Page 13 of Scorpio Season

“We’ll be touring with her for five weeks, with a week-long break in the middle,” Toni says. “We start in three weeks.”

Luca blinks. “Three weeks,” she echoes.

“It’s not a lot of time,” Toni says, “but it should be enough. We have a short setlist of songs, three of which we’ve already recorded with a friend of mine. He also did the drums on them. It’s nothing too fancy—you should get the hang of it in no time.”

“Right.” Luca’s throat works as she swallows. While she seems to panic over the logistics of learning to perform an entire set in three weeks, Florence is still spiraling over the reality of Luca being here, in their practice space, Florence’s hideaway for the last two years.

“We’ll warn you up front,” Toni says. “This won’t be glamorous. We’re not signed to any label. The instruments, the outfits, everything will come out of our own pockets. We’ve put aside some savings for this, but it’s not a huge budget. We’re going to be renting a van and staying at shitty hostels.”

“Two of us will have to share a bed each night,” Izzy adds. “We’ll save money where we can.”

Florence fights the urge to bury her face in her hands. This whole thing feels like a sick joke. There are thousands of drummers in London, and the universe chose Luca—who Florence had sex with and then left without giving her her number, like an absolute prick—to be the only one to respond to their flyer and actually be qualified for the job. The odds of this happening feel minuscule.

“So,” Miray says, beaming at Luca, oblivious to the tension between them, “what do you think?”

Luca’s mouth opens and closes twice before she says, “I think . . . I think I need to speak with Florence for a second.”

Florence freezes at the sound of her name. Izzy’s eyes dart between her and Luca, visibly delighted about this turn of events.

“Okay,” Florence says. She forces herself to smile. “Sure. Let’s step out for a moment.”

5

Florence is wearing the same perfume as last night. It’s not even in the top-three most important things to be thinking about right now, but it’s all Luca’s brain can focus on as she follows Florence down a dingy hallway and into a cramped storage room. It’s lit by a single dirty lightbulb and so small, Luca has to press her back against a shelf in order to not be touching Florence as she shuts the door behind her.

“I didn’t know” is the first thing she blurts out.

“I know,” Florence says. Her eyes are fixed on a point somewhere next to Luca’s head. Luca can’t read the expression on her face at all.

“I can leave,” Luca makes herself say. “If this is too weird, I can tell them I changed my mind.”

The brief moment of silence feels like half an eternity. Luca fidgets, shifting from foot to foot as she waits for a response.

Finally, Florence says, sounding like it pains her, “We need a drummer.”

Luca doesn’t dare point out that they could wait for someone else to reach out. She’s not the only drummer in London. She’s nothing special. “Are you sure?”

Florence runs a hand through her hair. Luca remembers how those fingers felt brushing her skin, the deliberate care with which they touched her, and has to bite down on her tongue to make herself focus on something else. “We don’t have time to wait for more applications. We should’ve started preparing for this tour months ago. And besides . . . you’re good.”

Those words, such a close echo to the honeyed praise Florence sighed out last night, are enough to send a terrible little shiver through Luca. “You saw the videos?”

Florence nods. “It’d be stupid not to take you. You’re everything we’re looking for.”

Hope is a dangerous flutter in Luca’s stomach. “Are you sure?”

“That this is a good idea? No,” Florence admits. “But it’s not just my decision. Izzy advocated for you. I’m sure Miray and Toni will agree.”

She’s so different here. There’s no trace of the playfulness with which she flirted with Luca yesterday, the ease with which she made Luca feel comfortable. Instead, there’s something clinical and detached to the way she’s speaking, like they’re on two different sides of a glass wall. Luca looks down at her scuffed trainers.

“My one condition is that we don’t let this—” Florence gestures between the two of them “—affect the band.”

“Okay,” Luca manages.

“It’s just—this band is the most important thing to me,” Florence says. “And we’re so close to everything we’ve been working toward.”

Looking up, Luca can see it in her eyes, then: the desperate, tunnel-vision want, a hunger she must have been carrying with her for years. Luca doesn’t think she has ever craved something quite as badly as that.

“I understand.”