Page 15 of Your Rhythm
“All right, I’m off. Have a good rest of your day.”
She shrugs herself back into her coat and heads out.
“We leaving now?” JP asks. “I told Youssef we’d be his roadies, so we should be there by eight-thirty.”
We’re all going to see a friend of JP’s perform tonight. He’s doing an electronic set at a bar up on Avenue Mont Royal.
“Sounds good. I just have to make a phone call first.”
I shut myself up in the stairway again and dial Kay’s number. It rings a few times before going to voicemail.
“Playing hard to get, huh? It’s Matt. I guess you’re busy journalist-ing. I’ll be doing something for the next hour or so, but I’ll call you again when I can.”
We head over to the station next door. We’re only one metro stop away from the bar, but if there’s a way to stay off the streets in winter, it’s usually worth taking.
I hang back from the guys as we make our way to the staff entrance, where Youssef’s already hauling stuff in from his van. I got a missed call from Kay while we were on the Metro, but she didn’t leave a message. I try calling one more time and get her voicemail again.
“It’s Matt. I guess we’re playing phone tag now. I’ll be at a show at Café Cléo for the rest of the night. I’ll check my phone if you want to text me, or you could stop by if you’re around. The guy playing is actually really good.”
I doubt she’ll consider showing up, but it was worth a shot.
We get Youssef all set up and he buys us a round for the favour, joining us at a table before he’s due to go on. There’s still half an hour to kill before show time and the place is already packed. Youssef DJs at a big club most nights and plays his own stuff on the side. He’s got a dedicated cult following, and at a venue as small as Café Cléo, I’m sure they’ll be turning people away at the door before his set even starts.
Once our beers are finished, Youssef heads off to get ready. We grab ourselves a place to stand and watch him perform. I check my phone every few minutes, but nothing from Kay shows up. After shoving my cell back in my pocket for what must be the sixth time, I look up to find Cole smirking at me.
“Don’t worry,” he says with mocking concern, “I’m sure she’ll text you back.”
“She’s not agirl,” I defend myself. Cole raises an eyebrow and I try to clarify. “I mean, yeah, she’s a girl, but she’s not like, agirlgirl. She’s just a person who happens tobea girl, but she’s not a ‘waiting for a girl to text me back’ kind of...girl...”
I trail off when I see Cole giving me his signature ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ stare.
“She’s a reporter!” I blurt. “She’s the one Ace was supposed to meet. She has some more questions for me and we’ve been trying to get a hold of each other all day.”
“I see,” Cole muses. “So she’s that kind of girl.”
He flashes the exact same smirk as before.
“Oh fuck off, Byrne.”
Youssef makes his entrance a few minutes after that, raising two fists in the air to greet the crowd that rushes to fill up the floor the second he appears. He doesn’t waste any time getting right into it. A pair of oversized headphones rests around his neck as he cranks out a trippy, acid house intro that builds into a fist-pumping beat everyone goes crazy for.
It’s not my usual kind of music, but I know talent when I see it, and I’ve never seen anyone work a crowd quite the way Youssef does. I’m always amazed that he’s not more popular than he already is. The guy should be crushing it at Tomorrowland and selling out concert halls across Europe.
JP’s already going wild, leaving the three of us to stand on the sidelines as he rushes into the crowd, high-fiving everyone he passes before getting swallowed up into a group of people near the front. He can buddy up with complete strangers like he’s known them for years.
I tap out the rhythm of the song on the side of my pint glass. The rush of energy pounding through the speakers and inside the chests of everyone here distracts me from anything else for a moment. Next to playing music myself, hearing it live is probably my biggest addiction.
There’s nothing like losing yourself in a crowd, like letting the sound-waves wash over you and sweep away everything but the moment you’re in. You give yourself up when you let go like that, and in return you get to be a part of something bigger than you could ever be on your own. Music can make you feel like a single drop and an entire ocean all at once.
I close my eyes for a moment, letting the bass rumble through me, and then I swallow down the last of my beer and follow after JP. I don’t repeat his high-fiving routine; instead I duck my way between the people jumping up and down in synch until I reach him at the front.
“MATT!” One of his doped-up looking grins spreads across his sweat-slicked face when he sees me. “?A VA?”
“?A VA!”
He gives me a thumbs-up and starts jumping around again. It’s not long until I’m doing the same, throwing my hands in the air along with everyone else as the song starts building up to a bass drop.
JP starts chanting beside me.
