, dude?” Stone asked.

“We’re heading over to Meebs’s place. Everyone’s ready.”

“Excuse me,” Orange Hair said, suddenly at the bar. “Do you mind if we see a menu?”

“It smells delightful,” Bird Bones said, leaning into view.

“Kitchen’s closed, ladies,” Stone said. “Sorry.”

“Could you even do a sandwich?” Orange Hair asked. “We’re starving. There’s nothing out here.”

“Everything’s sanitized,” Stone said, looking uncomfortable.

“Anything?” Bird Bones asked.

“I can make you a few Bloody Marys,” Stone said. “They’ve got a lot of stuff in them. Celery.”

The women exchanged a chilling look. An aw-shucks look, but not the aw-shucks of stepping in a puddle with new shoes. The conclusive aw-shucks when, after a series of flight delays and poor beverage service, the 747’s last engine blows and you’re headed straight into the Pacific. This was the end of a capital Bad Luck Day. The kind of day that can kill you. Bird Bones was wringing her hands, which Lance had never seen anyone actually do.

“No, just all day,” Bird Bones said to Orange Hair, a little gasp of a sound.

Something rustled, violently. Lance turned his head. Neon swam. Stone was gone and so was the to-go bag. In the kitchen, clanking flatware. He came out with two steaming plates of corned beef and cabbage. The women blinked at the food like they’d just woken up and were still trying to figure out what was real.

“Look what turned up,” Stone said.

“Goodness,” Bird Bones said, staring at her plate.

“How much—?” Orange Hair began.

“On the house,” Stone said, then to Lance, “Let’s go.”

On the way out, Lance glanced back at the ladies. They both looked small from the other end of the restaurant, and they hadn’t started eating yet. They were still. Staring down at their food.

One movement: Orange Hair reached out her right hand, and Bird Bones took it.