Chapter 10 Adam “Starstrukk” #3
But how can I tell her the truth without also admitting that I’m a hypocrite, a rule-breaker, a joke?
Plus, even if I do tell her, then what? How the hell am I meant to reverse this?
I can’t and even if I could I’d be giving Jules carte blanche to do the same.
To start changing whatever the hell she might not like about herself behind my back.
No. I messed up and have to own this. Quietly. Then make sure I never do it again.
“Yeah,” I tell her, glancing across at my biceps again in the mirror, and even giving the left one a firm little flex. “Everything’s great. Everything’s totally cool.”
Through the window, I catch sight of movement in the garden. Someone in a cycle helmet, pushing a bike down the garden path toward the shed.
“It’s Nelly,” I say.
“Hey, Dad,” she calls out, grinning at me as she unclips her helmet.
Automatically, I hold the door wide open for her as she kisses me sweatily on the cheek and wheels her bike through. Like I’ve done it a hundred times before. Which, on this new timeline, I have.
“I did Ditchling Beacon in under fifteen,” she announces, as she hangs her bike up and I high-five her, already working out that she must have been averaging at least seven miles an hour to achieve such a time climbing our murderously steep local hill.
“Meaning I’ve beaten your new personal best,” she teases, like I haven’t just worked this out too.
Because I’m now also “remembering” that we’ve had this friendly cycling rivalry of ours seesawing between us for nearly two years on this new timeline, ever since I first bought her this Liv Avail AR 4 endurance road bike and started cycling with her weekends when she was home from uni.
“Bor-ing,” chimes Jules, squeezing past.
A not-unexpected comment, because on this timeline, this dad/daughter thang of ours infuriates Jules.
She hates that she’s not part of “Team Fit,” as we secretly call ourselves behind her back.
But…wow. Just look at the results. Look at Nelly.
Lean and healthy and glowing from her latest triumph and loving the outdoor life.
Who’d have thought it and who could deny her that happiness?
That getting out there in the world. And who could deny me my part in this either?
Because—boom! I can feel it in my heart, and I don’t just mean my epic resting sixty beats per minute heart rate, but my pride.
To have helped her. To finally be an adult role model she respects.
“You’ll be beating me at everything soon,” I tell her, grinning back, even though we both know that she’s still got a long way to go before she catches up with my Ironman credentials. Meaning more bike rides together. More swimming. More runs. More happiness.
More fun.
—
Monday 9 a.m. and I’m in the kitchen fixing myself a raw-liver protein shake after finishing a grueling but deeply rewarding hour-long workout.
“What’s that?” Liam asks, coming in.
A pleasant surprise to see him up so early. Not just in his dressing gown either. He’s fully dressed in jeans and a clean hoodie. Like he’s got somewhere to go. But it’s the JBL Bluetooth speaker he’s looking at now and I can’t help but smile.
“ ‘Ventura Highway,’ ” I tell him. “By America.” I’ve been playing Homecoming, the 1972 album it’s from, ever since I got back from time traveling to 2009.
“I kind of recognize it,” he says, with that same look he wore back then creeping across his adult face, like a dog cocking its head at some distant sound. Then he does it again—he starts “la-ing” along to it, harmonizing to the tune.
“Talentoso,” I say as it ends.
He turns to look at me blankly, the spell broken. “Huh?”
“It means…”
“Talented?” He hazards a guess.
“Exactly.” As annoyed as I still am at him and his plans to quit college, and at him and Darius ganging up on me the other night, I still want to share this wonderful memory and this music I’d forgotten about.
“It’s what a busker once called you,” I explain.
“In Mallorca when you were little, and you sang along to him playing this song just like you did now.”
Again, I see younger Liam reflected in his adult face as he pushes his brown hair back from his eyes, but then he’s turning away and my heart sinks. So much for us having a chat.
Only then he rips a corner off the calendar and uses its dangling felt-tip pen to scribble something down.
“I love it,” he says, grinning. “I think we should cover it. Even record it.”
“Record it?” I ask, a spike in my voice, because who the hell’s he expecting to pay for that?
“If we get the chance…” he adds, rolling his eyes, but only a little. Signaling he expects resistance from me on what he’s about to tell me.
“Go on…”
“Uncle Dar…” he starts.
I might have known…
“…he’s got an old friend over at Brighton Electric…”
He means the little studio complex across town…
“…who says he can get me and Max some paid work setting up events and behind the bar, but that we can also rehearse there, and maybe later on me and Max and Kai can even use one of the mix studios and the mastering suite—”
“Kai?” I finally get a word in edgeways.
“She’s our drummer.”
They have a drummer? Already. He really is serious about all this, then.
Of course, my instinct is still to shut it down.
To stamp on it. Now. Before it goes any further.
To save Liam from himself. But then I remember my mother on another morning, so long, long ago, telling me not to funnel my ambitions into what she considered a “hobby” and instead to do something more boring with my life.
Next thing, I hear myself saying, “Well, if you do, and, you know, if it’s any good, then I’ve got a few contacts who I could maybe share it with.”
Even though the truth is I’ve only got two.
Rory, who runs the Great Escape, Brighton’s annual music festival and the UK’s answer to South by Southwest, so a pretty good one there.
And KP from the Troubs, who plays darts down at the Lion & Lobster.
But who knows? Crazy busy as they are, maybe I could actually get them to have a listen?
He looks at me like he must have misheard, but then I smile, and he smiles too.
—
Iride my favorite of my three mountain bikes into work—a Trek Top Fuel 5 full suspension, which is great for off-roading, but ideal for nipping around the city too.
I don’t need to think about the route as I zigzag through the sun-dappled streets. I must have done it a thousand times before—well, actually no, more like four thousand I quickly work out. Or at least the me on this timeline has. The me I assimilated with so seamlessly when I came back from 2009.
I’ve also got new memories of all the thousands of hours of other exercise he’s been doing since Mallorca. Which are my memories too now…sitting alongside my old memories of being…well, let’s be kind here, being in not good shape on my other old timelines before.
I know I should probably feel guilty for getting fit for free, but it’s not like I’m hurting anyone.
In fact, if anything, surely, I’m doing Jules and the kids a favor by being a healthier husband and dad.
Plus, I love it, don’t I? The pumping iron.
The workouts. The long runs and even longer bike rides.
I feel happier, healthier, and clearer of mind.
Also, it’s not like me taking exercise more seriously seems to have affected too much of the rest of my life.
Or at least not the big-ticket items. I’ve still got the same home, same kids, same Jules, same worries and same problems as before.
Money worries. Worries about me and Jules and the kids not getting on well enough—although, frankly, even a lot of that’s now on the up.
Concerns about Darius getting on maybe too well with them.
Oh, but I’ve still got a multiverse time machine too.
One I am seeing as more and more of a gift.
Even if, okay, strictly speaking, there might be a few more, shall we say, contentious little issues that have been thrown up on this new timeline too.
Like the fact that for the past fifteen years I’ve gone on holidays with my cycling club, meaning sometimes Jules and the kids have had to go somewhere on their own, until I got Nelly on board with the cycling too.
Something Jules and I have argued about—a lot.
Her being so pissy about all this does annoy me, of course, but I’ve learned to disregard her sarky little MAMIL snipes over the years and just do my thing, because why shouldn’t I wear Lycra at the weekends, particularly when it looks this damn good?
I suppose there’s also the Meredith thing too.
The fact that I’ve spent so much time with her over the last couple of years now that she’s my beach volleyball partner.
It also might have put Jules’s nose out of joint a bit more than it needed to when Meredith and I totally outplayed and outmuscled her and Darius at his party in the pool.
But you can’t have everything, right? And Meredith and I are just friends, just teammates.
In fact, there she is now, waving up at me from the World Famous Pump Room café beach courts, because on this timeline we like to get a quick hour’s practice in before work on a Monday. Same on Wednesday. So we’re good and ready to get fired up on Friday nights to keep us on top of the league.
Only there is something else going on here too, isn’t there?
I can’t help but feel that as I cycle down the ramp onto the beach to join her.
A tingling deep down inside. How me and Meredith are much closer, emotionally speaking, on this timeline.
So much so that I realize I’ve really missed her over the weekend.
There’s also so much new stuff I know about her.
New memories from all the extra chats we’ve had.
Like how awful it was for her with her dad dying young, and that the reason she left London was because her boyfriend was a cheat, and so now she’s holding out for someone she can trust.
“Looking good, babe,” she says, as I park my bike and give her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Feeling good, babe.” From the way we say it, the sheer familiarity of it, I realize this has become our standard greeting. Just the tip of the iceberg of our buddy banter too.
The hour goes by fast. What a team we are. Unbeatable, in fact. We win three practice matches back-to-back, all of them two sets to love. I adore it, being here, with her, our two honed bodies working in perfect tandem. Just being fully happy in the moment and not wanting to be anywhere else.
Afterward, we chat over a broccoli juice.
Only it’s not the kind of chat I’m expecting.
None of it’s the kind of stuff I used to talk to Meredith about in the pub or on our walks home back on my old timelines.
This friendship is so much more advanced.
It’s not just the new stuff I know about her.
She knows stuff about me too. About Jules, and how lackluster our relationship has become over the last few years.
Or had become. Until we discovered our machine.
But not even the me on this timeline has confided in Meredith about that.
No, because the first and second rule of Secret Multiverse Time Machine Club remains that we do not talk about Secret Multiverse Time Machine Club to anyone else.
When it comes time to say goodbye, Meredith goes to kiss me on the cheek again, but moves her face at the last split second, bringing her lips close to mine. I’m shocked. Even though I know she’s just teasing, I jerk my head back like I’ve been stung.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
“Um. Yeah, sure.”
She cocks her head, confused, like I’m the one who’s acting weird.
Then I know why. This isn’t weird for them, the Adam and Meredith who’ve been hanging out on this new timeline. We’ve become so much more openly flirty. It’s been months since we introduced this will we / won’t we element to our play. Just for fun, though, right?
Then I see Darius, leaning over on the railings up on King’s Road directly above us, looking down. No way he could have missed the two of us horsing around.
I step back. Acting like I haven’t seen him, but I’m left worrying he might have guessed that something’s going on. Which it’s not.
Only this worry then brings up a bigger one—because, surely, even thinking this means that something already is.