When the Lights Come On (Barflies Book 4) Read online

  I give him a look. “Did you just say congrats?”

  He chuckles. “Maybe I did.”

  I shake my head and finish off my drink. “You seem to have enjoyed your fair share of free champagne, my friend.”

  “Cheers to that. You should get picked to headline major club openings more often.”

  “Mmm.”

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me. ‘Mmm’ is all I’ve had to say since I showed up to what I thought was going to be drinks with Nabil. What it turned out to be was a surprise announcement party organized by my manager. Thanks to a world-renowned DJ dropping out last minute, I’ll be one of the opening weekend headliners at a new mega club in Montreal that’s supposedly going to take the North American electronic music scene by storm.

  Luxe.

  That’s what they’re calling the place, and it’s all anyone in the industry has been talking about for over a year. The doors are set to open in November. There aren’t even any DJs in Montreal big enough to be in the same realm as the other headliners, but according to my manager, the Luxe people wanted to showcase some local talent with the vacant Sunday night slot.

  So here we are.

  I look around the private room of the bistro booked for the occasion. There are close to thirty people here, milling around with champagne flutes in hand or sitting at the clusters of tables and armchairs. I only recognize a handful of them. Mohammad, my manager, is propped against the drinks table, his slightly loosened tie the only indication that he’s at a party and not a board meeting. He waves his hands around as he tells a story to a few industry execs, his signature silver rings glinting in the room’s dim light.

  “You know for a guy who just found out he’s headlining Luxe, you don’t look too excited.”

  I flick my eyes back to Nabil and try to fake the enthusiasm I should be feeling, but all that comes out is, “Mmm.”

  It’s like someone stole all the words out of my brain. This is my moment. I should be leaping around the room like an idiot, spraying Champagne from the bottle. I should be happy.

  “Mmm.” Nabil puts on a fake scowl. “Mmm. Urghh. Grawrrr.”

  I give him my best deadpan stare, but he’s not deterred.

  “Mmmmm. UGHHH!” He hunches over his knees and starts dragging his fists along the floor like a caveman. A couple people nearby look over and laugh.

  “Okay, hemar. Knock it off before you become the night’s entertainment.”

  He keeps grunting, the caveman routine getting more and more elaborate until even I have to laugh.

  “There. See?” He slumps back in his chair again. “We’re at a party. It’s fun.”

  I gesture around the room. “You’ve been working weekends way too long if you think this is a fun party.”

  “Fuck, I have been.” He drags a hand through his black hair and leaves a few strands standing up on end. “I haven’t been out on a Saturday night in...I don’t even know how long. That’s why Mohammad knew you wouldn’t cancel if I asked you to grab drinks.”

  “Yeah, when you first suggested it, I thought you were about to tell me your club burned down.”

  Nabil has been managing The Cube Room, a big nightclub and concert venue downtown, for the past few years. We met back when he was their assistant stage manager. I’d gotten a part time job as one of the club’s lighting riggers while finishing engineering school, and a bond of eternal brotherhood was formed. He got me booked for my first big gig. He’s also worked almost every weekend since we were young enough to still get carded at bars.

  “Another rum and coke?” The waitress I’ve been ordering my drinks from pauses beside my chair with a tray of empty Champagne glasses clutched in her hands.

  “I’m, uh...”

  Too preoccupied with how terrifyingly disconnected I feel from my own life to enjoy the comforts of alcohol?

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Anything for you?”

  I follow her gaze to Nabil and realize he’s even more far gone than I thought. Nabil hasn’t so much as talked about women since his ex left him six months ago, never mind stare at a girl the way he’s watching the waitress.

  He sits up straighter and runs a hand through his hair again, which just leaves it even more messed up than before. “I am...cood.”

  “Cood?” I repeat as the waitress stifles a laugh.

  “I mean good!” He goes for a third hair tousle as he lets out a chuckle that I think is supposed to sound suave. “I was trying to say cool and good at the same time. Ha.”

  I swivel my head to see the waitress nod at him and smiles. “Cood.”

  We both watch her leave, long braids swishing against her back as she steps through the thick curtains that separates the party room from the rest of the bistro.

  I turn back to Nabil. “Smooth.”

  He jumps up out of his chair without answering.

  “Where are you going, man?” I call after him.

  “Wherever she’s going.”

  I don’t have time to persuade him otherwise before he’s disappearing through the curtains too.

  “That is not going to end well,” I say to the final remaining ice cube in my glass.

  It’s still nice to see him happy, or at least drunk and having fun. This is exactly the kind of night we talked about back when we’d pull twelve hour shifts together at The Cube Room: bottomless champagne, clinking glasses with the most powerful people in the Montreal music scene. This is the kind of stuff we’d imagine whenever someone spilt beer on the CDJs, or an artist lost their shit and refused to play, or a fuse blew in the middle of somebody’s set. This was always the moment we’d joke about reaching someday.

  Somehow, it felt so much more real when it was a vision on the horizon and not something I held in my hands, something that seems to seep through the gaps between my fingers whenever I squeeze it tight.

  I shake my head at the thought.

  Maybe the rum really is working.

  Mohammad pulls me out of my trance by sliding into Nabil’s seat and tapping a Champagne flute against my empty glass. “I’ll say it again: fe sahatek, my rising star. My prodigy. The brightest light of my career. Tell me, how does it feel to have all your dreams come true?”

  “It’s uh...”

  I look away from his grinning face and scan the room for what feels like the millionth time tonight. I might as well be floating above my chair. That’s how unreal this whole evening has felt. I spent all day today working my day job as a mastering engineer at a hole in the wall recording studio. Now I’m shaking hands with people important enough to make or break a whole career in minutes.

  Mohammad pats me on the shoulder. “I think you’re in shock. That’s what I’ve been telling everyone. It happens when artists get big news.”

  “Mmm.”

  Mohammad chuckles. “Just try to talk to some people before the party’s over. I don’t think we want to go with the whole brooding artist thing for you. You’re too new to pull it off. They’ll think you’re temperamental. So shake some hands, okay?” He gives me another shoulder pat. “Big smiles, shining star!”

  He gets up to talk to some suits again, and I’m once more left to my thoughts. He’s probably right; it’s probably just shock. I don’t know if shock is supposed to make you feel like the walls are closing in around you and you’re being squeezed out of your own body, but who’s to say?

  I do know I have to get out of this room. Even the air is starting to feel wrong in my lungs, and every second that passes makes it worse.

  I need to move. I need to breathe. I need to feel something instead of just sitting here digging my hands into the leather seat of this chair like it’s a life raft in a huge, bottomless ocean.

  The thought intensifies until it’s the loudest thing in my head: I need to get out of this room fast.

  I push myself to my feet, half-expecting the floor to start tilting under me as I do, and then stride over to the curtains. I don’t look at anyone; I just focu
s on the gap between the sheets of velvet until I’m through and into the main room of the bistro. It’s cooler out here, the windows open to let the night in while people sit at candlelit tables or stand by the bar, but it’s not enough. I need to get out, need it more and more with every second, need it so bad my heart has started ramming itself against my chest like it’s trying to lead the charge.

  I lock my gaze onto the door that leads to Avenue Mont-Royal and start speed-walking my way over, my last shred of self-awareness keeping me from breaking into an all-out sprint.

  “Youssef!”

  I don’t notice Nabil standing at the bar until he grabs my arm as I’m walking by. The grin drops off his face when he gets a look at me.

  “Yo, you okay?”

  “Need some air,” I manage to get out through gritted teeth. I break away from his grasp and lunge for the exit.

  The relief is instant as soon as I’m through the door. The night air is tinged with exhaust fumes and the smells of greasy pub food coming from the few bars still serving food this late, but it tastes a million times better than the stifling atmosphere at the party. The sidewalk around me is splashed with a neon glow that paints the faces of people passing by, their smiles stretched wide as they stumble after one another.

  And there’s music.

  It’s distant and muffled, a dozen different bass beats warring for attention as they pump out of all the bars and clubs, but it’s everything I need. It’s that solid thing I can hold onto. It’s real.

  “Youssef, what the fuck? What’s going on?”

  Nabil spots me a second after flinging the bistro’s door open and comes to stand in front of me where I’m leaning against the window of a closed boutique next door. “You looked like you were going to puke. Are you going to puke?”

  “No.” I close my eyes for a second and take a breath. “I am not going to puke, Nabil.”

  “Okayyyy.” He peers into my face like he’s trying to check my pupils.

  “I’m fine.” I side-step around him. “I just needed to...to...”

  I don’t know how to describe what just went down. It’s been happening more and more lately. I look around the sidewalk again instead of finishing my sentence and spot the sign spelled out on the letter board attached to the bar across the street:

  Beach Party Night this Saturday!

  Special cocktails and two for one shots until 11

  DJ set from the famous Chanly @ 11:30

  Bring a towel cuz it’s gonna get WET!

  Chanly. I know that name. I know of most DJs in the Montreal-Toronto stratosphere by now, and while I can’t place Chanly right away, it sounds familiar.

  “Hey Nabil, have you ever heard of Chanly?”

  He stares at me like he’s even more convinced I must be high.

  “What?”

  I point across the street. “Chanly. It sounds familiar.”

  “Uh...” He looks back and forth between me and the sign. “Chanly, Um...Oh! Yeah, yeah I saw her at Piknic Électronik this summer. She’s the girl I kept telling you about, remember? That’s probably why it sounds familiar. She’s fucking good—like, really fucking good. I wanted her for The Cube Room, but I never found out who her manager is.”

  I nod as the memory comes flooding back. Nabil really couldn’t stop talking about her, and he’s worked this industry long enough that it takes a lot to impress him.

  “We should go.”

  I need a distraction. I need a reason not to go back into that bistro.

  “Go...where?”

  “To the show. Let’s go see her.”

  He blinks. “Right...now?”

  “Yes.” I check for cars and step to the edge of the sidewalk, but Nabil grabs my arm before I can cross the street.

  “Youssef, you’re, like, kind of freaking me the fuck out. You’re acting...weird.”

  “I just want to see the show.”

  I just want to be lost in a crowd, lost in a song, lost in anything but my own body.

  “What about the party?”

  “Fuck the party.”

  It comes out way louder and harsher than I meant. Nabil’s eyes go wide.

  I let my shoulders drop and step back from the edge of the sidewalk. “Look, I just...I thought this was going to be you and me having a night out. I wasn’t expecting all of...that. So let’s go to a show. Let’s have a night out. It’s been way too fucking long since we did that.”

  He’s silent for a moment, and then he brings a hand to his heart. “That is so fucking sweet, man.”

  “Fuck off.”

  I give him the finger, but we’re both grinning now.

  “Okay, but can I go back and get that waitress’s number?”

  I punch him in the arm. “Go get her, playah. I’ll meet you in line.”

  I force myself to steady my breaths as I stand in the back of the small line waiting to get into the bar. I realize just how tense I’d gotten as my muscles finally start to relax.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. It’s never built up so much that I’ve had to run out of a restaurant, but lately, every piece of news from Mohammad or board room meeting with some big shot or stats update about how many times my stuff has been streamed on Spotify leaves me with a clenched jaw and a hollow pit in my stomach.

  I distract myself by taking a better look at the bar. There’s a sign hanging overhead with its name spelt out in typewriter font: Taverne Toulouse. Another jolt of recognition hits. I’ve never played here, but it’s a solid starter venue for DJs building up their career. It used to be an infamously dingy dive bar that mostly catered to drunk college kids, but from what I’ve heard, it’s gotten way more upscale in the past couple years.

  Then again, they are hosting Beach Party Night.

  “Hey, Youssef!” Nabil calls out as he crosses the street. “Did you bring your towel? Cuz it’s gonna get wet!”

  The eight or so people in line all whoop and clap in response. It takes a good ten minutes to get inside, and by then, the DJ is due to go on. The place is so packed I can’t see much besides people in bathing suits wearing the free shutter shades they’re handing out at the door. I passed, but Nabil is already thoroughly enjoying his. He yells something beside me as we inch our way through the crowd.

  “What?” I shout.

  “I SAID,” he screams into my ear, “WOO! BEACH PARTY!”

  We pass by a shirtless guy with an actual inner tube around his waist, and he gives Nabil a fist bump.

  I start to wonder what exactly I’ve subjected myself to here.

  We manage to secure ourselves a spot not too far from the booth. I can see someone moving around up there, a hoodie pulled up over their head as they fuck around with the gear. I assume it’s Chanly, and I feel for the girl. This crowd is rowdy. The show is only going to go one of two ways: they’ll be super into it and spend the night dancing their asses off, or they’ll stand there screaming for her to play Justin Bieber.

  I check the time on my phone and see she’s only got a couple minutes before her start time. A few other people notice her up there, and I’m impressed when they begin calling her name. The whole first few rows of the dance floor seem to be filled with people who are here specifically for her. The promise of a performance sparks and catches like wildfire, and it’s not long before the entire room is chanting the same thing.

  The hairs on my arms rise as the energy in the bar coalesces into a single point of focus and anticipation. The chorus of “Chanly! Chanly! Chanly!” is so loud it’s deafening, the only thing I can hear or think as I let my voice join in too.

  Just when the tension has reached a nearly panicked pitch, a strobe light streaks over the crowd, splitting time into a dozen fractured moments as the wail of a siren pierces the air.

  It gets louder and louder, and I watch the girl behind the booth in the moments between the flashes of the strobe light. She twists a dial on one of the panels in front of her, and in the second after she cuts off the s
iren, just before she drops her first beat, she throws her head back and turns her face to the ceiling. Her hood slips off, and I get my first clear look at her.

  I don’t hear the start of the song. I don’t hear the screams of the crowd as they begin jumping around to the rhythm. I don’t hear anything except a static whine in my ears as I stare and stare and stare.

  Paige.

  I’d notice her anywhere.

  Most people would. No matter how much she hates it or how hard she tries to hide it, she’s always been the kind of beautiful that people just don’t know what the fuck to do with, but that’s not why my world feels like it’s splitting at the seams as I look at her now.

  It’s because she’s Paige.

  Paige Rivera.

  She’s right there in front of me: the girl I haven’t seen or heard from for more than six years.

  Three

  Paige

  CUE: A control on a DJ system that plays a song from a pre-selected point in the track

  “Tiens, chérie!” DeeDee passes me a water bottle and leans against the kitchen counter beside me. I can still hear the crowd going crazy out in the bar as the staff announce last call.

  My set ended a couple minutes ago, and I’m so drenched in sweat I’m tempted to pour the whole bottle over my head. I twist the top off and start gulping it down as DeeDee beams at me in the empty kitchen.

  “Câlice! That was incroyable! You are a DJ goddess, Paige.”

  I set the half-empty bottle down and take a few panting breaths, returning her grin in spite of myself.

  I’m electrified, high off the crowd and the music and the thrill of creation. My heart pounds against my ribs, pumping invincibility through my whole body.

  It’s like I’ve died and like I could never die all at once. It’s a feeling I’ll crave for as long as I live.

  “I have to go back out there, but some of us are getting noodles after we do the close. You must come!” DeeDee urges.

  I nod, her words not really registering as the buzz keeps working its way through my system. I’m still sky high and gulping down water when she heads back out to the bar. I unzip my hoodie and pull on my damp t-shirt to air it out.