Page 56 of Hidden with a Rockstar

---

The cottage is warm and wooden and smells like pine and old books.

I hand out rooms like a camp counsellor. Jo and Rebecca take the blue room upstairs; Ana and Jeremy get the ones down the hall; Sandy’s at the end. Erica gets the room beside Sandy’s. She arrives an hour behind us—headlights swinging across the snow, her assistant Jenny at the wheel.

I choose a room at the back with a view of the garden and the trees beyond. I put my bass case against the wall and sit on the bed and look at my phone. The screen is dark. No messages.

I pick the phone up. I put it down. I pick it up again.

At dinner, Sandy and Erica keep not quite looking at each other.

The kitchen fills with five people and their appetites. Someone brought wine. Jo's telling a story about a soundcheck gone wrong. Ana's making observations that are too smart and accurate. Jeremy's eating and nodding and being the ballast that keeps us all from floating away. Sandy is quiet.

I sit at the table and laugh at the right moments.

At 10 PM, I sit in my room.

I call Lena.

"Hi," she says. I can feel the exhaustion in her voice.

"Hi."

Silence.

"How was the drive?" she asks.

"It took forever. We stopped for coffee so many times."

"Yeah?"

"Sandy needed caffeine. She was restless."

"About Erica?"

"Yeah."

There's another pause.

"What did you eat for dinner?" I ask.

"I didn't cook."

"Did you eat anything?" I ask.

"Yeah. Toast. Coffee."

"Lena—"

"I know.” She sighs. “I'll eat something."

"That's not—I wasn't going to?—"

"Then what were you going to say?"

I can hear it in her voice. She's tired.

"I don't know," I admit. "I don't know what to say."

"That's the problem with us, isn't it? Neither of us knows what to say anymore."

---