Doppelbänger

Chapter 11 Good August

CHAPTER ELEVEN

GOOD AUGUST

WELL, SHIT

Iwant to die.

I can’t believe that just happened.

In front of him.

God, I wish I could disappear.

August’s eyes on me feel worse than everything he’s just witnessed. It’s like he knows—he knows I’m a fuckup now.

It was nice playing along for a bit. Pretending I could actually help him. But Jon’s right, so he may as well find out now. No job, no education, no maths skills, and no dignity.

“Impressive.” My eyes fly to him. That’s roughly the last word I’d expected to hear from his mouth right now, and it doesn’t sound at all sarcastic.

I peel the back of my head off the door long enough to confirm I heard him correctly. “Sorry?”

“Not many of us could manage to pull a rockstar. Told you, you’re gorgeous.” There’s a rakish ease about his shoulders when he turns away and cracks the top on his weird breakfast Coke.

Funny how fast that lifts my heart, that he’s already shifted the whole ordeal into one of his sweet compliments. But I should correct him. “No, it wasn’t like that. He just… I don’t know why he liked me.”

“Likes,” he corrects me, the steady stream of black fizzing into a mug, as though I don’t own glasses.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“You don’t own a mirror?”

“Yeah, I do, but…” I need to learn how to not blush. He’s going to see how pink I am.

The door slams on the microwave. “You know he treats you like shit, right?”

And my stomach’s back through the floor. Of course he saw it. Of course he understood. “That’s why I broke up with him.”

Why is the microwave on? What’s he—

“How long were you together?”

Crap. Here it comes. “‘Together’ is relative, I guess. Years. On and off. Sometimes I’d go on tour with him. Sometimes he didn’t want me to. Sometimes, even now, I’ll get a call from New York or Paris, or god knows where, when he says he needs me. I always went to him when he called me like that.”

“That was ‘travelling?’”

“That was ‘travelling.’”

“That’s what you threw it all away for?”

Fuck. Did he mean for that to feel like a blade between my ribs?

I guess I must look like I’ve been stabbed, because he instantly adds, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, you’re right. That’s it. That’s what I didn’t want to tell you.

” I drop into the armchair because it’s better than standing here, where the guy I exploded my life for just kissed me in front of the guy I was starting to like.

“I fell in love with a rock star and he used me, and I blew through the money. All of it. Hundreds of thousands of pounds on flights, and hotels, and bus trips, all to be with him. Because I thought he loved me back. So all those nice things you said to me last night about me being smart, now you see—”

“You are.” He snaps it out, angry. I feel like he should be angry at me for what I’ve done, but something about his choice of words isn’t gelling with that. Maybe he’s just being nice. Why is he always so nice? Still trying to make me feel better even in the face of this idiocy.

The microwave beeps, and though he moves away from me again, he mutters, “The only stupid thing you did was to not make him pay for the flights.”

What? “What?”

“He can obviously afford it. World fucking tours, fucking stadium rock. Fucking wanker.”

“What? No. He can’t. He’s… He really doesn’t earn that much.”

“What do you mean, ‘he doesn’t earn that much?’ He’s got to be a multimillionaire where I’m from. Is he less popular in your reality?”

The penny drops. It drops sharp and resounding and ridiculous. “Wait a minute. Do you think… Did you think that’s—”

“I can see that’s Jon Bon Jovi,” he just about shouts, swiping the mugs out of the microwave. “We have one too.”

“No, that’s…” Half of me is laughing, especially because Jon really would get a kick out of this, but the other half is about to die of embarrassment. I thought we’d covered it, but we haven’t even scratched the surface. “No, that’s Jon Non Jovi.”

He puts the mugs down on the table. “That’s what I said. Jon Bon Jovi.”

“No, that’s Jon Non Jovi.”

“That’s…” He scrunches his brow tight as he drops onto the couch. “Do you have a speech impediment in this reality?”

“No, I don’t have a speech impediment. That’s…” Jesus, kill me now. On a heavy breath, I force myself to come clean. “That’s Jon Non Jovi, not Jon Bon Jovi. Non Jovi is his band, and he’s a Bon Jovi cover artist.”

“He’s a…” If God doesn’t strike me down, this silence will. He’s got those piercing eyes on me again, tearing my last defences to shreds. “You didn’t just say what I thought you said.”

“Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

“Me make it any harder?” he exclaims dramatically. “What the fuck is going on in this reality?”

“Nothing! He has a cover band. He has a Bon Jovi cover band, and we had a thing, and I followed him around the world. And that’s it.

That’s the horrible real truth of what happened.

I fell for a Bon Jovi cover artist and spent all my money on him.

But you know what? They’re very popular, actually.

Best Bon Jovi cover band there is. They sell out every show. ”

“You’re telling me that’s not…” He slaps his open palm over his eyes. “I really thought that was him!”

“You see how good he is? He looks exactly the same! He sounds exactly the same. It’s honestly his whole existence.”

“What’s his real name, then?”

“Nigel.”

“Fucking Nigel?” But he’s grinning from ear to ear, and he’s laughing, and as though it’s an automatic and undeniable response, I am too.

“Fucking Nigel. But you can’t ever call him that or he’ll lose it.”

“I can’t believe this.”

“He almost died when you said that about their relevance.”

“I know.” His smile is sly and conspiratorial when he adds, “It was fantastic.”

“It was not!” But I’m cackling out my half-assed protest. “He has a delicate artists’ temperament, and you almost sent him spiralling right before his show.”

“Good. Serves him right.”

“Maybe,” I concede. He shoves a mug towards me, and I pick it up without thinking.

“But not the people who’ll go see him tonight.

He means the world to them. And you know, the world needs that sort of thing right now.

Escape. Make believe.” I bring the drink to my lips and take a sip, only to be assaulted by pure sugar—caramel, hot, medicinal—all of it welling up on my tongue like some kind of pre-diabetic volcano of raging sweetness that makes me spit it violently back into the mug. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s Coke.” He stares at me with both eyebrows severely lowered, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“I know it’s C—it’s hot!”

“Of course it’s hot! How the hell do you drink your Coke?”

“Cold?”

“Cold!” he just about yells at me. “That’s disgusting, August!”

“No, this—this is—”

“Don’t you dare say this is disgusting.”

“This is disgusting!”

“This is… Oh my god. I’ve had just about enough of your universe already, with your too much coffee, and you dating rock stars, and you and your…

” He waves his hand back and forth as if he’s indicating…

pretty much all of me. “All this about you, with your muscles and your perfect skin, and you not even realising…”

A sharp wisp of air sucks over my teeth.

I have absolutely nothing to say to all that, so it sits thickly, swirling in my chest, until he cuts back in with a loud and blusteringly humorous, “And if you dare tell me no one drinks hot Coke in this universe, I think I’ll lose it entirely.

I can’t take one more thing. It’s only been two days with you, and I can’t take another thing. Drink it.”

“I can’t drink tha—”

“Drink it!”

“No!”

“Drink it now, or I’m leaving. Leaving this whole universe. Somehow. I’m going to go, open a portal to some superior dimension, and—”

“Fine! Look. I’ll drink it.” The words are out of my mouth before I even know what I’ve done, and half a second later he’s shoving the mug at me.

Brown and warm, the bubbles are enormous and slow moving.

Then August. His smile’s still sly, but confident. Encouraging.

Is he making fun of me? Maybe this is a joke.

“Cheers?” He grabs his mug and taps it against mine, and with that simple action, I’m left with no choice. You can’t not drink after a cheers. It’s basic etiquette.

I lift it to my lips. But this time, I’m prepared for the sweetness. The thick and syrupy texture of it. The bubbles are gentle, not the fizzy onslaught of cold Coke. And I hate to say it, but—

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” he provides for me.

And he’s so pleased. It’s like last night when he bought me that two-hundred-year-old beer.

And it’s like when he saw me this morning, when he was waiting outside my flat.

Or when I saw him. Or whatever conjunction of happenings that was that made me stop dead on the stairs when I came across that smile.

Some sweet and excited energy radiating from him, so refreshing.

Refreshing like an ice-cold Coke.

But comforting like a hot Coke.

And in what must be a matter of seconds, I realise I’d forgotten all about Jon and how upset I was.

August’s here now, and he’s taken all my attention, all my affection.

And even though he’s found out my terrible secret, he’s genuinely so non-judgmental about it.

Which is funny, because I’ve been judging myself over this for so long now.

“It’s really nice. Not what I expected.”

The second half of that sentence has his gaze intensifying on me. “What did you expect?”

My mouth feeling a little dry, I take another sip. “I didn’t know to expect it at all, I guess.”

“I’m sorry I gave you a shock.” His eyes are soft behind those cute glasses, like his voice. I wonder if he can tell that my heart’s beating this fast.

Is he talking about the same hidden topic I’ve slipped onto, inadvertently and automatically? Because it’s not as though I can say what I’m thinking to him. That I find him delightful. Attractive. Totally different from everything else in my world. “It all worked out okay.”

Head down, what I’m sure is a light flush on his cheeks, he shuffles up the couch, closer to me.

He reaches out, and just for a second, I think he’s going to touch me—wrap his long fingers around my thigh—and my muscles barely contract in time to stop myself shifting forward in the hope of meeting him.

Just as well, too, because he’s only bringing his mug along with him.

This is so embarrassing. I would literally kill to have him touch me like that. Not sure who, but I could imagine up a substantial hit list if I could get those fingers where I want them in exchange.

My mind’s going places it shouldn’t be.

I don’t want to, I can’t get feelings for myself, of all people. It’s utterly ridiculous for a start, but all that stuff he was saying about my universe not being big enough for the two of us…

My heart slips loose as the words spill from my lips. “Exactly how long are you here for?”

That hand I wanted wraps tighter around the mug, and his eyes remain down. It takes him too long to answer.

Why? Doesn’t he know? Or is he maybe… not wanting to tell me?

When he finally says it, it comes on a sigh. “Unless I can fix things, not long.”

“Not long like, a few more hours? Or not long as in… a year?” My voice comes weak on the last word, like I’m asking for an extension on an assignment I haven’t even started.

He smiles at that, but it’s an equally weak smile. A sad one. “I don’t know exactly.” The very last answer I wanted. The limbo of answers. The will he, won’t he of answers. “But if I could just figure this out, if I had someone to bounce ideas off, to find what I’m missing in all of this…”

My heart’s back in my throat, big and constricted, so that I can barely speak around it. “If you could?”

“If I could… maybe things wouldn’t have to end that way.

” There’s a flash, a distinct sparkle of light in his eyes as they meet mine, then they drop to my thigh and linger there.

I could swear his fingers loosen on his cup.

And this time I do move forward to the edge of my chair, my body begging like a whore for the slightest brush of his hand.

But it remains on his cup, the slight shift of his jaw the only reaction to my desperate movement, if he even noticed it.

Christ, I hope he didn’t. Why do I have it so bad for this guy? I’m embarrassing myself. I need to stop. He’s probably dying to get away from me—

“Will you come and cast your eye over the equations?”

I know nothing about maths. Absolutely nothing. I can’t help at all. “Yes.”

“Thank you. I know it’s a long shot. I mean, you’re me, so presumably you might miss all the same things I seem to be missing.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Or I might miss it all because I have literally no idea what he’s on about.

But suddenly the idea of him explaining the complex maths of quantum physics to me is about the sexiest thing I can imagine.

I hope he keeps his glasses on when he does it.

Will he roll his sleeves? Does he have a private office with a big sturdy desk?

What the hell is wrong with me?

I don’t care. I’m going with him. I’m going with him, and I’m going to do maths with this man so hard it hurts.