Sunshine Boy (Electric Blue #2)

Chapter One What Do I Get?

Julian’s flat was a disaster, but Mel couldn’t be sure if it was on account of Julian tearing the place apart in a fit of pique or if it was always like this. Based on what his room had been like when she and her big brother had lived at home, she didn’t really doubt this was just the way he lived.

Mel hadn’t been here since the day Julian had moved in three years ago. She saw enough of her brother at the place where they worked, the place where they drank, and the place where they performed. She hardly needed to come round his place to get even more time with the manic muppet.

Julian even did devastation manic. He was pacing around the living room, pulling at his hair, talking a mile a minute. Mel could hardly keep up with what he was saying, if he was saying anything at all and not just babbling incoherently.

“… just a jazzy giraffe freak clomping around my life with his big, stupid hooves and not even looking for oncoming traffic or anything… wouldn’t even slow down at a zebra crossing, even if there was kids in it, or like countryside sheep or whatever…

just plow right through ‘em -- WHAM -- ‘sorry, missus, was this your daughter sheep? Too bad, I’m after Julian, can’t slow down or I’ll lose him! ’ Honestly, it’s like he isn’t…”

Mel grabbed a handful of Julian’s fake leather jacket as he came past and yanked him down onto the sofa beside her. He looked startled and disorientated, like a somnambulist being unceremoniously awoken. He blinked at Mel as though only just now noticing her.

“You’ll give yourself an aneurysm going on like that,” Mel said coolly, lighting up a cigarette.

Her words were the scissors that cut the strings of Julian’s loosely gathered sanity. He crumpled in on himself, burying his face in his hands. For one horrified moment, Mel thought he might be crying. But he just groaned, a long pitiful noise like that of a wounded animal.

“It’s all gone tits up, hasn’t it?” he mumbled into his palms.

It had in fact, in Mel’s opinion, gone tits up.

Julian’s best friend, Rahul -- the “jazzy giraffe freak” -- had told Julian’s creepy blond boyfriend, Michael, that Rahul and Julian had slept together.

Michael had ended things with Julian. Julian had clobbered Rahul (a very un-Julian-like thing to do).

Rahul then confessed his undying love for Julian and Julian had… run off. Cowardly little prick.

Rahul wasn’t just Julian’s best friend, he was also the most musically talented member of their band -- a band Mel played bass in, mind.

Without him, the band would dissolve into nothing and Julian would be left rudderless.

He lived for their shite band. Hell, he lived for Rahul.

The two of them needed each other like foxes needed bins.

This melodramatic love-triangle nonsense was going to make all of their lives positively implode.

Well, maybe not Mel’s life. She owned a record shop and she’d be fine.

And maybe not Kwambe’s life either. He was too cool to be affected by anything.

But definitely Julian and Rahul’s lives, and Mel had sworn, years ago when her and Julian’s mum had started drinking, that she would look out for her empty-headed brother and keep him safe.

She’d been fixing his life ever since. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to fix it this time.

“It ain’t so bad,” Mel told Julian. She nudged him until he peeked out between the fingers he held over his eyes.

She extended a cigarette to him. He took it and let her light it for him.

It was the most affectionate gesture she’d offered him in quite some time.

“One of you could be dead. That’d really be something to cry about. ”

He threw her a withering glare with his red-rimmed eyes.

“So, you shagging that Michael bloke, then?”

Julian choked slightly on the smoke in his throat.

He’d never told her, in so many words, that he was dating Michael.

Michael had just shown up one day, hanging around Julian, while Julian stared at him with the eyes of a boy looking at a bloody Christmas tree.

Julian had also never told her he was a bit bent either, but Mel had worked that out on her own, too.

Julian fidgeted with the cigarette butt in his fingers.

It was odd to see him… if not embarrassed, then apprehensive.

He usually did things like he couldn’t give a shit what others thought, though Mel knew that was a load of horse shite.

He acted like he didn’t care, but no one cared more what other people thought than Julian Collier.

He’d been caring since they were kids, only he’d gotten better at pretending.

The thing is, when you want people to think you’re really cool, you have to get them to think you don’t care what they think.

Julian was also obsessed with people thinking he was a little daft.

That much was lucky, because, as far as Mel was concerned, he was a little daft.

He nervously pushed his fringe off his forehead only for it to flop back down at an uneven angle. “Yeah. Or, well, I was.”

“He chucked you ‘cause you and Rahul shagged?”

“That sounds like we did it yesterday,” Julian whinged.

“It was ages and ages ago. Back at uni. And we were both drunk as you like. It didn’t even count, if you ask me.

” Despite himself, he was going quite red around the ears and getting splotchy red patches high on his cheeks.

“I’d forgotten all about it. I can’t even believe Rahul remembered.

And that he told Michael. Imagine that!”

It was all coming together now. She remembered the trip Julian had taken up North to visit Rahul, only to come back one day early, all jumpy and not wanting to talk about it.

Afterward, he’d not seen Rahul for years.

Then, when Rahul came back, they were all distant and weird around each other.

They’d had a drunken fumble together, of course.

For one of them it was just an awkward night that had compromised a friendship. For the other…

“He also told you that he loves you,” Mel reminded him around her cigarette butt.

Julian folded his arms and hunched his shoulders in that way he did when he was stopping himself from covering his ears like he would’ve as a little kid.

“Whatever. He’s confused. I dunno. He can’t love me.

That’s just mental. He’s my best mate -- he was my best mate.

He just thinks he’s in love with me ‘cause he loves me, you know, like friends or whatever. And anyway, that’s the other reason Michael dumped me, you know?

He could see Rahul’s all obsessed with me and he didn’t want to get himself in the middle of whatever it is we’ve got going on.

He didn’t want to end up like Aisling did.

Having rows all the time ‘cause Rahul’s put himself between us. ”

Hearing the name of Julian’s ex-girlfriend gave Mel pause. “Were you shagging him when you were still with Aisling?”

Julian dropped his cigarette. He retrieved it before it could burn a hole in the carpet next to the constellation of cigarette burns already there. “No. ‘Course not,” he said defensively in the way he did when he was lying. “I’d never cheat on her, would I?”

“I don’t know,” Mel said. “Would you?”

“I mean -- all right, so I’d started seeing him a bit when we were still together,” Julian immediately capitulated.

Mel beamed. So she could still wheedle the truth out of her brother after all.

“But we didn’t sleep together or anything.

It wasn’t cheating. Not really.” He was imploring as if Mel were the barrister presiding over his case.

She was only a curious third party with no stake in the game. So she merely shrugged.

He ran an unhappy hand through his hair, which by now was standing up at all sorts of odd angles. “What am I gonna do?”

“What you’ve gotta do is get your shit together. Both of you. I got a business to run, you know? What am I supposed to do? Sack one of you and hire somebody neither of you ballbags have fucked? And we got a band, or have you forgotten that as well?”

“I thought you hated the band.”

“I do, but I’ve started counting on that extra gig dosh.

” It felt good to pay for her grass with money that didn’t come directly from her dead nan’s business.

“And you love the damned thing. Are you gonna find yourself a replacement keyboardist slash guitarist who shares your same crazy vision of a dystopian soundscape? Think it’s easy to find one of them? You gonna put an ad out in The Sun?”

“Why don’t you ask Rahul?” Julian cried.

“He’s the one who’s gone and cocked everything up!

It’s his fault for having feelings -- or thinking he’s got feelings.

If he weren’t obsessed with me, he’d have never sabotaged my relationship.

If he were following somebody else around like a bleeding puppy, then maybe me and Michael would still be together. ”

“That’s it,” Mel said, snapping her fingers in the air.

“What is?” Julian asked dubiously.

“We need to set Rahul up with somebody. Get him to fall in love with somebody else. That way Michael won’t have anything to worry about and the two of you can make up. Then you and Rahul can get back to being mates, and Bob’s your uncle -- everything back to normal.”

Julian’s dubiosity had not dissipated. “You reckon? I dunno.” He made a face somewhere between a sneer and a wince that made it look like he was about to sneeze. “He’s been building his feelings up for me for years, said so himself. I don’t think we can come in with some, erm…”

“Bloke. He is gay, you know.”

“Right -- some bloke -- and think he’ll be all gone on him in two shakes and forget all about me. He thinks he loves me, you know? That’s massive, that is. When someone’s got gangrene, you don’t come in with a plaster and think that’s gonna make it all better.”

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing. You leave it all up to me. I’ll sort it. I always do.” And even though she was wearing her best smug expression, he still had the gall to look less than convinced.

* * *

Rahul reread the same paragraph for the fifth time before finally throwing the book down on the counter in frustration. On the opposite end of the shop, at the counter formerly reserved for the rare record display, Julian didn’t even stir, his flat nose still buried in the pages of Melody Maker.

It had been nearly a week since the… incident, and Julian still wasn’t talking to him.

The day after it had happened, he hadn’t come in to work at all, and Rahul had been on pins and needles until the next day, convinced that Julian would never return.

But he did. Without saying a word, he had gathered his things and his stool from behind the counter and dragged them over to the display case, creating a makeshift station for himself.

And now there was an invisible line down the middle of the shop delineating his half from Rahul’s.

Neither of them had crossed that invisible line since its inception and, despite a few awkward attempts on Rahul’s part, neither had spoken to the other.

Mel had called off today’s rehearsal. Their first gig since the…

incident was in a few days. No one had told Rahul that it was cancelled or that he was being kicked out of the band (miracle of miracles), but Rahul couldn’t imagine Julian was in a place to perform, and certainly not with Rahul.

He could hardly believe the band would remain together much longer when its two front men were refusing to speak to each other.

Sod the band. Rahul couldn’t imagine his heart would be able to take it much longer if Julian continued to ignore him. “For God’s sake,” Rahul shouted, surprising even himself. That certainly got Julian’s attention. “You have to forgive me at some point.”

“Have I?” Julian replied acerbically. But it was still more than he’d spoken to Rahul in days, so he was going to take it as a personal victory.

“Yeah. You have. Or do something, at least. Hit me again, if you have to. But you can’t keep up this bloody silence for the rest of your life. It must be doing a number on you just as much as it is me. I’ve never known you to be able to keep quiet for long.”

“Yeah? Well, maybe I’ve turned a new leaf. I’ve taken a vow of silence with the monks of Tchakanda.”

“Tchakanda,” Rahul echoed flatly.

“Yeah. Deep in the forests of Kakujuju.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have. It’s secret. ‘Cause the monks never tell nobody about it, do they? On account of their vow of silence.”

“You can’t go on hating me because of how I feel.”

“I know that!” Julian threw his magazine down. It wasn’t as impactful as he might have liked, given it was only about sixty thin pages. “It’s not because you think you love me or whatever, you titbox. It’s because you went and fucked my relationship up, isn’t it?”

“Relationship,” Rahul scoffed. “You were barely dating for a week.”

“Three weeks, I’ll have you know. And that doesn’t matter, does it?

It’s almost worse, in a way, ‘cause there was all this potential, what with us just starting up and you just went and ruined it. You say you love me, but you really hurt me, you know that?” There really was a genuine note of hurt in his voice, one that lanced Rahul’s heart right through the middle.

“When you love somebody, you want them to be happy, not miserable right along with you.”

Rahul swallowed heavily and dropped his gaze. Julian was right. The truth was, he didn’t have an excuse. He was just very bad at loving people.

“I think I could live with you having feelings for me, even if I don’t feel them back.

But I don’t even know if you really do or not.

I think you just wanted an excuse to make other people fuck off and keep me all to yourself.

And that’s gonna take a lot longer to forgive.

” His expression was of naked disappointment and, in a way, that was almost worse than hearing him say he didn’t return Rahul’s feelings.

In fact, it was hard for Rahul to decide which was a bigger blow.

That he was disappointed in Rahul’s character, that he didn’t love him back, or that he didn’t even believe Rahul loved him because of how despicably he’d acted.

If the shop had had an openable window, and had it not been on the first floor, he would have jumped out of it.

He had no idea how long it would take Julian to forgive him or even if it were possible for him to forgive him.

He’d fucked many a thing up during their fifteen-year friendship and they’d always mended eventually -- they’d even come back from their infamous, ill-conceived shag.

But it was possible he’d finally over-stepped the line, the one boundary Julian was unwilling to allow him the crossing.

And the worst part was he had absolutely no idea how to fix it.