And what was he supposed to say to her? Thanks for the payment.
Fuck that.
Tucking the cash and receipt in his wallet, he walked towards the studio. When he turned the corner onto the studio’s street, he saw Jase kiss Cerys. He held both of her hands in his own as the spring breeze whipped at the hem of Cerys’s dress.
He’d left a beautiful woman in his bed and gained a million dollars. Yet, everything was off. He felt Jase and Cerys’s happiness as if it were alive and breathing.
“Cut that shit out,” he grumbled, as envy filtered through his veins. He remembered how good it had felt to kiss Willow and fought down the confusion that made him want to do it again. Only now, she was paying him.
“Don’t look at him, sunshine,” Jase said. “If we ignore him, he’ll go away.”
“Morning, Luke,” Cerys said brightly. “And you,” she said, stepping up on to her toes to kiss Jase chastely one more time, “you need to leave.”
“What I need is for you to come back home and spend the day in bed with me. Little Jase misses you.”
“You’re the only person I know who could get away with naming his dick and talking about him as if he was an independent entity,” Luke said.
“My dick is an independent entity. Tell him, Cerys.”
Cerys deftly dodged away from Jase. “I’m not telling him anything. I will see you and Little Jase later. Now, let me go do my work.”
“Spoilsport. Fine.”
Jase watched Cerys walk up the steps to the building with a grin on his face. “Move in with me,” he shouted.
“No,” echoed from within the building.
“I’m going to convince her. She thinks we’re rushing it.”
“You are. You met three months ago.”
“Says the guy who knocked up his woman on the first date.”
Luke laughed. “She’s not my woman, and that’s a low blow, even for you.”
Jase shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s the truth. How’s Willow doing? Must have been a scare for her, yeah?”
“First couple of days she was a little sore. Shook her, though.”
“And you, I bet.”
“Yeah. Almost had a heart attack. But Willow’s fine now. Iz and Chaya have been great. Cerys and Zoe have been over too. Willow’s decided she’s going to learn sign language to better communicate with Zoe.”
“Alex is the same. Cerys and Zoe have hung out over at our place some nights. So, Alex decided we should learn a new phrase every day. Problem is, he’s great at it, and I look like I’m doing the macarena. He signs ‘I’ll let you know’, and I look like I signed ‘I’m a dickhead’. It’s ridiculous. And it’s not like it takes five minutes to learn. Cerys has been studying it for years, and if Zoe and Cerys look at each other one more time with that aww-isn’t-he-cute-for-trying vibe, I might stop.”
“You won’t. Because you love Cerys and I’ve seen how protective you can be of Zoe. But I am surprised that for all your rhythm and coordination it’s not more natural to you.”
Alex pulled up across the street and entered his parking space details into his phone to pay.
“I’m glad Willow is spending some time with the girls. Must be pretty lonely, doing an isolating job, like without people to work with. And being in a foreign country. Can’t imagine it’s easy. Anyway, I gotta go. Me and Matt have an interview over at Media City. Catch you both later.”
Alex stepped onto the kerb. “Look what I managed to get my hands on at an auction.”
“Is that a Linn?”
“The original LM-1. You don’t want to know how much I had to pay for it.”
They headed into the building up to the studio.
Just the two of them were meeting to work on the arrangement of the songs they’d agreed would be in the tour. Matt might hold the creative control, writing the songs and music. But it was him and Alex who gave the song the umph to play it in front of an arena crowd. Louder, heavier.
“Studio Two, guys,” Cerys said as she clipped some letters into the black board she put motivational quotes on every day. “Someone else needed the rehearsal space today and there’s more of them than you.”
Alex signed a response to Cerys who grinned and signed back.
“What was that?” Luke asked as they walked into Studio Two.
“I said thank you. Cerys said something I didn’t get, then she said see you later. Of a fashion.”
“It’s good of you to learn.”
“To be honest, I feel like a shit when Zoe comes over with Cerys, and I don’t even have the basics. Like, she can kind of lip read if it’s just the two of you. But she only catches about a third of what you say. And her hearing aids are about the same. I figured it would be good to be able to greet her, ask if she’d like a drink. It’d take forever to become fluent.”
“Fair play.”
“Okay. Listen to this.” He set the Linn up and began to play a rhythm. The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me”. “Digital samples on removable sound chips never sounded so good,” he laughed.
“Hard to believe people thought it would replace drums and drummers. The sound is cool, but there’s no follow through on the note. Sound synthesis is way too clean. It does sound really fucking cool, though.”
“I thought it might sound great layered into ‘Papercut Hearts’ and ‘Wave After Wave’. Instead of putting in an additional snare.”
Luke nudged Alex out of the way and played the intro beats to New Order’s “Blue Monday”. The sound tight and crisp. “You know, there’s a reason all those songs from the eighties are still so damn catchy. Prince’s ‘I Would Die 4 U’, A-ha’s ‘Take on Me’, Queen’s ‘Radio Ga Ga’.”
“Urgh, don’t talk about Queen. Uncle Allan plays them to fucking death and sings about as well as a neutered squirrel.”
Luke laughed. Memories of working with Alex’s Nan’s brother in his painting and decorating firm were too recent in memory to be nostalgic. “I remember. Had to listen to him singing ‘Who Wants to Live Forever’ at the top of his lungs every day.”
“How’s Willow doing?”
A mental image of the way she’d felt so fucking good in his arms just an hour ago flooded his mind. And if it wasn’t his imagination, she was wearing less and less each day. Pyjamas had given way to loose shorts and T-shirts, and last night had been a tank and booty shorts that had made her arse look so fucking delicious he’d been in half a mind to slip beneath the covers so he could bite it.
“Oi. Earth to Luke.” Alex waved his hand in front of Luke’s face.
“Sorry. She’s good. Doing much better. But I think it shook her.”
“Did it shake you?”
Luke paused for a moment. “Yeah. It did.” It had shaken them both. But perhaps it had also settled something between the two of them.
“Can I tell you something? Honestly?”
“Of course. What’s up?”
“It’s been harder than I thought, giving up the coke and smokes. I would never have said I was addicted, but I hadn’t realised how often I reach for . . . something.”