EPILOGUE
One year later
‘Iknow you’re really in love and everything,’ Hennie says, scrolling through Elliot’s phone.
‘And that’s all great and I’m very happy for you both, but do you have any songs in your playlists that aren’t a complete sop-fest?
Where are the tunes, Walker? Have you ever listened to anything with an actual beat? ’
To Elliot’s dismay, this year’s journey to Firecrest consists of Hennie sitting up front due to her travel sickness, with Josh and Owen travelling separately from London, as Hennie’s car was written off earlier this year due to a tragic case of excessive rust.
I smile to myself in the backseat. In all honesty, I could listen to them bicker all day.
They have adopted a unique type of relationship: interacting like irritable siblings, both equally grateful that the other one exists for my sake and harbouring undeniable affection as a result, all the while Hennie tosses vague insults in his direction and Elliot receives them with rolling eyes.
‘You might have to define “tune” for me, Hennie,’ he says dryly.
‘Oh my God, your boyfriend is so tiresome, Nora,’ she moans, hitting her head back against the headrest. ‘How do you cope.’
I snort with laughter and pat her little head. ‘Just pop on some drum and bass, Hen,’ I suggest.
‘Oh, I couldn’t possibly,’ she snaps. ‘This is the Car of Horrors where you can’t turn up the volume or eat any snacks in peace without receiving The Glare.’
Even Elliot snickers at this, and our eyes catch in the rear view mirror.
‘I knew I should have ridden with Owen and Josh,’ she says, folding her arms and crossing one leg over her knee to rest it on the dashboard.
‘Shoes off the dash,’ Elliot deadpans.
She wails with frustration, the sound of it covered by my wheeze of laughter.
We finally pull into the tiny car park sitting in between a petrol station and a small, worn diner where we’re meeting the boys, and shrug on our jackets to protect us from the specks of rain that have started to fall.
Sadly, it’s beginning to look like we won’t be as lucky with the weather as we were last year.
As Hennie launches herself out of the car like a small child that has spotted the gates of a zoo, I lean forward and wrap my arms around Elliot’s neck, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
‘She loves you, really,’ I say.
‘I know.’ He kisses me long and slow before giving me a dazzling smile. ‘Bet you’re glad you gave in and brought your wellies now.’
‘Glad is a strong word,’ I reply, peering out the window at the dark clouds. ‘I’d rather I didn’t need them at all.’
‘Well, Max sent me an article this morning about the supposed wild storm that’s coming our way,’ he says smugly.
Whilst the relationship between Elliot and his brother had been warped by the events of the last few years, it has slowly and patiently been rebuilt since last summer.
It’s by no means perfect, but the kink has been reshaped and repaired as a result of constant care and transparency on all sides.
I happily refer to myself as Elliot’s Honesty Coach, much to his chagrin.
‘No such thing as a Firecrest storm, Elliot,’ I insist. ‘It’s going to be very warm and so dry. And need I remind you that if it does rain that much you’re going to be walking around with a red cloud on your arm? You’ve witnessed it. You will have a clown for a girlfriend.’
He grins and takes a lock of my hair between his fingers. ‘I love the cloud.’
‘The cloud loves no one. The cloud absorbs everything and everyone in its path without mercy,’ I say seriously.
He shushes me and captures my lips again, threading his fingers through my hair, and my whole body relaxes.
When we walk into the diner, we’re greeted by loud cheers from Owen and Josh, who are already sitting at a large booth by the window with Hennie.
The seating is covered in ripped red leather, the tables a scratched and worn down metal decorated with laminated menus and tall bottles of condiments.
The rattle of the rain against the windows only gets louder.
Josh has ignored the weather forecast entirely and is wearing a baggy vest and shorts with his usual bandana tied around his head.
Owen turns back to Hennie with a grin as he takes a sip of his coffee.
The five of us have become something so solid and familiar that I forget now what it was like to not know them.
It started not long after Firecrest. For Hennie’s birthday, they all came down to Brighton on a gloomy Saturday armed with balloons and beer, and we sat in my living room with more pizza than we could possibly eat – Owen playing music so loudly my neighbours started knocking on the walls.
Elliot and I snuck up to my room as Josh and Owen passed out on the sofas and Hennie headed home, and when he took my body in his arms it felt like everything had slotted perfectly into place.
Elliot and I throw ourselves down next to Hennie and order two more coffees from the waitress. As soon as she’s gone Josh throws down his annual Firecrest to-do list to discuss, but Owen quickly interrupts him.
‘We can’t do that one in the rain, Ham,’ he says, pointing at one that says: get Owen to recreate Route 16 group pic from last year. ‘I can’t get my camera wet.’
‘Fuck the rain,’ Josh spits. ‘It’s not going to rain.’
The sound of thunder practically shakes the diner.
‘Exactly!’ I reply, turning to Elliot with indignation, but he just smiles and throws an arm around my shoulders.
‘It’s fine. If it rains, we just wear our waterproof shit and get on with it,’ Owen insists with a shrug. ‘But no photos.’
‘I don’t own any waterproof shit,’ Josh argues. ‘I’m not middle-aged or boring.’
‘You’re gonna be the boring one when you’re soaking wet and freezing,’ Elliot says plainly, nodding with thanks at the waitress who hands over two steaming mugs of coffee.
‘I have a spare umbrella, Ham,’ Hennie interjects.
‘There we go!’ Josh says with a wide smile. ‘See, that’s friendship. Take notes, Walker.’
Elliot responds by throwing a sweetener sachet at his face, and Josh releases a horrified squeal of surprise.
‘See this guy?’ Josh addresses Owen, pointing a thumb in Elliot’s direction. ‘Brings an anorak to a festival and thinks he’s the second child of Christ.’
Owen tries not to laugh and just nods at Hennie. ‘Thank God Hennie is here, as usual.’
I resist making eyes at Elliot, who is somehow convinced that there isn’t anything going on between Hennie and Owen.
While Hennie lightly denies it and claims they’ve just become close friends, for some reason I don’t fully believe her.
The way I catch them looking at each other every so often makes me so sure that there must be some feelings there, but I don’t feel I can quiz her on it any further.
We discuss the line-up in detail: which acts we should see and who could be missed. Queen Ego aren’t playing this year, which means I’m happy to be led by everyone else. I’m looking forward to not carrying any guilt about dragging the whole group around this time.
‘Anything you want to see, Nora?’ Owen asks, probably noticing my lack of input.
I shrug a shoulder. ‘Nope. Just… happy to see what happens.’
Josh points at me as he turns to the group. ‘And this is exactly the stunning vibe we need to be going for, team. Less plans, more following wherever our hearts lead us.’
‘Less plans? What about your to-do list?’ Hennie asks.
‘Well, obviously that needs to stay. It’s essential.’
‘So, no plans except for your long list of plans,’ Owen says with a smirk.
‘Yes, obviously,’ Josh replies as if deeply offended.
‘We should probably get going if we want to get a good spot,’ Elliot cuts in, chugging down the last of his coffee.
After we pay and head back out to the cars, I giggle madly at Hennie and Josh as they start arguing about who’s sitting in Owen’s front seat for the rest of the journey.
‘We’re thirty-five minutes away,’ Owen shouts through the window from the driver’s seat. ‘Just decide!’
I plonk myself into Elliot’s car and shiver with delight when I feel his hand grip my thigh.
He rolls down my window to the sound of Hennie and Josh still fiercely in debate.
‘We’re going,’ Elliot declares, before putting the car in gear and driving out of the car park to join the long, slow line of cars that are all inevitably heading to the festival site.
His hand still rests on my thigh and I thread my fingers through his.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asks. I take a deep breath.
‘Okay,’ I answer honestly. Similarly to last year, I’m not exactly thrilled to be heading somewhere so densely populated with people, but this time I have the knowledge that I’ve made it through one Firecrest unscathed.
And I could get through another. ‘I have been thinking though. That I might avoid the Firecrest Stage this year,’ I add with a smirk.
‘Sounds like a good idea,’ he replies with a laugh, bringing my hand to his lips to gently kiss it. The rain falls in a steady pattern over the windscreen as we come to a stop in the long queue.
‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.
He side-eyes me with surprise. ‘Never been better,’ he says with an easy smile.
‘It’ll be weird to just be regular people this year. You know, nobody staring at us and our hands clinging onto a drumstick,’ I tease. ‘No double takes or people taking photos.’
‘We can just hold hands like normal people.’
‘Hold hands? Gross.’ I wrinkle my nose in mock disgust. ‘I barely know you.’
He grins and pulls my head towards his for a brief, toe-curling kiss. ‘Take it back,’ he says into my mouth.
My laugh is muffled against his lips. ‘Focus on the road, driver.’
‘We’re stationary.’
‘Fine,’ I relent, pulling back and tucking a stray lock of his hair behind his ear. ‘I need to be permitted entry into the enormo-tent, so I’ll give in.’
I happily slump down into my seat as the traffic inches forward.
‘The only pity is no Queen Ego this year,’ he says, his eyes back on the road.
‘I know. It was lucky enough we got them last year, though.’
‘Yeah,’ he agrees, sounding torn. ‘I mostly wish they were here just so I could watch you watch them again, honestly.’
My shoulders shake with laughter. ‘Why? So I can destroy my vocal cords once and for all?’
‘It was just something else to witness,’ he recalls fondly. ‘Before we met and we spent that Queen Ego set standing next to each other, you were just so fucking – I don’t know – captivating.’
‘Good to know you were creeping.’
‘Sorry. Not really though,’ he amends. ‘You were just so free and unrestrained. Like you really lost yourself in it.’
‘Yeah, a decade of something was released in those forty minutes.’
He nods, halting the car as we hit the end of a queue again.
‘I think I fell a tiny bit in love with you, even then,’ he admits, a little sheepish. ‘Is that weird to say?’
The words never fail to immerse me in a comforting glow, shrouding me in inescapable warmth, and the memory of Elliot saying ‘I love you’ for the first time sweeps through me.
I was sitting with my laptop on his sofa early on a Friday morning when he rushed over to me in his suit to say goodbye for the day.
We exchanged kisses and blurred ‘see you laters’ only for it to be followed by a rushed ‘I love you’ under his breath as he made to leave, immediately freezing in place, slowly turning back to me to see if I’d noticed.
I had. My jaw fell ever-so-slightly open.
‘That wasn’t really how I’d been planning to say that,’ he said with wide eyes.
I attacked his mouth and cheeks with kisses, leaping on him without restraint, whispering ‘I love you’ into his mouth.
He groaned as he undressed me with impatient hands and pushed me back on to the sofa. He ended up being late for work.
It was bizarre and unplanned but it was also undeniably us.
In the last year we’ve gotten into the habit of spending our weekends at each other’s places.
Elliot comes to Brighton more often, claiming to love the city as much as he loves London, while I crave the privacy and serenity of his own flat.
There have been countless walks on Brighton beach, visits to London pub gardens and heavenly weekends where we stayed resolutely in Elliot’s bed and had food delivered to satiate our hunger between embraces.
Hennie joins us in Brighton for movie nights and the boys come to Elliot’s on Saturdays for hungover breakfasts.
Every single second of it has been bliss.
‘Maybe weird for some,’ I reply with a chuckle. ‘But I love you enough for it to be fine with me.’
He kisses my knuckles again. ‘Good.’
Out of nowhere, the rain starts to pound against the windscreen so heavily it completely obscures the view of the road and I gasp at the volume of it against the roof.
‘Still think it’s not going to rain this weekend?’ Elliot asks with a knowing look.
‘Yeah, this is great,’ I reply with confidence. ‘It’s just getting the rain out of its system.’
He stares at the sky with skepticism.
‘We’re going to be drenched,’ he mutters under his breath.
He’s absolutely right.
It does, in fact, rain heavily for the entirety of the festival. We spend every minute of it soaked with rain and, eventually, covered in mud.
It’s the greatest weekend of my life anyway.