She didn't speak, and she wasn't seen. Esther kept her bass slung across her back, tangled cacbles, collapsible mic stands, and crumpled up lyric sheets heaped inside a black canvas bag scaled with a thousand shiny pins. They represented a thousand different shows, a thousand different bands, clink-clink-clinking as she wound her way down the halls and corridors, using her free hand to hammer out messages across Esper, eyes glued down to the screen. This quarter of the school building was her father's territory, where he taught music and art, and all it took was a little kissing up to convince him to set the band up in one of the spare classrooms. That, or he was sick of hosting them in the garage. All the worst pain in the ass gear would be ready for them, the amps and pedals and the big mixing board that she left Inigo to fiddle with.
There was already noise filtering from under the studio door. A voice she'd never heard, but as familiar to her now as any of her other bandmates, building into crescendo. Esther lifted her eyes from the screen, letting the heavy bag droop to the floorboards. Chris? Her Chris, the one she'd fished out of the club? She slipped through the door, eyes laser-focused on the girl playing like no one was watching. There were talents she hadn't shared.
Esther preferred to stay silent, until she trailed off into silence, only interrupting with a polite golf clap.