Soulmates

Chapter Five

Nico liked guitar. In fact, it was one of the things he felt was the best about being in the pit. He didn't care if playing drew attention to himself, no one care about him outside of social media.

He hadn't wanted to join technical theatre until the school board defunded the guitar program, infinitely leading to the shut down. He needed an elective, and Jason suggested theatre. Nico told him he couldn't act to save his life, then Jason said, "Not Theatre, technical theatre. Mr. Apollo said he needed more pit members, and it's an easy A. You always perform in the pit anyway, so it can't be that different."

He was right. Nico played piano in the pit most of the time, but this year Mr. Apollo needed a guitarist, and Nico was happy to give him one. The guitar, acoustic, rhythm, lead, classical, you name it, Nico could play it.

Now, Nico was sight reading the chords from the music he received the day before. It was a bit of a challenge, as he didn't play folk that much. He had to practice every moment he could if he was going to have the audition bars mastered in three weeks. He mumbled the lyrics to Epic II as he played along.

"King of silver." Am. "King of gold." G.

It hurt to even mumble the lyrics on key. The notes were way out of his range as a tenor and baritone,  he didn't know how the countertenors did it.

Nico continued strumming the notes, occasionally adding rhythm and altering notes. It made the song sound a bit less like a Garageband loop.

Annabeth sat next to him. Nico was familiar with Annabeth, she was almost always PM in the musicals. She was one of the few who knew Nico by name and treated him like a decent person, not including his cousins.

"Hey, Nico," Annabeth said. "Can you ask Jason about the number of people auditioning? We have the info meeting tonight."

"He said all of musical theatre and a few chorus kids."

"Great, I'll see you at the meeting tonight."

"Wait, what do you think the pit number will be?"

"Seven."

Nico's heart skipped a beat at the small number. He remembered his All-State quartet last year.

Nico sighed. "It really isn't that hard to play in sync, and Grover it's A flat, we've been over this."

I should have just done the solo, or conducted an ensemble, that way the mistakes other people make won't be noticeable.

"Okay," Nico said. "Let's just start it from the top, we'll do eighty-eight beats per minutes this time."

That was with four people with instruments in the same key. He couldn't picture different keys, with orchestra and band together. It was going to be a pain in his ass.

Nico sat outside the cafeteria and tuned his guitar. He wasn't exactly sure why he had to attend this meeting, but all of tech was required to be there.

He looked up, trying to find Jason. He was supposed to come with a few other people: Leo, Drew, Piper, and Lacy. How he knew Piper McLean, Nico didn't know.

Nico looked back at his tuning keys. He didn't want to play Hadestown scores anymore. He'd been playing the songs all day. So, he tuned his strings to E, F#m, Bm, G, A: the chords to Hey There Delilah.

It wasn't his favorite song, but it was certainly better than trying to play Flowers for the fiftieth time.

He had started playing the first few chords before a blond guy sat next to him. Nico wasn't bothered by it, the boy wasn't bothering him, and most of the other benches were taken.