Page 49 of With a Little Luck

“Let’s do a quick sound check to see if the mic is working,” he says. “Can you play something?”

Ari strums a few chords and starts to sing. The change is immediate. I watch how her shoulders drop, how the tension in her face eases.

She starts with an Adele song, but she makes it her own, trading out Adele’s powerful vocals for her own sweet, almost fragile voice. Ari has told me more than once that she doesn’t like her singing voice. Despite how great she is in front of an audience, despite how much she loves playing music, she’s complained for years that her voice just isn’t that great. But it’s okay, because she doesn’t want to be a performer, she just wants to write songs for someone else to perform. She wants to be behind the scenes, creating music and lyrics that other people will love, that will make them feel something. She doesn’t care about being in the spotlight.

Even so, there are times when I hear her sing that I think she must have an absurdly skewed idea of what her voice sounds like, because … I kind of love it. You know that cheesy line where they say “she has the voice123of an angel”? That’s what Ari’s voice is to me. It’s not powerful, it’s not robust, it’s notloud. But there’s something about it that is so soothing, so endearing, so pure. She just doesn’t give herself enough credit.

“So, what did you two talk about?”

I start, not realizing that Pru has come to stand beside me. She’s keeping her voice low while Ari and Quint fiddle with the recording equipment.

“Just her new song. She’s worried it’s not any good.”

Pru furrows her brow, then understanding hits her. “Not you and Ari, you goon. You and Maya. You were alone with her for more than four hours. What did you talk about that whole time?”

“I mean, we weren’talonefor four hours,” I say. “We were surrounded by five thousand screaming middle-aged women. And not a small sampling of middle-aged men, now that I think about it. And we didn’t have to talk because, you know. Sadashiv was there. Singing and stuff. It was kind of a perfect first date? Like going to a movie. Takes all the pressure of conversation off.”

“Okay,” says Pru, drawing out the word in annoyance, “and the rest of the time, when Sadashiv wasn’t singing?”

I pretend to think, as if I haven’t gone over every moment of last night a thousand times, replaying it from every angle. “At one point, we talked about D&D.”

Pru’s face falls. “You didn’t.”

“It’s not like that. It just … came up, and she was … interested. She kept asking questions. She even asked if she could play. Sometime. With us.”

Pru’s expression becomes horrified. “Play D&D? With you and your friends?”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because I’ve met your friends. Tell me you didn’t say yes.”

“Of course I said yes. It was her idea. Why would I say no?”

Pru lets out a hoarse laugh, which Quint chastises, reminding us to be quiet. With a quick apology, Pru drags me farther away from our makeshift recording booth. “Jude, I love you, and I think D&D is cool, and it124makes you happy, and that’s all that matters, and your friends are really nice, and I’ve got nothing against them, blah blah blah.”

“Wow,” I deadpan. “This is going to be harsh, isn’t it?”

“It’sMaya. You’ve been in love with her for years. Literallyyears. And now you have a chance with her, and you’re going to woo her with a role-playing game?”

“It can be romantic,” I say, more than a little defensive. “People fall in love playing D&D all the time.”

Her eyebrows tick up.

“Look, I’m not sure it’s a great idea either, butsheasked. She seemed genuinely interested. And what if … what if she actually starts to like me back?” It’s almost painful to think it, much less say it. That slim, tenuous, near-impossible hope that this could actually turn into something. “What am I supposed to do, just never talk about this thing that I really love? That I spend literally hours of my free time on? Am I never supposed to introduce her to my friends?”

“No,” says Pru, “but maybe you could get to know each other first? Maybe you don’t jump right into the part where you get drunk on imaginary mead and storm the imaginary castle?”

“I’m not saying you’re wrong, but … you weren’t there last night. And everyone always says to be yourself. So, this is me. Being myself.”

Rather than look encouraging, Pru stares at me with something like pity. “And after your D&D night, are you going to put on your Jedi robes and practice casting spells with your magic wands?”

A muscle twitches in my eye. “Jedis don’t use wands.”

“My point is—”

“I know what your point is,” I interrupt. “I get it. And I know you’re trying to be helpful, but … again, it washeridea. So I’m just going to go with it and see what happens, because what else am I supposed to do?”

Pru tilts her head. “You could ask her out on another date. A real date. With just the two of you. No D&D friends, no screaming Sadashiv fans.”125

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