Hey, I’m still at Sexy Dad’s house! I didn’t get murdered!

Eden felt a rush of relief. Cheryl’s thing for old guys wasn’t a sugar baby situation. That would have made more sense. She just genuinely seemed to prefer wrinkles and beer bellies. Last night she’d Ubered to the house of some dad she’d been chatting to. Eden told her that anyone who’d let a drunk girl in at 6am was suspect, but Cheryl just laughed. She always did her own thing, and she hadn’t been murdered, which was good.

Another message popped up.

OMG, I saw the football guy’s post. So cute! Although, he’s pretty old. You can’t judge me anymore…

Eden rolled her eyes.

Willow’s in his thirties. Not halfway into an actual grave.

Cheryl sent back a cry laughing face emoji. Are you seeing him again?

He’s coming to Heartbreakers tonight.

Wow. He’s a pretty big deal, George. You might have to be nice to him.

Sighing, she cast her phone aside, reaching for the electric keyboard at the foot of her bed. Turning it on, her fingers moved across the keys in a playful little melody. She paused, playing it through again. It was good. She played it one more time. It was really good. Excitement built in her smoke-damaged chest. She grabbed her laptop and opened FL studio.

Time melted as she worked the song, adding harmonies and a pulsing bassline she’d saved from her last studio session. Her body twitched, but her mind was crystal clear. Writing songs was like that. It lifted her from wherever she was and put her in the driver’s seat of the universe. When she made music, everything fell together so perfectly, it felt like god existed and fate was real. That everything really would turn out okay.

She played the song over and over, mixing and equalising until it emerged, still dewy-fresh from wherever songs came from. It already had a name, Apple Smoothie Bowl.

She imagined playing it for Willow at her gig. Maybe turning on her mic to yell ‘This goes out to the guy who made me come twice last night.’ Willow might laugh. He might also hate her. Men didn’t like having songs written about them. Taylor Swift figured that out way before she did. They found it embarrassing. Emasculating. Rumour had it that Francis talked his ex, Lupa Moon, out of dedicating her mixtape to him.

Francis. He’d seen her leave the green room with Willow last night but when she came back in, he’d gone. Was he jealous? Did she want him to be jealous? The idea made her cheeks burn.