I was halfway through my third stale donut of the night when the universe decided to ruin me.
“Lyla, stop chewing like you live under a bridge,” Max called from the live room, all faux-charm and nicotine breath through the talkback mic. “We’re punching in the chorus again. Our ‘artist’”—he air-quoted the word like it offended him—“needs to sound like she actually feels something.”
I wiped sugar dust off my jeans and slid my headphones back on. “Maybe she’d feel more if you paid her,” I muttered, not quite under my breath.
The intern on the couch snorted. Max didn’t hear. Or he pretended not to.
The track started, another mid-tempo breakup anthem for an Instagram model whose voice would be tuned within an inch of its life—or replaced by mine altogether. I slipped into the melody without thinking. My body knew the drill: straighten spine, relax jaw, deliver ache.
I hit the first line and watched my nameless reflection in the glass between me and the control room. Dark curls shoved into a messy bun, mascara smudged from the twelve-hour session, cheap hoodie I bought in college. The girl behind the glass looked tired and a little feral, like if anyone offered her a way out, she’d take it and never look back.
That should’ve been my warning.
“Good,” Max said when we finished the third take. “Almost like you’ve actually had your heart broken. Again, but with more air on the word ‘never.’ Like you’re suffocating.”
“Love that for me,” I said, stepping out of the booth. My throat burned from pushing emotion into words that weren’t mine. “Can I at least get a credit on this one?”
He laughed like I’d delivered the joke of the year. “You get twenty bucks and free donuts. Aurora Sound doesn’t stick names on demos, you know that.”
Aurora Sound. The monolith on the hill. The label whose rooftop I could almost see if I leaned out the studio’s cracked window and squinted up at the glittering skyline. The place I’d been dreaming about since I moved to LA with a suitcase, three songs, and a completely unjustified sense of destiny.
I took the twenty in crumpled bills and shoved them into my backpack. Rent was due in a week. Nora had already started leaving passive-aggressive Post-its on the fridge about the electric bill.
“Hey.” Max’s tone shifted. Greasier, somehow. “Don’t say I never did anything for you. I got you on the list tonight.”
I blinked. “The list for what?”
He jerked his chin toward the flat-screen replaying a glittery interview on mute. An anchor’s lacquered smile, subtitles screaming: LIVE FROM THE AURORA SOUND SPRING GALA.
I felt my stomach flip. “Shut up.”
He smirked. “One of my old buddies does sound. They had a last-minute cancellation on a staff ticket. I told him I had a girl who could pass for not-embarrassing. You’re welcome.”
Heat rose up my neck. “As what? Coat check?”
“As nobody,” he said bluntly. “You’ll stand in the shadows and pretend you’re too cool for selfies. But you’ll be inside Aurora, Hayes. That’s more than most of the delusional TikTok kids get.”
He slid a laminated pass across the console. The Aurora logo—sleek silver A cutting through a ring of light—glinted in the fluorescent glare.
