“Natalie! Reid! Are you collaborating? Be still my beating heart!”

I roll my eyes. “Barely.”

“I was just explaining the merits of a Broadway tap number,” Reid says.

Dad nods. “I have ten minutes before bat mitzvah errands. Hit me.”

Reid plays the new version of “In Winter”—my version. Dad stands over Reid and considers every chord. Reid straightens his back, a subtle subconscious adjustment because he is always my dad’s student, even on a Saturday afternoon. I swear, Reid is sustained by the words well played delivered by my dad.

“Smart key change,” Dad notes with an appreciative nod.

“Thanks,” Reid and I say at the same time.

Excuse me? “I thought—”

“Can you take it from the top of the second chorus?” Dad asks Reid.

He cuts me off. Like I’m not even here. I give Reid a note, I try to collaborate—and he takes the credit five seconds later. I reach for my phone on top of the piano and pull my oversized gray sweater closer to me, scrolling through Instagram and counting the measures until yet another collaboration between Reid and my dad is over.

“Good luck finding a dozen tap dancers,” I mutter as my dad exits the studio.

Reid stops playing and gives me a withering stare. “You mean Danica and all of her musical theater friends?”

I clench my jaw but I won’t concede. “Right. But we’re not going to ice the actors who can’t sing or dance.”

Reid’s shoulders tense. “It’s a musical.”

“The whole point is to represent all the departments that got cut. Not just the music ones. This whole thing is a compromise, so you and your ‘vision’ need to bend too. Speaking of which, this is an okay start, but we can’t approve anything without Henry.”

Reid frowns. “Okay. But where is he?”

“Caught up at the restaurant,” I lie. Even if I’m annoyed, I’m not about to expose that Henry is caught up with the actress, not the show. Chao Down, at least, is a valid excuse.

Reid closes his notebook, his expression shifting. “I’m still wallowing a little on the inside. Clearly. But I promise that I’m serious about this. I’m going to show up.”

“Okay.”

“Natalie, I’m—”

“Serious. I know. You always are.”

Reid frowns as he loosens the ligature on his clarinet to change the reed, already ready to get back to audition practice. “Is that a problem? Is everything I say going to be a problem? We are codirectors. We have to at least try to collaborate.”

The laugh that escapes my lips is sharp. “So you can take all the credit? No way.”

“So how is this going to work?”

“You write the music. I’ll write the lyrics. Alone.”

Reid frowns. “Natalie, that’s not—”