Free Breakout by Kevin Emerson

they’re that great, or what she’ll think, or
—
    But then Keenan says, “Here,” and just grabs my notebook and hands it over.
    I know it would be ridiculous to snatch it back. “There,”I say, pointing to the right spot on the page. Then I glare at Keenan again. I kinda want to kill him. He smiles at me like he thinks he did me a huge favor. Okay, maybe he did.
    Valerie’s eyes scan down the page. Still reading … It seems to take her longer than it should. Too long. I sit there wondering,
What will she think? What is she thinking? What did she already think? Did she think they were stupid and now she’s buying time trying to think of a good lie?
    Another second passes.
    Okay, yes, she definitely thought they were garbage.
    I wish I hadn’t showed her.
    Then she finally looks up. “They’re really good,” she says, and even though I hear her, it takes me a second to realize that she actually sounds like she means it.
    She is looking at me and I notice that her eyes are really big and dark brown. A little bit like a shark’s, but in a good way. That’s probably not something I should tell her, ever.
    “I mean, this would be a cool song,” Valerie says. “Are you going to write more?”
    “Yeah,” I say, trying to make it sound like
of course
I’m going to write more, that it’s just a matter of selecting the perfect words for the deep artistic vision I clearly have and you can’t rush these things.
    “Cool,” she says, and smiles at me.
    I smile back.
    We are smiling.
    And then a second passes and nobody has said anything and suddenly it’s awkward, like we’re stuck in this smiling positionand neither of us knows what to do next. I can feel Keenan and Skye working their couple-spreading spells behind me, like if I turn around I will find them wiggling their fingers and wearing floppy wizard hats. And I can feel myself starting to sweat because I have no idea what to say next. There has to be something.…
    Then I see Lena nudge Valerie with her elbow, and Valerie makes this little surprised face, and then she says, “Oh hey, it’s Friday.” It almost seems like she’s going to stop there, which would be really strange, but then she adds, “Are you guys doing anything tonight?”
    “Um,” I say. If there was a heart-rate meter bar beside me like in
Liberation Force
it would be spiking with all the red bars lit and I would be looking for a chunk of blasted wall to crouch behind and build my strength back up and hopefully there’d be a med kit there too, but here in Jupiter Coffee there’s no cover.
    “Because,” Valerie continues, “there’s a show down at the Vera Project tonight. Have you heard of Fractured Senses?”
    “Ooh, yeah,” says Keenan. “They’re pretty cool.”
    I shoot him a look that says that answer was
mine
. He shrugs.
    “They’re playing with the Clones and Lost Puppy,” Valerie continues. “Lena’s brother is in Lost Puppy. They’re good.”
    “Nice,” I say.
    “Well, anyway, um, we’ll be there,” Valerie finishes, and suddenly it gets quiet again.
    I am just kind of sitting there, screen still frozen, whensuddenly I realize that
duh
, this is an invitation. “Oh,” I say, a little too loudly. “Well, yeah, we, um, we could maybe do that too.” I turn to Keenan and Skye. “What do you think? Wanna go?” I ask, nodding slightly at Keenan.
    Keenan says, “Sure,” except then when he looks at Skye she scowls and looks away. Poor Keenan, he thought they were still in couple-magic mode, but it’s obvious from Skye’s face that she had something else in mind for tonight, so that’s going to be a whole big thing, but who cares? They’ve been dating for forever. She can deal.
    “Great,” says Valerie. “So … maybe we’ll see you there?”
    “Yeah,” I say, “definitely.”
    There is
another
silent second and then Valerie kind of shrugs and her mouth moves like she’s telling herself something and then she says, “Well, bye,” and