Chapter 23 #2
We wait, chatting amiably, the excitement growing and building in the room as it fills.
Occasionally someone will see someone else they know and shriek their name across the room, waving excitedly and pointing them out for me to look at.
A young woman, pierced in so many places I can’t count, taps me on the shoulder and tells me that she loves my jumper.
I shouldn’t fit in here. It makes no sense at all. Yet somehow, I feel like I do.
There’s a buzz of community in the air, a shared excitement for this concert, which picks me up and carries me along as it goes, and by the time the room is full, I’m just as pumped up as any of them. I can’t wait for it all to begin.
Jon finds me after the soundcheck, just as I’ve let my guard down. He leans in to kiss me on the cheek, and I’m too slow to avoid it without making a scene, so I just smile, clenching my fingers into a fist as the scent of his aftershave overwhelms me.
‘Ey up, Fluff,’ he says, leaning into my ear as if to be heard, even though it’s not particularly loud in the room at this point. I catch Peggy glaring at him over his shoulder.
‘Jon.’
His face tugs into a grin. It’s the kind of grin that used to spark a riot of butterflies in my stomach, but now it just leaves me cold. ‘I finally found you.’
‘You did.’ I smile politely, nodding to the others, who have assembled in an arc around us. ‘These are my friends.’ I point to them in turn. ‘This is Nigel, and Sean, and Peggy. And this is W?adek, but you can call him Vl—’
‘Don’t call him Vlad!’ the others chorus, and it makes me burst out laughing.
‘It is the same name in my language,’ W?adek grumbles, flicking his cape over his shoulder. ‘I really don’t see what the big deal is here.’
Jon’s just looking at us all like he hasn’t got a clue what’s going on, and I haven’t got the energy to explain it to him.
Actually, it’s more than that. It’s that I don’t want him to know.
I don’t want him to know anything about this weird and wonderful weekend that I’m having, about these crazy, beautiful souls that I’ve met, about the way that something turns over in my chest when one of those souls in particular kisses me.
But there is something that I do want him to know.
‘I changed my mind about the article,’ I say, meeting his eyes with a confidence I don’t quite feel.
That gets his attention. ‘Oh?’
‘I’m going back to the original plan.’ My throat feels tight, but it’s important that I get this out. ‘I’m writing a review of the weekend as a whole, just the way Mina wanted. No scandal, just a love letter to Whitby and this community.’
He doesn’t reply, but I see one eye twitch the way it does when he’s annoyed by something but trying not to show it. It goes against every people-pleasing instinct I have, but it’s important to me, so I hold my nerve.
‘They deserve it,’ I manage. I hate the way he’s looking at me – like I’ve disappointed him. I force my brain to replay the image of him groping Amy in the bandstand to counteract the churn in my stomach, but that only makes it churn more.
‘Ok,’ he says eventually. His tone gives nothing away. That could either be ok, that sounds great, or ok, let’s see if you still have a job when you come back to the office.
‘Ok?’
He smiles, and it cuts right through me. ‘I look forward to seeing it in my inbox by close of play on Tuesday.’
Relief pulls a breath out of me. ‘Great,’ I say. ‘No problem.’
Then Peggy appears at my side, a showstopping smile on her face as she addresses me.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she says, in such a way that it’s obvious she’s not sorry in the slightest. ‘But we should nip to the toilet now, my lovely, before the band comes on.’ She winks at me.
‘You won’t want to miss a second of that. ’
She’s giving me an out, and I know it. There’s a good chance Jon knows it too – she’s not exactly subtle – but I take it anyway, whispering my thanks to her as we scurry away.
By the time we get back to the group, Jon is nowhere to be seen.
‘I hope you weren’t rude to him,’ I say. ‘He’s my boss.’
‘Oh, no.’ W?adek smiles as he adjusts his cape on his shoulders. ‘We were very friendly.’
‘Nigel was, perhaps, a little over friendly,’ Sean adds, with a twinkle in his eye.
Nigel just shrugs, feigned innocence on his face. ‘It’s just that I’ve found that the quickest way to get rid of undesirables like that is either to tell them about a potentially embarrassing medical problem you have, or to flat-out flirt with them.’
I snort a laugh. He looks very proud of himself, his narrow chest puffing out behind the jet-black waistcoat he’s wearing. It makes the criss-cross of chains on it twinkle in the coloured spotlights.
‘And you did…?’ I’m almost afraid to know the answer.
‘Both,’ he replies, his smile stretching so wide that his eyes disappear behind it. ‘I did both.’
I’m still laughing when I hear that familiar rasp, and it makes me snap to attention immediately.
‘All right, Whitby, have we got a treat for you tonight!’
One of the men assembled behind Bram plays a single note on his guitar, and the sound rings out through the room, drawing whoops and cheers from the audience. ‘Put your hands together for our favourite tribute band, Dawn is Dark!’
The roar in my chest mirrors the roar of the crowd, growing and building until it’s a heartbeat I can feel in my ears.
As I look to the stage, those green eyes are looking right back at me, and I catch the tiniest curl of a smile before he hops off the stage and the band explode into their first song.
And that’s when I know I’m a goner.