His brows furrow, as though needing to explain himself properly. “We sing about staying true to ourselves and having fun. I feel like both those things have been in short supply lately.”
I don’t even think before I do it — I drag Conor into a bear-hug and hold him tight. He leans his head against the top of my shoulder, and I watch as his fingers discreetly try to wipe his eyes.
After a moment, Conor sits upright again, his thick hair brushing my skin. “You’re not gonna try to make me stay?”
I can’t stop him. He’s been thinking this over for months now — as have all of us, I have no doubt.
I peer at him. “Do you want that?”
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “I’m kinda relieved you haven’t. Just surprised.”
“Does Seth know?”
Conor’s fingers draw spirals on his jeans. “I told him I was thinking about it. Not that I was gonna do it the very next day. He’s gonna hate me.”
“He’d never hate you. Not in a million years.” Of this I’m so damn certain. Seth isn’t capable of hate; he wouldn’t even hate a shark that decided to start snacking on him.
Conor doesn’t look up, and I realize he’s probably still trying to hold back his tears.
I stand up and move to the corner of the room, as though searching for something, but really just to give Conor some privacy.
Releasing a breath, I think to myself: This is it, then: the beginning of the end.
Outside my room, there is some kind of commotion going on. I rub circles around my temples, trying to stop being so tense, but seriously, what now? If Adam and Tarek are fighting again—
But it’s not. It’s Kat’s voice, and, high-pitched, panicked, she’s crying, “Where’s my camera? Where’s my laptop? Where are they?!”
WHEN WE TRAIPSE INTO MCM’s meeting room, we quickly learn what became of Kat’s filmmaking equipment.
Sitting on Carla Merksworth’s desk is Kat’s sleek silver laptop, plugged into a projector and presentation screen. The screen says, WELCOME, ROYAL ELEMENT (AND FRIEND), with animated streamers and balloons. It looks mocking as fuck. Kat’s camera is hooked into the laptop and, below the text, there is a carousel of video thumbnails, each one looking more incriminating than the last.
If we ever believed Kat to be a spy for MCM, she’d have to be a damn good actress to react the way she is now. She looks out of her mind with worry.
“That’s my stuff! That’s my stuff! You seized it!” Kat cries, staring at Carla as though betrayed. “How?”
Carla is busy typing an email at a thousand words per minute. “Be with you in juuust a minute,” she says in a slow singsong tone, sounding distracted by the words she’s typing.
It’s all for show. Everything here is for fucking show.
Behind us, Robin Merksworth enters the room. “Sorry I’m late, gentlemen.” He brushes against my back in his quest to reach the desk, and desperately I try not to shudder. He smiles at us like an uncle we haven’t seen since last Christmas. “How do you boys like our London office?”
His tone is bright and pleasant, as though discussing recommendations for places to eat.
We don’t say anything. Our mouths are firmly shut. Only Kat looks out of her depth and therefore easy to torture, though I’d specifically warned her to follow my lead and not to speak unless spoken to directly.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” Merksworth continues, as though we’d offered feedback. “It is smaller than our American HQ. But it is quaint, too. London, England! What say you, Ms. Galbraith?”
Fuck. Surely they aren’t going to be so daring to pick on Kat when they must know we’d all fight her corner?
Kat mutters, “It’s the UK, not just England.”
This seems to have surprised Merksworth. “Pardon?”
“The United Kingdom. You don’t have to give the country after the city the way you would back home — I’ve read they don’t like that as much here. And claiming that London is only part of England is disingenuous to the other nations that make up the United Kingdom.”
I blink, mentally flicking through all the textbooks I’ve studied. What is she playing at? Is this some sort of advanced Chewbacca defense?
If so, it seems to have stumped Merksworth — at least momentarily. I try to swallow my smirk.
“I see. Thank you for your socio-geographical assessment, Ms. Galbraith. Most enlightening.”
Beside me, I hear Kat release a breath. Merksworth turns his back to us. Still staring resolutely forward, I lightly run my hand down Kat’s spine. She’s stiff as a board but she softens at my touch.
“Enlightening like your... media,” Merksworth continues in a thoughtful tone. “Oh my, are you still standing there? Sit down, sit down, come on. You’ll certainly need to for this part.”
I don’t like the sound of that.
Slowly, we make our way to the row of padded chairs before Carla and Merksworth. I sit beside Kat and Seth, right in the center of the row.
Carla looks up at us for the first time. Her fuchsia lipstick smiles at me, as though she hadn’t been expecting anything less than for me to be front and center of this meeting. “You know,” she says to me as though we’re alone together, “I am always taken aback by how similar you two look. Little Lion Man” — I tense up — “and the Fantastic Mr. Fawkes.”
She briefly nods at Seth, as though he were an inanimate object. It’s probably the way he likes it, but it riles me up nevertheless. Getting started on the depersonalization and identity crises so soon, really?
“In looks only, perhaps,” I tell her with a tight smile. My meaning is clear: Seth might have second thoughts about tearing them a new one, but I sure as hell won’t.
“Shall we have a little play?” Carla says, the pointer of her mouse hovering over a large arrow symbol.
Beside me, Kat shakes her head and slumps deeper into her chair, but they don’t pay her the slightest bit of attention. Carla grabs a remote control and points it at the lights; they dim in an instant, so that we’re plunged into darkness.
Videos on the screen start playing.
Now is probably not the time to be impressed by quality, but my first thought is that it looks good. Kat knows what she’s doing when it comes to color and composition. The colors are vibrant, as though the majority of it wasn’t recorded on a tour bus that’s mostly black and gray.
I watch the clips in sick fascination. Some are similar: there’s one of Adam telling MCM to fuck off, followed by Conor at the Phony nominees’ party saying pretty much the same thing.
There are some clips I didn’t expect, like Seth and Kat kissing. It must have been taken recently because it’s filmed on a hotel bed. I can’t stop staring at the shine of their pink lips and the slow, hypnotic slide of Seth’s tongue as it enters Kat’s mouth. Kat’s face looks as though she’s in bliss. Even though it only lasts for a few seconds, my cock starts to harden beneath the table.
The clip ends with them smiling at one another, calm and untroubled, their eyes still closed. My heart is full for them: they look like any young couple in love.
The next clip is fuzzier and appears to be of a blank wall. The camera appears to wobble around a lot, and I wonder if someone’s holding it. Then I realize it’s not the visuals that are important but the audio: Kat is pleading for her camera, while Tarek’s muffled voice seems to gloat. There is serious distress in Kat’s tone and I start to seethe at Tarek — this doesn’t sound pleasant at all. Tarek mocks her desperation, and a flare of anger bursts in my chest. The fuck was Tarek playing at? In outrage, I turn my head toward him, but through the darkness I can make out Tarek’s hand reaching up to his face in dismay. The image is still of a blank wall, slipping in and out of focus, but finally all speech stops — until all that’s left is the heavy panting of both Tarek and Kat, followed by some alarmingly guttural moans that make my cock harden further.