Page 94 of On the Beat

I’m glad I didn’t take any of the free champagne they were offering us, because otherwise I would have sprayed it all over Ryder’s mom’s face. “Really?”

Both my parents’ responses are the same as mine, though in vastly different tones. My mother looks like she’s ready to jump up and down and maybe run a marathon. My father looks completely stoic, as though he’s contemplating giving Ryder an even more intense third degree.

“Yes, well, he didn’t say those words exactly. But, I could tell. He had that look in his eyes, that his father wore when he proposed to me. Trust me.” Edna smiles, like she didn’t just give us a jaw-dropping prediction based on alook. “Anyways, I have to go shopping for a gown now. Apparently there’s some sort of fancy awards show tonight. Bruce has already bought his suit, but I have no idea what I’m going to wear.”

“Why don’t the three of us go looking together? I already have my dress, but I’ll help you and Isla find yours. You can tell me all about your son.” My mother is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but then again, so is Edna Black.

“What an excellent idea! I just know we’ll be the best of friends, Joy.” Edna loops her arm through my mother’s, who drags me along behind her.

I don’t know if I should be terrified or excited by their friendship. Either way, I’ll at least get a drop-dead gorgeous dress out of it.

Chapter 41: Ryder Black

“Nervous?” George Hugh asks me as I pace the dressing room floor, despite the makeup artist’s best attempts to get me to sit down so she can make up my face.

“I’d feel a lot better if I knew where Naoya was.” Itwouldbe just like him to agree to sing with me and then not show up to make me look stupid. He was here for hair and makeup, but where did he disappear to now, when we’re supposed to be going into wardrobe? “When did he say he was coming?”

“Four-thirty, and it’s only four-twenty-seven,” George reminds me. “Why don’t you take a seat, before poor Katya has an aneurysm trying to fix your eyebrows while you’re walking around.”

I roll my eyes and acquiesce. “There’s nothing wrong with my eyebrows.”

What makes me far more nervous than Naoya Sugawa and our upcoming performance, however, is the fact that I invited my parents, Isla, and her parents to come to the Grammy’s tonight. As far as I know, they all said yes (well, when a limo driver pulls up to take you to the airport on a private jet, I guess it’s hard to say no) but I’m still worried about them all sitting together. Mostly because my mother will be telling Isla embarrassing stories from my childhood.

But also because I want them to like Isla and I want her to like them. I want them all to get along like family.

“All done, Ryder. I’ve already done Naoya’s hair and makeup, so I’m now set for the night,” Katya says, packing up her brushes.

“Thank you,” I say. “When you see him, tell him I hate when people are la—“

The dressing room door bursts open at exactly four-thirty. Naoya saunters in with another new tattoo from the last time I saw him, this one the outline of an ice cream cone on his left forearm. “I’m not late.”

“But you’re not early.”

“We don’t all like to be unfashionably early, Black. Live a little.”

I stand up. “I’m going to go find my family.”

“Did you lose them?” Naoya snarks.

I suck in a breath through my teeth, and keep walking.

Outside the dressing room, my hands shake.Wash Me Awayhas been nominated for Best Pop Song of the year, and it’s up against one of Naoya’s songs, which has been out for longer. Sometimes it feels like no matter what I do, I’ll always be competing with him.

* * *

“You guys made it.” I bound toward my parents, and my dad gives me a firm handshake—the usual greeting from him—while my mom pulls me into a hug like she didn’t just see me last week. “Wow. I think this is the most dressed up I’ve seen Dad since… actually, I’ve never seen you dressed up.”

“He cleans up nice,” Mom says, looking at her husband like she’s still as in love as she was the day they married. He’s wearing a suit and has shaved for the occasion. “You look good too. Though… are you wearing makeup?”

“It’s for the performance,” I say. “I’m doing a song with Naoya Sugawa.”

Mom frowns. “Didn’t you say you hated him for stealing your song?”

I shrug. “We’ve agreed to let bygones be bygones.”

“Well, I for one, think it’s very mature of you,” says Dad, putting a hand on my mother’s back. “Let’s go find our seats, Edna. It’s like a maze in here.”

I laugh as I turn around, and bump into Isla.

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