Page 2 of Never Been Shipped

The kid reacted to that like John had given him something sour to eat. A moment of surprise, then disgust, and then a badly masked neutrality like he wanted to spit it out but knew it wouldn’t be polite. Probably the kid hadn’t expected a rock star—even a former rock star—to admit to playing what was essentially a student guitar. The thing had come with a mini amp and a chord book, and had cost three hundred fifty-nine dollars after tax. John should know. It had taken him an entire summer of mowing lawns to save up for it.

He’d never been a rock star—certainly had neverfeltlike one. Micah, on the other hand. She’d been a star from the moment he’d met her, with her long, sunset-colored hair and the way she lit up a room and the power she had to put everything she was feeling into her voice until you could feel it, too.

It had been thirteen years since he’d last been in the same room as her. Ten if you counted that concert in L.A.—which he didn’t. He had no idea if she still wore her hair long, if she would light up when she saw him or shut all the way down, if she had anything to do with music anymore. But he guessed all it would take was another forty-five minutes or so, after he got his receipt for this transaction that was taking forever, after he jumped into his beat-up Camry and drove across town. After he arrived at the offices for the record label that made more money off his music than he did, which had cast him out like he was nothing after the band had blown up, which wanted him now to smile and play those old songs on aNightshifterscruise in what they’d assured him over the phone was a “great opportunity.”After he sat down at a table across from people he hadn’t seen in over a decade, but who’d once been the most important part of his life. After he sawher, who’d once been practically his whole life.

And then he’d finally know.

Chapter

Two

Micah could tripinto being ten minutes late for anything, but for this meeting? She’d given her rideshare driver a generous tip to let her sit in the car for the extra fifteen minutes it would take to ensure she wasreallylate.

When Ian, the band’s old rep at the record label, had contacted her about performing on thisNightshifterscruise, she’d initially said no. Absolutely not. No way. She even hung up on him, although she’d immediately felt bad and blamed it on poor cell coverage when he’d called right back. He’d assured her that the focus of the cruise would be on the show’s cast reunion, and that ElectricOh! would only have to perform a few songs for the ship’s “prom night,” and that would be it.

“How does that sound?” Ian asked, a thread of desperation in his voice. “Take a nice beach vacation, catch some sun, sing a couple old ones, and then you’re back on land and can return to your real life.”

“No.”

Ian had named the sum of money the band would get for appearing on the cruise, which—even split five ways. Not bad.

It had been enough to make Micah hesitate just a little bit. Her “real life,” after all, wasn’t nearly as glamorous as people might think. She owned an apartment in L.A., which was something—paid for with royalties from the very song that got her this cruise opportunity in the first place. But the apartment sometimes felt more like Rapunzel’s room at the top of the tower, and Micah was the princess who would sleep all day and only venture out at night to roam around a harshly lit drugstore where she could pretend to be a normal person just making an emergency run for tampons.

Micah was mixing up her fairy tales. She couldn’t remember the one that involved CVS.

“No, thank you,” she’d said to Ian, and then offered a quick goodbye to send the message not to call back.

Of course, the next phone call had been from her father. Or not really herfather, since he’d called in his capacity as band manager for ElectricOh!. She’d made that mistake before.

“You’re doing this cruise,” he’d said without preamble. “You need to do something with your life—and before you start, you know Hailey appreciates your help with her salon, but she can hire her own people. That’s not where you belong and you know it.”

The past few years, Micah had been flying back to Ohio to spend weeks at a time helping her younger sister open her own hair salon. It hadn’t been particularly grueling work—slapping a new coat of paint on a wall, organizing supplies, driving around town to drop off stacks of glossy postcards advertising thesalon’s services. Micah had even let Hailey blow up poster-sized images showing off Micah’s hair to put in the shop, which wasn’t a hardship because Hailey’d always done a great job and Micah loved her sister…but which had still made her feel weird and sad in some indescribable way, seeing her smiling face plastered on the walls.

And that was just about some fuckingpicturesin a hair salon, so how much worse would it be to do this cruise, with all the renewed attention it might bring? But because Micah always felt sixteen again the minute she got on the phone with her father, she’d at least heard him out. “And consider your bandmates,” he’d said. “You don’t think they might be able to use this opportunity? I know they weren’t happy with the way things ended, but this could be a chance to put some of that to bed. Ryder and Frankie are still in the industry, and then there’s that boy who practically lived at our house—”

“Okay,” she’d said finally, as much to get him to stop talking as because she knew he was right. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Since then, the scope of the cruise had ballooned a little—per the contract, they were now committed totwoperformances, a short set and then the one song at prom night, and were also supposed to host “two (2) Activities to be named at a later date, but in no event to last longer in duration than two (2) hours each, with the Band to have final approval over the Activities, such approval not to be unreasonably withheld.”

Contracts weren’t supposed to be funny, but that line had made her laugh.Approval not to be unreasonably withheld.What a joke. She’d scrolled to the bottom to see the digital signatures already added—Steve, their happy-go-lucky drummer; Frankie,the bassist and all-around comforting presence; and Ryder, the lead guitarist and her ex, topping the list of reasons why she hadn’t wanted to do this cruise in the first place.

Micah had at least gotten to a point in her life where just seeing his name wasn’t a jump scare, so that was something. Publicly, his narrative had become that ElectricOh! broke up because no one else in the band cared about themusicthe way he did, which used to make her blood boil and now just made her laugh. She was glad that their romantic relationship had never been officially confirmed, so she could sidestep any questions with coy non-answers without going into all of it. How stupid she’d been to let herself get caught up in him, how stupid she still felt for not extricating herself earlier, for the sake of the band if nothing else. Maybe she could’ve cut out the rot before it spread.

The only ones who hadn’t signed the contract yet were her and John.

John. He’d been her best friend once. Now she had no idea what he evenlookedlike, if he bothered to run a comb through his unruly dark hair, if he’d filled out or if he was still all knobby elbows and too-long legs, if he’d ever managed to grow a beard like he used to desperately want to. “My family’s Italian,” he’d say. “It’s my birthright.”

And she would’ve made an Olive Garden joke because they’d had a whole bit, and he would’ve grabbed her around the waist and threatened to tickle her, which was such a farce because she knewhewas the ticklish one, if you could get him around the neck…

It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to think about John likethat, dredging up the visceral memories thatcould make her feel like she was right back in seventh-grade homeroom. And it had been even longer since she’d felt like she’d had anyone in her life that she knew that well, who knew her, who she had that kind of shorthand with, who she’d been able to be completely and utterly herself with.

Now the driver spared her a glance in the rearview mirror before making a not-so-surreptitious grimace at the blinking app open on his phone screen. “Uh, miss?” he said. “There are other requests coming in, so…”

Micah looked out the window at the nondescript concrete building that housed Tasteless Art Studios, the niche subsidiary of a major record label that had given them their start sixteen years ago. The building hadn’t changed at all, which seemed impossible. She hadn’t seen anyone walking up to it in a while, which she hoped meant that everyone involved in today’s meeting would already be inside.

“One more minute,” she said. “Promise.”

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