"Ideally? Yeah, it could if I had found this out earlier. There is no way we would be able to get someone booked today for a performance tonight," he said.
"Would you have to cancel the luau?" Abby asked.
"I don't want it to come to that," he said, looking stressed.
Sounded rough. Running a hotel must have been a pretty shitty job, now that I thought about it. Maybe he liked it; there had to be people that did. He hadn't said anything after that. Had he come to make the announcement, or had he actually wanted us to tell him what to do?
I looked at Abby and noticed her looking at me. Makani and Joseph were, too. They all were. I looked between each of their faces and realized what the fuck they wanted.
"No."
"Please, Nate," Abby said.
"No. I'm not doing a show."
"Nate, it's one of the last luaus of the season; we can't cancel it," she insisted.
"It would be a huge favor," Joseph said. I looked over at Abby who was looking up at me, making this face I wished she'd stop making. Her eyes were big and blue, and I didn't stand a chance.
"Don't look at me like that, Abby," I said.
"Please?" she asked coyly. Shit.
"This isn't fair," I sighed. I looked between the three of them again before nodding. The girls cheered. Joseph exhaled, looking really relieved.
"Thank you, Nate. Of course, I don't expect you to do anything without compensation," he said. I didn't care about being compensated. I cared about not doing this shit in the first place because I didn't fucking want to.
I told him it was fine. He asked me to go with him to talk to the event coordinator about set up and what I would need for the performance. I couldn't believe I was doing this again.
I had done all this before already. When I had gotten myself in the last luau, I had had to come to Joseph and basically beg for a four-minute block to do my thing. That had been different, though. It had been four minutes, and it had been for Abby because I was out of options to get her attention. This was almost twenty minutes. This was an entire set, and they thought I had enough to do it alone.
I ended up back at my suite when Joseph was done with me. As good a place as any. I mean, I had to practice now, I had a show.
Abby didn't come back up until her shift was over and the luau was just a couple hours away. During that time, I'd put together a set list, mostly things I had written on the island since the summer had begun and just one or two Remus throwbacks.
I wasn't worried about what I would play; I was worried about playing at all. Once Abby arrived, it was like she was enough of an audience to make me start freaking out about performing. The anxiety had been slowly building the whole day, but we were just a few hours out now, and I had never in my life been this nervous to get on a stage.
I had always banked on my music as the one thing I was good at. Not today, though. I was shitting myself. She was sitting on my bed, waiting for me to get ready so we could leave.
"Babe?" I asked.
"Hmm?"
"Do you think Joseph would kick me out if I refused to do the performance?" I asked lightly, looking back at her from the closet.
"He would probably kick a few people out. Are you still nervous?"
"I haven't performed since I was with the band, Abby."
"What about the last time you sang, with the guitar?"
"That was different. I wasn’t performing, I was trying to get you back. That was one song, this is a set, and I am alone. I joined a fucking band in the first place so I wouldn't have to do that."
"You have this, Nate; you're a musical genius," she said.
"This can't be my first performance after leaving Remus. I can't choke the first time I get on a stage. Everyone who told me I was an idiot for leaving is going to be right."
"No, they aren't," she said, standing and walking up to me. "You're a fantastic musician. You don't have to prove that to anybody because there is no question. All you have to do is go up there and do what you can do with your eyes closed already."