There was a long, awkward pause.

Taking a step back, Clara offered a smile, hoping against hope that the stranger in front of her wouldn't actually recognize her. It had been some weeks; maybe he had forgotten about her already. Or at least forgotten how she looked like.

"Uh, hi," she said, one hand in her pocket, keeping her voice level. "Sorry, I hope I didn't startle you. I just wanted to say you sounded great."

The stranger blinked, looking just as unsure on how to proceed as she herself felt. His overlong sideswept bangs were falling into his face. He tucked them behind his ear, but they were back over his eye in a heartbeat.

"Thanks," he said, his speaking voice lower and more blunt than his singing voice, but still carrying that strange instrumental undertone. "You think?"

Clara offered a smile. "I do! Your voices sound awesome together." She motioned to him and his companion. "Do you do this together more often, or how—"

From one second to the next, the stranger lit up. "Right?" he said, wrapping an arm around his friend and pulling him forward. "Dylan's the best singer I know. If we're talking vocals, there's nothing he can't do!"

The friend—Dylan—let out a laugh. "Pretty sure she was talking about both of us, my dude."

"I was." Clara eyed the stranger with a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Your voice is pretty good too, you know."

Blinking owlishly, he rubbed a self-conscious hand over his nose, his smile growing softer and more hesitant. He had a kind face, Clara noted, smiling like that. A little lopsided, almost clumsy, painting the cuts and bruises on his face in a whole different light.

"That's what I keep saying!" Dylan answered before he could say anything, fully stepping into the light. During karaoke, he had been half hidden behind his taller companion; but up close Clara realized he stuck out like a sore thumb. He was barely taller than her, built like a French bulldog, all his clothes too loose on him in a way that looked like a strange but deliberate choice, his shirt matching that of his companion. A shock of shoulder-length ginger hair framed a narrow, feline face that toed the line between friendly and smug.

"This guy," he went on, giving his friend a hard pat on the back, "doesn't believe he can sing. Can you believe that? Dude's got a voice like this, and he still doesn't—"

That was as far as he got before the stranger lunged to cover his mouth, and Dylan ducked out of his reach, cackling like a witch. "Shut up!" he hissed, then he turned back to Clara. "You wanted to ask something earlier?"

Clara blinked, taking a moment to remember the question she'd been about to ask. "Right!" she said. "I just wanted to ask if you sing together more often." She gave a one-shouldered shrug. "You're pretty good at harmonizing."

The stranger's whole face lit up, not with pride or joy but with sheer unfiltered excitement. "That's because we're in a band!" he said, his hands coming to life, illustrating every word with lively gestures. "He's the lead vocalist, I mostly play guitar, but sometimes I sing too. But I'm not the lead guitarist, that's my friend, he's somewhere around here…I can tell you more about us if you're interested!"

His eyes were glowing as he spoke, glowing with the passion of someone who truly burned for what they did; but his voice carried a slight undercurrent of desperation, almost like he was expecting her to say no from the start. "Careful with what you ask," Dylan remarked, laughing. "If you say yes, you're not getting rid of this guy for an hour."

The excitement in his face faded, and he looked away, rubbing a hand over his nose again. Clara smiled. "Don't worry, I have time," she said. "Why don't we sit down somewhere and you tell me more?"

His face lit up like he'd been given an unexpected gift. Clara's smile widened as she led them towards the side of the room, sitting down on the floor. "I'm Clara, by the way."

Something briefly flickered across his face, not long enough for her to read it. "I'm Freddie," he said. "And the other guy was Dylan."

She grinned. "He already told me that."

"He did?"

"Yeah! Just two minutes ago."

"Really?"

"Really! How did you not notice that?"

He burst out laughing. A few people turned around to give him questioning glances, but he didn't seem to notice.

The gears in Clara's head started turning. Freddie…Freddie…where had she heard that name before?

"There's five of us in the band," Freddie continued, his hands still talking with him. "But our bassist and drummer didn't come here tonight, they were busy. Our bassist was busy," he corrected himself. "Our drummer just hates parties."

"I feel for him," said Clara. "They do get pretty boring after a while."

Freddie blinked. "Then why are you here?"

She snorted, leaning back against the wall. "My best friend brought me." Adjusting her position, she regarded him from below. "So do you guys have a name, or…?"

There it was again, that spark of excitement. "We do!" he replied. "We're called Kids After Dark, you can look us up if you want—"

The penny that had been stuck in a coin slot in Clara's brain finally dislodged itself and dropped.

Kids After Dark.

Freddie.

Of course.

"—we don't have a big audience yet, but we write our own songs and we—" Freddie paused, catching sight of Clara's face. "Are you okay?"

For a few moments Clara only blinked, trying to come up with something not ridiculously embarrassing to say and coming up utterly blank. "What?" she replied at last. "Yeah, I'm—good, I'm good. Just—did you say Kids After Dark?"

Now it was Freddie's turn to blink. "Have you heard of us?"

"…You could say that." Sighing, Clara rubbed both hands across her face, cracking an awkward smile. "Remember when you contacted a girl you'd never met about designing a poster for you guys?"

"Yeah, but—" Freddie's eyes widened. "Wait. How do you know about—"

"That girl, uh." Clara cleared her throat. "It may or may not have been me."

Freddie stared.

"And the girl who accidentally insulted you at the store before that…" She stabbed both hands through her hair. "That was also me."

From one moment to the next, he stopped in his tracks and went very, very still.

"Sorry," he said, so quietly she barely caught it over the noise and chatter around them. "Should I stop talking?"

"No! No." She held up both hands. "I'm sorry, I keep insulting you by accident…but I'd love to hear about your band. Actually I was really excited when you reached out, but I was so busy and it fell through the cracks and…you know." She offered a tentative smile. "You can talk to me now, I'll listen as long as you want."

The faintest hint of a smile passed over Freddie's face, but he didn't speak at once. He only gave her another glance, studying her face as if to reassure himself; and abruptly Clara caught herself wondering how many people actually wanted to hear about this band he was part of.

"Go on," she said. "Or do you not feel like it anymore?"

His smile widened, and little by little he started to speak. He spoke of bandmates and gigs, influences and inspirations, of sounds and songwriting and big goals; and the whole time Clara listened with rapt attention. Freddie spoke fast, and between the loud music and chatter and his tendency to ramble from topic to topic, he wasn't always easy to follow; but she still listened, growing more thrilled with every sentence. There was just something about the way he lit up, the way he seemed to glow when he talked about the band—the way, even though they barely had an audience at the moment, he was clearly aiming for the stars. Drive. Ambition. A dream, however impossible it seemed to most people.

Clara had always liked that in a person.

"That's amazing," she said when he finally ran out of things to say. "I can't believe you're not way more popular! How long did you say you've been making music together for?"

Freddie traced a finger over his fingertips like he was counting off the time on them. "Almost four years," he said. "But it took us a while to figure ourselves out. The first songs we wrote were too bad to show anyone."

Clara lifted her head. "You've been playing together since high school?"

Now it was his turn to look puzzled. "Our drummer and bassist were still in high school when we started," he replied. "Dylan, Theo and I were already in college."

She narrowed her eyes. "How old are you again?"

"Twenty-tw—twenty-three." He laughed quietly, burying his face in his hand. "God damn, I'm getting old."

Clara did a double take.

"Twenty-three?" she repeated, taking in the details of his face again and trying to reconcile them with the number she'd just heard. "No offense, but you don't look a day over twenty."

He burst out laughing. "Did you just say I have a baby face?"

"Well, I, uh—"

He laughed again, his whole face scrunching up with glee. "I'll take it as a compliment," he said. "Maybe I'm not an old man yet after all!"

"Maybe you're a vampire," she replied, "and you simply don't age anymore, ever."

She had said it as a casual joke, but his face lit up with genuine delight. "Who says I'm not?"

"You know, I won't judge if you are," she said. "Just don't try to drink my blood, I still need it."

"So I can drink other people's blood?"

"That's a problem between you and them."

"And sleep in a coffin all day?"

"Sounds cozy."

He grinned. She grinned back.

At the back of Clara's mind, a thought began to form. Technically it had been forming the whole time, but now it finally took shape, hovering in front of her hands, ready for her to grasp.

"By the way," she said before she could start overthinking it and change her mind. "Have you guys found another poster designer yet?"

Freddie blinked, his grin fading, and he shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "Why?"

She took a deep breath, bracing herself for the audacity of what she was about to ask. She had some nerve, she knew that. But in the face of a second chance like this, what was she supposed to do? Could she really let it slip through her fingers again and not look back with regret on the missed experience?

"I could still do it, you know." She glanced briefly at Freddie's face, then looked away. "This time for real—no more ghosting, I promise."

Bright eyes landed on her face, widening. "Are you sure you want to?"

"Of course! Like I said, I already wanted to do it the first time you reached out, it just fell through the cracks." She offered a tentative smile. "I'll do it for free, to make up for the wait?"

Freddie sat upright. "We can't ask you to do it for free!"

"No, I insist." She held up both hands in a firm gesture. "To make up for everything you've put up with from me."

"But—"

"No buts. Either I do it for free, or I don't do it at all."

He visibly considered that.

"Fine," he said at length, but she could tell he didn't like the concept very much. "But we can help you with it somehow, right?"

"Not with the design itself," she said, laughing. "But I'd love some input. Like…knowing more about the band and how to represent you guys on paper, maybe?"

Freddie's face came to life. "You can meet the band!" he exclaimed. "We don't have any gigs anytime soon, but why not come to our band practice? Let me write down our times for you—and our links if you want to listen—do you have anything to write with? I thought I had—"

Clara snorted. "Why not text me?" she said. "You still have my number."

"You're right! Hang on." He whipped out his phone. "Just tell me when you have time, I'll take care of the rest."

Later that night, when it was finally time to be Giselle's ride back, Clara returned home with a smile on her face. For the first time in many months, she was actually kind of reluctant to leave a party, and she hadn't even done anything exciting. All she had done was sit on the floor with a stranger and talk while people around her were dancing, flirting and getting drunk, and from the outside she was sure they must've looked spectacularly boring. Not that she cared. Maybe she was getting old, but she might actually prefer this kind of interaction these days.

"You're in a good mood," Giselle remarked from the passenger seat, pointing a tipsy finger in her direction. "Did ya meet somebody nice?"

Clara thought for a moment, wondering how to phrase it.

"Well," she said, "I'm not sure yet, but…I guess I made a friend?"

Above the sleeping city, night slowly faded into the faintest hint of dark blue dawn, and Clara lay awake on her bed with her headphones on, listening to Kids After Dark.

And smiled.

Most of the songs were new to her, but one of them she immediately recognized as the song she had heard in the street the other day.