Power Trio

They park on the side of the road, and Evan climbs out of the driver's seat. “Be right back.” His voice is pinched and strained.

“Should we, uh.” Kell watches him wander into the treeline. “Should someone follow him?”

A drawn-out, explosive “FUCK” echoes from the woods, jolting some nocturnal creature into loping flight.

“Let’s give him a mo, shall we?” Sion says.

Evan returns, face a mask, and sits back behind the wheel, staring unblinking at the road. After a circumspect minute, his bandmates follow.

“We’ll find someone to get it fixed,” Thekla says. “Maybe with some clamps, some wood glue. We’ll find an expert. It will be fine.”

“Yep,” Evan says.

“First thing in the morning.”

“Okay.”

“Evan.” Thekla hesitates and then snakes her hand through the headrest gap and brushes his neck. “You saved me.”

Without looking, Evan reaches back and closes his hand around Thekla’s. They sit in silence for a few breaths. He releases his grip and turns the engine on. They glide into the night.

“I should have gotten us outta there when Shrike dipped,” Kell says. “I thought fairfolk equaled cool with us. Or I didn’t think, even. I’m fucking stupid.”

“I was the sober one,” Evan says.

“Let’s blame the bikers.” Sion shifts the stricken bass to the back seat and clears his throat. “You understand this earnestness could cause an allergic reaction. But I wanted you to know that you regularly impress me, Evan. And I am glad you are our friend.”

Evan takes his eyes off the road to spare a glance at their monochrome lead guitarist. “Thank you, Sion,” he says, softly.

“You’re welcome.” Sion smooths out his sweater and picks dismally at a beer stain on its sleeve. “Please don’t allow what I just said out of the circle. I have a reputation.”

A sleepless night, and an overcast morning. They check out of their roadside inn and drive into Richmond to deliver the bass to a middle-aged luthier named Orion, who holds it like it’s a famished child in a grayscale TV ad. “This is barbarism,” they sigh. “But salvageable. I could take the time and do some cosmetic refinishing as well. We could spruce this wear up.”

“No sprucing.” Evan exudes a gunmetal calm. “Just a glue job. I need it structurally okay, not looking new. You have an estimate for when we can turn this around?” He’s already fidgety, and the bass hasn’t even left his sight.

“There is a queue. We’re looking at… three to four weeks, I’d estimate.”

Sion pulls a fat billfold from his pocket. “Front of the line, please, and I’ll double the bill. And when it’s done, we’d like it shipped to New Laytham. No offense to your lovely city. But I’d like to go home.”

The rest of Legendary finds it difficult to argue with that.

They start the long drive back to NL. For the first dozen miles, silence suffuses the van. Thekla observes Evan from the front passenger seat, the set of his jaw and the faraway look in his eyes. She breaches the quiet. “Can I put something on?”

His icy gaze drifts to her, thaws just a little. “I’d like that.”

Thekla snakes the aux chord to her phone and plays some Nick Drake. Gentle fingerstyle acoustic and a voice as warm as a fireplace. Evan’s brow unknits.

He didn’t even hesitate, Thekla thinks. A fifty-year-old bass, a priceless artifact, and the moment Thekla was in danger, he swung it at a brick shithouse orc like it was a warhammer. A battering ram of feeling for Evan H connects solidly with her gut.

A decision that’s been brewing within her catalyzes and bubbles over. “I wanted to mention something to the trio,” she says. “Stop listening, Sion.”

The elf makes a show of sticking his fingers in his ears.

“Okay.” Thekla takes a breath and holds it like she’s about to jump a cannonball. “I want to live together. Like I want to officially move in. We could find a place for September if we started looking now. I’d do an overlap month.”

“Bro, yes.” Kell slaps the back of Thekla’s seat, overjoyed. “I was waiting for someone to say something. I just didn’t wanna be clingy or make like I was crazy. Three people in a one bedroom, that’s some thrifty spending.”

Thekla’s heart leaps. “You’d be up for it?”

“Thek, I already wanted to live with you before we started going out. Only thing that was stopping me was you had a year lease and I was convinced I’d end up in bed with you. Which used to scare me back when I was an idiot.”

“Now we just need to get Evan on board.” Thekla touches Evan’s thigh.

Kell chuckles. “Gosh, do you think he’ll say yes?”

“I don’t know. He’s a real loner.”

“Really values his space.”

Evan lifts Thekla’s hand to his lips and kisses her knuckle. “I’d get an apartment with you in a heartbeat, Thekla Kamiyon.”

“You don’t think we’re moving too fast, do you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” He tilts his head in time with the music. “I keep thinking about finding some other roommate or a place on my own and I can’t. I can’t go back to being alone. Before I met you, I’d have rather broken my arm than let anything happen to my bass. I’ve been thinking about what last night meant. And about the future.”

He leaves off, pays attention to the road. Thekla wants to ask what he means, but she swallows the question. She’s already coming on strong enough, especially in front of the elf.

“Not that I’m listening,” the aforementioned elf says. “But if you’re hoping to live near Cable Square, I know a few units.”

Kell clicks her tongue. “Are you offering to be our landlord, Benefice?”

“Not me. Certainly not.” Sion ends the kayfabe and unplugs his ears. “I own no properties and I’ve seen the sort of things musicians do to their spaces. But elves of means have access to certain… arrangements. Calls can be made.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Evan says.

“Think nothing of it, Evan H.”

“You got something with a balcony?” Thekla asks. “Ooh, or roof access.”

Kell taps an excited drumbeat on the car seat. “Oh! Oh! In-building laundry. In-building gym?”

“I’ve changed my mind, Evan,” Sion says. “Your gratitude is appropriate.”

* * *

“You should have left with the security. Seriously.” Anise’s voice pipes through the phone. The peppy intern at her desk glances away. “Or never even been in a biker bar. This was an unforced error, guys. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.”

“We are so aware,” Kell says.

“Right at the end of an otherwise stellar trip, too.”

“Can I say something, though?” Thekla says. She picks a pilled-up bit of fabric from the seat she dragged over to Anise’s cubicle. “We’re handling the repairs ourselves. Like we handled the fix to the van out of our cut. And I don’t mean to be cocky, but we killed it on the openings.”

“You did.” A little gurgle over the line as Anise presumably drinks from her omnipresent thermos. “But next time we put you up, no brawls and no pillows torn up, okay?”

Sion tuts. Evan’s face reddens. Unlike last time, they’ve got the boys with them in the New Laytham Warcry offices. Anise’s desk has gotten rather crowded.

Kell’s rubbing her wrists. “Next time you put us up?”

“Next time. That’s what I wanted to bring up after I yelled at you. Are you all okay with relocating this conversation to Nate’s office?”

A fortifying moment between the members of Legendary. “If he’s ready for us,” Thekla says, “we’re ready for him.”

A quick saccharine call from the intern, and the four of them file into Nathan Puck’s airy, tchotchke’d office.

“There they are.” Today, the human face of Warcry is tinkering with some kind of analogue synthesizer, thicketed with patch cables and modules; as Legendary files in, he pulls off a pair of stubby, noise-isolating headphones. “Welcome back from the road, my Legendary legends.” He insists on shaking everyone’s hands anew. “Evan H and Sion Benefice. Your reputations certainly precede you. Sion, good to finally meet in the flesh. Evan, hate to hear about the bass. So glad it’s making its way back up soon.”

“Thanks,” Evan says.

“Charmed,” Sion chimes in.

“I’m not going to beat around the bush, kids.” Nathan Puck sits, and the band follows suit a beat later. “Last time I had the ladies in here, I tried to spook them. Didn’t work. It seems like, if you’re game, we might be stuck with each other.”

Hope ignites in Thekla’s stomach.

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Nate continues. “We want to re-release the single you recorded on Warcry. And then we want you to do the album with us.”

“Mr. Puck,” Kell says carefully. “Are you trying to sign us?”

“I am.” He smiles a silver-plated smile. “You busted your asses on the road. Are you ready to bust your asses in the studio?” He extends a rolexed hand. “Don’t shake. Tell me you’ve got to think about it and you want to see the terms.”

Kell bursts out laughing. “Man, has anyone ever told you you have the craziest fucking negotiation tactics?”

“It’s been brought up.” Nate retracts his hand, snaps his fingers instead. “Anise’s assistant will get you the usual sheaf of papers. You all good to work with Rahul again? He wants to work with you.”

“We love Rahul.” Thekla looks round the circle, harvests a chorus of nods.

“Great. Excellent stuff. Hector.” The intern snaps to attention. “Get ‘em set up. And get the boys to sign the wall, if you would.”

“Of course, Nate.”

“Anise has her second headliners, I think.” Nate pats Kell on the shoulder. “You all are gonna thrill me with the album, right? Don’t answer that.”

The orc leads Legendary in making their gracious exit.

“You didn’t ask me or anything, but if you want my take, we do Vampire Facial as the next single off the album.” Anise is back on the crackling phone line as Hector staples the papers together. “That song’s seriously hot. In several senses of the word. Oh, and Conna already mentioned this, but she wants to feature on the record if you’ll have her. Little intra-label movement, I’m more than happy about it. Um, if I’m the manager, of course. Sorry.” That barking laugh. “I’m presuming.”

“Anise, girl,” Kell says. “I am going to break Nate’s rule for a second. We’d love to have you. Don’t think I didn’t see you hauling ass for us all tour.”

“The appreciation goes both ways. This next opener, jeez, guys. Very Floridian, if you know what I mean. Got me nostalgic for the Legendary days. If I don’t drop dead from an ulcer, we’ll talk again soon, okay?”

They promise to keep the conversation going and make a stop in front of the guitar wall to get Evan and Sion’s signatures. Hector the intern intercepts them at the elevator bank with a big sheepish smile. “Hi, sorry. Can we borrow Mr. Benefice for just a little longer?”

“Of course, small nervous human.” Sion steps away from his bandmates.

“What’s going on, Sion?” Evan asks.

“A little additional business. Nothing to be concerned about.” Sion shoos them to the opening elevator doors. “Go celebrate and be touchy-feely. No need to wait up.”

They glimpse the pale elf strolling back into Warcry as the elevator doors close.

“I have an idea,” Thekla says.

The stomach-shifting descent of the elevator begins. “Oh, yeah?” Kell asks.

“I say we let Sion keep whatever his bullshit secrets are from now on,” Thekla says, “and let’s go make out and look at apartments online.”

“Seconded,” Evan says.