Seven Minutes 'til Midnight

by Sunniva Dee

  But it’s not all I want.

  With my heart thumping erratically, I force my eyes open and study the space around us. I find us in the mirror and run my stare over the empty office chair, over the lack of someone offering up a towel with a lazy grin on his face. My heart soars in the absence of you.

  Troy’s eyes slide closed as he speeds up. I inhale the view of him, the only man I need and the only man with me here. This is how it should be, with love spearing aftershocks of pleasure into me with each hard shove against my body. It’s how the phantom of Emil is whispered off to the shadowlands and how I finally become free.

  “Where were you just now?” Troy murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “You disappeared for a minute.”

  The side of my lip curls with humor. “At the Delfina Hotel in Miami.”

  “Ah.” There’s a sexy sort of amusement in that sound. “Good times.”

  “I’d say.” I lean fully against him, nestled into the crook of his arm. After a year in this embrace, the quivering Drago Fuoc I had for him has grown into a full-on Sange Inima, an expression I’ve only ever used for my sister and her husband.

  Such luck. Such incredible joy. What did I do to deserve him in my life? This man is my everything. He’s my obsession. My love. My fire. It is how I love him, and it’s good, because, without blinking, it’s how he loves me right back.

  Languid and relaxed after our morning love in the cabin, I shift against his chest so we can both look out the train window at the Siberian tundra.

  “It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” I murmur, feeling a smile grow again. He does this to me.

  “It is. This was a killer idea,” Troy says. “The Trans-Siberian Railway, huh? Who’d have known? If it weren’t for my moixcha, I’d never have seen this.”

  I sigh happily. Nuzzle his neck and pull in a quick waft of warm amber and spices. “There’s a lot you wouldn’t have experienced if it weren’t for me.”

  “All of my favorite highs and my worst, darkest low.”

  “We’re not thinking of lows anymore,” I say, a reminder he doesn’t always heed. Today he does heed it. Today, when yellow and brown moss fight for a grip around rugged rocks outside our window, when white mountaintops glitter out their wild beauty in the distance. “This might be the last place on Earth where you can just be you vacationing with your girlfriend.”

  “Not exactly.” He kisses the top of my head. “I’ve heard of some islands in the Maldives.”

  “Oh right, the ones with no people on them?”

  He snickers and shrugs noncommittally.

  It’s been a hectic year since everything blew up in New York. We’ve had two world tours almost back to back due to a second album being released in the wake of “Deep in You.”

  Emil was right about one thing: “The Mask” has become Clown Irruption’s biggest hit thanks to Bo’s lyrics and Troy’s groundbreaking percussion. The song is about me, Troy claims. I have no idea what he’s talking about, and neither does Bo. All I know is it’s made my man even more recognizable by the masses than he used to be.

  When Troll broke his arm, I became his de facto assistant. His arm was fine a few months later, but in the meantime, I’d made myself pretty indispensable, so here I am, still on Clown Irruption’s payroll—with a pay raise! Troll calls me his PA. It makes Troy grumble, but it doesn’t matter to me; if this is the salary PAs get, I’m good.

  The shock factor of the “Deep in You” video has faded, and the likelihood of finding its uncut footage online has dramatically dropped. Fans might still refer to it in roundabout ways, but even so the impact of the video has lost steam for me.

  No one feels good about me manning the Clown Irruption merch table anymore, and that actually works for me. I enjoy the physical freedom of running errands for the band. And when Troll becomes too grumpy, all I have to do is complain to my boyfriend.

  “Where’s your little sister and that husband of hers?” Troy side-eyes me playfully.

  This trip is as much for them as for us. There was no one we’d rather celebrate our own discovery of Sange Inima with than the two who first showed it to me in the flesh. “So lazy, right? They’re missing out on everything.”

  “All the moss and rocks and mountains,” he specifies, brow waggling.

  “You’re dissing it now? I thought you loved the view.” I bite my lip to keep my smirk under control. My baby’s gaze falls to my mouth.

  “Just sayin’ I get him; hours in bed with you are worth days in front of any window.”

  “With a view like this?”

  “With a view like you.”

  “Stop.” I giggle like we just started dating, like I’m fifteen and he’s my first crush. This he does to me often, something he says, something he does. I’ve thought about it, and it’s new for me. My circumstances were never such that I’d enjoy a bliss that bubbled weightless in my chest over a man.

  “Anyway, if my sister’s asleep instead of letting her husband ‘enjoy the view,’ I’m happy for them. That little boy she’s nurturing is making her tired. And I have a feeling he might up the stakes on that once he’s born.” Ten years and counting with her moixcho, it’s about time they welcome their own itty bitty love-fire child.

  Out of habit, a worry stirs in my stomach at the thought of a new little human being brought into a family full of love that burns too hot. On instinct, I think, Will he get afflicted? Or is it like Troy says: is the Drago Fuoc just a tragic legend, while in reality we all feel love and heartbreak in different ways depending on who we are no matter the culture?

  TROY

  “She doesn’t deserve it,” I say, shaking my head slowly as we finish our dinner in the restaurant wagon. I lean back in the seat, remaining calm, because I don’t want Aishe’s sister to feel any tension between my love and me. I drop the napkin to my lap—damask, the girls claim—and lift my cabernet. I fold my lips over the crystal rim for a sip.

  “Baby.” Aishe strokes my cheek, and I fight the urge to close my eyes and lean into her touch. “You can be honest, okay? My family’s the epitome of strong feelings. You don’t have to hold anything back just because Sis is here.”

  “Sis,” her sister repeats, giggling. “So American-sounding.” She pulls her husband’s hand into her lap. Like they haven’t been married for a decade, he meets her forehead with his own, locking her stare in a two-second smolder before their focus flows back to us.

  I blow my cheeks up, hesitant to ruin this beautiful night. There are pink roses on the table. They had the girls ooh-ing when we sat down. A crisp white table cloth, real silverware and porcelain. Candles flicker, causing the girls to appear unearthly.

  “Okay,” I say. I’m going to be harsh. I’m going to say my piece. And in the end, I will let her have her way, because ultimately, her happiness is what feeds my own.

  “Hailey Pawter did everything in her power to sully you in my eyes. She lied about you. Thwarted the truth. Dressed like you, to the point of borrowing your stuff to look exactly like you. She copied— Okay. Fuck.” Anger rises in me at the thought of it all. It’s been a year, but she could have ruined our lives. “Does your sister know what she almost did that last night?”

  Aishe nods wordlessly, and from across the table, her sister bobs her head with the same wide, dark eyes.

  “Okay. I won’t go into detail, then.” I puff out a breath, taking a brief sip of my wine to control my anger. “All I’m saying is I see no reason for us to pay her medical bills. That bitch was seconds from destroying us.”

  “I don’t think we should call her a bitch anymore,” Aishe murmurs, voice soft despite her correction of me. “She’s sick and needs care.”

  “But what about her family?” Sis asks. “Isn’t she the heiress to a surf company?”

  “No, she actually isn’t. She said she was the daughter of the owner, but he was ju
st her former obsession,” Aishe says. “When she came to Clown Irruption, she was platinum blonde with pale skin and pastel makeup and clothing. That was how the owner’s wife looked. The guy shut her down fast and got her out before she could cause any damage to his marriage.”

  “Wow. What a crazy thing,” Sis says. “So her life was to jump from one identity to the other?”

  “Yes, and the prize she was after was someone else’s life. She’s a chameleon. A sick, obsessive one. So why do we want to do this?” I ask again. It’s not that we can’t afford it. I could pay for a decade in that institution with a fraction of my earnings from last year. “I just need to hear why we, of all people, are the ones who should keep her entertained there.”

  “Because she was born in a trailer park in South Tucson, Arizona. Her parents are dead, and if she has any other family, they’re not on record. She’s chronically ill. If we don’t pay to keep her in a safe place that gives her the daily care she needs, no one will. And what would happen then?”

  “She’ll be on the streets again, coming after us?”

  “Or she’ll be going after someone else. Either way, this is good karma, and we can afford it.”

  “Let’s vote,” Sis says, sideswiping her husband with a glance. It’s a demand if I ever saw one, and I swear he nods without nodding.

  “Really?” I tilt my head, arching my brows with fake incredulity; it’s not the first time the sisters have ganged up on us.

  “Great idea. Let’s go!” Aishe exclaims.

  “‘Yes’ to keeping Hailey locked up!” Sis jabs her fist above her head.

  “I vote yes!” Aishe says with gusto. I roll my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re better off with her locked away, Troy.” Across from me, my supposed brother-in-arms thins his lips at me in apology. Thanks, dude. I should invoice him for this trip after all.

  AISHE

  I stare at the magazine in front of me, clamp a hand over my mouth, and choke my gasp. The love of my life’s beautiful face covers part of it. His head is tipped backward, safari-green stare beaming up at me as he presses me tighter than he ever has. In his brand new, stupid expensive suit, he clutches me close, and my breasts almost spill over the cream of my silk! When will we ever learn?

  I bump my shopping cart into the customer ahead me in my haste to grab the top magazine. The cashier sends me a side-glance. It freezes on me, eyes going wide as she swallows a gulp.

  “Exclusive shots from Clown Irruption nuptials!”

  I wrench my shopping cart out of the line. Mumble apologies in response to under-your-breath expletives when I almost run over someone’s foot. An aisle over, I abandon my cart and stalk to the restrooms.

  The door swings shut behind me as I try to calm my breath.

  I need to get used to this.

  It’s no big deal!

  The ladies’ room has only two stalls. I’m alone, practicing measured breathing, while I flip to the twelve-page center of the biggest gossip magazine in the United States. Lots of greenery and bushes splay across the spread. Most images are blurry, but some are too good to be by paparazzi, leaving all the details out there for millions of Americans to enjoy.

  The door flies open. “Are you okay?”

  “Hey.” I let out a timorous breath. “I freaked out a little.”

  “Let me see.” Troy’s hand goes around my middle, pulling my back against him while he takes the magazine with the other.

  “They were there. The paparazzi we’d expected, but someone else took pictures too. Maybe one of the guests sold them?”

  For some reason, he’s trying to fight a smile. I don’t find this funny. I find this to be a serious invasion of privacy.

  “What’s your problem?” I mutter as my brows get too heavy to remain high.

  “Baby mine. Have you read it?”

  “No, I was just looking at the picture, and they— I hate that people do this to us when we wanted it to be secret and pretty and just for us. We wanted it to be something to remember forever!”

  “And isn’t it?” He leans down to me, lips pressing against my hair in his slow, hundred-percent way. “I’ll never forget it.”

  “No, me neither, but they shouldn’t have dragged it down by posting it everywhere.”

  “But look, Aishe. You’re beautiful. In every single one of them, you’re a priestess.”

  “You and your priestess.”

  “Check this one out.” He straightens the two-page photo smack at the middle of the magazine so I can see myself. In the picture, he’s threading a golden family heirloom onto my ring finger, and we’re glowing with happiness.

  “Hell, I’d like to see this one spread everywhere so every damn dude out there can see I’m the luckiest bastard alive and that Aishe Xodyar Armstrong is mine forever.”

  I lean the back of my head against his chest and shut my eyes. Slowly, my heart downshifts. “Yeah. You’re right.”

  “It’s how it’ll be. Can’t trust the media worth shit. They’ll always find ways of posting about us before we’re ready.”

  It happened last weekend. Now, this beautiful husband of mine, my obsession, my forever, smiles and tips my head back against his chest. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Speaking of...” Under the glaring, fluorescent lights of a random supermarket bathroom in Pasadena, my moixcho kisses my lips and purrs out, “How do you feel about a little mirror sex?”

  Thank you so much for reading Aishe and Troy’s story! For more Clown Irruption, now that you have the whole band fresh on your mind, start with Walking Heartbreak (Nadia and Bo’s story), move on to In the Absence of You (Emil’s, Aishe’s, and Zoe’s story), and finish it off with Indiscretions of a God, where you will be present for the video shoot that caused the scandal in Seven Minutes ‘til Midnight.

  Read on for the first chapter of Walking Heartbreak.

  NADIA

  “Baby,” I croak before I open my eyes. I stretch beneath our sheets, writhing at the sound of the alarm clock. Awakened from dreams colored by our past, my first thought goes to my husband. “Turn it off, babe? Please,” I say.

  The alarm keeps beeping, beep-beep-beeping. It’s annoying and chased by my customary just-awake confusion. “Jude, you know how much I hate that sound.”

  I’m at home in our apartment in St. Aimo, Los Angeles. Slowly, it registers that the alarm is for me, not him. I turn to face him, whine softly, but he doesn’t give me the response I crave: a chuckle and a kiss while he playfully commiserates with me.

  “Oh sweetie,” he usually murmurs. “I’m sorry you have to leave for school. Maybe you should play hooky and stay in bed for a rubdown? I’ll rub… all the way down.”

  I always crack a smirk then, reading between the lines. He would leave us mumbling heated words and gasping for air if I surrendered.

  Deep in my belly, something contracts. Something bittersweet and beautiful that hurts, because today, again, he doesn’t react.

  I slide from the covers and sit on the edge of the bed. My head feels heavy. It needs support, and for a second, I’m struck by how alive my hand is when I cup my cheek with it.

  Soon, I find the courage to rise.

  The bathroom door is closed, but I go to it anyway. “Do you remember when you first came to our church?” My words stutter, sleep-exhausted. I exhale and lean my forehead against the door. “Your eyes were bright with fear as you entered the Heavenly Harbor between your parents. You were lanky, a gangly fourteen-year-old, a little boy big enough to have gotten yourself into trouble.”

  My throat produces hard lumps so easily these days. This one I muscle down. I control the sadness accompanying it and let a small smile filter out instead. “Oh Jude baby. We didn’t know then, of all the adventures to come.

  “I remember sitting in the pews betwe
en Mother and Father, head twisted at the creak of the door. You entered on a lull between psalms.

  “I didn’t know. We didn’t know.”

  I sniff, an attempt at stanching the tears.

  The wood of the doorframe cools my cheek. Presses into it as my memories brighten. “Your skin,” I mumble. He’s quiet behind the panel. The shower has stopped—in our bathroom or in the one above us, I’m not sure. If he’s moving, he’s not making a sound. Perhaps he’s listening to me.

  “Fine veins shone blue at your temple beneath your too-long hair.” I snort out a wet laugh. “And the sun reached you through the stained-glass window, spilling the rainbow over your face.”

  I roll my forehead to the side against the door. “Funny how your parents picked our church because ‘Heavenly Harbor’ sounded like the right kind of place. They wanted the best haven for you.”

  Not long ago, my Jude would have grinned at this. He’d pull me in, golden bangs falling over me and tickling me while he ran his nose up mine. He’d croon, “Oh and weren’t they right. I found my haven—in you.”

  I’d push him good-naturedly, not allowing fear of the future to ruin our love. “But you’d be safe at home with your parents if they hadn’t crushed on the name of our church.”

  He’d kiss my nose, groan, and say, “Right, and I wouldn’t have a beautiful wife.”

  “A child bride,” I teased once.

  “Nineteen is a fine age. Get them early.” He winked, knowing well he only held two months on me.

  We were young. Married. And so on the run.

  I was born to modest parents in Buenos Aires. Until I was seven, life tore along like a flawless football game. Love abounded, and unlike some of my classmates, I never went hungry.

  On weeknights, friends knocked, asking me out to play, and on the weekends, my big, close-knit family on Mom’s side worshipped my cousins and me. I remember laughter. Heartfelt, lingering hugs. Daylong meals and sleepovers with hose-downs in my grandparents’ backyard when we became rowdy from the summer heat. I remember wet smooches from aunts and uncles, my tías and tíos. Secrets shared with cousins, fights when Diego, Mariana, and I disagreed, and smacks from our mothers when the disputes escalated.