G Major. No, G minor. Wait no, is that even a G?

I tap the same key on my homemade xylophone over and over again, staring down at the page of blank sheet music under my other hand and wondering where to draw the first note.

“Câlice! Okay, fine. I’m calling you a G, my friend.”

I scribble a crooked quarter note onto the bars. It ends up looking like a saggy testicle.

I haven’t used sheet music in years. I was never a fan of it to begin with; it’s way too distracting to focus on all those little lines and dots. You don’t find music on paper; you find music in the air, in your ears, in the faces of the people around you. You find music in your heart, man.

Yeah, I know. Ace isn’t the only poetic genius in the band.

When I first started taking piano lessons as a kid, the teacher was always screaming at me to pay attention during the theory sessions, but I’d tune her out and draw pictures of superheroes all over my workbook until she’d finally let me sit down at the baby grand and play. I’d listen to her demonstrate a piece once, and almost every time, I could play it right back without even glancing at the sheet music in front of me. My fingers just knew what to do, like they were little mountain climbers and the piano keys were cliffs they’d already scaled a hundred times.

In English they call it ‘playing by ear,’ and it’s what I did through all my years in the high school band. It’s what I still do now that I’m in Sherbrooke Station. Ace will come to us with a new guitar riff and some lyrics, and all I have to do is listen to a few chords before I can hear the accompaniments in my head. That’s how it goes in our band: Ace brings in an idea, and the rest of us flesh it out on our own instruments. It’s our system, and it works.

For the past few weeks, though, I’ve been showing up early to practice sessions in the basement and working on some songs of my own. Don’t get me wrong; I fucking love Sherbrooke Station’s music. I love what the four of us can create together. We’re making alternative rock history, and I don’t ever want that to stop, but sometimes I feel like I have my own sound swirling around inside me. I can’t help wanting to hear it out loud.

The songs are a secret so far. If I told any of the guys, they’d probably laugh. That’s what people do around me: they laugh. I’m the funny one. I’m the one who bounces into rehearsal and starts playing Drake songs on my accordion. Even I have to laugh at the idea of me taking something seriously enough to write my own songs. Still, I know if I ever want anyone else to be able to help me play them, I’m going to need to write the music down.

So here I am, trying to figure out where to draw the next saggy testicle on the page.

I forgot my pills this morning, which is making it extra hard to concentrate. Usually I’m good about taking them. When I was a kid, I had to be good about taking them; back then, things were so bad I was fucked if I missed just one dose. I got up early today so I could get first dibs on a big garage sale, and I walked out the door without my morning pills. I’m still functioning, but it’s not ideal.

I’ve only got about four bars of the song figured out when I hear the door at the top of the basement staircase open. Matt, Ace, and Cole walk into the room just as I’m tossing the papers into my bag and whipping my phone out. I try to look inconspicuous as I drop into one of the faded armchairs and pretend to read something on the screen.

“You look perplexed,” Matt greets me.

“Stop using big English words,” I shoot back.

“You look like someone just interrupted your jerk-off session,” Cole clarifies.

You can always count on Cole to tell it like it is.

Ace throws his leather jacket down on one of the couches. “You totally were jerking it, weren’t you? Watching anything good?”

He walks over behind my chair and tries to get a look at my phone. I cup my hand over the screen.

“Nosy fucker.”

Not that I wouldn’t be doing the same thing.

“Oh my god, a squirrel!” he suddenly shouts, pointing across the room.

I whip my head in that direction, and while I’m distracted, he lunges for my phone and yanks it out of my hands.

“God, JP. You’re too easy.” He chuckles to himself, and then raises an eyebrow as he stares down at the screen. “Man, that is perplexing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone get friend-zoned that hard. No wonder you look like you’ve got blue balls.”

“What are you talking about?” I demand.

“You’re a good guy, grill master. I think this officially makes us friends,” he reads. “I mean, official and everything? Ouch.”

I must have had Molly and I’s conversation open on the screen.

“I’m not friend-zoned,” I protest. “We’re friends.”

“We’re talking about Stéphanie’s roommate, right?” Cole joins in. “You were checking her ass out that whole night at the show.”

“You were there pour comme five minutes, Cole!” I shout, jumping up and grabbing my phone back from Ace. “Molly is my friend. I got her an interview at Metro, and Shayla hired her to be the new graphic designer. Now we text sometimes.”

“And you try to get in her pants,” Ace deadpans. I glare at him, and he holds his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I’m not complaining. It was kind of awkward when she so clearly had a crush on me. I’m sure it would be good for her to move on...even if she doesn’t seem to be interested in moving on with you.”

“Don’t be such a maudit connard,” I grumble.

Matt is flicking his sticks against his snare, which is his passive-aggressive way of telling us he wants to get rehearsal started. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Matt, we’d probably just sit around this room insulting each other for the whole rehearsal session.

It’s how we show our love.

Matt can’t resist getting in a jab of his own before we get started on our first song, though. “Don’t worry, JP. I believe you’re just friends. I’ve yet to see you have a crush on a girl that lasts more than five minutes.”

“Yeah, you’re like a dog with a squirrel when it comes to...well, pretty much anything,” Ace chimes in.

Maybe it’s just because of missing my pills, but their shit starts getting to me for once. I crank the volume up on my keyboard and bang my fists on it, making them all wince and cover their ears.

“Voyons, guys. Can you lay the fuck off?”

Ace reaches over from where he’s tuning his guitar and pats me on the arm. “We’re just fucking with you. You good, man?”

I roll my shoulders a few times. “I’m good. Let’s play.”

We make it through half our latest set list before we stop to take a break. I can feel the sweat collecting under my shirt collar, making it stick to the back of my neck. I throw the flannel onto one of the couches and mop my face with the edge of my undershirt.

Matt screws the lid back onto his water bottle and checks the time. “Two more songs, and then we have to go meet Mona at the Metro office.”

We’ve got a meeting with our manager and some of the Metro Records team to go over a new distribution agreement. The next two hours are going to be as exciting as watching the grass grow, but Matt always insists we be a part of band-related decisions. I guess deep down, I know that nitpicking son of a bitch is smart for doing it.

The notes of our final song are still fading in the basement as we haul ass up the staircase and across the street to Sherbrooke Station so we can catch the metro. We still end up being fifteen minutes late. Shayla, Mona, and a few Metro employees are sitting around some boxes they’ve lined up to make a conference table. It makes them all look like little kids playing pretend.

“Shayla!” I shout from across the room. “Your favourite lezbro is here!”

She gives me evil eyes. “You’re not my lezbro, JP.”

I’m totally her lezbro.

She makes a face when I approach the ‘table’ and bend down to kiss her on the cheek. I take Mona’s hand next and press it to my lips like a real eighteenth century gentleman. She just rolls her eyes as I fist bump the rest of the people in the meeting and then take my seat.

“Thanks for joining us, boys,” Shayla announces, once the rest of the guys are sitting too.

Mona inspects one of her long, manicured, I-could-cut-your-throat-with-this-thing fingernails and huffs. “Fifteen minutes behind schedule.”

She and Shayla share a look of understanding. Honestly, having your manager and ex-manager in the same room can be worse than bringing your ex-girlfriend along to dinner with your current one.

We all get handed a few sheets of paper and some highlighters as one of the Metro employees goes over the changes to our record distribution agreement. It doesn’t seem to be anything major, at least not as far as I can tell. Matt’s highlighting like he’s going to be tested on this later, but I just use my own marker to draw a picture of Mona battling Iron Man with her cat claws of death.

Forty-five minutes later, we’ve signed a few documents and the rest of the guys are heading back to the door. Shayla catches me by the arm as I’m about to follow them out.

“Your friend Molly is doing well here,” she tells me. “I was a little worried about how things would turn out, since she was so nervous at the interview, but...Well, just look at her.”

The rest of the employees are sitting at a mix of real desks and desks made out of boxes, zoned in on their computer screens. I didn’t pay them much attention when I walked in the room, but Shayla points to a desk in the far corner, and I don’t know how I missed her before.

Molly is mid-laugh when my eyes land on her face, head thrown back and mouth stretched wide in a smile before she claps a hand over it to smother her outburst. It’s fucking cute. Her shoulders tremble with the effort of holding her laughter in. She shakes her head back and forth and smacks her palm against her desk, squeezing her eyes shut like she can’t handle whatever the guy beside her is saying.

I focus on him for the first time. He’s leaning over from his own desk, gripping the back of Molly’s chair to keep his balance as he points at something on her laptop screen. He’s got thick, Buddy Holly-style glasses that don’t suit his face. I narrow my eyes when I realize he’s also got a man-bun.

I know I don’t actually own the man-bun look, but it’s kind of my thing. It’s like if hairstyles were gang territories, this mec would be stepping on my turf right now.

“She’s settling in so well,” Shayla continues. “Paul really took her under his wing, and the rest of the staff have nothing but good things to say. They tell me she’s a little awkward, but very sweet and easy to work with, and her designs so far have been better than I ever could have hoped for. Really, she’s got serious talent. How do you know her, again?”

“She’s roommates with Stéphanie, Ace’s girlfriend,” I answer distantly, still watching this ‘Paul’ guy as he slides his hand off Molly’s chair and goes back to his own computer. “I’m going to go say hi.”

Shayla shrugs. “Just don’t distract her too long, okay? She is my employee now.”

I stroll over to Molly’s desk. I guess she didn’t get dibs on a real one; hers is made of two cardboard boxes with ‘BATHROOM’ written on their sides in thick black marker.

“Please tell me your desk isn’t the bathroom, too. I know you guys are renovating, but that’s just taking things too far.”

Molly looks up from her laptop and grins so wide her cheeks turn into little arrow signs. She seems to catch herself and quickly tones her reaction down. It’s like watching a thermometer drop several degrees when all you want is for the weather to get hotter.

“You didn’t say hello to me when I came in,” I tell her, when she doesn’t show any signs of making a reply. I put my hands on my hips and pretend to be disappointed.

“I—I didn’t think you noticed me.”

“I didn’t,” I admit, “but I would have if you’d said hi.”

She lifts her hand up from behind her laptop screen and gives me a dorky little wave. “Hi, JP.”

Fucking adorable, this one. I may have told the guys we’re just friends, and her text to me was pretty clear, but standing in front of her right now, all I can think about is the way she laid her hand on my chest the last time I saw her.

I give her a dorky wave of my own. “Hello, Molly. Shayla says you’re doing me proud. You like it here?”

She nods a few times. “I love it. Thanks again for getting me the job.”

“I didn’t get you the job. You got you the job. Shayla seems really impressed, and it takes a lot to impress Shayla.”

“You can say that again.”

We both turn to face my man-bun wearing nemesis, Paul.

I may have only known about the guy’s existence for the past two minutes, but I’m already sure he’s my nemesis. Any guy with hair longer than their shoulders is automatically on my shit list, just as a matter of principal.

Paul pushes his too-big-for-his-face glasses up his nose. “Sometimes I think she forgets I exist until I do something wrong. Then she remembers pretty damn quickly. She’s like a human Medusa with that death glare of hers.”

Molly gives a little chuckle, but I don’t laugh. Nobody gets to make fun of Shayla unless they’re doing it because they love her, and I don’t get the feeling this guy is her biggest fan.

“I’m Paul,” he continues. “Nice to finally meet someone in the legendary Sherbrooke Station.”

He makes stupid jazz hands to go along with his sentence. I just dip my chin down in a nod. Paul turns back to Molly.

“I’m due for a break now. I was going to go across the street and grab a coffee. Do you want anything? Or maybe I could wait until you’re done here, and you could come with me?”

Molly fluffs up her hair a little. “Oh thanks, but I’m good. I’ve got at least another two hours left, so I don’t want to keep you waiting.”

“Next time, then.” Paul gets up from his desk—his real desk that isn’t made of boxes. He nods to me as he leaves. “Later, man.”

I watch him as he pushes open the glass door and heads across the street to a little cafe.

Ben ouais, I assure myself. My bun is bigger than his.

I turn back to Molly. “What’s with that guy and”—I make the same razzle dazzle gesture as Paul—“jazz hands?”

She lets out a snort. “I’ve never thought about it, but you’re right. He does that a lot.”

I walk around the desk and settle myself into Paul’s empty chair. “So you’re really liking it here? You can be honest with me now that Paul’s gone.”

“I love it,” she assures me. “I really do. I feel kind of like an imposter; everyone is so...you know, cool, and I’m way younger than most of them, but there’s this energy in the room all the time, like we all have the same vibe. We all care about the same things. Usually it’s just me and my computer...”

She babbles on about how great her first few days have been, and I hang on her every word. There’s something so compelling about her when she gets like this—when she forgets to keep her head down and her eyes locked on the floor, when she lets her voice rise and fall with excitement and passion instead of just dying in her throat. Inevitably, she’ll realize how the words are gushing out of her right now, and she’ll snap herself shut like a Venus fly trap, but for now she’s sticky sweet honey and I’m the insect she’s luring closer.

“...and they have team socials sometimes where they all go out to a bar together. Usually I’m allergic to anything social—”

There it is: the moment she stumbles and freezes. I watch her become suddenly fascinated in the edge of her shirt, fingers picking at the seam.

“But they sound fun,” she finishes quietly.

“They do,” I reply. “Metro Records threw us this big premiere for our first music video with them—you know for ‘Nevermore,’ the video Stéphanie danced in? Let’s just say this label knows how to party.”

“I love that video,” Molly breathes.

Right. Sometimes I forget I’m talking to a super fan.

“What are you working on right now?” I ask her, leaning over to inspect the complicated-looking design software open on her screen.

“It’s nothing,” she mumbles. “Just an idea.”

‘Nothing’ is one of the coolest pieces of design work I’ve ever seen. It’s a mock-up piece of cover art for an old Sherbrooke Station single. The track is called ‘Phone Tag.’ It’s a sultry, after-midnight kind of jam with a pulsing synth part I’m pretty proud of composing. The lyrics are clearly about sexting, but Ace, being the dark genius that he is, pulls it off like he’s some rugged bandit seducing a forbidden princess.

The dude has it way too easy when it comes to getting girls.

Molly’s artwork captures the hungry, take-your-panties-off-now vibe of the song perfectly. She’s drawn a pair of dark red lips, all puffy like a supermodel’s and glistening like they’re just dripping with dirty things to say to you. In between them, white teeth are clamped around the receiver of an old-fashioned telephone. Underneath, she’s written the name of the song in blood red, graffiti-style letters that match the colour of the lips. The whole thing has that edgy, grimy kind of sex appeal you see on tattoo parlour walls and the signs outside strip clubs.

Not exactly what I expected from Rabbit Girl. For some reason, the thought of her drawing it makes my dick jump.

“Ben, Molly, this is vraiment érotique.”

Her blush tells me I don’t have to repeat myself in English.

The drawing is more than that, though. It’s like seeing our song instead of hearing it. It’s like she’s turned all the sounds into colours and shapes, telling the same story but in a different way—taking something we made and bleeding herself into it until all the feelings are deeper and richer than they were before.

Or something like that. Either way, it’s dope as hell. I know if I was scrolling through Spotify and saw this, I’d want to listen to the song.

“JP, what did I say about leaving my employees alone?”

I look over to find Shayla pausing a conversation with someone a few desks away so she can throw me her evil eyes. I’d never admit it to him, but Paul wasn’t that far off with the whole Medusa thing.

“Yes, Maman,” I chime, jumping up from the chair. “I’m leaving now.”

Shayla doesn’t look any less unimpressed. “We’ve also talked about you calling me ‘Mom.’ Several times.”

She goes back to her conversation, and I point a finger at Molly’s screen. “That’s good. Really good. You should make album art full time. I have to go before Shayla comes after my man-bun with scissors, but I’ll see you around, right?”

“You know where I live,” she jokes.

I hold my hand out for a fist bump, and she presses her knuckles to mine. Even her fingers feel soft. I keep my hand in place until she lets hers fall away. We say goodbye, and I’ve already reached for the doorknob when I stop and spin around, striding back over to her desk.

“Hey,” I say, “I have a question.”

She looks back up from her computer screen and blinks.

“What would you say if I offered you a job designing the cover of an EP?” I ask. “I, uh, have a friend who is working on one.”

Molly looks skeptical. “Really? You think they’d like my stuff?”

“Yeah,” I assure her. “They’d think it was fire. I’m sure you could do a really good piece for them.”

She’s still hesitating. “I don’t have any real experience. I just do stuff like this for fun...”

“You work for Metro Records,” I remind her, “and they’re not looking for a professionnelle, anyway. They just want some cool art.”

“JP!” Shayla barks from behind me. “Let Molly do her job.”

“Think about it,” I urge Molly. “I’ll text you more details.”

Then I run out of there like I’m dodging the fires of hell, only I’m really dodging the Wrath of Shayla, which is several hundred times worse.