“Fisher without a C,” Frog adds. “Like a fish.”
“Do you two know each other?” I ask them.
“No,” Harriet says plainly. “We just met.”
Frog nods, and I stare at my cousin for an extra beat. I believe her, but something is still up.
“Can I see your ID?” I ask Harriet.
Frog hooks her arm through mine and whisks me away from the table. “Excuse us,” she says, and I let her guide me out of earshot but still in the middle of the long wide aisle.
“What the heck is going on?” I ask.
Frog lets out a heavy breath. “Look, Harriet told me her whole story. She’s seventeen, but she’s really good at drum—”
“You don’t know that.”
Frog glares. “I can sense it. You know, your mom told me I’m highly intuitive.”
I tilt my head back, trying not to groan. I’ve been driven off feelings plenty of times. I’ve made decisions from the heart. Gut instinct is important in security too, but the rational pieces of me are combatting everything.
She talked to Harriet for two seconds. What happens if a fan manipulates Frog with some fake sob story and she lets them near a client?
“Regardless of what you feel,” I whisper, “Tom doesn’t want an underage drummer.”
“She’ll be eighteen eventually,” Frog whispers back.
“Tom is a client.”
“To Triple Shield.”
“No,” I snap at Frog. “He’s still a part of the family, and we’re not enemies with Triple Shield. We work together.”
“So that’s why Omega keeps a tally of wins and losses between the two firms?”
I stare at Frog for a long moment.
She’s not wrong, and she smiles, knowing she got me.
Yeah, yeah.
Before I can reply, Frog adds like it’s important intel, “She said she’s sort of the black sheep of her family. She needs this.”
I don’t just feel protective of Tom and our clients. I feel protective of Frog. She’s green, for one. She’s my responsibility, for another, and despite how she can annoy the living crap out of me, I want her to do really well in security.
I want her to stay.
The realization overwhelms me for a second.
I snap my finger to my palm. “There’s no way to fact-check her right now, Frog. You don’t know if she’s lying to get you to cut corners for her.”
“I’m int—”
“Intuitive, yeah, I got that.” I run a hand through my black hair.
Frog lowers her voice. “You can’t trust people, which, fine. I understand to a degree. But I do trust her. And can’t you just…trust me? What was the point of giving me this job, if you’re going to treat me like I’m a kid?”
You are a kid.
This was for my mom.
If my mom were here, she’d side with Frog. I know that.
I stay quiet, mulling over my words. Every reply that runs through my head won’t bring me and Frog closer, and I’m surprised that I don’t want to push her away.
It’d be easier. Have Frog quit.
I don’t want her to quit. I want her to succeed in Philly.
In my silence, Frog’s face breaks. “What do I know, right? I’m just the fuck-up from Buffalo. You’re the golden boy who started his own gym and security company.”
What?
Is that how the family sees me? A golden boy?
“You’re wrong,” I tell Frog.
She frowns.
“I’m not some golden boy that got a silver platter handed to him. My dad died. My mom left. And I fought for what I have. Every day, it still feels like I’m fighting, Frog.”
She’s about to reply, but I take her hand and rush back to Harriet who’s loitering alone. Her eyes wander around the theatre, and she’s pulled drumsticks out of her back pocket.
“Everything set?” Harriet asks us.
“Did you fill out the audition application online?” I check her information on the tablet.
“Yeah.” She bites down on the Jolly Rancher. “It should be in there.”
I have access to the list. I search her name. Eyeing all her credentials.
Harriet glances between us. “So you two are brother and sister?”
“Cousins,” I answer. “Our dads were brothers.”
“Are brothers,” Frog corrects, and to me, she says, “That doesn’t change just because your dad is gone.”
I’ve never really considered that. And I don’t argue with Frog. Because even though I’m an only child, I realize how much I admire the bond of siblings. I’d like to think Banks and Thatcher will always be twins, no matter who outlasts who.
They better be old men when that time comes.
Because I can’t lose Banks, and Thatcher and I might be on awkward terms—but I can’t lose him either.
Focusing on Harriet’s application, I realize she left her age and address blank. “What’s your address?”
Harriet shifts. “125…” Her gaze drifts to the theatre chairs. “Red Robin Lane. It’s outside of New York.” She seems more nervous.
Frog touches my arm, and I follow my cousin’s gaze to a college-aged guy in a chair. He’s wearing a Batman & Robin shirt. Harriet just made up the address.
She knows we know. “Please, just let me audition. You can tell Tom whatever he wants afterwards. Just give me the chance.”
I could tell her to get out.
But maybe Frog is right. Maybe I have grown a little too jaded. Not everyone has some sinister plot. Some people are trying to get by. Just like I was.
“Okay,” I tell Harriet. “We’ll leave it up to Tom after you audition.”
She lets out a breath of relief, and before she takes a seat to wait her turn, I do one better. After the drummer on stage is dismissed, I suggest to Tom that Harriet should play next. She cuts the line, and practically hop-skips towards the stage.
Frog smiles at me.
I smile back at her. “Hey, I can be nice.”
“I know, your mom said as much.”
That softens me. I’m eager to know what else my mom might’ve told her, and Frog must see.
“She said you work too hard, and you’ll work even harder to protect me. Sometimes that means you might be fiery-tempered, but underneath everything, your heart is caring and sweet.”
I miss my mom.
I try to push back emotion, but I’ve missed her since she left. As Harriet begins to play one of The Carraways’ most popular emo-punk songs, I decide to shoot my mom a quick text. I’m in NYC today with Sulli. You doing anything later today? We can head to Queens and stop by, maybe for dinner or coffee? I press send and hear melodic drumbeats.
I look up.
Harriet is completely in the zone, her drumsticks flying with total rhythm. I bounce my head to the beat. Halfway through, I realize Frog is also nodding her head and tapping her fingers to her thigh. Exactly like I am.
We share the same quirk, and instead of being freaked out like I might’ve been a few months ago, I smile.
Harriet is in the beat as her sticks move quickly from snare to tom drum. A longing crashes into me—to remember the feeling of those sticks in my hands and the thump rolling through my body. I stopped drumming after my dad died.