Your Echo (Sherbrooke Station Book 2)

by Katia Rose

  Is breathing a choice?

  “We’re getting off track,” I say, and Ace doesn’t bother hiding his satisfaction. “Let’s talk about your history with meditation. When did you start?”

  “Last Sunday in Parc Lafontaine.”

  “That was your first time ever?” I ask.

  He leans in closer to me. “And it was a beautiful experience. You know they say you never forget your first.”

  “Tabarnak. Vas t’en, esti de débile.”

  He laughs, the smokiness of his voice coming out even more in the sound. “You’ve got a dirty mouth when you speak French, Stéphanie. I like it.”

  Another shiver threatens to make me twitch in front of him. I cover it up with a shrug.

  “If you want to waste time being an idiot, fine. I’m still getting paid for this.”

  He doesn’t look abashed at all.

  “When did you start meditating?” he asks me. “I’m curious.”

  “About four years ago. I’ve been volunteering here for two years.”

  “And dancing? When did you start doing that?”

  I smile, more to myself than at him. “Around the same time I started walking. Maybe a bit before. We’re not here to talk about that, though. We’re almost halfway into your session, and we haven’t even moved to the meditation room yet.”

  I don’t know if Ace manages to successfully slip into a meditative state once we’re both settled on pillows on the floor, but I certainly don’t. I fight the urge to open my eyes and check on him. I know if I find him staring at me, I’ll lose any hope of pretending to be poised.

  It seems so unfair that the beliefs I’ve worked years to build, the mantras I’ve chanted to myself for hours on end, can all be shaken right down to their foundations with just a few questions from Ace. I want to hold myself above the doubts, to brush off his words as part of a stupid game, but there’s also a part of me that craves to know what else he has to say. There’s a part of me that wants to let him swing a wrecking ball at everything I think I know and see how much of it holds.

  If he’s as worked up by our debate as I am, he doesn’t show any sign of it. When I bring the session to a close, he looks relaxed—refreshed, even. His face is blank and his shoulders rise and fall in time with his easy breathing.

  “How was that?” I ask.

  “It was good,” he drawls. “I really needed that nap.”

  I’m instantly glaring at him. “You’re not supposed to nap. There’s a difference between meditation and sleeping.”

  “Really? I had no idea.”

  He’s trying to get a rise out of me and he’s succeeding.

  “Your hour and a half is up. Is your manager here to collect you?” I taunt.

  He raises his eyebrows. “Is it just me, or did the environment in here suddenly get really hostile? I thought this was a ‘silent and peaceful space.’”

  He points toward the sign on the door, which says exactly that.

  “I’m the teacher,” I assert, as I push myself up to my feet. “I’ll decide what kind of an environment this is.”

  He stands up beside me and then salutes. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  I lead us out into the hallway.

  “You’re coming back on Monday?” I ask him.

  “Monday afternoon, yeah.”

  He slips his shoes on and then leans against the wall. That seems to be his natural state of being: leaning on walls, sprawling on couches, making himself comfortable in a way that’s almost proprietary.

  “So what is it?” he asks. “The thing you can’t not have? I know you were thinking of something.”

  “What makes you think I’d tell you?”

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

  I mimic his posture. “Prove it.”

  “Easy. Mine is a combination of whiskey, exclusive party invitations, and getting recognized by people I don’t know.”

  Connard.

  “Music,” he says quickly, before I can insult him out loud. “For me, it’s music. I can’t not do it. I’d go insane. It would rip me apart to not be able to make music anymore. Sometimes...sometimes I feel like it’s what’s holding me together.”

  I believe him. I barely even know him, and I can see the way he’s splitting at the seams.

  “Mine is dance,” I tell him quietly. “I love to dance.”

  I pause and shake my head at the inadequacy of the word.

  “I need to dance,” I correct myself. “I feel the same—like I’d go crazy if I couldn’t, like I’d just start unravelling until I was this pile of tangled up thread on the floor. Ce n’est pas une—”

  I cut myself off as the French words slip out.

  “You can speak in French if you want,” Ace offers, “if it’s easier.”

  “English is fine,” I snap. My voice is so harsh it comes out close to a bark.

  “I just meant—”

  I wave off Ace’s explanation. I’m mad at myself, not at him. Sometimes when I talk about something really important, English doesn’t seem like enough.

  “It’s okay,” I mutter. “I’ll see you on Monday, all right?”

  9 Heatwave || Julian Taylor Band

  ACE

  “One more take.”

  Everyone in the recording studio groans.

  “Ace, we’ve got this,” Matt pleads. “We had this three takes ago.”

  I shake my head, angling away from the huge microphone in front of my face.

  “It’s not right yet. One more take.”

  “You know,” Cole grumbles as he adjusts his bass, “while you were busy being an apathetic jerk-off, I forgot what a pain in the ass you are when you actually give a shit about something. I don’t know which one I dislike more.”

  He sounds pissed, but anyone who really knows him is aware that the true sign of Cole’s anger is silence. It’s only when he’s pleased about something that he insults people.

  He has enough reasons to be happy right now. The results of me agreeing to meditation coaching were almost instant. Atlas booked us in for a recording session right away and snagged a superstar producer we’d been trying and failing to get in touch with ourselves. Working with the biggest label in the country does occasionally have some benefits.

  We’ve been working non-stop on ‘Nevermore.’ Deep down, I know we’re probably ready to wrap and start production on the next track, but I want to make sure this is fucking perfect. I want to make sure the sounds tearing through my head and throbbing in my chest are the same ones people hear when they listen to this album.

  After some more bitching from the guys, we finish our last take of the day.

  “God, finally,” Matt groans, ripping his headphones off and pocketing his sticks. “I need food and I need it now.”

  We didn’t break for lunch today. JP is already bounding out the door without looking back. He has a borderline religious relationship with eating and probably already has a pizza guy waiting out on the street.

  I have a few words with our producer and respond to some waves from the rest of the team as they file out. Cole is long gone by the time I make it out of the building, but I find Matt standing next to the double doors.

  “Shit, it’s hot,” I complain. My t-shirt feels like it’s sticking to me already. I can almost see the heat waves rising off the asphalt of the crowded downtown street we’re on.

  “Yeah, they said the temperature is supposed to drop in a day or two.”

  We’re not the kind of guys who stand around talking about the weather. Matt clearly has something to say.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He taps out a beat on his thigh. “I was just, uh, wondering how it’s going. The meditation thing. Is it...helping?”

  “It got us into the studio, so yeah, I’d say it’s helping.”

  Matt shakes his head. “Not like that. I meant is it helping you? You know, with...things?”

  “If you want to accuse me of being an alcoholic you can just come ri
ght out and say it.”

  He grunts and starts pacing the sidewalk beside me. “You know that’s not what I meant either. I just spent two months living on a bus with you this summer. I know you don’t sleep. I know you just...fucking...stare at things sometimes. We don’t talk about your family much, but—”

  “We don’t talk about my family ever,” I cut in, doing my best not to shout. “I don’t have a family to talk about.”

  He tries to hide it, but I know hearing that stings.

  “You and the guys are all I’ve got,” I amend. “That’s all anyone needs to know.”

  That’s not all Matt knows, though. We shared a dorm room during my first and only full year at McGill. He was a small town boy, a fucking country bumpkin from northern Ontario, and I showed him big city life. At first it was more inevitable proximity than actual friendship, but once we started playing music together we became like brothers. Sometimes sound forms ties stronger than blood.

  Then one night when I drank too much, Matt dragged me to the ER and learned way more about me than I ever wanted anyone to.

  He holds up his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say. Just checking in.”

  I let out a breath. “It’s going good. Stéphanie is...”

  “Wait, Stéphanie? Is that the hot blonde from the park?”

  I nod.

  “Damn. Meditation sounds much more interesting now.”

  “She’s smart,” I say through a clenched jaw, “and she’s good at what she does.”

  That comment is just asking for a smart-ass reply, but Matt has enough sense not to make it.

  “Never said she wasn’t smart, and she did do a good job at the park that day.”

  He watches me for a moment, but I don’t say anything else.

  “When’s your next class with her?” he asks.

  I glance at my phone. “In forty-five minutes.”

  We say our goodbyes, and I take the metro over to the plateau before walking the few blocks to the AMM house. Stéphanie is already waiting for me in the meditation room, smoke from a burning stick of incense coiling around her where she sits on a pillow.

  “Can you get high off that stuff?” I ask, dropping onto the pillow beside her. “It smells like it could make you high.”

  She rolls her eyes. “It’s sandalwood. It can’t make you high.”

  “Are you sure? Do you even know what being high feel likes?”

  “Obviously.”

  I lean back onto my elbows. “Actually, it’s not obvious. You’ve got this whole blonde ballerina princess look going on.” I wave at her leggings and light pink tank top. She’s even got her hair up in a bun today. “You don’t exactly scream ‘baked’ to me.”

  “I’ve been high before,” she insists.

  “Whatever you say, princess.”

  The glare I earn is downright scary.

  “Call me that again and we’re done here. Also, stop assuming you have me all figured out.”

  “Hey,” I say, as gently as I can, “that was a joke. A bad joke. Trust me, the last thing I’m assuming is that I have you all figured out.”

  “Good.” She straightens up a bit on her pillow. “Because there’s more to me than meets the eye.”

  I laugh. “What are you, a Transformer?”

  She stares at me blankly.

  “You know?” I prompt. “More than meets the eye? Robots in disguise? Please don’t make me sing the song for you.”

  “Are you high?” she demands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  I shrug. “Maybe it’s different in French.”

  Her whole body goes rigid and her voice turns to ice.

  “Don’t do that either,” she nearly hisses. “Don’t assume I’m stupid and ignorant about things just because I’m French.”

  “Whoa!” I shift forwards and hold both my hands up. “Whoa whoa whoa. Where the fuck did that come from?”

  The tension in her posture is already loosening, and I see two spot of pink appear high up on her cheeks, almost the exact same colour as her tank top.

  “Sorry. I just get...sensitive about stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  She blinks at me. “You noticed what?”

  “I noticed you get kind of...weird about French. You only speak it when you’re angry or emotional, and when you do, you look like you’ve made a mistake, like you’re mad at yourself or disappointed or something.” I shrug. “I noticed it.”

  The pink on her cheeks gets darker. “God, I hope no one else has.”

  “Why? Why do you feel that way?”

  I don’t actually expect her to answer, but she drops her eyes to where she’s playing with the fringe on her pillow and starts to speak.

  “It’s...hard to explain, especially to someone who isn’t French Canadian, but being Québécois isn’t always easy. The rest of the country looks at separatists like they’re all idiots, but a lot of the reason people want to separate is because the rest of the country thinks we’re idiots.”

  “So you’re a separatist?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “No. No, I...I see a lot of the reason behind it culturally speaking, but logistically I don’t think it’s really an option. Still, it just makes me so mad to see the way we’re looked down on. Even here, in Montréal, the rich English people all live together up in Westmount, pretending that French people don’t exist unless they need their huge houses cleaned.”

  She rips a piece of fringe right off the pillow and seems to come back to herself.

  “Sorry. This isn’t appropriate. You must think I’m crazy.”

  I swallow down the lump in my throat and try to sound normal.

  “No. I don’t think you’re crazy at all.”

  As soon as she said the word ‘Westmount’ I felt like all my blood was draining out of me. She must see some trace of my reaction in my face because she stares at me for a moment but doesn’t ask any questions.

  “Well this has been a really relaxing meditation class,” I try to joke.

  “Yeah, so relaxing.” She sighs. “I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have let us get sidetracked like that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I tell her. “This hasn’t been relaxing, but it’s been sort of cathartic.”

  Another flush of pink at the top of her cheekbones.

  “I, um...” She gives an embarrassed little laugh. “I don’t know what that word means.”

  I laugh too. “And I don’t know what it is in French. Um, maybe—”

  I repeat ‘cathartic’ but with a French accent.

  “Oh!” Her eyes light up with recognition. “Yes. Yeah, I guess it has been kind of cathartic. Just don’t tell anyone I was ranting in the meditation room. We’re not really supposed to talk at all.”

  I pretend to be craning my neck to look for people in the hallway, and then I turn back to her.

  “I’ll keep your secrets, Stéphanie.”

  “Merde, it’s hot,” Stéphanie groans, fanning herself as I put my shoes back on in the entryway. “I just want to stick my whole face in a tub of ice cream.”

  I should probably stop and ask myself why picturing her doing that feels borderline erotic, but I don’t.

  “I could make that happen,” I offer. “Crème de la Crème is just around the corner. I could pay you back for all the catharsis today?”

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  I don’t ask girls out for ice cream. I can’t even remember the last time I went on an actual date, but I sure as fuck know it didn’t involve ice cream or strolling around Montreal.

  This isn’t a date, though, I tell myself.

  This is just me getting something cold to eat with my meditation teacher because it’s hotter than the motherfucking Sahara outside. It’s purely coincidental that my meditation teacher happens to be hotter than the motherfucking Sahara too.

  Stéphanie’s pausing to consider and looks like she’s on the brink of turning me down.

 
“I’ll let you pick a topping.” I find myself trying to convince her. “Maybe even two.”

  “And two scoops?” she asks. “In a waffle cone?”

  “Didn’t know you were so high maintenance, Stéphanie, but you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  She’s already pulling her Keds on.

  We walk the few blocks to the ice cream shop and find there’s a line stretching out the door. I ask if she wants to pop into the dépanneur next door and just get an entire tub of ice cream we won’t have to wait for, but she tells me I promised her gourmet and that’s what she’s going to get.

  She leans against the warm brick wall with her hands tucked behind her, and the pose makes her tits stick out just a bit. She’s got the most biteable looking chest, all creamy skin stretched over delicate collarbones. And those tits. They look so fucking perky, like they’re just begging to be touched and sucked on. I can tell she’s wearing a bra, but I bet she could ditch it if she wanted to.

  I have to glance away for a moment at the thought. It’s easier to ignore how attractive she is when we’re in meditation class.

  Okay, that’s bullshit. It never gets easy to ignore, but it does get easier to handle. When we’re sitting on pillows in the smoke-filled room, it’s her mind that intrigues me and keeps me working to figure her out, never really sure what I’m going to find next. I still feel that way now, but I’ve got her body to contend with too.

  The line shifts forward, and we make it close enough to the door that we’re hit with a blast of air conditioning. Stéphanie closes her eyes and moans. My dick jumps at the sound.

  Get it together, man.

  The place seems to be so busy they haven’t had a chance to clean it all day. When we step inside, we’re met with a floor littered with napkins and a handful of twenty-somethings running around behind the counter who look like they’re fighting to survive the apocalypse. The glass display case over top of the ice cream is so covered in fingerprints that we can barely read the names of the flavours, but Stéphanie and I both decide what we want right away.