A reallycutesmile.
Then I caught Max staring at me, his eyes twinkling.No Fraternisation,remember?he mouthed.
Bastard.
I coughed. “Can I remind you all why we’re here?” Silence fell. I stood in the middle of the room with a clipboard in my lefthand, and a pencil clenched in my right. On the table beside me sat a sheaf of lyrics, and my carefully printed seating chart that had already been ignored by everyone. Then I glanced at it.
Someone had apparently set a sweating iced latte—or something similar—directly on the paper, ghosting a wet ring across my formatting.
Breathe, Theo. Just breathe.
I cleared my throat. “Okay, Rough Harmony, first rehearsal.” That came out way too brisk. “Congratulations on passing the auditions. Now please sit where I?—”
“Assigned seats?” Milo inclined his head toward the chart. “That’s adorable.”
“It’s efficient, not to mention necessary for balance. We’re building a wall of sound, not a pillow fort.”
Max smirked. “Captain Clipboard is on form today.”
I ignored him. “We have two basses, two baritones, two tenors, and four sopran?—”
“Falsetto,” Sebastian cut in, sharp as a metronome. “We’re men, not sopranos.”
I pivoted. “Fourfalsettists,” I corrected, as though I’d planned to say it that way the whole time. “Finnley, Zane, Milo, Sebastian—back row for now. Liam and Oliver, centre baritone. Tenors—Elliott, Julian—to my left. Max—” I flicked a look “—back right with me anchoring bass front right.”
Julian was still lounging on his chair, one elegant ankle crossed over his knee. “Do I get a throne or is it bring-your-own?” His cheekbones seemed so sharp they looked as if they’d been sculpted to stab.
“You get a chair,” I said. “Like the rest of us mortals.” I made a mental note.
This one is going to be trouble.Nothing that Max or I couldn’t handle, however.
I hope.
Elliott raised a hand as if we were still in school. “Do we warm up first? Lip trills? Maybe arpeggios on a five-note?” He wore a soft-looking cardigan and an even softer smile.
“I vote we just sing,” Sebastian bounced on the balls of his feet. “Crash the plane, learn to fly on the way down.”
Max flashed me a grin, one that saidSee? Itoldyou there’d be chaos.
Zane squinted at Sebastian. “Pretty sure that’s not how planesormusic work.”
Liam grinned. “Seb, park your arse for a sec. We’ll get to the crashing.”
Oliver grabbed a music stand and pulled it in front of him. It took me a moment to realise what was different about him. It was the glasses. He adjusted the music stand to a mathematically precise angle, then placed a sheet of paper on it. “I brought a warm-up sequence if we want to standardise daily?—”
“Love that,” I said, too fast. I was all for control and standardisation. “Ready, guys?” Nine pairs of eyes focused on me, and I gave a satisfied nod. “Oliver…go.”
Oliver ran through the sequence once, and then nine voices slid into humming. I tracked every entrance. Elliott was too cautious at first, whereas Julian was overcompensating to prove he wasn’t. Finnley’s falsetto floated too early, and Milo tried to ornament a warm-up as though it was a solo. Liam’s resonant hum smoothed out the bumps, and Max laid down a bass line like a foundation poured from concrete and honey.
I heard the glitches. More importantly, I felt them like grit in my molars. I scribbled notes that had nothing to do with their voices.
Breathe.
You asked for this.
You built this.
You can make it sing.