More Than Maybe - Erin Hahn Page 0,78

Phil and stand by his side. When he feels my presence, he glances at me, his eyebrows raised in concern. Seeing I’m okay, he wraps me in a side hug. Except, instead of fortifying me, it feels like we’re holding each other up. And that’s the difference, isn’t it? All my life, I’ve been trying to grasp any and all love from my dad where I could, scraping the bottom of the barrel of his affections.

But I don’t want to fight for it anymore. And I won’t.

Marcus, if he notices me, doesn’t say a single word as they take him away.

* * *

Before bed that night, I’m lying across my comforter, earbuds in and my eyes closed. With everything that’s been happening lately, I haven’t had a ton of time to choreograph my senior showcase piece, but I decided it didn’t matter. Not really. Luke’s challenge was to create something beautiful and full of intent, despite knowing it would be listened to and judged for what it was. And holy hell, did he ever deliver. It took me three tries to listen to the song all the way through without breaking down into a hot blubbering mess of emotions.

My challenge is different, though. Mine is to put myself quite literally out there. Onstage. Feeling all zillion and a half of my feelings and making sure every single one of them can in turn be felt by the audience.

In short, I want to own that shit, and I want to share it.

Luke gave me the perfect soundtrack; it’s stark and lonely at first, but then reckless and hopeful. I tried to choreograph, I did. I wanted to produce something shiny and clean to honor his hard work. Something refined. But the feelings his song gave me weren’t any of those things, and every time I listened, I responded differently. Eventually, I realized the best choreography was no choreography at all. I would improvise. It was, after all, my favorite part of class. Unplanned and raw. That felt right. Painfully so. I don’t want to be distracted by memorizing steps; I want to be singularly focused on what this song inspires in me the moment my feet touch the cool, hard surface of the stage.

I inhale carefully on my bed, eyes still closed, letting Luke’s vocals smooth my edges and squeeze my heart just like a hundred times before. Onstage, in front of all those strangers, will only be one more.

27

LUKE

I pull up short at the sight of a sleek black SUV in the driveway. We aren’t a very swanky family, so sleek black SUV isn’t really in the Greenly vocabulary.

More like banged-up, forest-green Subaru. Or used-to-be-white ten-year-old Corolla. That sort of thing.

Let’s just say it’s no tragedy to commute via longboard.

I pick up my board and carry it under my arm, careful not to skim the gleaming surface of the Land Rover. When I get to the front door, it’s open to the screen, and I can hear voices inside, along with the clinking of glass and laughter. My mom is employing her tinkling hostess laugh, which is the higher, falser version of her usual deep chuckle.

The first person who sees me is Cullen, and he’s subtly shaking his head, the meaning of which should be obvious because of twin speak, but it’s not, and the screen door closes with a slam, alerting everyone to my presence. My dad peeks his head around the corner, his smile grander than I’ve seen in weeks. That alone should scare me.

“Here he is!” he booms. I prop my board with more care than it warrants and shrug off my jacket, hanging it over the banister before walking into the kitchen.

“There’s the star!” A man in a pin-striped shirt and pointed black shoes says, winking. Winking, I tell you.

Another man I’d missed reaches out his hand, and I shake it automatically. Cullen looks pained, and my instinct is to move closer to him. A united front.

“Clyde Morgan,” he says. “We were just talking about you. Did you know, as of this morning, your little audio clip has over 1.2 million listens? It’s been uploaded to Imperium.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, ignoring for the moment that someone has illegally uploaded my song onto a sharing app. “Who are you?”

He laughs, and it doesn’t meet his eyes. “My apologies. Coming off like a fangirl, am I? I’m Clyde, and that’s Steven. We co-own the Bad Apple with your father.”

“Right,” I bite out. “Cool.”

“And I bet you already know