Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3)

by Ainslie Paton

  Angus pumped his shoulder. “I’ll take you to her in the break. She’s really feeling the pressure already and I don’t want to be the one who distracts her with this place.”

  “You distracted her when you married her, bro,” said Jamie.

  “We going on or not?” said Taylor.

  They went on and the crowd was buzzed. Two birthday groups and a soccer team celebrating a loss. They opened with Beautiful Day. Damon sat on a stool at the side of the stage. Jamie and Angus out front of Sam’s kit, Taylor on a tambourine. He stood with the chorus and stayed there for the next three songs. Then they did the ball-playing ladies a solid with OneRepublic’s Something I Need. That got them on their feet with the marching band rhythm chorus and they clapped and sang along. Angus would do good business at the till tonight.

  He took to his stool again when Taylor did Sober and Try and they closed the set together with Give Me A Reason, which went superbly till he nearly walked off the edge of the stage, one foot shooting out into empty space before Taylor grabbed his arm. Hopefully it played like he’d intended it. There were squeals. There was no way he was fit for a second set unless he stayed seated and there was no reason to kill himself over this. It was purely social, the band could play on without him, like they did most weeks.

  In the green room he made for the old sofa and lay on his back like a felled tree. Eyes closed, he could sleep right here even with the noise from outside and the movement in the room. Until Angus sat on his feet. He moved, pulling free, sliding them to the floor; now he was a bent tree.

  “The great Captain Zice Vox succumbs to—” Angus squeezed his kneecap. “What is it you’ve succumbed to?”

  “My head’s on LA time and my body is,” he waved an arm above his face, “doing me no favours.”

  “That’s all?” said Jamie. He’d be thinking about all that additional unnecessary cue chalking.

  “Yeah, man. I’m done. Dumb idea to go to the gym today. I can hardly think straight. I need to sleep for a week.”

  “Can you?” said Taylor. “You nearly walked off the stage.”

  He laughed. “You don’t have to worry till I do.” But he knew he’d scared her. Scared himself. He’d never worried about falling, on or off stage, always managing to groove around their kit in the space without mishap.

  He sat up properly, about the same time as Taylor knelt behind him to play with his hair. He knocked her arm, then pulled her into his lap. “Tomorrow, but I have a job on Monday.”

  “Already? But you just finished a job.”

  “Yeah, it’s a favour for Ben Pinetti. An interactive training video and a couple of ads. Two days work tops.”

  Angus got up and his end of the couch lifted off the floor and both Damon and Taylor yelled, so Angus sat down again. He’d want to get back to the bar. “Ben’s the guy got you started in voiceovers, right?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t say no.”

  Taylor undid a button on his shirt. “I’m not working till the afternoon Monday, you want a ride?”

  He did the button up. He could talk to her about moving in when there was less sand and cement setting in his head. “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  He got a taxi home, praying he wouldn’t suddenly get a second wind and not be able to sleep once he got to bed. The thought of lying awake half the night, staring unseeing at the ceiling, was enough to make him regret not hefting home the sixpack Angus tried to press on him. But he’d begun to think seriously this might be more than jet lag; felt like he might get a head cold, or the flu, a professional hazard best avoided.

  He stood at the bathroom sink and dosed up on horseradish and garlic, vitamin C and echinacea, plus cold tablets, swallowing a great handful of the stuff with water before the idea that he maybe shouldn’t take them all together dawned. What the hell. He crashed into bed and made like a dead guy for ten hours straight.

  He stumbled around the rest of Sunday feeling almost normal, bar a scratchy throat. Too much rebel yell last night. He unpacked, checked email, talked to his folks, nuked the first thing he put his hand on from the freezer, which turned out to be chilli con carne, then in an attempt to keep up with the competition, he took Stephen King’s Black House on audio book to bed, knowing he’d likely fall asleep listening to Frank Muller read it.

  Taylor was bang on time Monday morning. Shave and a haircut two bits sounded at exactly 9am. He had a 10.30am call, so that gave them plenty of time to get to the studio and ample time to fly the living arrangement idea, get shot down and crash-land with no survivors.

  When he closed the car door she said, “You look better.”

  No perfume. He hugged her across the handbrake. “How did I look?”

  “Emo.”

  He laughed. There was no way he could look wan, slender and delicately emo. If emo was a short-lived hothouse flower, he was lantana, a perennial weed you couldn’t kill.

  “You were pale, babe. Gave me flipping heart failure when I thought you were going to go over the edge.”

  “But I’m not pale now?”

  She pinched both his cheeks. “You’ll do.”

  She managed to find a park not far from the studio, outside a cafe. They sat in the sun and ordered. The spot was a little oasis in the back lanes of the city. You could hear the train pulling in to Central and the odd truck backing up, but otherwise it was sheltered from the bustle you’d find only a couple of streets over. Didn’t make for a peaceful landing though. Flaps up, here we go.

  “I’ve been thinking about you and this doing it the hard way thing you’ve got going on,” he started.

  “Have you now.”

  “It’s very emo.”

  She barked a laugh and some yappy dog down the street echoed her. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no need for you to do it so tough.”

  “I don’t want to work in a job you’ve made up for me like I’m some charity case.”

  “I know. I’ve got another idea.”

  “Captain Zice Vox to the rescue.”

  He mouthed the words fuck off at her and she laughed. There were people close by, not that he was recognisable, but his voice sure was if she was going to help people make the connection. He was cool with the guys screwing with him, God knows he deserved it, but otherwise the anonymity was one of the perks of being a voice actor, that and the obscene amounts of money he’d made.

  “I don’t want to know, Damo, Dame. Damn.”

  “Not even if it’s helping me out?”

  She drummed her nails on the metal tabletop. He could feel the heat reflecting off it sharply on his face. That’d get rid of his recording studio tan.

  “Trill?”

  She groaned. “This is going to be some made up thing again. Because you think I’m pathetically holding on to a dream that’s long passed me by.”

  He shook his head. “No, you brat.”

  “Why wouldn’t you think that? Look at you—rich and famous.”

  He made a downward gesture with his hand, hoping she’d lower her voice. “Lucky. I got lucky, and I preferred it when you called me emo.”

  “Lucky!”

  So much for hand gestures. That set the dog off again.

  “What did you earn this year? It’s got to have an amazing amount of zeroes behind a big fat honking prime.” More fingernail drumming. “It’s like an insult for you to say you were lucky.”

  He sighed. “It was luck to be born with this voice and luck to meet Ben Pinetti when I did. Seriously, big time lucky.” He wanted to reach over and shake the truth into her. “I’d be just like you otherwise, working my guts out, hoping for a break.”

  She made a sound of disgust like a spitball spat wet on the pavement. “I should give up; get a real job before it’s too late for me to find something better than retail or working behind a bar. Look at Angus, he stopped hoping to be the next Keith Richards. Look at Jamie, he’s not trying to be Timberland or Eminem, he’s a freaking bean counter, he’s on the partner track f
or God’s sake. Everyone else got over it, everyone moved on except me.”

  He reached over the table for her hand but she dodged it and he got hot metal under his fingertips. They were airborne but the flight plan was all wrong. In the middle distance a snow-covered mountain range approached and they were on collision course.

  He sat back, hands to his thighs. He wasn’t sure how to help her through this. He was lucky, and every day he was thankful for it; for the ease it gave him, for the decisions he didn’t have to make because there was money to smooth every path. Angus and Jamie were pragmatists, they had moved on, but found ways to keep the music they loved in their lives. Sam was a plumber before he picked up a set of sticks and worked out how to use them.

  God, if Taylor would just move in, she’d never have to worry about working, she could focus on singing until she wanted to focus on something else, not out of defeat, but out of desire.

  “Do you want to hear me out or have you already decided to hate what I have to say?”

  “Yeah that.”

  “I think you should move in with me.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. I knew you were lonely.”

  Mountain range dead ahead. “I’m not kidding or lonely. The house is empty half the time and that’s just dumb. You’d be doing me a favour.”

  “Why are you staying home for months? Is there something wrong with you, do you need help? Is that why you’re asking me because why didn’t you just say that?”

  Pull up, pull up. “Shit, Trill.” Mayday. Mayday. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m exhausted. I need time off to rest. I’ve got a full calendar of jobs booked for next year. The house will be empty. I thought it was smart to have someone I trusted live in it.”

  “Why? You have an alarm system.” Those words were folded arms and stiff spine.

  His were frustration. “It’s an empty house.”

  “I’d have to pay you rent, same as where I am now.”

  “No you wouldn’t, that’s the whole point.”

  “You’re going to be late.”

  He fingered his watch face. She was right. He went for his wallet, felt around for a folded twenty and threw on the table, more than enough to cover their two coffees. “We’re not finished with this.”

  She came up close and kissed his cheek. Her version of yes we are. He took her arm and held her close, matching his step to hers, around two corners, down one hilly strip of street and they were there. Taylor buzzed the intercom and they heard the door unlock. Inside it was quiet, like they’d walked into a vacuum-sealed space; no traffic noises or random dogs, just the excited hello of the receptionist.

  “Good morning. This is my friend, Taylor and I’m—”

  “You’re doing Captain Vox.”

  Taylor groaned. He felt it through her shoulder where he still rested a hand.

  “Ah, Vox is my real voice on a good day.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “I’m here to see—” Hell, he had no idea who he was supposed to ask for. Ben gave him rudimentary details and said the studio would look after him. This was one of those super simple jobs he could do half asleep.

  “Trent and Georgia will be here in a minute. Can I get you coffee, water? Please take a seat.”

  He declined another drink and Taylor backed him into a bench along a wall. She was ready to take off. He’d get a taxi home from here. But she wasn’t getting out that easy. He pulled her down beside him and held her to stop her bolting. “I want you to think seriously about it.”

  “I’m not moving in with you.”

  “I want a good reason that’s not all pride and prejudice.”

  Taylor pulled her hand away. “Who are you?”

  “I mean it.”

  “Mr Donovan.”

  He quit looking at Taylor and faced the new person. “I’m Georgia Fairweather. I’m your engineer. I’ll be looking after the recordings for Pinetti Adland.”

  He stood and held a hand out. “Damon.”

  A slim, cool hand in his. Georgia Fairweather smelled like freesias. He sneezed.

  “Bless you,” she said.

  Taylor hugged him. “I’m out.” He heard the door open and a blast of car noises. What was with all the women in his life making him sneeze?

  4: Foresight

  Damon Donovan was a dish. Georgia shallowed hard when she saw him waiting in reception. Why wasn’t the guy a screen actor? He had the looks to match his lust-inducing voice. The thumbnail photo on his bio was a sad replicate of the real thing. Long legs, impressive shoulder span, deep chest, symmetrical face with a tiny cleft in his chin, as though someone heavy-handed had rested their thumb there too long when he was only half formed. He had one dimple in a slightly crooked smile directed at the dark-haired, heavily tattooed pixie girl he was hanging all over. Was she wife, girlfriend, groupie? Did famous voice actors have groupies?

  This was the first time she’d met a famous voice actor. The voiceover artists of her experience were deeply professional people who knew their craft and functioned like any other jobbing actor. Most didn’t make a full-time living out of it. They came, they read copy, they left, they sent an invoice, and waited tables, or taught night school, or drove taxis, while they waited to get paid. They were otherwise anonymous. Not that even the big time talent had the kind of fame that attached itself to screen actors anyway. There were only a handful of people in the industry who were known by their real names and not the characters they voiced, and even then they were coupled together, like Nancy Cartwright and Bart Simpson. And while their bios were richer and deeper, they didn’t include the kind of personal detail the gossip magazines thrived on. No one cared what they ate, wore or who they dated.

  What Georgia knew about Damon Donovan, apart from what he sounded like, she’d learned in the half hour she’d had to scan his online Voice Actors Guild profile and the thirty seconds she’d watched him argue with rose tattoo pixie girl.

  And then he took her hand and shook it, smiled at her and sneezed, laughing at himself, and what she knew was the sick flick of nervous energy rotating in her guts. He was voice actor royalty. This was her first day, her first assignment for Avocado, she simply couldn’t muck it up, and Trent, who she was supposed to shadow, had taken an urgent phone call and left her to set up alone.

  “Damon, please come this way.” She gestured to the door on her right, Studio B, then moved to open it to allow him through.

  He really was a looker, easy over six foot, and nicely muscled, but clumsy with it. The way he stepped towards her; didn’t quite align with the open door, then put his hand to the jamb, made her wonder if he was drunk. God! She didn’t smell alcohol on him, so maybe he was stoned, though it would probably help with the bumping into fixtures thing if he took his sunglasses off, but hey, they went with the girlfriend groupie thing and the whole Captain Vox cocky vibe he gave off, though Vox wasn’t drawn nearly as pretty.

  She held the second door open between the control room and the isolation booth. He spoke from behind. “Trace of a Brit accent there, Georgia. But you’re an Aussie, right? How long were you in the UK?”

  She’d said maybe six sentences and he’d picked the occasional blur in her accent. Damn, he’d be a mimic too. She looked back at him. He had both hands braced on the corridor walls. “I lived there for nine years.”

  “You did well not to end up sounding like a Pom.”

  He’d pushed his glasses to the top of his head, into the locks of his dark hair. He was smiling and he didn’t sound drunk. Would he have picked the twist in her accent if he was stoned?

  “Lor’ luv a duck! That’s assumin’ yew didn’ wan’ ter sound loike one. Know wot I mean, darlin’?” he said, in full cockney. He could’ve been an East End barrow boy. “Nothing wrong with an Aussie accent.” He was back to his own voice.

  That Damon Donovan voice had a delicious warm ripple to it, like liquid thrill, sun-warmed leather and muscle car purr. It was smooth like hot chocolate or h
eavy satin. An even, deep modulated rumble that made her momentarily want to lie at his feet and plead with him to rub her tummy.

  And he could make it do so many things. He could lower it, and the menace was a chill lifting all the hairs at the back of her neck. He could lift it and sound like he was ten years old. He could funk it up and you’d believe he didn’t have two communicating brain cells.

  His repertoire included a range of cartoon characters, a mechanical cyborg and almost any accent you wanted, including a few made up ones, and of course he was the star of the Dystopian Conflict Trilogy.

  She held the door and gestured into the booth. “Please come through.”

  “After you,” he said, which was sensible in this narrow corridor.

  She’d first been inside Studio B an hour ago; she was an unsure newbie as well as being slightly starstruck. She’d spent her career making unknown actors and singers sound better than they’d hoped, given DJs sound effects and correctly cued tapes, and prevented swear words from going to air on the late shift talk radio. Never in any reality she’d contemplated was she showing Damon Donovan to an iso booth.

  She went through the doorway and he followed close behind. The room was small, dead to sound, with a long, wide glass window through to the control room. The lighting was low. She had no idea if he’d want to sit or stand to read. Where the hell was Trent?

  “I’m assuming you’ll brief me. Ben told me next to nothing about this. I’m going to need you to help me make magic, Georgia.”

  She blinked at him. That was kind of flirty, and he’d brought his groupie girl to the studio. Not cool.

  “I’ll need a copy of the script on USB so I can read off my tablet.”

  That was better, back to business. “Of course.” She said that as though she had the USB in her pocket. She had no idea what script he was reading. She was the world’s most experienced work experience girl. She knew what she should be doing, but not how to do it at Avocado.

  “Anything particular you need from me today?” he said.

  “Ah.” Dork, dork, dork. She’d known the first day would be awkward, but did it have to be played out in front of The Voice.