Shit.

I hadn’t meant to tell them this. I’d planned to keep it secret. I hadn’t meant to throw it out like this, in the middle of an argument, like gas on a bonfire. And I know, by the way both the guys are turning toward me, that I’ve made a huge mistake.

“What?” Jezz is saying. “S&A Artist Management? Like, that agency in the Cities? You turned them down?”

“They wanted to meet with you?” Patrick says softly.

“They wanted us.” I meet Jezz’s eyes. I can’t even look at Patrick now. “They’ve heard us play. I guess they sent a scout once, and we didn’t even know. They wanted to get to us before anybody else could.”

“And you turned them down?” Jezz says again.

Ellie and Lee and Mac have gotten up and gathered at the open back door. Their faces peer in at us, watching. Christ. Even this has to be a performance.

“You guys.” I rake my sweaty hands through my hair. “S&A is small stuff. Little, local stuff. We are going to be big. There is big stuff on its way. I promise you.”

Because I am going to get everything I want. Everything. Just like someone else promised me, months and months ago, that night behind the Crow’s Nest.

“You didn’t even ask us,” Patrick speaks up. His voice is dangerously low. “You just made the call. On your own.”

“We all said we’d wait until we were done with school. Right?” I’m getting louder now. “That’s what we said.”

“Well . . . yeah,” says Jezz. “But there’s only, like, a month and a half left. And it’s S&A.”

“Right. It’s S&A. We can do better.”

“Who cares what we can do?” Patrick’s voice cuts in.

I look back at him.

Patrick’s forearms are like bridge cables. Years of high-speed metal drumming will do that to a guy. The cables twist as he turns the drumsticks slowly around in his hands. “This isn’t about us. You didn’t even ask us. This is all about you.”

I can’t answer. He’s right. And I’m caught.

“But we’re here, too,” says Patrick. He’s still speaking in that strange, low, calm voice I’ve only heard him use once or twice before—and once was right before he turned around and punched a redneck jackass named Kev Burr in the face. “We were going to do this together. Take a year. See what happens. But if you make all the calls, and you mess up, you pull us down with you.”

“It’s true, Anders,” says Jezz. His voice is lighter than Patrick’s, but there’s a seriousness in it I don’t even recognize. “Maybe that was our chance. We shouldn’t just throw it away. I mean, this is Greenwood. You work at the plastics factory, you work for the mill, or you get the hell out.” He shrugs, giving a lopsided smile. “I thought we were getting the hell out.”

“We are.” My hands are starting to shake. “I swear. We are.”