Page 15 of No Longer Just Neighbors

“Yeah.” I rub my thumb across one of the calluses on my fingers. “We started one of our songs, and when we hit the second verse, I heard people singing it back.”

Ruby’s expression shifts. “How many?”

“I don’t know. Enough.” I shake my head. “It sounds stupid when I say it out loud because that’s what crowds do.”

“Not if they don’t know your music.”

I look at her. She’s not teasing me now, and somehow that makes it easier to admit. “No. Not if they don’t know it.”

She gives me a second before asking, “What changed after that?”

I think about that night. The lights were too bright to make out much past the first several rows, but I remember hearing the words coming back at us. I remember looking across the stage at Wes and nearly missing the next chord because he had the same shocked expression I probably did.

“I think that was the first time it felt real.”

Ruby rests her forearms on her thighs. “What did?”

“Hollow North becoming something bigger than the places we’d been playing back home. Until then, getting the Macklin Row tour still felt like somebody had made a mistake and eventually they’d notice.”

“And after?”

“After that, I started thinking maybe we belonged there.”

She studies me for a moment before looking down and writing something. I lean over slightly. “What did you write?”

“You’re nosy.”

“You’re asking me about my emotional development in Amsterdam.”

“I’m designing something you’re planning to wear permanently.”

“That sounds dramatic when you say it like that.”

“It is permanent.”

“Allegedly.”

Her mouth twitches, and I catch it before she looks back at the tablet. “Which city mattered most?”