Page 6 of Never Been Shipped

“I don’t want to do this if we’re not going tosoundgood,” Ryder said. “I’m not looking to be a joke.”

Theagainhung in the air, unspoken. Their last show had been so colossally, excruciatingly awful that John found it hard to laugh about, even after all this time.

“Tasteless Art has a rehearsal room right here that we’ve reserved,” the woman running the meeting put in helpfully. “Butwe can book something in L.A. if that would be more convenient for everyone. We just thought, since the cruise is leaving out of Miami, it would make sense to spend a few days—”

“No rehearsal,” Micah said. “That’s a dealbreaker for me. We’re only playing a few songs, we can figure them out on the boat.”

Everyone was looking at him now, and John realized he was the only one who hadn’t weighed in. Truthfully, it wasn’t like he had anything going on. He hated agreeing with Ryder on anything, but he also didn’t particularly want to sound bad, didn’t want to have this possibly last experience of playing ElectricOh! songs live be anything but smooth and perfect. On top of all of that, the original rehearsal location was the most convenient for John, since he’d somehow come to Orlando for that last band meeting and had fallen into still living there thirteen years later.

“Fine by me,” he said. “No rehearsal.”

Chapter

Four

By the end,the meeting felt like eight hours had passed and also no time at all, both like they covered a lot of ground and like the whole thing could’ve been an email. Micah was exhausted and looking forward to getting to her hotel room and falling into bed before catching an early-morning flight out of there.

She could sense that Ryder was waiting for her, wanting to grab a private moment after everyone else had cleared out, so she went to the bathroom and stayed long enough that she felt confident he’d given up. She tried to refresh her makeup in the mirror, only to smudge it worse than before. In the end, she washed it all off so she could apply it again.

She’d dressed for the meeting very deliberately, like she was preparing to go into battle. Just enough of the pop star glamour that she could feel a little powerful, like she could hide behind the stagecraft of winged eyeliner and platform boots. Just enough no-nonsense styling—her long hair in a bun, herclothing modest enough to cover most of her tattoos—that she made it clear she knew this was a business venture first and foremost.

Except her bun had gotten a little messed up on the car ride over, and now she winced when she considered herself in the mirror. Had that been how she’d looked the entire time?

She snagged the elastic out of her hair, letting the strands hang loose around her shoulders. Somehow, over the years, her hair had become more than justhair—it was a lightning rod for other people’s attitudes toward her, the ultimate expression of her emotional state, one more way that she felt controlled and one more way that she asserted control. She couldn’t help a twisted smile, even remembering the time she’d hacked it all off to her chin and dyed it black, just before touring had begun for ElectricOh!’s doomed second album. The record label had actually threatened legal action. Something about a clause in the contract with an amorphous reference to anything that lost “audience goodwill.” Over fucking hair.

She ran her fingers through it now, pulling it up into a ponytail and giving herself one last look over before venturing out of the bathroom. The receptionist gave Micah a smile as she made her way to the front door.

“You know, I was a big fan ofSo Much Promise,” the receptionist said, referring to Micah’s solo record. A terrible choice for a title, because it had made the bad reviews all riff off how Micah had hadso much promise, and what happened? Which the receptionist undoubtedly knew, judging from the slight emphasis on theIin that sentence.Iwas a big fan. An acknowledgment that she knew she was in a select group of people who felt that way.

Hell,Micahhadn’t been a fan of that fucking record.

“Thanks,” she said, reaching into her bag for her sunglasses. “Appreciate it.”

A quick scan of the parking lot showed that everyone seemed to have left, and Micah felt her shoulders relax as she pulled out her phone to order a rideshare. But then she noticed John, standing at the edge of the parking lot, his own phone pressed to his ear as he laughed at something someone said.Laughed.

He’d been so serious in the meeting. She remembered that side of John, the quiet one that took a while to crack. But she remembered this other side, too, the one that had been slyly funny and quick to break with one goofy look from her across the room. She wondered who was making him laugh like that now, who’d earned the right to his inside jokes and his most private smiles.

She felt suddenly so alone. So obviously, stupidly, patheticallyalone, hiding out in bathrooms and in her apartment and in all these rules she’d created for herself around her life where she never let anyone get too close. Her last somewhat serious relationship had been with a woman who’d worked a high-powered job in tech, and she’d never understood why Micah had walked away from a career that seemed like a dream.Because I kept failing, Micah had said, and Liz had looked at her like she was defective. “Failure is a mindset,” she’d said. “I don’t believe in failure. Only in opportunities to innovate.”

In a perfect world, Micah would’ve delivered her exit line then, something about how maybe they should innovate their way right into breaking up. But instead she’d just kept dating Liz for another two months, feeling increasingly bad about herself. And then after that relationship had ended, she’d gone ona series of self-destructive dates with anyone who said they wanted to meet up and weren’t looking for anything serious, almost like she was challenging them to treat her like she was something disposable, then turning around and feeling hurt when they did.

And now here she was, standing alone in this parking lot, her phone in her hand, and John was over therelaughingwith someone. It made her angry, and she didn’t know why.

She slid her phone back in her bag, heading across the parking lot toward John. She caught only a snippet of his conversation—“don’t worry about it, it’s fine”—before he turned. She tried not to take it personally, the way his face tightened up the moment he saw her, the way his mouth went back to a straight line. But damn.

She took it personally.

“All right,” John said into the phone. “I’ll let you go.” His gaze swept over Micah, from the top of her head where the ponytail was pulled tight down to the tattoo at her neck. Then he looked down at his own shoes, kicking a piece of gravel out of the way. “Yup. I’ll see you at home. No, no, don’t watch without me. Couple hours, tops.”

NoI love youto end the conversation, but there had been an easy familiarity that still spoke of someone he knew well, and cared about. Someone he lived with, who he shared TV shows with.I’ll see you at home.

“You live here?” she asked, not meaning the question to come out so snotty but landing somewhere in that vicinity anyway.

“Yeah.”

“Convenient.”

He just looked at her, and she immediately saw how stupid that had been to say, too. What, like she thought he’d stayed in the same city as their record label just on the off chance that over a decade later, they might schedule a meeting and he’d be able to roll right out of bed and drive a couple blocks over?

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