78. Fucking Sick
Fucking Sick
Kiri
After Saint Lucia, time starts moving too fast again.
Ma decides she likes the rental enough that calling it the rental feels wrong, so we buy it for her. Natalia goes back to the old house once to collect the rest of her clothes, photographs, and anything she refuses to leave behind, but Ma never steps through that door again.
She gets stronger every week. Walks farther. Cooks more. Starts insisting she doesn’t need anyone hovering over her. According to Natalia, that stops being a problem the day Ma and her mother begin what she calls the war of the kitchen.
“She came over for lunch,” Natalia tells me over the phone, “and somehow the correct dough thickness for dumplings became a blood feud.”
“Pierogi?”
“That was Mama’s argument.”
“What was Ma’s?”
“That dumplings are dumplings and Mama needs to stop acting like Poland invented flour.”
I laugh.
“Mama almost threw a rolling pin.”
“Where is she now? Safe from Polish rage and rolling pins?”
“I left two hours ago to get my nails done. I assume Ma lives there permanently or Tata drove her home after they reached a peace treaty.”
Something insanely bright blooms in my chest, a strange sort of feeling, one that I'm not used to. A real family. By the time festival season starts, Natalia has stopped pretending she isn’t waiting for me to beg her to join me.
So, I put her out of her misery and get on my knees for her like the absolutely broken man I am.
“Kroppy, now that Ma's settled in, you know the only place you belong is with me.”
There’s a pause.
“With you where?”
“Everywhere? Anywhere? Now that everything’s official, come take pictures. Enjoy the festivals, eat overpriced hot dogs. Make content. Do your thing.” I let the silence stretch. “Do me. It’s an entire package.”
Her laugh hits me straight through the phone. For once in her life, she doesn’t argue.
“Fine.”
I sit up. “Fine? That was too easy.”
“You're about to ruin it.”
“Does this mean you missed me?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
She arrives two days later.
An hour after that, Ronan takes one look at us and stops dead.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he says. “Do I need to get the water hose?”
Natalia’s laugh breaks against my mouth, warm and breathless, and I smile into it before forcing myself to pull back. It's still nowhere near a respectable distance.
“Okay, listen.” I glance at him. “You and Fre—”
“Bud.” Ronan holds up one hand like he’s stopping traffic. “Freja and I do not get explicit in front of you.”
“Nothing about this is explicit.”
“I can see your massive rager from here.”
Natalia makes a strangled sound and buries her face against my chest, shaking with laughter. Ronan points at me harder.
“Now I’m blind. I came here to check my kit, not receive psychic damage from your trousers.”
I can’t help it. I laugh, tipping my head back, one arm still locked around Natalia’s waist while we both lose every trace of maturity.
“We’re musicians,” I say. “Music makes us horny. It's not the first time you’ve encountered the concept.”
“It’s not the concept I’m encountering. That’s the problem.”
He throws his hands up and turns away.
“Now I have to find some fucking bleach to rinse my eyes with,” he mutters, scooping up his drumsticks as he heads toward the riser.
Natalia slaps a hand over her mouth, but it doesn’t help. Her laugh spills through her fingers anyway, brilliantly wicked, and goes through me like a live wire.
I watch her.
At the flush warming her cheeks. The shine in her eyes. The way she’s trying so hard not to make it worse and failing beautifully.
For months, every good thing between us had to be hidden, interrupted, explained, or punished.
Now she’s here.
In my arms. Backstage and laughing loudly enough for everyone to hear.
And nobody is making me to let her go.
Right before we go out and tear the festival apart, Rafe comes up beside me backstage.
I barely notice him at first. Natalia is across the way laughing with one of the photographers, camera hanging from her neck, festival pass bouncing against her hip.
She throws her head back at something he says, somehow completely at home in the chaos already.
I smile before I even realize I’m doing it.
Rafe’s hand lands between my shoulder blades, then slides up to squeeze my shoulder.
“I had the wrong myth.”
I glance at him. “What?”
He’s looking at Natalia too.
“You’re Dionysus. She’s Ariadne.” He shakes his head slowly. “I’m disappointed in myself, actually.”
I stare at him.
“Am I supposed to know what the fuck that means?”
His mouth twitches. “I don’t know, man. Is there anyone else you’ve ever wanted to throw a crown into the sky for?”
“I hate when you talk in this bullshit, we don't all eat Greek mythology for breakfast.”
He laughs and leans closer, lowering his voice.
“Since Ronan isn’t near enough to haunt us with commentary, I’ll translate.” He nods toward Natalia. “I think she turned our resident party boy into a man who can’t wait to tell the entire fucking world about her every chance he gets.”
I look back at her and she catches me staring. Her smile changes when our eyes meet, softer around the edges but somehow brighter, and she gives me a tiny wave with just her fingers. There goes that fucking feeling in my chest again. Rafe pats my shoulder once more.
“That’s all you need to know.”
“Still hate the myth shit.”
“Yeah.” He starts walking away. “But I’m still right.”
Unfortunately, the bastard usually is.
A few months into the festival circus, we get invited to an awards show, and I ask Natalia to come as my date.
Elise handles the rest. Within a day, Nat is getting calls from designers who apparently consider dressing someone built like her a competitive sport.
She spends the next week showing me picture after picture of gowns, switching between tabs so fast I stop pretending I can keep track.
“You’ll look good in all of them, Kroppy.”
“That's not helpful.”
“It’s true.”
When she finally presents her choice, it's one that makes every other dress look like it gave up.
The moment we step onto the carpet, she changes.
Every camera finds her. Every pose lands.
She answers questions with this easy grace that makes it look like she’s been doing it for years instead of standing on her first major carpet beside a man thirteen years older and a band everyone already has opinions about. She doesn’t flinch once.
At twenty-three, I could barely stand still for a photograph without looking like I wanted to punch the lens. Natalia owns the whole fucking thing. The red carpet is her bitch, and watching her prove it is something else.
Rafe stands just ahead of us under the lights in a black suit, no veil tonight.
It's an awards show, so of course Stefan said he wanted our faces on display in a planned, socially acceptable event for once. But even without his mask, he still has that distance clinging to him. That hush. That don’t-touch-the-glass quality people mistake for arrogance.
He answers something with a laugh. Polite and practiced.
Then the reporter’s smile goes flat as they gear up for a challenge.
I feel it before she even finishes asking, that change in the air. The click of a trap being set.
“So, Obelus, I have to ask,” she says, pushing the microphone closer. “Atlas Obsidian just kicked off The Apollo Tour, and it’s already getting massive buzz. Elias Hawthorne has named The Riven Altar as one of his biggest inspirations. He’s said he’s a fan. What do you think about that?”
My hand tightens on Natalia’s waist.
Rafe laughs softly, but I hear what’s under it.
I’ve known him too long not to. It’s the same laugh he uses when someone tries to make him the villain in a story they wrote before he arrived.
He hates this shit. He hates being made into someone else’s measuring stick.
Hates it when they try to turn music into a dogfight.
“Yeah, you know,” Rafe says, dipping his head a little. “It’s an honor. It’s humbling, really, to inspire new musicians. Anyone making people excited about live music right now is doing something good.”
A good, clean answer. Which means they won’t take it. The reporter nods like she’s listening, but her eyes have already moved past his words to the headline she wants instead.
“Yeah, but Greek mythology in rock?” she presses. “That’s The Riven Altar’s whole brand, isn’t it?”
Natalia goes still beside me. My jaw flexes.
Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? They don’t want an answer, just blood on the carpet.
For Rafe to sound arrogant or bitter or threatened.
They want Atlas Obsidian fans to start fighting with our fans by breakfast, and Elias Hawthorne’s name trending beside Obelus’s with a little flame emoji and some caption like rock gods at war?
Rafe gives another small laugh and shrugs. “You know, I don’t think the ancient Greeks really had a trademark system set up.” A few people nearby laugh. Rafe smiles, dry and easy. “It’s free game, man.”
That should be enough, but she's not letting this go until she gets what she wants. I see the reporter inhale. and the microphone lift again. I see the question forming behind her perfect teeth, and I know exactly where she’s about to put the knife.
So I lean in and pull Natalia half an inch closer with me because some petty part of me likes the idea that if I’m about to be a nuisance, she’s going to be the prettiest thing in frame.
“Their bassist is fucking sick,” I say, and throw up devil horns beside Rafe’s shoulder.
One beautiful second of silence, then the interviewer blinks. The cameraman makes a tiny strangled sound, like I’ve stepped on his soul. Natalia’s fingers dig into my jacket.
I keep grinning. “Seriously. Filthy god damn tone. Great hands. Tell him I said that.”
The reporter’s smile goes brittle. “Okay, well—”
“Love that shit,” I add.
Just to bury the footage properly, at least for most outlets.
Oh no, no snippet, no blood. Her eyes flash with annoyance.
Her hand drops with the mic and she makes a face like I’ve pissed directly into the champagne tower.
Good luck using that, then. Run my f-bomb on daytime television.
Caption it, try and start that fan war. Please.
I’d love to see a morning show host trying to present my “fucking sick”.
“Thank you for that, Kiri,” the reporter says, in the exact voice teachers used on me right before giving me detention.
“Anytime,” I say.
She turns away immediately, one hand lifting toward her crew in a helpless little what am I supposed to do with that? gesture.
Rafe looks at me and I look back. It’s brief.
Nothing the cameras can understand unless they know the language already.
They don’t know Rafe going quiet after interviews where people tried to carve him into something uglier.
They don’t know how many times he’s carried this band’s myth on his back and pretended it didn’t bruise. I dip my chin once.
I got you.
Then I’m back beside Natalia, hand still on her waist, pretending I haven’t just committed minor PR vandalism in front of half the industry.
She tilts her head up at me. “Did you just save Rafe Ashton with public obscenity?”
“I said their bassist was fucking sick. That’s a review.”
As the show starts winding down, Natalia is still smiling for everyone who looks our way, but I can see the strain beginning to creep in around the edges.
She adjusts her weight every few minutes. Flexes one foot beneath the table. Tries to hide the way her toes curl inside those ridiculous heels whenever she thinks no one is watching.
I’m watching.
“Give me your foot.”
Her eyes narrow. “No.”
I push my chair back and kneel in front of her.
I’m still in the couture suit Elise threatened me not to wrinkle, surrounded by people drinking champagne beneath chandeliers with more money than I'll probably ever earn and Natalia is looking down at me like I’ve just done something indecent.
My hand closes around her ankle. I slip one finger beneath the delicate strap, unfasten the tiny buckle, and ease the heel from her foot.
The relief on her face is immediate, even though she tries to hide it.
I set the shoe beside me and hold out my hand.
“Other foot.”
"Kiri."
She gives it to me anyway. I unfasten the second strap and slide the heel off, then set both shoes aside. Red marks circle her ankles, and the sight of them pisses me off more than it should. Once both heels are gone, I stand and slip out of my own polished black shoes. Her eyes widen.
“No way.”
“Yes, Kroppy.”
“You can't walk around in socks at a fancy awards show.”
“Watch me.”
“Misiu.”
I bend, collect her heels by the straps, then brace one foot against my shoes to keep them from sliding while she steps into them. They swallow her feet. She looks down, then up at me.
“You look ridiculous.”
“You look comfortable.”
“They’re enormous.”
“So am I.”
Her mouth twitches despite herself. The shoes are still warm when she settles into them, and something in her face softens as she realizes I noticed. That I was paying attention even here, in the middle of all this noise and flash and expensive bullshit. I straighten and hold out my hand.
“Come on. It's time to go back to the hotel.”
She takes it, and when we start walking, me in black socks and her disappearing into shoes three sizes too big, I don’t give a fuck who sees.