“And for the record, I did tell Cassie that I had a problem with it. From the beginning.”
“Why not me?” Toby asked.
“Because we’re not good friends,” Nora said. She gave him a look like sorry, not sorry. Toby held up his hands in surrender.
She was being paranoid. We had chanted music comes first, music comes first to each other for long enough that she was having trouble seeing what happened when something else—or someone else—was important, too. There was space for everything, right?
“We can talk about this later, Nor.” I played the opening chords to “Green Heron” and sighed. “And I’m sorry I forgot Fleetwood Friday.”
Nora wasn’t looking at either of us, focused on hooking up her bass. “It’s fine. Let’s just play.”
“Let’s do ‘Green Heron.’ Toby’s been practicing that hard switch after the bridge with me.”
Plunking her bass, Nora said, “I don’t doubt that he has.”
Toby sat behind the drum set, banging out a few beats, laughing to himself. “Come on, Nor. There’s no point in speculating what could go wrong. Let’s just have fun.”
“Let’s see if you can keep up this time,” she said. “Just make sure y’all don’t break up before the Sahara.”
Toby looked at me, winking. No way, he mouthed. My gut rumbled, defensive. I threw my lighter at Nora a little too hard.
