Coin Heist by Elisa Ludwig Page A

one of his cars when he gets home. But that’s in a couple hours.”
    We didn’t have a couple of hours. We had an hour. Less than that, as we’d already wasted twenty minutes. “What are we playing at prom?” Zack asked.
    â€œDakota requested a bunch of covers. I have the list at home,” I said.
    â€œCovers? I thought we were going straight original,” Chaddie said. “Covers are lame.”
    â€œIt’s prom.” I shrugged. “People want to hear music they already know. And I promised Dakota we’d have some.”
    â€œThen she should get a DJ,” Chaddie said. “I thought you of all people would want to play our own stuff, Jason. You’re always saying we should do our own thing and not sell out.”
    â€œI do want us to play our stuff,” I said quickly, not wanting this to turn into a thing. But even I had the good sense to know that high-school girls wanted something they could dance to. “Just not if it’s gonna cause riots or flaming corsages and whatnot.”
    â€œFlaming corsages,” Max said. “Maybe that’s a song title.”
    Chaddie put down his guitar. “What’s the point of us doing it if we’re just gonna flake out? Are we a real band or not?”
    I laughed. “Of course we’re a real band.”
    He jutted his chin upward, defiant. “Yeah? Where are all the gigs you promised us we’d have by now? The all-ages shows in Philly and your friend’s club in New York? How come we still don’t have anything else lined up?”
    Okay, so maybe I’d overpromised a bit—and maybe he’d picked up on that. It wasn’t exactly a friend but an acquaintance of a guy I’d known at music camp three summers ago, who was now an intern at Mercury Lounge in NYC. And yeah, I had said I was going to go pound the pavement on weekends and get us some gigs downtown. It hadn’t happened yet. I fully intended to—I’d just been busy. And then lately . . .
    â€œWe’ll get them,” I said. “And we have a gig already, playing in front of the entire junior and senior classes. That’s like two hundred and fifty people. You never know what that could lead to—”
    â€œYou’re lying,” Chaddie cut in. “He’s lying about the friend in New York.”
    â€œI’m not lying ,” I sputtered. Where was all this pressure coming from all of a sudden? “I just need to text the guy. Can we just focus here? I’m working on it . . . Zack, tell them.”
    â€œYeah,” Zack said unconvincingly. “You’ve said you’re working on it.”
    The truth was it hadn’t turned out like I thought. I thought if I started writing great songs, the rest of it would fall into place—we’d have people begging us to play shows. We’d be legendary. But writing good songs was hard work.
    â€œYou always say this band is the most important thing ever, and you want to be famous and blah blah blah, but the truth is you haven’t done crap,” Chaddie said.
    What? Was he serious? “That’s not true! I’m carrying all the weight here, all the responsibility. I’m doing things behind the scenes, spreading the word, trying to get us on college radio . . .” I struggled to think of other things I could/should be doing, but I was coming up short.
    Zack tried to turn around to face me, only there wasn’t quite enough room to fully rotate. “Look, dude, no offense, but maybe this whole thing isn’t working out anymore.”
    No no no, I thought. My partner can’t crap out . “It’s working out fine,” I said. “I don’t know what the big deal is.”
    â€œThe big deal is we can’t play in a closet,” Chaddie said. “Right, Zack?”
    Zack shrugged to back him up. “It’s pretty uncomfortable.”
    â€œBut we can’t quit before our big