Chapter 10 #2
‘This is a Goth Weekend staple,’ I say, leading Lucy through the doors of the leisure centre. This weekend it’s bustling with stalls, all with traders selling their wares – the dark, the alternative and the wonderfully weird. I’m not usually a fan of shopping, but I love this market.
Most of it, anyway. I notice an information stall in the entrance run by a bat preservation charity and shudder at the memory of that damn creature in my hands. I hurry Lucy past it and into the main hall before I inadvertently summon any.
But the horror of the memory is quickly replaced by something entirely different when Lucy grabs at my arm, pure excitement rushing out of her with a squeal.
She drags me over to a stall of embroidery hoops with intricately stitched designs, and before I know it she’s deep in conversation with the stallholder.
I had thought this might not be her scene, but from the way she’s talking to the vendor like they’re old friends, I couldn’t be more wrong.
‘Look at my tits,’ she says suddenly from beside me, and I almost swallow my tongue.
I try my absolute hardest to stop my eyes from darting to her chest, but it’s futile.
In their defence, they bounce back up in shame, meeting hers with a rush of feeling through my body that tracks somewhere between embarrassment and arousal, and only intensifies when the slightest of blushes pinks her cheeks.
Fuck, I’m burning for her.
It’s only then that I notice her outstretched arm, her finger pointing to a small hoop with Look at my tits embroidered in elegant, looping font, framed by two beautifully stitched blue tits.
Oh.
Oh.
I’m mortified. It doesn’t help that the stallholder clearly noticed, and is now watching the two of us with barely concealed interest. I try to think of something to say to make things less awkward, but it’s like someone has pressed pause on my body and I’m frozen, my mind flailing wildly to try and minimise the fallout.
But then Lucy does something that I don’t expect.
She laughs. And not a forced, polite laugh either, but a loud honk of a thing, messy and genuine. When I look at her, she has tears in her eyes, and she wipes at them with the cuff of her jacket.
‘You just made my day,’ she says when she finally stops laughing, and there’s something, some small flicker of heat in her eyes, which emboldens me.
This time when my eyes dart down to her chest, it’s entirely deliberate. ‘You just made mine.’
And then I watch with delight as the blush races back up her neck. It’s official: flirting with Lucy just became my new favourite thing to do.
By the time we step back out into the glare of the autumn day, it’s after midday, and the sun is high in the sky.
I squint against it, quickly fishing my sunglasses out of my pocket and slipping them back on before my eyes start to sting.
Lucy is a few steps behind me, clutching a paper bag in one hand as she jogs to catch up.
‘I bought us a gift,’ she says, her face pulling into a huge grin, and I raise an eyebrow in a question. God only knows how she had time – I could have sworn we walked out together. So much for my supposed heightened senses.
Ok, there’s a chance I’m a little distracted.
She stops when she reaches me and shakes two small metal shapes out into her hand. ‘Well,’ she says, turning the shapes over in her hand, ‘I bought us each a gift.’
I chuckle as I examine them. ‘Badges?’
Her face brightens impossibly as she nods, and I feel a catch somewhere deep in my chest.
‘This one’s yours,’ she says, reaching to attach it to my lapel.
I notice that she’s careful to pin through the buttonhole so it doesn’t damage the leather, and though I’m not precious about my clothes that way, I’m touched by her thoughtfulness.
I squint to read the slogan, dark grey text just visible against the black background, and snort a very unflattering laugh when I discover what it says.
Black is the new black.
Lucy laughs too, smoothing her hands across the leather of my jacket as she admires her handiwork. ‘It seemed very you.’
‘I love it.’
And it’s true. I might be about twenty-five years too old for badges, but something about this tiny gesture has thrilled me to my core.
For the second time today, I feel like a teenager, all giddy and unsure, reading much too far into every last word.
I clear my throat as if that’ll do a single thing to steady me and turn my attention back to Lucy, who’s now struggling to pin the second badge to her own collar.
I swoop in without a second thought.
‘Let me help,’ I say, my hands brushing hers as I reach out to grasp the badge in one hand and the soft material of her jacket in the other.
The slightest hint of skin-on-skin contact shoots a direct line down the centre of my body, which only increases as I wrestle more with the badge and my fingers accidentally graze her collarbone.
I try not to imagine what she tastes like there, how soft her skin might be in the small dip beyond, but let’s face it – I do. I imagine the hell out of it.
Then the godforsaken thing finally fastens, and when I step back to admire the job, properly reading the slogan for the first time, I burst out laughing again.
‘Ray of fucking sunshine?’
Her smile changes into something prouder, the slightest cut of defiance against her soft edges and pastel colours. And I have to admit, it’s hot as hell.
‘That’s me,’ she says with an exaggerated tip of her chin, daring me to argue with her. But I can’t. Lucy’s the brightest damn thing around here.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It is.’ And then I guide her back through the car park and out towards the seafront for the next part of the tour.
We hear the music long before we see Filip on the clifftop.
The beautiful sound of strings dances towards us on the sea breeze, dulling and swelling with the gusts.
There’s usually a guy who plays piano here too, and the two of them have played some insane duets in the past. But at the moment it’s just Filip and his viola, lost in the song he’s playing.
It’s plaintive and haunting, the tune classical but unfamiliar.
I wonder if it’s one of his own compositions.
‘Mr Bramwell,’ he says as we approach, though he hasn’t opened his eyes or even stopped playing. He was my teacher once – maybe those instincts never fade. The guy’s got eyes in the back of his head.
‘Mr Petrovi?,’ I reply with a grin. These days we’re more like friends. He’s a regular at Bitten and rarely misses an open mic night. Old habits die hard, though. I was almost thirty before I felt comfortable using his first name.
‘Filip taught me A-level music,’ I say to Lucy, loudly enough for her to hear over the melody, and Filip’s lips pull into a smile.
‘As a much younger man,’ he says, the words laced with his usual amount of drama.
And then he cracks one eye and assesses the two of us without missing even the slightest of beats in the crescendo he’s playing.
I notice his eye lingers a moment on Lucy before he closes it again and says, ‘She’s pretty. ’
He says it simply, more a statement of fact than a sleazy comment, but my eyes snap to Lucy anyway, unsure of how she’ll react. But I needn’t have worried. When I look at her, she’s beaming.
‘I’ll take that,’ she chirps. She doesn’t correct Filip’s assumption that we’re together. I don’t want to either, but it feels wrong not to – like I’m taking something that isn’t mine.
‘Filip, this is Lucy.’ I gesture between the two of them. Filip still has his eyes closed, but I know him well enough to know he’s absorbing every word. ‘She’s writing an article about the Goth Weekend, so I’m giving her the grand tour.’
Filip’s tanned cheeks crinkle against the viola’s chin rest as he smiles, holding the final note a moment longer than necessary. ‘So you came to see the main attraction?’
I can’t help but laugh. ‘Something like that.’
He finishes the song and tumbles into a dramatic bow, nodding his thanks to the small group of people who are applauding before turning back to us.
‘Pleasure to meet you, Lucy.’ He grips his viola and bow in one hand before extending the other towards her, and she shakes it with enthusiasm.
‘The pleasure is all mine,’ she replies in that characteristically upbeat way. She has a natural glow about her – a warmth which lifts others too. ‘You play beautifully.’
I see the way the compliment lights his eyes. ‘I have been playing almost forty years,’ he says proudly, his smile twisting. ‘Though I know that is difficult to believe seeing as I am only thirty-five years old.’
Lucy laughs, and I see Filip’s chest broaden a little with pride as she plays along. ‘You don’t look a day over thirty-four.’
He hums in satisfaction. ‘She has beauty and intelligence, I see. Allow me to play something else for you.’ He hoists the instrument back up under his chin and plays one single note, which rings out across the bay. ‘Bram, you know this one.’
And then he launches back into a song, pacey and modern this time.
It’s a song I know well, one we’ve played together a fair few times, most notably for my final A-level performance.
It doesn’t have quite the same impact without my guitar part, but it’s still enough to draw a little more of a crowd, who nod to the beat and watch us with anticipation.
What the hell, I think.
I take a step towards Filip and start to sing.