Epilogue #2
Sent texts. Made phone calls. Visited Bradford Senior every few weeks in his terraced house in Sutton. Brought me along as his boyfriend, which seemed to surprise the older man every single time.
“Nothing wrong with it, of course, but I just didn’t know you were… that way inclined, son,” he’d said during our first visit, eyebrows raised.
“It took me a while, but I finally gathered the courage to come out,” Bat had replied smoothly. “Charlie’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Bradford Senior had grunted. Poured us weak tea. Changed the subject to Bat’s knee—the one that supposedly ended his rugby career yet didn’t seem to bother Bat at all—and whether he would ever consider coaching instead.
Bat had navigated it all with grace I didn’t possess. Learning Brad’s history through careful questioning. Filling in gaps. Becoming someone new whilst wearing someone else’s face.
Then, three months after Grimthorne Manor burned to the ground, Brad’s grandfather died.
Heart attack. Quick, apparently. Bradford Senior had rung in tears, and Bat had driven us to Sutton immediately. We’d attended the funeral. Stood in the church whilst a priest droned on about a man we’d never met.
The will had been read two weeks later.
Bradford Senior and Brad—well, Bat pretending to be Brad—inherited a fancy townhouse in Bath. Georgian. Four bedrooms. Worth an obscene amount of money.
It sold within a month.
I’d stared at the email on Bat’s phone until my brain short-circuited. All those zeroes. Split fifty-fifty between Bradford Senior and us.
“You’re rich,” I’d whispered.
“We’re rich,” Bat had corrected, hands shaking.
Filthy rich. To us, anyway.
We’d done what any sensible adults would do when suddenly flush with inherited cash: we’d spent four months backpacking through Europe.
Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Rome.
Hostels and cheap trains and street food that made us sick but tasted divine.
Bat had marvelled at everything—technology he’d missed during his years as a ghost, how easy it was to navigate foreign cities with Google Maps, how everyone now had a tiny camera in their pocket.
Bat’s camera roll quickly became a chaotic shrine to our travels: him with gelato smeared across his nose, grinning like an idiot.
A selfie outside some dingy venue in Berlin where one of his favourite 90s bands played during their reunion tour—Bat flipping off the camera with something close to reverence.
Me, unconscious and drooling on a train through the Alps.
Both of us sun-drunk in Venice, attempting the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti thing in a back street and nearly choking.
His Converse dangling over the Vltava in Prague, the water dark and glittering below.
That blurry disaster where we’d tried to photograph ourselves kissing and only captured our chins and half my ear.
He’d look at them when he thought I wasn’t watching. Swipe through slowly, like he still couldn’t believe they were real.
We’d kissed in the shadow of the Colosseum. Made love in a cramped hostel bed in Vienna whilst other travellers snored two metres away. Drunk wine on the banks of the Danube and planned futures that felt impossible and perfect in equal measure.
Then we’d come home and become truly sensible adults.
Put down a sizeable deposit on a house in Brighton. Not London—I was done with London, with its grime and expense and endless grey streets. Bat didn’t want Bristol either. Too many ghosts of memories.
Brighton felt right. Seaside town. Quirky. Gay-friendly—a place where two blokes holding hands never warranted a second glance.
“Perfect for raising our future ghost baby,” Bat had said whilst we’d toured the property.
“You promised me twelve ghost babies,” I’d corrected.
The estate agent had looked mildly alarmed.
We’d spent a thousand pounds on hiring a private detective to track down Michael. Just to stop Bat wondering. Michael was still alive, up in Scotland, seemingly living a good life, despite what killing Bat must have done to him.
Finally, we’d used the last scrap of money to get me back into uni. UAL this time. Finishing my music production degree. Learning the technical side, the mixing, the mastering.
One day I’d be the one producing Bat’s albums. That was the dream, anyway. The two of us in a proper studio, creating music together.
I’d started writing songs too.
I hadn’t shown them to Bat yet. They sat in a password-protected folder on my laptop, some lyrics scribbled in notebooks I kept hidden under the bed.
Most of them were probably rubbish—desperate lyrics about seizing chances before they slip away, about refusing to give up, about clawing your way toward something that matters before it’s too late. Uncomfortably honest stuff.
I’d play them for him soon. Maybe even after this gig, when we were home and riding the high of his performance. When I felt brave enough to be vulnerable in a way that still terrified me.
The song ended.
More applause crashed over the venue. Even louder this time.
Bat stepped up to the microphone, chest still heaving from the last song. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, darkened the collar of his shirt. He looked absolutely knackered and completely alive in equal measure.
“Cheers,” he said, voice that rough rumble he’d been busy perfecting. “You’ve been incredible tonight.”
The crowd roared their approval.
“I’ve got one more song for you,” Bat continued, adjusting his guitar strap. “But before I do, there’s something else I need to do. If you’ll all indulge me for a moment.”
Curious murmurs rippled through the audience.
I leaned forward slightly, wondering what stunt he was planning now.
He loved this—the performance aspect, the showmanship.
Born for it, really. All those years trapped as a ghost, too melancholic to pick up that acoustic guitar, and now he seized every opportunity like it might be his last.
The spotlight swivelled.
Landed directly on our table.
I blinked against the sudden brightness, raising one hand to shield my eyes.
“Charlie Hayes,” Bat said into the microphone, his voice filling every corner of the venue. “Would you do me the honour of joining me on this stage?”
My mother gasped.
I almost choked on the sip of beer I was taking.
And then my stomach dropped straight through the floor.
No. No no no no—
The entire room erupted into encouraging cheers and whistles.
He’s the performer. Not me. I was the behind-the-scenes person, the one who fiddled with mixing boards and mastered tracks in dark studios. I hadn’t been on a stage since my open mic days, when I’d often felt so nauseous beforehand I’d once nearly vomited into a bin.
Was this some spontaneous duet situation? Did he want us to play together?! We hadn’t rehearsed anything. I didn’t even have my own guitar here. My fingers couldn’t remember chords when this many people were watching—
“Go on,” Emily hissed, reaching around Mum to give my arm a firm shove.
“Uncle Charlie! Uncle Charlie!” Lily chanted, bouncing in her seat like she was at school, egging on some kid.
The spotlight burned into my retinas.
Everyone was staring. Waiting.
I climbed to my feet on legs that felt made of wet cardboard. The room tilted slightly, panic making the floor unstable. I weaved between tables towards the stage steps, hyperaware of every single pair of eyes tracking my movement.
The journalist in the corner booth still had her pen out. What was she going to make of this stunt?
I reached the stage. Gripped the railing. Hauled myself up the three steps like I was ascending a gallows.
Bat stood centre stage, bathed in warm light. He’d put his guitar down—propped it carefully against an amp—and waited for me with both hands extended.
My brain short-circuited completely.
His eyes were so bright. So impossibly bright. So full of something that made me tremble.
I took his hands. His string-calloused fingers firmly closed around mine.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Emily raising her phone. Filming this. Oh god. Evidence of my humiliation would exist forever—
Bat cleared his throat. “Charlie,” he said, voice carrying through the speakers. “From the moment I met you, my entire existence changed. You stumbled into my attic—my world—and I just knew. I knew you were going to ruin me in the best possible way.”