I just laugh again and turn back to the controls for a second before stepping to the side and offering him the headphones.
“Your turn!” I call out over the chorus of the Daft Punk song.
“What?”
“Come on!” I step a little closer so he can hear me better. “Do you accept this challenge or not?”
He keeps staring, but he’s not watching me like I’m crazy anymore. He’s watching me like he used to just before he’d grab my face and kiss me.
Nobody else has ever been able to take me over quite like that, to pull me down with them into some secret place where every colour was brighter and every sound skated across my senses like the most delicate of explosions.
He says the words so softly I can’t hear him, but I read his lips. “Challenge accepted.”
He takes the headphones and comes to stand next to me behind the booth. I can feel the heat of his arm right next to mine, and for a second, I forget where we are and what we’re doing. I want him to reach for me. I want to give in.
The song’s bridge bellowing out of the speakers yanks me back into the moment, and I start playing around with the controls on my side again while Youssef searches through the USB contents. I notice him setting up a few of the hot cue buttons out of the corner of my eye—which he’ll be able to push to skip to specific parts of the track he picks—and I almost want to laugh again.
Not much about this has changed. Even when we were kids trying to produce our own tracks on some free laptop software, Youssef was always the one who’d read all the instructions and sit there memorizing every button and switch. He’d listen to a piece of music over and over again until it was like it had seeped into his bones and become part of him, and that’s how he’d manipulate it into anything he wanted.
It doesn’t surprise me that he got into mastering. He has the patience for it, the depth, the ability to step back and observe.
Whereas I always wanted to go, to move, to fling myself into the ring and land on my feet. Music is the one place where I feel like Idon’thave to be calculating.
I nod in approval as Youssef starts fading a second track into the Daft Punk song. I drop my hands to my sides and look over at what he’s doing, shaking my head when Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’ becomes recognizable.
It’s like somebody deliberately filled up a USB with the randomest collection of songs they could find.
Youssef doesn’t look up from the CDJ, but he grins like he knows what I’m thinking. His mix is good—really good. I may have thought that EP he put out was complete pandering and a waste of his talents, but there’s no denying he’s come a fucking long way in six years. Even experienced DJs would pay good money to learn what he’s doing right now.
His focus deepens as he adds more and more intricacies to the song, his body swaying and his tongue pushing against the inside of his cheek as his fingers work the controls. He finishes with an expert and totally unexpected transition into some Tiesto track that shouldn’t work out, but it does. I’m already reaching for the headphones before he’s taken them off, high on the adrenaline I know we’re both feeding off and desperate to keep it flowing.
We play back and forth like that a couple times, weaving our music in and out of one another’s like a dance we’re choreographing on the fly. We don’t miss a step the whole time.
It’s only when we’re both panting and I can feel my neck starting to drip with sweat that Youssef motions for me to set the headphones down instead of taking them out of my hand. I fade the music to silence and turn to look at him as I pull shallow breaths into my lungs.
Then I hear the applause.
I peer past the glare of the stage lights and find a group of about ten club employees gathered on the dance floor, all clapping and shouting their approval.
“Bravo!” one voice calls out above the others. Nabil steps up to the edge of the stage. “Bravo! Now that is what I call chemistry.”
Youssef is laughing and taking a few ironic bows beside me, but I go still as dread starts to climb up my throat. I forgot where we are. I forgotwhowe are, but now I remember, and the fact that we were laughing and smiling just seconds ago makes it hurt even more. I force my feet to move, leaving the stage without looking back.
“Paige!” It only takes him a second to come after me. “Paige, wait.”
I’ve already reached the door out onto the street. I pause with my hand on the push bar.
“What is it?”
“I mean, are you just...gonna go?”
My shoulders tighten.
That’s what you did. You just left.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna go.”
“Don’t.”
