I’ve never been in the studio late at night. It feels strange, pushing open the stenciled glass, stepping out of the pouring rain into a hall that’s only lit by safety lights.

I open the metal basement door.

There’s usually noise. Guitars and drums and keyboards leaking out of the lesson rooms, making a messy soup in the air. But now, except for the hiss of the rain, it’s silent. A few of the lights in the central room are glowing.

I step off the staircase and into the waiting room.

A woman is sitting on one of the couches.

She’s wearing tight black pants and a low-cut leather top. She’s got black hair that swings at an angle across her forehead and fancy high-heeled boots, and eyeliner that flicks up into little points at the ends.

And I am young and shabby and totally stupid. There’s a hole in the left cuff of my jeans. My hair is flattened with rain. My T-shirt is stuck to my back. I can feel the sweat that’s pooled in the band of my boxer shorts starting to chafe my skin.

For the first time all of this feels real.

She’s here. I’m here. My real life is about to begin.

“Um . . . hi,” I hear myself say. I sound like a little kid who’s meeting Santa Claus at the mall. If Santa Claus was hot.

The woman stands up. She’d be tall even without her high-heeled boots. Which make her really, really tall.

“Anders Thorson.” She smiles. “I’m thrilled to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She reaches out to shake my hand. Hers is a little chilly, but firm. Mine is wet.

The woman sits back down. She gestures casually to the chair across from her. I’ve always wondered how you get to be one of those people who makes everything around you seem like it belongs to you.

“I’m a huge fan,” she says as I sit down. “We all are. Everyone I work with. Seeing you play tonight just confirmed everything we’ve thought about you.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Why am I suddenly so nervous? I don’t know where to look. There’s something about the sharpness of the woman’s eyes that makes me not want to look straight into them. But I really don’t want to stare down the deep V of her top, either. I aim for somewhere around her shoulder.

“Did Flynn explain why I’m here?” she asks.

“Kind of. Yeah.” My heart hammers a quick double beat. Don’t look down her shirt.

“So. To put it in really basic terms”—she crosses her legs—“we help musicians achieve everything that they can achieve. And we’d love to do that for you.”

Anything I could say—Really? Me?—sounds idiotic. So I nod and keep my mouth shut.

“I hope you recognize your own potential,” she goes on. “We certainly do. We’ve heard your material. We’ve been keeping an eye on you. For years, as a matter of fact. You’re something special. With our help, you could go far.”