Tyler was driving again as they made their way down an endless expanse of highway. He’d reluctantly turned on one of Edie’s podcasts as he drove and now a British game show Cleo vaguely recognized was playing. She half paid attention as she tried to keep herself from looking at her phone again. Two days […]

Cleo was nervous as she stepped on stage. She was the opener, she wasn’t who these people were here to see. They were here for The Blossom Step and for some of them, she was in the way of them seeing their favorite band. She stepped out to scattered applause. The club lights were so […]

Despite the fact that Cleo had played with tons of local bands and The Blossom Step had invited her onto the tour, she had never actually played a show with them. All she had known was that they were extremely accomplished, toured semi-regularly, and had a drummer who wasn’t returning her emails with days to […]

Olivia opened her front door, stepped outside, and immediately regretted even getting out of bed this morning. It was at least negative three degrees outside, and there were clouds looming heavily over the trees. The weather report has promised snow tonight and it looked like that promise might come early. In fact, a flake landed […]

Cleo followed Tyler into the coffee shop and over to the table where his bandmates already sat with steaming coffees. “Hey, Cleo,” the lead singer, a skinny man with a lip ring, said with a smile. “Hi,” Cleo replied. “Sorry, I don’t think I got your name.” “Ryan,” he said, holding out a hand to […]

Jenna was there in the morning when Cleo woke up. Blonde hair tickled her neck and she ran a sleepy hand down Jenna’s warm arm as she gradually opened her eyes. Cleo carefully climbed out of bed and headed to the kitchen to make coffee. The winter sunlight in her kitchen was crisp and beautiful […]

Andrew was awake. He could hear the soft ticking of the clock in the kitchen and the occasional puff of the humidifier in Mia’s bedroom. The room was dark, with no streetlights outside to spill in a little bit of light. The dim pink glow of Mia’s nightlight and the blinking red light on the […]

If it weren’t for the fact that Andrew wasn’t there, Cleo could almost believe that her time in New Winslow had never happened. She’d been back in Boston for several days now and had fallen back into her old routine. At least to some extent. Her boss was none too happy that she’d missed an […]

New Year’s Eve and Andrew was still stuck in New Winslow. He should have expected it. None of his repeated escape attempts had succeeded, so now here he was at ten pm, bartending at Keegan’s like some bizarre fever dream. Olivia hadn’t been exaggerating. This place was packed. He recognized a few faces, but for […]

Club Apex was nearly empty when Cleo walked in, guitar in one hand, mini-amp in the other. Her footsteps across the scuffed wooden floor echoed throughout the room as she made her way over to the bored bartender. “Hey, Cleo, right?” the woman said. Cleo grinned. “Yeah, that’s me.” The woman returned her smile. She […]