by Katie Porter
Perhaps there’s some level of karmic retribution. The audience’s energy thins and nearly disappears. I push hard, trying to get them riled up again. They don’t respond, even when I hand the chorus off to audience participation.
I find myself looking out at a sea of blank faces. My skin becomes a size too small. The back of my neck prickles. I look to Ian, but he’s looking back at me with his mouth pressed in a grim line. There’s no way out, no way to gracefully end the song early. My only way through is forward.
But holy fuck am I relieved when it’s over. My palm is sweaty where it’s wrapped tight around my microphone. I ignore the impulse to wipe my thigh. Instead I shake my wrists and run my hand through my hair. Equally sweaty. Nicholas catches my gaze. He lifts an eyebrow, looking both smug and worried at the same time. Nervous fucking blighter.
We kick into the next song in the setlist. It’s hard to launch the audience back into the stratosphere. They’re noticeably cooler, even when I move to the very front of the stage and make myself more available. Fewer hands on me now. Less affection. I’m hitting the notes. Lee and Ian are killing it. Nicholas is wailing away.
But we get them. We have them. I catch air around my notes, my lungs expanding. I feel amazing, and I think that makes the crowd respond. I’m back among them, this time at the far side of the line array speakers. I’m enfolded. Hands reach for me. Fingers catch on my belt. I slide one person away from the mic box at my waist, but otherwise it’s pretty fair game. A young man spreads his hand wide in the middle of my chest.
Even while I adore every moment, I find myself looking up at the balcony where Harlow stands. Wondering what she’ll think of this.
The rest of the concert flies by. We play twenty songs, and by the time we leave the stage, the audience is gagging for an encore. Two songs don’t begin to calm them down. The wave of applause keeps coming back to us, absolutely thunderous considering the relatively small number of people. Maybe fifteen hundred. Nothing in the scheme of music. But it’s what we needed and what they needed. I put my arms up wide. They only cheer louder.
I wait for a strategic drop in the noise before speaking. It’s not my usual thing, to speak at the end of a concert. The lads and I normally strut offstage, buoyed by waves of noise. Well. We did for our first years, before the end of the band, when we were too angry and self-absorbed to notice anything else. This is different. I can’t speak for them, but I know I’m fairly stunned.
“Thank you. This is...” I trail off, unable to think. I look at each of my mates. “This is everything I’ve wanted for years.”
I hope my friends—the brothers-in-arms I’ve missed more than anything—I hope they know how much I mean it. The crowd seems to understand, because another din crests. We ride it offstage. Nicholas tosses a drumstick into a sea of grappling hands. Lee and Ian applaud our happy faithful as they depart. Then I go.
I’m leaving the stage behind, but not for good.
The Skies will be back again.
The mood behind stage is ebullient. We’re flying high. The support staff is stoked, full-on back-patting and trying to hand us beers. Ian takes one. Nicholas requests a cider. I grab two bottles of water and drain one within seconds. The four of us spill into the small dressing room, practically on top of one another.
Ian hops onto the love seat, thrusting both fists in the air. “Fuck yes!”
“You can say that again.” Lee pushes his hair back with both hands. He’s sweaty too, and I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a better word than ecstatic.
My skin is cooling fast. “Nicholas? Your vote?”
He leans against the wall beside the small dressing mirror. Once upon a time, we would stand in much grander surroundings than this. Rooms decorated by interior designers and couches full of waiting sycophants. Champagne on ice. Lines on the counters. We got high, we partied, and somewhere along the way we started fighting. We got critical and started analyzing what was once as natural as breathing.
Nicholas is more at ease now. His remaining drumstick dangles from one hand. His ankles cross, and I can’t remember the last time he was this calm. He knows it’s worth it when the music is pure. When the audience is there because they love us, not because it’s expected of them or us.
He nods. “I think it’s going to work.”
“You think.” Ian laughs as incredulity and his own happiness color his words. “You think! Get down off your high horse, ya daft bloke. The Brixton Academy is only going to get better.”
I’m glad he’s saying it, because I’m not the one Nicholas can hear it from. There are still too many shadows there.
“We’ll need to talk about ‘Righteous Down’ and those other flops.” Nicholas fixes me with an intense look. “They have to go.”
I shift uncomfortably, passing my second water bottle from hand to hand. I know the double meaning. He wants them gone because they sank the gig’s entire mood, and he wants them gone because he didn’t play on “Righteous Down.” That means it wasn’t truly an album by The Skies. I need to find a way to tell him that.
“I think you’re right,” I say.
Nicholas stares me down. “Which should mean we’re not touching that new one either.”
He means that singular gem I found on Silas’ USB drive. I’ve learned it already—I couldn’t help but learn it, as it pinged around my head, over and over again. A song about loss and regret. It calls to me. I’ve played it for the lads. They liked the music but not where it came from. There are chains on the lyrics, on the melody.
“We have a few more practices,” I say. “Time to decide. We can talk about it in depth later.”
“Talk about what?” Harlow stands in the open doorway. Her purse dangles from one hand, her hip tilted to the side. Her white blouse makes her tanned skin glow. She looks smashing.
I hold out one arm. She comes immediately to my side. Nicholas lifts an eyebrow and trades a glance with Lee. Ian’s mouth folds but none of them say anything. They’re too high on adrenaline. So am I or I wouldn’t be quite so bold. Harlow fits against me, aligned beneath my shoulder and pressed against my ribs. Her hand finds the open front of my shirt and settles on my stomach. I’m a sweaty mess and she doesn’t mind, and I love that.
“Business,” I say.
Business she doesn’t need to be bothered with. The emotional toll would be unkind.
A small knot of people swarm in behind her. A bloke with green hair and a face tattoo carries in drinks, then disappears. Ian and a couple roadies stay to start celebrating, but they’re doing it with cider and a cheese plate. The times have changed for the better.
Harlow looks up at me. I want to kiss the slight curve of her mouth. Taste her lips. That would be too much to ask of Nicholas’s patience. I settle for coasting my hand low across her back, just above the exquisite curve of her arse.
It’s still too much. Nicholas’s eyes narrow. I expect him to be pissed, but even Lee crosses his arms over his chest.
“This is really happening,” Nicholas says with an icy voice. “The two of you.”
“It certainly seems like it.” I keep my words measured and calm. One of my old habits was to assume I know what people think of me. I anticipated their judgement before it existed. I won’t do it now.
Nicholas shakes his head and a sardonic smile creeps to life. “Does Silas know?”
Harlow rolls her bottom lip between her teeth. “Yes. Though he’s not happy about it.”
“He does?” I ask without thought. I’m too shocked.
“Oh, ho.” Nicholas flips the drumstick and catches it without even looking. “Trouble in paradise. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll leave you two to this grave you’ve dug.” He disappears into the crowd that’s filled the small backstage rooms.
I touch the square corner of Harlow’s jaw. Her brown eyes are troubled. “How did he find out?”
“His nursing staff, I guess? Knowing both of us so long? But that’s not the worst of it.” She looks
at Lee and Ian before she answers, but they’ve moved on, talking and gesturing to each other. Still, she pitches her voice low. “Dad’s in the hospital.”
“Do you need to go home?”
“In the morning. It’s scans and stuff. I’ve switched my ticket to the first train out in the morning. I don’t mean to bother you, but I want you to know why I can’t stay out late if you guys go... I don’t know, party or something.”
I give in to the impulse and take her mouth. It’s hard to not kiss the woman I love, especially when she’s being self-effacing. I want to lay the world at her feet. She doesn’t need to look so worried, like I’ll be upset if she doesn’t go get shitfaced or try some other juvenile post-gig bullshit.
Her relief has a flavor. Grief and the bitter juniper of gin twine together. She curls her hand around the open placket of my shirt, her thumb tracing a line down my ribs. Our combined heat drives away the cool air that was drying my skin.
She pulls back to look into my eyes, although we’re still so close that her rapid breathing is its own type of caress over my mouth. “I suppose that means you’re not mad at me for coming back here?”
I frame her face with both hands. If I tell her that I love her right now, she won’t believe me. Not after this high. Not when I’m charged with adrenaline and possibilities. In truth, I don’t think she can believe in love that comes without strings. She’d see it as a ploy or a trick.
Soon. I’ll tell her soon.
“No, Harlow. I’m not mad at you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Harlow
THE FIRST EUROSTAR train from Paris to London leaves at seven-fifteen in the morning, which hadn’t seemed early when I booked it. By the time I stand on the platform with a coffee and my suitcase, blearily blinking at the departure boards, I think it’s insanely early. Stupidly early.
How much easier it is, though, to stand here with Alec next to me...
Okay, that thought is almost embarrassing. But it’s true.
Some kind of rock star he is, as we sit together in business class. Alec looks like he’s on his way to an office rather than heading home from a successful gig. He wears slim trousers and highly polished shoes. A sweater is layered over another of his impeccably tailored button-down shirts. His legs are crossed, knees cocked to the side in a slightly femme pose. He has effortless grace, the kind Grace Kelly had—something that transcends anything male or female or in between, rising to the level of astral beings.
He holds a hardbacked book. Who the hell buys them anymore? I mean, I’ve enjoyed that author before, but I can’t remember the last time I saw someone shell out the cash for hardcover over an e-book. Knowing him, it’s not about appearance or splashing out some cash. I think back to the library on the third floor of his rowhouse. For Alec, it’s about touching and keeping a physical thing.
That’s worrying. I manage to turn every stray thought about Alec into some metaphor for the two of us.
He looks like a man ready for a boardroom, while I’m kicking it in a pair of jeans and a Prince T-shirt. I have a sweater as well, but mine cost twelve bucks at Mission Thrift. I’ve twisted it into a knot and shoved between me and the train’s hard armrest. I spend most of the two-hour ride on my tablet. First I answer an email from Dalia that’s lingered in my inbox for a shamefully long time. I’m lucky she hasn’t given up on me. I answer the commission request emails I’ve been putting off, and none of it has Alec’s hardback aesthetic. My projects are suffering. My career has taken a backseat to Dad’s health. No way around it. I’d need to work at a gallery to claim I’m anything but a dilettante. I don’t have the stability.
We’re more than an hour and a half into the journey when my Messenger pings.
Alec glances at me. “Who is it? You don’t look happy.”
My cheeks feel weirdly heavy. “It’s Sophette.”
He squeezes my thigh, just above my knee. “You said they need to schedule the procedure, yes? We’ll need those details.”
I nod but I’m staring blankly at the email I was writing. My brain is screaming at me. Finish the introductory sentence I was writing for a potential client, then paste in a paragraph with my rates. Simple. Easy peasy.
But a clawing sense of dread gnaws and grows. My fingers are numb where I grip my tablet. I have to remind myself to blink.
“Darling,” Alec says quietly. He hooks my jaw with one finger. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to look.” I manage a rictus smile that probably looks like it’s duct taped across my face. “If I look, bad things become real.”
He looks at me quizzically. A line etches between his elegant brows. “What bad things?”
“The alert showed the first few words. She said it’s urgent.”
“Might I look?” He takes the tablet from me with gentle slowness. I don’t have anything to hold onto, so I start to shake. He twines his free hand with one of mine and I take full advantage, clutching at him. My heartbeat is racing.
“Open it,” I tell him. “Messenger’s on my home page.”
He lays my tablet across his knees so he can tap the screen one handed. Good. I don’t have to let go of him. I’m so grateful that it becomes a physical sensation behind my eyes. I swallow my emotions before they tumble free and drown me. I lower my forehead to his shoulder. The wool of his sweater is soft with wear, and his warmth comes through.
“She’s vague,” he says. “Says it’s an urgent health situation, and that she attempted to reach you but got your voicemail. Nothing more.”
I scramble to fish my phone out of my jeans pocket. The cheap ass thing shows two missed calls from the same number, but I never felt it vibrate. Because of my shaking hands it takes me three tries to draw my unlock pattern, then two taps to return the missed call.
It rings. I stare at Alec because my other option is staring at the back of a goddamned leather business class seat or at the blank shadow of the Channel Tunnel as it blurs past the window. Alec’s slate eyes are filled with concern. I hate that. Fucking hate that. I wish he were dismissive or didn’t care because then I might be able to pretend this wasn’t a Really Bad Moment.
“Hello?” Sophette’s voice is surprisingly clear considering I’m in a train going over a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
Why couldn’t my fucking phone have buzzed? “Hey. It’s me, Harlow.”
“I do hate to be forward, but are you en route?”
“Yes.” When I swallow, my ears click from the dryness. “What time is the thoracentesis?”
She hesitates.
She fucking hesitates.
I sink my nails into Alec’s thigh and close my eyes. “That’s yet to be determined,” she says, soft peddling.
Every choice I’ve made over the last forty hours comes piling back. The last two months jump at the chance to pile on too. They break and crash over me like the time in Hawaii when I nearly drowned. Every time I think I can come up for air, I’m smashed back down again. The argument. Leaving Dad’s room. Leaving for Alec. Staying for the concert. Spending the night in Alec’s hotel room, holding him and petting his freshly showered hair.
My shoulders hurt from holding them so tightly. “Is something wrong?”
“Do you know when you’ll be here?”
“Just fucking say it.” Unbidden and wild, I’ve lost my way. My voice breaks. “Fucking tell me what’s wrong.”
Alec unlocks my fingers from the block of glass and metal and shoddy electronics, and gently takes the phone from me. I slam a fist on the arm of my chair. Stupid. Unwise. My hand throbs. He’s watching me with such care, like I’m an animal caught in a trap.
“This is Alec Davies.” His voice is so calm that I want to burrow into his skin. I need only a fraction of that. Give me his calm. “Harlow apologizes for her outburst, but she’s very worried.”
I clap my hands over my face, palms digging into my eye sockets. I nod. Yes, he’s right, Sophette doesn’t deserve what I said but the terror
is eating me alive. She responds and all I can hear is the feminine pitch of her voice.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“I understand,” Alec says. “Yes. Thank you.”
He hangs up and honestly, he doesn’t have to say anything else. How strange at a moment like this to realize how intimately I know him. There are tight wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. The lines bracketing his mouth deepen. He’s disheartened, which means I’m about to be devastated.
“Tell me,” I whisper. “I think I know, but I need to hear you say it. Please. Don’t make me wait until we get to the hospital.”
He pushes up the armrest between us and draws me into his arms. The man across the aisle in a charcoal grey suit gives us a disapproving glare and I resist the compulsion to flip him the bird.
I fit in Alec’s lap. I fold my knees onto my now-empty seat. He holds me close and fits my head beneath his chin. He kisses my hair.
“Your father has died.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Harlow
“HARLOW. ARE YOU READY to come downstairs?”
“What?” I startle and jump.
Alec stands in the doorway to what used to be Dad’s room and what was before that an empty suite in Alec’s home. Now that Dad’s gone this will go back to an empty showroom—what would have been the master suite. But Alec lives high above in those small, warren-like rooms. The servants’ quarters of a forgotten time.
The black suit he wears is that of a lord, not a servant. A mourning costume of the modern age, as designed by a bespoke tailor. Even his shirt is black and his expression solemn to match.
Or maybe that’s worry glittering in his expression. Worry for me.