Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GOOD AUGUST
KICKSTART MY HEART
This probably isn’t smart, but he’s the super genius, not me. I take no responsibility for bad ideas. I just hope he won’t be too mad.
I’ve barely been able to think straight all day, ever since he rolled his sleeves like that. His nice wrists and his nice shirt and those slutty glasses, every time he pushed them up with his instructive index finger.
I’ve got it so bad for this guy.
He’s still holding my hand, letting me lead him along, and it feels as if I’ve grabbed hold of a live defibrillator.
Or, what I imagine that would feel like.
The lyrics of ‘Kickstart My Heart’ by Motley Crüe drift in and out of my brain as my feet pound the Camden pavement, moving August along as quickly as I can.
I know there’s something going on between us. You don’t call a man beautiful beneath the stars while discussing lonely space probes and not expect it to mean something.
Sure, it’s possible I’ve got my wires crossed, but there’s only one way to find out: a whole lot of alcohol.
Yes, I’m broke. But I happen to know a place where we’re on the door, so that means free drinks.
Of course the very moment we step into the glow of the venue’s sign, his hand slips from mine and he stops dead in his tracks. “Koko?”
Yeah, okay, maybe he doesn’t want to see my ex. Neither do I, but needs must. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
“No. Look, I think I’ll—”
“No, no, you can’t go home.” I sweep his hand back up. He lets me, which is a great sign as far as I’m concerned. “We’re on the door. We’ll just slip in, find a quiet corner, and hang out. Just us. He’ll never even know we’re here.”
Hearing the words on my lips slaps a reminder into me that I’m talking like this is a done deal, like the reason he doesn’t want to see Jon is because of whatever I hope is going on between us, and not just because Jon was a total wanker this morning.
But then a new worry clouds my mind, and I have to ask, “You do like Bon Jovi, don’t you?”
“I am human,” he retorts, with a reassuring suggestion of offence taken.
“Great! Then we go inside, listen to a few songs, have some drinks on them. That’s all.
Come on. Please?” I feel the breath of his sigh on my cheek, and if I had it in me, I’d step right up and kiss his lips to seal the deal.
But I can’t do anything except tug at his hand, and try to hide how big my grin is when he stumbles, one, two, three steps after me.
There isn’t much of a line, so it’s only seconds before we step into the dark and heat of the venue. We check our coats, then it’s time for drinks. I’m about to ask what he wants when, “August?” a voice shouts.
My heart sinks.
“August!” shouts another.
I’m flung backward with the momentum of Amber smacking into me for a huge hug. As quickly as I realise she’s already under my arm, August’s shoulder hits mine from a matching shock, Shashi having thrown her head against his chest in the same movement.
He raises his hands as if he’s found a leech attached to himself, and the coldness makes Shashi’s head snap up. She stares at him, looks across at Amber, follows the line of Amber’s linked arms up my body and to my face, then, “What the fuck?”
Amber slides away as quickly as Shashi does, and the two of them stand there gawping at us.
“It’s me,” I say. “I’m your August.”
Both take a small step towards me, eyes on August like he’s an alien. Which I guess he kind of is.
“This is Amber and Shashi,” I attempt, trying to catch his eye, but he’s busy scrutinising Shashi, who’s busy scrutinising him with her deep brown, deeply lined, heavily mascaraed eyes. “This is my cousin.”
“Your cousin!” Amber cries. “Yes! Jon said he looks like you, but this is… Wow.”
“Yeah, we do look slightly similar. In the dark.”
“You look exactly the same,” Shashi mutters, and I watch her fast mind gathering intel, comparing shoulder heights, eye colour, scanning our hands and our shoes, but she does it all without sound and barely a movement, nothing but the clank of ice in the gin and tonic she twists around in circles.
I feel as though we’ve done something wrong. Like we’re about to get caught. But last I checked, there’s no rule about hanging out with your double. Even if you have a crush on him. Even if you…
Fuck.
If we sleep together, is that incest?
“Jon asked us to wait out here for you,” Amber says, her tone a little more conspiratorial than I’d like.
I can’t meet August’s eyes when her words bring his attention to me. “Well, that’s weird,” I reply, perhaps a bit testily. “We’re not together anymore,” I add, perhaps a bit pointedly.
“I said you wouldn’t come,” Shashi interjects, still scrutinising August.
“I almost didn’t. But I thought…” What did I think?
Nothing to do with Jon, that’s for sure.
“We just stopped in for a few free drinks. We probably won’t stay for the whole thing.
” But now I can’t help but glance over at August. I’m practically begging him to suggest we go somewhere else.
Somewhere private. My place or his. I really wouldn’t care if he’d just stay with me.
Fuck, that came off as desperate.
It’s fine. It’s not like he can hear me.
He certainly can’t, because to my great surprise, he nods towards the bar and asks, “Should we go through?”
“We’ll meet you.” Amber’s quick to grab Shashi’s hand, and her red hair swishes in the light when she turns away, then gets caught in her eyelashes when she looks back at me.
In an instant, her arms are around my neck, and she plants a huge, cherry-red kiss on my lips, before leaning her head back to stare into my eyes. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Amber.” And I did. A lot. Her and Shashi and the whole thing. All of what I lost in the breakup. But then she’s off, and I know where she’s gone, so I take August’s hand and lead him to the bar, deep into the middle of the thickest crowd of people.
He hasn’t tried to stop me, and he hasn’t tried to ask me about any of it, and my mind’s reeling. Yes, this was a terrible idea. Maybe we should leave. But I can’t send him off home on this note, and I’m not taking him to some dodgy quiet pub to try to talk this through.
I order two beers, and four shots of raspberry vodka, because why the fuck not? I’m so anxious about this whole mess I’m pulling us deeper into. I just want him to… I don’t know. “Drink?”
I shove a small, sickly shot at him. The support band’s still playing, and maybe I picked the noisiest bar in the venue to give myself some breathing space.
He doesn’t look convinced by the shot, and if it’s too loud for him to argue about it, that’s perfect. He takes the drink, taps it against mine, then we throw them back. I’ve got the next one in my hand a second later, pushing it into his.
His frown has a touch of humour, and I’m glad to see it. He takes the drink, we tap, we drink. Then I’m honestly about to order another to keep myself distracted when he takes my hand. His strides are as fast as they can be, working us out of the crush of the crowd.
I guess he knows his way around here too. Why wouldn’t he? The place has been here forever. I wonder how many bands he’s seen here in his world.
He takes me up the back, into the dark, up the stairs, and pulls me into one of the small rooms, tiny, empty, sticky, just a few red velour chairs and a thick, transparent-plastic wall to look down onto the stage. Then he turns to me and asks, point blank, “What’s going on?”
Wow. Look at that carpet. It’s really very interesting. Red. “I don’t know. Nothing?”
“Who’s that girl?”
“Amber or Shashi?”
“The girl who kissed you,” he snaps.
“Oh.” I make myself meet his eyes. “That’s Amber.”
“And what is she? Is she… Are you…” He glares at the doorway. “Should I leave?”
“Leave?” My mind is so scattered right now, cold and hot and maths all day and this man who is me, and all my feelings for him, and he won’t kiss me, and the two shots hit me suddenly, and…
Is he jealous?
Fuck, that’s hot.
Should I make him more jealous?
“Is she another ex? Is she…” He’s looking over at the stage, where the last band’s just finished, and the flash of lights on his face in profile reveals a storm.
Maybe I’m too honest for my own good. “She’s nothing like that. She’s just a friend.”
“Just a friend who kisses you on the lips?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s a little more complicated…”
“Complicated how?” He moves to the alcove of the window, where he sits with his arms folded, giving me a half side-eye.
But there’s space next to him.
As fucked up as it probably is, I like him mad at me. Maybe because it’s solid. Maybe because I really am an attention whore. Maybe I’ll look into therapy sometime.
When I sit next to him, I hold my beer on my thigh like it’s a shield, playing with the wet label. “It’s… so…” I take a sip. “So Jon’s… Amber’s…” Another sip.
He hasn’t said a word. His eyes are dark, and he’s watching my every move, that tension all about him.
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
“In the simplest way possible.”
“Okay. So. Amber and Shashi are… I don’t want to say ‘groupies’ because they’re more than that. But they’re groupies.”
He mulls over the words for a moment before his lips part. “Was he fucking her when he was with you?”
The words are harsh and don’t play around.
That’s the scientist in him. And I like that.
Usually. But I also don’t. Because it’s gone from the game of a jealous guy I like to a cold and clinical lab table, ready for an autopsy.
“Yeah, he was fucking both of us.” I rush to add, “But it wasn’t like you think. ”
“And she’s okay with that, treating you like that?” He’s pissed off now, at the wrong person entirely. He should be pissed at me. I can’t even explain this. Not without explaining it. Which is pretty much the last thing I ever wanted to do.