Though Michael Blurb was known for his heavy hand on the piano, tonight was different. Tonight, he reached for a guitar.
Dave lifted his sax again, testing a note that curled through the café like smoke. The smell of roasted beans and old wood clung to the air, the hush of the room holding everything taut. Behind him, the band shuffled, bass humming, brushes swishing over snare, a piano waiting like an open door. But Dave didn't play. Not yet.
He looked straight at Michael.
"You've been chasing my sound your whole life, boy. Time you stopped running from it. Come up here."
Murmurs rippled through the room as every head turned toward Michael Blurb! The pop star, the icon! Now just a man cornered by music.
His throat tightened. The café was too small, too bare. No screaming crowds, no walls of sound to vanish into. Just breath, brass, wood, and the weight of a key in his pocket, pressing sharp against his thigh like a reminder.
"Go, Michael," Synvie said, voice steady, almost daring. "You owe it to him. You owe it to yourself."
Her calm steadied him more than he wanted to admit. He climbed the two steps, every nerve sparking. The guitar leaned on its stand, scuffed and waiting. Michael lifted it, the wood rough against his palm, strings humming like an old friend half-forgotten.
Dave grinned, mouth to the reed. "Good. Now let's see if your voice can keep up with mine."
The bassist struck a line...low, smooth. The drummer brushed in, a lazy swing. Dave blew the first note, smoky and alive, curling into silence.
Michael's fingers stumbled on the strings, then steadied, chords wrapping around the sax like ivy on brick.
Synvie leaned forward, lips parting. And then...she hummed. Quiet, raw, unpolished. But it slipped into the music like it belonged, and suddenly it wasn't a performance at all. It was a conversation. Sax laughing, guitar answering, voice weaving between them like thread through fabric.
Michael's chest ached. Not with envy. Not with rivalry. But with something sharp and dangerous, undeniable.
Between phrases, Dave chuckled into his sax. "That's it," he rasped. "That's the song. Been waiting years to hear it."
The music swelled, not perfect, not rehearsed, but true. And the key in Michael's pocket thrummed in rhythm, as if it too had been waiting for this unfinished song to finally find its voice.
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