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"We need them," I tell Dani and Claire. "They're good, we're good, we can be good together."
"I'm not joining them, Alex is my ex, Kate." Dani isn't having it. She's practically seething at the thought.
"The showcase is coming up soon, and there's going to be real scouts there. We need their talent." I try to solidify my argument. "They're gonna play in the showcase, you know."
"And we'll show them the fuck up," Dani clarifies, crossing her arms. The sun shining through the trees casts a shadow across her face, making her look even more scary. "You know that son of a bitch cheated on me."
"Alex barely cheated on you," I counter, leaning across the picnic table.
"He is a narcissistic, selfish liar, and he slept with another girl," Dani exclaims, standing up.
"When someone snitched that you were gonna break up with him that night."
"She's right," Claire backs me up. "Plus, none of us know how to play drums, either."
"If we joined them, we could potentially win the showcase. That could help a ton for getting noticed. Do you want to get noticed, Dani?" I push, knowing this is our only chance of winning.
Dani thinks this over. As much as she hates Alex, she hates losing more. She hates losing more than anything.
"Half the guys in their band are assholes," Dani says, her big brown eyes burning holes in mine.
I lean across the table, closing some of the space between us. "Dee, we'll only have to deal with them for a little bit. Once we get some exposure, we can leave 'em all in the dust. We only need to use them to win the showcase, then we're done. I swear."
She takes a deep breath in. Let it go. I can tell Dani's fighting the overwhelming urge of being in a short-term band with her (basically) cheating ex boyfriend. Birds chirp in the tree above us, creating a harmonious melody. One strays from the branch above, flying down onto the table in front of us. The lone chirps of the bird become accompanied by the chitter and chirr of another songbird that's flown apart from the flock. It lands next to the one.
Dani lets out a shaky sigh. "I'll do it."
Me and Claire praise her while high fiving each other.
"But," Dani starts, "I'm not asking Alex."
——————
I'm going over the plan I'd written down the night before in blue ink on the back of my grandma's grease-stained grocery list. The bus bumps over the worn down tar on the road every so often, making me a little car sick. I can still make out the words, though.
Step One: make myself look appealing to a boy.
Now, I know I'm not ugly. I just don't put as much effort into my appearance as I should. Men like Christopher Cassidy are shallow. They care about a woman's looks.
