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case and, biting back a moo , followed my bandmates.
    Bea sang one of our songs under her breath to calm her nerves as we followed vest-guy down a long hallway with photos, news clippings and awards lining the walls. We passed by a black and white framed picture: World Wonder at an awards show, the four guys close together, each of them holding a silver statuette. I caught a glimpse of one of the band members and paused, intending to get a closer look. The one in profile looked really familiar. But Bea ushered me along and instead of a good look I was rewarded with a niggling sensation in the back of my head that threw me off-balance.
    I forced my brain to forget what I thought I saw. It was just Bea’s magazine photos giving me déjà vu.
    Another door opened and Duncan Prospect stepped into the hallway.
    “Oh, it’s all of you,” he said, as though he hadn’t actually set an appointment with us and we were the least interesting thing he’d ever seen. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
    “That show you were at was supposed to be our last one,” I said.
    “It probably was ,” Duncan said. “But you can stand in the hallway, or you can come in and try to prove me wrong.”
    And then, another voice drifted out of the room. “Ease up, Duncan. Can’t have the ladies running off already.”
    “Ladies, meet Jimmy Keats,” Duncan said.
    When Jimmy Keats emerged from the room—no, not emerged, he floated out like he was being carried by a cloud—the hallway seemed to turn into a vacuum. Ladies In Waiting, each of us, caught our breaths. Jimmy Keats wasn’t just gorgeous—even more so than his pictures made him out to be—he had an easy, evocative presence that demanded people pay attention to him. Maybe it was the low, sultry carry of his voice or the easy way he tucked his hands in the pockets of the cream colored suit that hung perfectly on him and set off his dark skin. Whatever it was that made Bea and Kaitlin give him their complete attention, it wasn’t the same thing that nearly floored me.
    It was realizing that Jimmy Keats was a liar.
    His name was Kevin.
    My breath caught in my throat as our eyes met. As a world of thoughts passed over his face. As we both waited to say something, to reveal how intimately we knew each other, already. My neck went hot. I tightened my grip on my guitar case, rage taking the place of surprise. He’d let me rant to him. He’d fucked me and said he would call.
    He never called.
    I had to remember that I hadn’t wanted him to. That, before this moment, he’d crossed my mind once, maybe twice, in the past three weeks. Okay, maybe I’d finished writing that song about our encounter, but so what? That didn’t excuse the fact that he’d played me in that bar, and then really played me afterwards.
    Finally, Jimmy or Kevin or whatever the hell his name was, spoke.
    “Please,” Jimmy Keats said, holding out an arm as an invitation. As though nothing had happened between us. As though I was a stranger. As though he hadn’t told me to clear my schedule on a particular Saturday for him. “Come in and take a seat.”
    I raised my chin, my flare-up of anger keeping any latent nervousness at bay, and stepped into the room. I wanted to call him out on his lie. I wanted to ask how his weekend out of town had been, Kevin , but I also didn’t want to blow this chance for us.
    And then I remembered bashing World Wonder to his face at Filth and had to stifle a groan. I’d probably already blown it.
    Bea turned and grinned at me and I swallowed my irritation, my embarrassment, my past-Courtney-stupidity. I had to pretend nothing had happened between me and Jimmy-slash-Kevin. For Bea. So I entered, I sat, and I pretended I’d never before seen the face in front of me in my life.
    The room wasn’t large, and it was sparsely decorated with an assortment of plastic chairs and a table. Another door led into a room with recording equipment and, beyond that, a small studio. I