Chapter Nine #2
“Loos. Studio.” Max drags me onwards through the right-hand door to where I gather the magic is supposed to happen.
It’s a narrow room lined with equipment, including a huge deck of buttons and sliders that’d be at home in the cockpit of a spaceship.
A further door leads into a room visible through a huge window.
Wynter and Reid are already in there plugging in amps and shouldering instruments.
On the wall behind them is a printed sign that reads, NO FUCKING FUCKING!
There’s a doodle beneath it of entwined figures with a huge red cross drawn over it.
Someone has stuck another note beneath: YES, THAT FUCKING MEANS YOU, GEIST. DO NOT TEST ME, UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR ARSE ACROSS THE WORLD’S MEDIA. There are tally marks beneath.
I assume Geist is Xane Geist, the lead singer of goth metal superstars, Black Halo. There were rumours of sightings of them in this area up until quite recently. Seems they were true.
Reid catches me looking at the sign and shouts, not that I can hear him thanks to the soundproofing. He makes some wild gestures that get the gist across. Rough translation, you and me, babe. Let’s add a score to the tally.
I wave back no, but I’m not sure he sees it, as Wynter slaps him around the back of the head, and mouths something that might be, “She chose Max, cretin.”
Max, also an observer of this, waits until the pair of them are silent, then hits a button on the console, which allows us to hear what’s inside the room. He pulls a swivel chair over for me to park my bum in, then heads on through to join his bandmates, following a reminder not to touch anything.
I watch them jam for a bit. Eventually, riffs and drums coalesce into songs from their first album. When they play my favourite tune, I get up and sing and dance along. Seems to me they need reminding that they have genuine fans out there who love their stuff.
They keep playing, and I pick up the camera. I can’t really focus on the guys that well, due to the glass between me and them, but I take some shots of pretty reflections and the working environment with them in the background.
They’ve been playing for thirty to forty minutes, when Max starts throwing meaningful looks my way. There’s an intercom button, clearly labelled. I press it. “How about giving me something I’ve not heard yet?”
“We could do Troubled Introduction,” Max suggests, and Reid nods. I realise they’ve been planning this. Rather than waiting for Wynter, Max starts tapping out the rhythm on his drum kit.
Wynter stands frozen, but Reid joins in after a moment, playing the main riff, and eventually, Wynter begins fingering the fretboard of his bass.
Man, it’s hooky as hell. That bass especially.
It roots its way right under my skin and twangs all the nerve endings there.
Where I expect the vocals to start, Wynter stays quiet.
Both Reid and Max shoot him looks, but none of them stop playing.
“Come on, man,” Reid mutters. “It’s just Iris. She’s not going to crucify us, even if it’s dreck, which it isn’t.”
They loop the instrumentation. When they get there, Wynter croaks a few hesitant words.
By the time they’ve done a third repeat, I’m on edge, my teeth aching in my jaw from clenching them so hard.
But, oh, my God, there’s no respite when this time he finds his voice and sings a whole line.
He stops. Starts again, stronger. I swear, if I wasn’t already half in love with them all, then I’d be so now.
The lyrics delivered in that raspy tone are weighed with pure emotion.
I’m literally stunned. By the end of the two-minute masterpiece, every hair on my body is standing on end.
I don’t hesitate in bursting through the door to let them know that.
“How? What the fuck, guys! That was amazing. You’re all nuts if you think you don’t have anything to record.” I smack a kiss on Reid’s cheek. “Sheer perfection.” Deliver the same to Max. To Wynter, I say, “Please tell me you’re releasing that. It’ll be the biggest fucking tragedy if you don’t.”
“Bit hyperbolic, Iris” he mutters, but I can see that my words have affected him. There’s a thaw in his eyes that paints an emerald ring about their edges.
“Seriously, Wynter.” I temper my joy. I want him to know I mean this.
“I think this is my new favourite from you guys. It builds on everything you delivered on your first album and does so with a punch. And if you don’t think I’m serious about that then just feel.
” I grab his hand and hold it, so his palm is pressed to my chest. My heart is racing. It speeds even more at his touch.
“You do seem pretty excited.” He rakes his teeth over his lower lip.
Good grief, Lord of the Understatement! “I’m fucking ecstatic. You’re a genius. Take the compliment.”
“Iris.” He raises his hand so that he’s cupping my cheek. “Please. Be real, eh?”
I laugh at the notion that I could convincingly fake any sort of reaction. An actress I am not. Also, his hands are seriously lovely. Slender, with agile fingers, on which he’s wearing multiple rings, including one on his thumb. “What else have you got? If there’s more, I want to hear it.”
“Forever in Reverse?” Reid suggests.
Wynter winces. I feel it, as he’s still holding me, but I see the flash of anguish fork through his eyes, too. I think he’s about to say no. That the smog of doubt is about to surround him again and steal any sort of mental clarity about their current material.
“For me,” I plead as I squeeze his fingers.
He blinks. “For you?”
“Please.”
“For you?”
“For me,” I agree. I tiptoe and press a kiss to his lips, and magic happens.
The clouds break, and he stares at me in wonder and then…
then, there’s a smile. A smile that rises from within.
A smile like the sun on fresh snow. It dazzles.
It mesmerises. I need to capture that smile on film.
Suddenly, I’m not looking at a grumpy, downtrodden man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I’m gazing at an elven prince with the heavens in his eyes, and a melody bleeding from his fingertips.
I have enough presence of mind to take a goddamned picture of him.
“You honestly liked that last track, and you want to hear more?”
How is he so blind to his genius?
“I’m going to cry if you don’t give me more. I loved it.”
“Not too soppy, or … soulless.”
“You know it’s not any of those things.” I’m sure he does, even if he’s doubting himself. Deep down, he knows this is good. Has to. “It was beautiful, Wynter. And I bet it’s not even the best track on the album.”
He nibbles his lower lip, eyes downcast.
“No,” he admits after a moment, lips betraying him, and revealing that inner deep belief I was sure was present somewhere. He coughs to clear his throat. “That is… Personally, I prefer—”
From the corner of my eye, I see Reid’s grip tighten around the neck of his guitar.
“—one of the others.”
“Play it, please.” I’m willing to get on my knees and beg.
He takes his sweet time making a decision.
“Fucking, yeah!” Reid gasps.
Thus, I know it’s going to happen, ahead of Wynter actually giving a nod. Reid can read this man in ways I can’t yet.
“We’re doing this?” Max asks.
Wynter gives another nod.
“Now we’re talking.” All the tension in Reid’s body has released, and he’s a shambles, vibrating like he’s plugged into the amp and not his guitar.
“I need another one of these first, though. Just to make it a fair trade. Deal, Iris?”
He reels me in and slays me with a kiss that is so much more than the one I gave him.
When our mouths break apart, he holds me for a long, meaningful moment, before returning his attention to the instrument suspended from the strap around his shoulders.
“Forever in Reverse. For you, Iris. Or, as it was originally titled—. Fuck it! How it is titled, Weep.
This time, I listen from the same room, right up close and personal, barely an arm span away from the mic he’s singing into.
It makes it intimate, and oh, so very visceral.
Something has shifted in Wynter. I can hear it in his voice.
There’s a confidence to his delivery that I realise was absent before.
The lack of hesitance. The sincerity that makes the track hit like a gut punch.
Weeping is what I’m doing by the end. It’s so beautiful, it hurts. I have goosebumps all across my body.
I take pictures. Numerous pictures, some of which are likely blurred, since I can’t see properly due to my tears.
The song they do after is more up tempo and optimistic.
It’s bound to become a fan favourite, but I’m still so in love with Weep that it can’t compare.
That doesn’t stop me saying my piece. “You guys… You don’t need to write anything else; you’ve already got what you need. ”
Max smiles quietly to himself. Miraculously, Reid doesn’t crow, “I told you so.” There’s still a rebellious turn to Wynter’s lips, like he’s not quite ready to believe what is blatantly apparent to everyone else.
“Don’t you trust my opinion?
“Not sure,” he admits. “I don’t exactly know you, Iris. You might have fuck awful taste. We might be the anomaly in your collection.”
Way to dampen the high I was feeling.
“Do we need to exchange playlists?” If I still had my phone, I’d blare all my favourites at him for the next twenty-four hours just to prove my point, but I don’t, and I’m not sure rattling off song titles is going to convince him of anything.
He doesn’t want to be convinced.
He’s stuck in the wallowing phase. I know what that’s like.
No amount of me, or anyone else dressing things up in a positive light will convince him.
He needs to grow into that belief for himself.
But things are shifting. He’s almost there.
It’s in his voice. It’s in the way he strides out of the studio.
Reid bounds over to me and lifts me off my feet. “You’re fucking magic, Ariel.” He smacks a kiss on my lips. “Tell her, Max. Tell her how awesome she is.”
“He left,” I say, looking to the exit.
“He played,” the two men counter.