Shane was already headed back for more.

“Hey, dude,” he said as he returned with a reloaded plate, “when are you going to get a gig again?”

Michael stopped chewing, flashed a look at Eve, then Claire, and then finished the bite before saying, “When I’m ready.”

“Pussy. You had a bad night, Mike. Get back on the horse, or whatever.” Eve frowned at Shane, and shook her head. Shane ignored her. “Seriously, man. You can’t let them get you down.”

“I’m not,” Michael said. “Not everything is about beating your head against the wall until it breaks.”

“Just most things.” Shane sighed. “Whatever. You let me know when you want to stop hermiting.”

“I’m not hermiting. I’m practicing.”

“Like you don’t play good enough. Please.”

“I get no respect,” Michael said. Shane, busy taking another crunchy bite, rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Yeah, I know, world’s smallest violin playing just for me. Change the subject. How was that hot date with Lisa, anyway? Rented shoes turn her on or what?”

“It’s Laura,” Shane said. “Yeah, she was hot, all right, but I think she had the hots for you—kept saying how she saw you over at the Waterhouse last year and you were all, like, wow, amazing. It was like a ménage à trois, only you weren’t there, thank God.”

Michael looked smug. “Shut up and eat.”

Shane shot him the finger.

All in all, it was a pretty good time.

Michael and Eve washed dishes, having lost out on the coin toss, and Claire hovered in the living room, not sure what she wanted to do. Studying sounded—boring, which surprised her. Shane was concentrating on the video game selection, bare feet propped up on the coffee table. Without looking directly at Claire, he asked, “You want to see something cool?”

“Sure,” she said. She expected him to put a game in, but he dumped it back in the pile, got up off the couch, and padded up the stairs. She stood at the bottom, staring up, wondering what to do. Shane appeared at the top of the stairs again and gestured, and she followed.

The second floor was quiet, of course, and dimly lit; she blinked and saw Shane already halfway down the hall. Was he heading for her room? Not that she didn’t have a crazy hot picture in her head of sitting on the bed with him, making out…and she had no idea why that popped into her head, except that, well, he was just…yeah.

Shane moved aside a picture hanging on the wall between her room and Eve’s, and pressed a button underneath.