“Don’t be like that. I said I was sorry. What else do you want?”

“I just want to do my job and go home.”

“You’re ridiculous, Auden.” Aleksandr pounded the locker-room door with his fist, and I flinched. He spun around and trudged to the showers. Had we been in a cartoon, steam would have been pouring from his ears.

“He’s not interested,” an unfamiliar Russian voice said.

Startled, I turned to see Pilots forward Pavel Gribov standing so close that I could smell the grape sports drink on his breath. I backed away. “Excuse me?”

He slithered into my space, towering over me as he leaned close. His face gleamed, slimy with game sweat, and there was a black void where his two front teeth should have been. “He has no interest in you. If you want to tease someone’s cock, I’ve got one right here.” He grabbed his crotch, jiggling the front of his gray boxer briefs at me.

I tightened my hold on my messenger bag, shuddering as I elbowed my way past him. The interaction with him reminded me of an old saying I’d modified.

When the going gets tough, get going.

Chapter 5

“So when’s your audition?” Kristen asked, plopping onto the couch next to me.

Kristen and Lacy came over to hang out at my grandparents’ house, which I appreciated because I still felt like a child around my grandparents, despite my age. My friends created a sense of normalcy and kept my head in a relatively mature place.

“Sorry?” I asked. Page fifty-three of my book should have been ingrained in my memory, considering the amount of time I stared at it. But instead of reading, I was analyzing Aleksandr’s aggravating shenanigans. The more I obsessed about it, the more irritated I became. If the intense, emotional, pissed-off frenzy going on in my head could manifest itself physically, I’d be covered in hives.

“When’s the singing audition with the hipster from Canada? I thought for sure you’d tell us so we could help you pick out something to wear,” Kristen explained as she leaned toward me to tuck her lower leg under her butt.

“And a song,” Lacy added, wandering into the living room with a plate piled with apple slices and graham crackers. Gram must be at work in the kitchen. It was her trademark snack to make for my friends. Throw in some hot chocolate, and I was in second grade again. So much for feeling like an adult.

“Oh, um, yeah. I haven’t called him.” I removed from my book the beer coaster on which Greg had written his number.

“I can’t believe you haven’t called him yet.” Kristen snatched the coaster out of my hand. “I’m doing it.”

“KK, don’t,” I pleaded, reaching for the coaster.

“What can it hurt?” she asked, pulling her cell phone out of her back pocket. “It’s only a tryout.”

I shrugged and looked down at my book. What would it hurt? After being cut from the soccer team, I was one kick in the gut away from shaving my head and going on a deranged Twitter rant. I should start taking drugs, so I would have something to blame it all on.

“If you don’t want me to call, I won’t,” Kristen said. She held up the coaster in one hand and her cell phone in the other.

I took a deep breath and swiveled my head between Kristen and Lacy. They would be disappointed in me if I didn’t do it, and, more important, I’d be disappointed in myself. An unfamiliar, narcissistic gnawing feeling plagued me, telling me I needed to be good at something again. I hated feeling like a disappointment.

I closed my eyes and let out my breath. “All right, go ahead.”

“You sure?” Kristen asked.

“Just do it before I change my mind.” I covered my face with my hands, refusing to watch as Kristen dialed the numbers scrawled on the coaster.

“May I speak to Greg, please?” Kristen asked, sounding confident and professional. “I’m calling on behalf of Auden Berezin. Who am I? Um, I’m her manager?” She covered the mouthpiece to conceal her laugh.

I kicked her shin with my bare foot. Lacy threw an apple slice at her.

“When can she meet you?” Kristen paused and put her finger in her free ear after waving to shut us up. “Tonight is perfect. Yes. Sure. She’ll be there. Thanks, Greg. Nice speaking with you.” Kristen flipped her phone shut. “That’s how it’s done, ladies.”

“Tonight? It’s tonight?” I asked.

“Well, if you would have called sooner, you might have had more time to prepare,” she scolded.

“So you’re her manager?” Lacy asked. “Does that mean you get a cut of what she makes?”

“Whoa.” I held my hands out in front of me. “Let’s see if I get the job before we talk about who gets cuts of what. It might pay in beer for all we know.”

“Almost as good as cash,” Kristen said. Then she clasped her hands together. “What are you gonna wear?”

“What are you going to sing?” Lacy asked.

I fell back onto the couch. “I don’t know. I need to start getting ready now.”

“Your audition isn’t until eight. Eight o’clock at his place,” Kristen told me.

I turned my head to look at her. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, that’s what he said,” Kristen answered, feigning innocence.

“Please throw another apple at her,” I told Lacy. Eight o’clock at Greg’s place. A whole new flood of nerves hit me. “I was hoping it would be more of an afternoon audition in a garage.”

“Singing for a hot man after dark,” Lacy said with a sigh. “Lucky girl.”

“He wasn’t hot,” I said.

“That’s because you love Crazy Hair,” Kristen teased.

“Speaking of him,” I began. “Turns out he’s the client that Viktor got me a job with.”

“No!” Kristen and Lacy said in unison.

“Yeah. So that was awkward.”

“Spill,” Kristen commanded.

“The jackass played a prank on me on my first night translating. Saying a ton of stuff I couldn’t tell reporters. I had to make up answers on the spot. It was super embarrassing.”

“Why would he do that?” Lacy asked.

“He said it’s what hockey players do. Prank the rookies.” Just thinking about it got me all worked up. Again.

“What did he say?” Kristen asked.

“He made fun of a reporter’s glasses and said I had a nice ass.”

“And you’re mad, why?” Kristen asked.

“Come on, KK. It was my first night on the job. He was trying to make me mess up and look like an idiot.”

When Kristen started to open her mouth, I leaned over and put my palm over it.

“Stop. Even if I do find it in my heart to forgive him, I cannot date him. He is my client. In a professional job,” I said.

Kristen licked my hand, and I recoiled, wiping it against my jeans. “You’re disgusting.”

“I just think you’re making too big a deal of it,” she said. “I’m not saying it wasn’t a jerk-off thing to do. I’m just saying it could’ve been way worse.”

“Greg told me I didn’t have stage presence.” Subject change. Kristen scrunched up her face and stuck her tongue out at me. I ignored her. “How do I get that?”

“One word. Sexy. You have to have a sexy outfit and a sexy song,” Lacy began. “And you have to sing it sexy. You have to make him want to get in your pants before the song is through. But don’t let him,” she warned. “He’s sort of like your boss, isn’t he?”

“Okay,” I said, sitting up, rolling my head from shoulder to shoulder like I was about to check into the biggest game of my life. “Ultimate sexiness and no getting in my pants. Got it. Anything else?”

Lacy burst out laughing. “You need to wear those leather pants you have. You do have a great ass.”

Guess Aleksandr had been right.

“I think black, smoky eyes with a red lip, very rock and roll!” Kristen said. “Maybe a nude lip. Red might be a bit much with the eyes.”

“Definitely red. A matte rather than a gloss. We want to make an impact, remember,” Lacy agreed.

I stopped listening, since it was clear I was out of the equation. Let these girls figure out my look. I had to come up with a song and that “stage presence.” Why wasn’t a song popping out at me? Maybe because I didn’t know what an audition song was supposed to be. I didn’t know what songs worked best with my voice. When I sang, it would be whatever I was thinking about or listening to at the time.