Freddie had been wrong about Hazel not texting him again. But that didn't mean everything was going well.

He had barely heard from her in the past couple days, again, and it was mostly his fault. Lately he'd been anxiously awaiting her every text while procrastinating on writing back, overthinking all his answers and desperately searching for ways to keep the conversation alive, to keep it from fizzling. If it fizzled, he knew it would be the end. Hazel cared about him enough to keep talking, not to strike up a new conversation when the old one was dead.

"This time she's gone for sure," he told Theo the day after the fateful show, when the euphoria from the performance had faded and reality had kicked in once more. "I haven't heard back from her in two days. That's the longest she's ever gone without talking to me!" He stabbed both hands through his hair. "Not that I'm surprised."

Swiveling around in his desk chair, Theo hung an arm over the backrest and gave him a long look. "This is the third time you've said that, big guy," he said. "Maybe she's just busy or forgot. Wait a bit longer or hit her back up?"

Freddie let out a sharp breath. "And annoy her for no reason? I'm an idiot, Theo, but not that stupid!"

"Hey, you guys have been talking for weeks. At least she can give you an explanation if she suddenly dips." Theo took a sip from his sports drink. "Why don't you ask her if she still wants to keep talking or something?"

Freddie jolted in his seat.

"Then I might as well go down on my knees and beg her to give me a chance," he snapped, his voice coming out harsher than he'd intended. "I'm not you, Theo, don't you understand? I can't just do what you do and hope it works!"

Theo only gave him a look, and he slumped, the fight leaving him like the air from a punctured tire. "Sorry," he muttered, avoiding his eyes. "Shouldn't have talked to you like that."

Cracking a smile, Theo abandoned his video game and crossed the room to sit on Freddie's bed, casually helping himself to a cookie from the box beside him. "I get it, love is hard," he said sympathetically, his expression warm and forgiving, the way he always seemed to be in the face of Freddie's unending bullshit. "But I'm serious. If you wanna be with her, you should at least try to figure out if she feels the same."

Freddie looked away.

Thoughts circled around in his head, feelings that had been chasing their tails in his mind for weeks but refused to be verbalized. Questions, over and over, fears of every scenario, no matter how all of it ended.

Should he explain it to Theo? Some part of him, the same part that still struggled to trust fully even now, told him not to bother. He wouldn't understand anyway—why should he? Theo wasn't him. He was handsome, popular, good with people. He had no trouble finding people who accepted him and liked him the way he was. But—no, that was a shallow thought. This guy wasn't his best friend of four years for nothing.

So, to hell with it.

"And even if she does want to keep talking," he said heavily, "then what?"

Theo blinked.

"Then I have to think of things to say again," Freddie explained, playing with the hair tie on his wrist. "And then we have to meet up—and where do I even take her? Theo, where am I supposed to take a person like her?"

Helping himself to another cookie, Theo propped himself up on his elbows, regarding him from below. "Wherever you want," he said. "Why didn't you invite her to the show yesterday? Maybe she would've liked that."

Freddie let go of the hair tie, letting it snap against his wrist. "She doesn't like that kind of music," he said. "And she probably would've thought our costumes were cringe."

Licking the crumbs off his fingers, Theo studied his face, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed. "No offense, man," he said, "but why are you trying to date her?"

Freddie stopped in his tracks.

"Like, what do you have in common?" Theo continued, sitting upright again. "Do you like anything she likes? Does she like anything you like? A future rock star deserves a woman who supports him, you know."

Laughing softly, Freddie regarded him with a smile that he hoped was bitter, but most likely only came off as helpless. "Next you'll be telling me to look for the one," he said, making air quotes around the term. "What's next? My fairytale romance? My Disney princess? Might as well just settle for dying alone."

Theo's gaze turned solemn. "No partner is better than a bad one," he said.

"Easy for you to say," he replied. "You're never alone for long."

"And never together for long," said Theo, cracking a grin, but it didn't fully reach his eyes. "Maybe I'm the bad partner."

Freddie glared at him. "No, you're not," he said.

Eyes sparking to life again, Theo made a kissy face at him, earning himself an even stronger glare. "Aww, babe," he said, "are you saying you'd date me?"

"Date yourself," said Freddie, punching him in the shoulder, but he laughed. "You're gross."

"You're gross."

"You eat candy off the floor!"

"And you leave your dirty clothes everywhere till you have to go to the laundromat in your PJs."

"Tell anyone about that and you're dead!"

"No, I should." Theo reached for his phone. "They gotta know when we go on tour, right?"

"You wouldn't dare!" Freddie burst out, scrambling to snatch the phone from his hands and failing. "If you tell them, I'm telling Clem who really broke his hightop!"

Theo dropped his phone like it had suddenly caught on fire.

"You want me to die?" he asked, his eyes suddenly huge. "You want me to die that badly?"

"I hate you."

Theo messed up his hair and returned to his video game.

Sighing, Freddie turned back to his own phone, debating back and forth about texting Hazel. Theo did have a point, he should try and communicate. That was what mature adults did in these situations, right? Communicate. Talk to each other. Someone as put together as Hazel would be sure to appreciate it.

But he had no idea what to write.

Flopping backwards on the mattress, he let his phone fall out of his hand and stared at the ceiling. Once again he was glad he wasn't the lyricist of the band. How did Dylan master words like that? How did people do it, bending language to their wills to express exactly what they wanted to say, without any danger of being misunderstood?

As if on cue, his phone buzzed.

Jolting upright, he scrambled to check the message, half relieved and half disappointed when he found the incoming text wasn't from Hazel. It was from Clara, sent to the new group chat they had included her in.

The reviews are in, she had written, accompanied by a row of screenshots. Get better at recording boys 😅

Freddie skimmed over the screenshots. They were all comments on the songs they had posted online, and they all said more or less the same thing: that they had been amazing live, and people couldn't understand how the recordings sounded so much worse than they had in person. Freddie didn't know if he should feel flattered or hurt.

But before he could figure out a response, Terrence had already replied. Tfw no good recording software :(, he texted back.

Sounds like you should get one then 🤔, Clara wrote back.

And Dylan replied, tfw no money

No problem! she answered. Just pirate it 🏴‍☠️

Everyone started typing at once. Well, all of them except Theo, who was fiddling on his phone for a while before dropping an edited screenshot of the standard anti-piracy DVD spot into the chat, hastily edited to say, You wouldn't steal an editing software.

The others' opinions were mixed. Dylan and Clem were urging her on to do it herself if she wanted it done. TJ and Freddie himself were more skeptical, especially of her doing it, but she didn't seem deterred. Course I'll do it, she wrote. Since you Tough Rock Stars are all too chicken to do it yourselves 😇

Oh, he thought, she was terrible. He wouldn't have expected it from her face, but looking back he had no idea why he was surprised. She might be sweet and innocent-faced and a diligent student, but that didn't mean he shouldn't have known from the way she acted.

In all honesty, he kind of liked that attitude.

After all, people who lived entirely by the rules were still alien to him. People who never questioned them, never broke them when they thought it was right or the ends justified the means or even when they thought they could get away with it—they were strangers, as incomprehensible to him as a foreign language. Rules were something he couldn't blindly follow even if he tried. Maybe that was normal. Or maybe they simply hadn't been made for someone like him.

Was she the same? He couldn't say. All he could tell was that he probably shouldn't worry about her getting herself in trouble; Clara seemed like the type to know what she was doing, to break the rules in ways that bent them to her will. She'd be fine. And she could get her hands on a good recording software for them.

And then, hopefully, they could start recording versions of their songs that were actually good. Good enough to keep their newfound tentative fanbase.

All in all, it seemed like a pretty sweet deal.