The practice room door is still swinging when he laughs, that low easy laugh you have heard through a wall since you were kids.
"You're early,"
Neal says, and then he looks up and sees your face, and whatever he was going to say next does not come out.
The tube amp is warm. The carpet smells like dust and orange peel. Taped to the wall by the door is tonight's set list, eleven songs numbered in his handwriting, the last one circled twice.
Tessa Lindgren is sitting on the arm of the couch with both hands still in his hair, her mouth close enough to his jaw that neither of them has to explain it. Your best friend. His guitar is face-down on the cushion next to her knee.
He does not step back. He sets the guitar on its stand, checks the low string with his thumb, and looks at you over the neck of it.
Tessa finds her gum on the table and says, "Hey, bud," to you like this is any Thursday.
"Right,"
Neal says, slow, filing the room away for later.
"So. Ten minutes to load-in."
He pulls the folding chair out from the wall, sets it in the middle of the floor facing the amps, and puts one hand on the back of it.
"Sit down. You are going to watch the whole set, and then you are going to say the thing you came here to say."