Page 2 of Second to None

She hitched in a breath, eyes opening wide. “You want to sign me?”

“Strictly speaking, it’d be the label that signs you. I’d have to get them on board first, but…” I let one side of my mouth quirk up. “Not to be modest, but I hold a certain sway.”

“I bet,” she muttered, a hint of her earlier cheek breaking through. Hmm, a fan of my old band? She seemed a bit young—our fan base had been firmly grounded in their teenage years or even older, and she’d have been eleven or so when we’d announced our indefinite break. Maybe she’d done her research. Which, smart. I liked that in a potential protégée.

“Indeed,” was all I said. “So the way it works is that I pitch you to our A&R team?—”

“A&R?” she asked, then rubbed her nose. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, that’s good. Asking questions is good. Keep ‘em coming.” I gave her an encouraging nod. “A&R stands for Artist and Repertoire. I’d pitch your talent to them, and if you sign, I’d be your creative advisor. Means I’m essentially your mentor. I guide you through the creative process, like songwriting and selection, vocal coaching. But I’m also there to help you navigate the business side of things, make sure you don’t feel isolated or overwhelmed.”

She twisted a coil of hair around her finger, then let it spring back as though it had a life of its own. Her expression warred between happy disbelief and caution. “I… That sounds great.Really. I mean, just… yeah. That’d be amazing.” She raised her gaze to meet mine, direct if a little hesitant. “Can I ask you something, though?”

“Of course.”

“Why did you decide to get out?” She continued quickly, as if I might not know what she was talking about. “After Neon Circuit broke up?—”

“Went on hiatus,” I corrected with a small grin just as a woman walked past us on the street and did a double-take at my face—then smiled and kept walking. I liked how at this point, it was a common reaction. Yes, people still recognised me; of course they did. I signed the occasional autograph, had fans come up and tell me how much the band had meant to them. But it was mostly chill now, slightly nervous excitement rather than stadium-level screaming and hysteria. It was… nice, kind of. The reminder that we’d had such an impact.

“Sure, yeah.” Cosma arched a brow, and yep, there it was—a playful air of healthy scepticism. It would serve her well. “A hiatus. Like, five years and running?”

Just about, yeah. Five years for Neon Circuit, almost six since Cass and I had fallen apart. I probed at the edges of the thought like tonguing at a loose tooth. After we’d ended, we’d tried to keep working together for another awful year because that’s what we’d promised the others when it had all started—that it wouldn’t affect the band. But of course it did.

“Yeah.” I exhaled and made sure to keep the strain out of my voice. “What’s the question?”

“After Neon Circuit went onhiatus”—Cosma emphasised it, slightly mocking but sweet about it—“you’re the only one who didn’t release a solo album. Why?”

It was true. Even Jace had recorded one LP before he’d decided his social anxiety wasn’t suited to a solo career and retreated into the background. Me, I’d just been sotiredthat by the time my demons had settled and tentative buds of creativity finally unfolded, I was yesterday’s news.

“Good question.” I considered Cosma over the rim of my cup. How honest did I want to be with her? I didn’t have many secrets left, really just one.Cass. But I’d made a deliberate choice to steer clear of the limelight—no interviews, no social media unless it served my artists.

“But not one you’re going to answer?” she asked with a cheeky smile, and yep, I liked her.

“No, I will. Just trying to decide what to tell someone starting out in the music industry.”

“Give it to me straight?”

She sounded like she meant it, so I nodded. “All right. How much do you know about Neon Circuit?”

“I wasn’t a fan or anything—I was just a teensy bit too young. But you guys were huge, and I did my research when Jace Everett contacted me about my demo.” She tilted her head, intelligence sharp in her dark eyes. “Five guys who got picked through an online competition and put into a boy band. I think you were my age when it started?”

Yeah. So bloodyyoung.

We’d been an internet-first band, taking over social media before we’d ever done a proper show or appeared on TV. Some poor intern must have sifted through thousands of auditions to narrow it down to a couple hundred hopefuls, of which fifty had been sorted into a dozen distinctly different groups and put through a heavily documented bootcamp. We’d been the fun, pop-with-an-edge boy band that didn’t take itself too seriously, and something had just…clicked. Between the five of us, yes, but with our audience too. Through weeks of one group after another being voted out, our fan base had grown bigger and more devoted—to the point where our celebrity mentor seemed nearly as overwhelmed as we were.

Our fans had made us. And the label had leaned on that, on our sense that we owed them, to run us ragged. But that was then.

I nodded and waved for Cosma to go on.

“Right,” she said. “So, like, four albums in five years that broke all sorts of records.” Something like longing crept into her tone. “You guys filled stadiums, travelled the world, that sort of thing. But now it’s only two of you that still make music—Mason Callahan’s doing some folksy indie stuff and seems pretty chill about it. And then there’s Cassian Monroe, obviously.”

Obviously.

Released from the logic of a boy band that required sharing the spotlight, he shone bright like a supernova, his appeal reaching far beyond our original fan base. Sex symbol, two Grammys, a regular top spot among the most-streamed artists in the world. After the end, I’d mainlined news about him for months, a bitter replacement for sharing a stage, a tour bus, a bed. It had been a sad, lonely time. For the sake of my own sanity, I’d forced myself to go cold turkey, to quit Cass just like I’d had to quit drinking.

I cleared my throat and managed a smile. “That about sums up the facts, yeah. What it doesn’t account for is how bloody young we were. The crazy pressure we were under—an album a year, for one, do promo and travel and perform. But also how we were asked to fit into these neat little categories. The heartthrob, the bad boy, the sensitive one…”

“The funny one?” Cosma supplied quietly, nodding her chin at me.

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