“Last two walls,” Matt Palmer said, shoving his floppy black hair from his face. “Whoever decided wallpaper was back in fashion was a wanker of the finest order.”
Luke Bryson, his best friend from the age of ten, fellow Sad Fridays bandmate and drummer by night, and employee of Matt’s Uncle Allan’s decorating firm by day, shrugged. “I get paid whether I’m hanging wallpaper or painting walls. I hate matching up seams as much as I hate cutting in. Did you hear back from that guy in London?”
“Nah. If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. He did some research on us. Found out that Jase bailed halfway through the show in Brighton and said he couldn’t risk a repeat.” Matt slapped more decorator’s paste onto the wallpaper on the pasting table, brushing it angrily as he tried to tamp down the frustration that always rose when he thought about his pain-in-the-arse younger brother and band’s lead singer. “It would have been nice to have a few gigs lined up down south. We should nail down the setlist for the show in Wigan next weekend.”
“What are the chances we could test out the new song you were working on?”
Matt shrugged. “Not finished yet. But I was starting to think we should give writing another full album a shot. The summer gigs have boosted the bank account enough that we can afford some studio time and production. It’s not a lot, and we’d have to do a bunch of sound engineering ourselves.”
“Can you two save your band yapper and get on with getting that paper on the walls?” Uncle Allan, his nan’s younger brother, stood with his hands on his hips, his paint-splattered polo shirt with his decorating firm’s logo on it swamped his scrawny frame.
Matt looked down at his matching polo shirt. It fit him better, but it was fucking depressing to pull it on every morning. It was like a costume that didn’t quite fit. “It’s getting done faster than you could pull it off, old man. Keep your hair on.”
This couldn’t be all there was to his life. A bucket of wallpaper paste and Uncle Allan giving him shit, while for a few blessed hours every weekend he escaped on stage at pubs and clubs all over Great Britain. The magical journey he’d imagined when they’d dropped out of school to play music hadn’t materialised.
At twenty-nine, he shivered at the thought of spending a lifetime of making other people’s houses look amazing when he could barely afford the rent on his own. Some of their clients were so far up their own arses they refused to let them take a piss in the toilets or give them so much as a glass of water during an often-ten-hour day.
His younger brother, Jase, a cracking lead singer and a totally shite human being, worked at a pub. His cousins, Ben and Alex, were great musicians. Alex worked at a big coffee chain in the Arndale Centre, and Ben worked as a mechanic. He felt their fatigue. Weekends on the road. Grabbing extra shifts here and there in careers flexible enough to grant them time off to play and record. Luke appeared to be the only one who still believed their music could become a viable full-time career.
But some days it felt as though he was the only one utterly committed to the dream.
If only Nan hadn’t made the ultimatum all those years ago. She’d only agree to let Matt leave sixth form college and start a band if he agreed to let Jase be in it. And seeing his nan raised them after their mum bailed, taking them into her tiny two-up two-down Manchester terrace, he’d been unable to say no.
“You don’t get to police what we talk about while we’re working, Uncle Allan. Especially not on a Saturday when we’re doing you a favour because your other crew fell behind.”
Allan dipped his paintbrush into the pot of white gloss paint and carried on cutting in around the skirting boards. “I’m paying you double overtime, you mercenary bastards,” he muttered.
“You know, we’re great live,” Matt continued. “We have venues repeatedly ask us back. And we have a decent following. I just don’t know how we break through. Like, fuck me, I don’t want to be doing this for the rest of my life. No offence, Uncle Allan.”
“None taken, lad.”
“We’re doing the work,” Luke said thoughtfully. “Putting in the hours and miles.”
“Yeah. Pubs, small concert venues. A few hundred punters. Five hundred tickets maybe. A thousand at a push for a great gig. Enough cash to stay alive as a band to fight another day. I guess I’m fed up with hand-to-mouth.”
Matt gathered up the paper and stepped up the ladder, lining the pattern up before letting the rest of the paper drop to the floor. “There’s got to be something else we can try.”
It was still on his mind as he let himself into his nan’s terraced house two hours later.
He was greeted by the scent of roasting beef and Yorkshire puddings. His favourite. He ran his hand through damp black hair in desperate need of a cut. It would dry in messy waves and get in his eyes, but it had been a rush to get from the job to his own place for a shower, before jogging to his nan’s.
“It’s only me, Nan.” He scratched Boddington, the ancient black and white cat who lazed on the sofa in between bouts of playing chicken with cars on the street outside.
“Be with you in a minute,” she yelled from the kitchen.
The tiny Manchester home was her pride and joy. Neat as a pin, with a cosy open plan living space and kitchen on the ground floor, and two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. It was beyond belief she’d managed to raise both him and his younger brother, Jase, in it without one of them killing the other. Especially when they’d both passed six feet in height before their sixteenth birthdays.
It also made him hugely grateful for his apartment ten minutes’ walk away. It was even smaller in square footage, but he was the only person in it, which made it his refuge. No one got upset if he wrote songs at three in the morning or arrived home late after a gig and slept in until lunch the day after.
Rhoda Palmer, a spry seventy-six, appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. A spotless white apron tied around her waist betrayed her rapier wit and love of the f-bomb. He dark, silver-streaked hair was perfectly styled back off her face. “Matt, my love. Come in. Thought it was your Auntie Pat. She’s been mithering me about that knitting pattern I used for Allan’s great-granddaughter’s blanket.”
Matt grinned. That’s how it always was with Nan. Someone’s cousin’s dog needed something Nana’s godchild’s uncle had. But then, that was Manchester. Family didn’t move far and were the very bedrock relationships were built on.
Speaking of which… “Jase not coming over?” Matt asked, slipping his sneakers off and leaving them by the door. Sunday dinner at Nan’s was mandatory unless they had a concert or work.
“He picked up another shift at the bar this afternoon.”
As he walked toward the kitchen, Matt glanced through the spindles on the stairs to the wall which held faded framed pictures from Nan’s fifteen minutes of fame. The cute seventeen-year-old alongside Cliff Richard and the bright red double-decker bus from the Summer Holiday movie she’d appeared in as an extra. The night she’d had drinks with The Beatles and Cilla Black, known as Liverpool’s Cinderella. The photograph with Tom Jones, where Nan’s mouth was as wide open as her eyes, never failed to make him smile.
It was a part of why he made music. The number of times they’d had shit days as kids and Nan would open the beat-up record player and play the crackling I Want to Hold Your Hand or Wishin’ and Hopin’. Or later, anything by Freddy Mercury. They’d sung at the top of their lungs in the tiny house, driving their neighbours, and his grandfather, God rest his soul, to drink.
He kissed his nan’s cool papery cheek. She’d been a looker once. Would tell anyone who’d listened about her brush with stardom which had ended five years later with an unplanned pregnancy and a shot-gun wedding to his grandad.
Now, she carried the hard edge of someone who’d rarely known a moment’s comfort.
“Speaking of which, isn’t it time you boys got a back-up plan to the band and got proper jobs, Matt? You’ll be thirty next year.”
Same old, same old. “Give it a rest, Nan. I only turned twenty-nine last month. We do okay.” Sure, they’d not had the break-out success other Manchester bands had, but Manchester had been the epicentre of music for decades, spewing out band after band. It bugged him that his nan would suggest they quit. “We’ve got a decent gig line up, we pay our way, we’ve been able to put out music independently.”
Nan stirred the gravy bubbling in a roasting pan on top of the old electric rings. “Yes, well. You’re not going to be wanting to do that when you’re in your fifties. Allan was saying he’d take you one as a full-time labourer and pay for training so—”
“In fairness, Nan, I’d rather eat dog shit than spend the rest of my days listening to Uncle Allan sing Queen songs like a neutered greyhound while papering rich people’s houses.”
“Matt, he’s not so bad.”
“Nan, he has halitosis worse than Auntie Pat’s German Shepherd.”
“Oh, remind me to tell you how it got out and chased the postman. Pat thinks they might stop bringing her mail. And the postman is that lad from your class in school. The one as dense as Christmas cake. What was his name? Fancied the pants off Denise Thornberry’s eldest. She thought she’d have to get a restraining order.”
“Jermaine O’Sullivan.”
“That’s it. O’Sullivan. Anyway, he went running down Barlow Moore Road, and the dog went after him, and Auntie Pat went after the dog wearing her nightie and slippers. Didn’t even have time to put a bra on and her double-Ds were bouncing all over the place.”
Matt laughed at the visual Nan’s words weaved.
“Fucking slugs,” he muttered, looking down at the silvery trails on the floor. “Where’s your salt?”
The back door to the small yard and rear ginnel behind the house had a gap big enough for slugs to slither beneath. Tempted by the heat and smell of cat food his nan left by the door, they came in plenty. His nan handed him the tall white container. Matt unlocked the back door, kicked the slug out, and placed a trail of salt just inside the doorstep.
“There, taken care of it for you.”
Nan patted his cheek. “You’re a good boy. Can you go change the batteries in the upstairs smoke alarm? It keeps beeping and I swear it waits until I get in bed before it starts chirping at me. The batteries are in the window bottom.”
Matt jogged up the narrow stairs with ugly white wood chip wallpaper he threw a fresh coat of paint on every couple of years. There was a missing spindle in the wooden railing, and like always, Matt vowed to fix it one day, just like he’d fix the gap under the back door. They had to catch a break eventually and be able to earn more than just enough. He was a fucking good songwriter, and for all his faults, his brother was a fantastic lead singer.
He glanced into his Nan’s room. Condensation lingered on the bottom of the window, and it looked like the black mould was back in the corners above the bed. Matt made a mental note to come to treat it again. Across the hallway was the smaller of the two rooms. The room he and Jase had shared from the ages of seven and five after their mum had almost killed them. Celebrating New Year’s wasn’t a problem. But twenty-six-year-old Michelle getting pissed off her head then deciding to tuck Matt and Jase into the back of the car and drive them home had been.
The car was a wreck, they’d all survived with forty-seven stitches, two concussions, and two plaster casts between them. He rubbed his hand along his forearm where the scar sat. Nan wouldn’t let anyone else have them after that. Matt’s dad was unknown. A one-night stand during a two-week holiday in Ibiza. Jase’s, an abusive douchebag. So, they’d become Nan’s, and nobody had argued the point.
Visits with mum had become further and further apart until the last time he could remember seeing her was his tenth birthday when she’d stopped off at the labour club for five minutes to drop off a gift for him. He didn’t even know where she was now.
Matt changed the battery just as the front door slammed open downstairs.
“Nan?” His younger brother’s voice boomed through the house. “Your favourite grandson’s here.”
Arrogant fucker.
Matt jogged down the stairs. “If you were her favourite, you’d be the one changing the batteries in her smoke alarm and fixing the mould every time it appeared in the bedroom.”
“You’re confusing favourite and most useful. Watch and learn, Matt. Watch and learn.” In Jase’s hands was a sad looking bunch of flowers from the Co-op. Carnations. Ugly looking things in pastel shades that cost two quid for ten stems, but they were his Nan’s favourite and Jase knew it.
“Oh, Jase,” his Nan said. “Such a thoughtful boy.”
Jase threw Matt a smug look over Nan’s shoulder as she hugged him.
“Yeah, he’s a regular fucking saint,” Matt said.
Jase flipped him the bird.
“The song you sent over was shit.” Jase eyed him warily.
Matt huffed. “The rest of the band loved it.”
Nan put her hands on both their chests, and Matt hadn’t even realised they were advancing on each other. “Boys. Matt, this is another reason to reconsider this band thing. You two are always at each other’s throats.”
“Perhaps if you didn’t treat him like a special squirrel, Nan, he wouldn’t be so far up his own arse.”
“Don’t speak to me like that, Matthew Samuel Palmer.”
He placed his hand over his Nan’s and patted it. She’d never acknowledged her role in Jase’s level of fucked-up-ness.
In her eyes, if Matt got a B on an exam paper, he was screwing up his life. Jase got a C and was clearly making great progress. Matt managed the band and wrote lyrics and music for every song in their back catalogue yet should consider taking a full-time position with his Uncle Allan. Jase stepped onto the stage to sing and had the voice so pure, it was a gift from God. Nan never bugged Jase about getting a full-time job. She considered the fleeting shifts at the pub enough, and Matt didn’t have the heart to tell her the shifts were nowhere near as frequent as she thought they were.
“Yeah, Matt. Don’t speak to Nan like that.”
“Fuck off, Jase.”
“Boys. Go wash your hands. Dinner is a few minutes away from being ready.”
Matt watched his nan head back into the kitchen. She was too old to be dealing with their shit.
“Truce until rehearsal tonight,” Matt offered.
Jase shrugged. “Depends. Are you going to be pissed if I tell you I’m not coming?”
Matt turned and looked at him. “You got a good reason?”
“Left the reason in the pub to wait for me. Just going to eat dinner and get out of here.”
Anger flooded him. Jase treated the band like a hobby. Using his extra couple of inches in height, he backed Jase up against the wall. “I strongly suggest you forget the reason and get your arse to rehearsal. We have a show next week in Wigan and we haven’t even sorted the setlist yet.”
Unintimidated, Jase grinned as he tapped the side of his head. “I know all the songs, mate. They’re in here.”
“But the arrangements are—”
“Matt. Get away from your brother and sit down before I spank the pair of you.”
Matt eyed his brother, but for his nan’s sake, stepped away. But the moment Jase tried to leave the house, Matt was leaving with him.
And he’d guarantee Jase was at rehearsal.
Izabel Bryson tried to quell the embarrassment she felt as let herself into her brother Luke’s flat. Five months ago, she’d lived in a spacious two-bedroom apartment in the popular Northern Quarter with her boyfriend, Harry. She’d thought they were happy, so happy she’d been able to sneak out of the homeless shelter she worked at part-time early to surprise him and found him fucking one of his financial services clients on their brand-new Natuzzi sofa.
“That’s one way to grow his portfolio,” she muttered as she clambered past the pile of Luke’s drum kit pieces in the hallway.
“Did you say something?” Luke wandered into the living room, navy blue jogging pants sitting low on his hips, rubbing his freshly washed hair with a towel.
“Just cursing Harry. Again.” She threw her bags down on the small round table.
“Should have done more than just punch the dick.” Luke grabbed a beer out of the fridge. “Want one?”
Izabel shook her head. “Nah. I’m good. And please. Don’t hit him again. Not that I care about him, but where would the band end up if you go to prison?”
Luke had always been a quick trigger and fast with his fists. Those reflexes were part of why he was such an explosive drummer. Fortunately, he’d never ended up in serious trouble, usually because Matt and Jase, and their cousins and fellow bandmates, Alex and Ben, were around to diffuse the situation.
“Sweet of you to care, Sis.”
A blonde Izabel vaguely recognised appeared from the hallway leading to the bedrooms. By the state of her messy hair and smudged mascara, it was a no-brainer exactly what she’d been up to with Luke. “Any chance of a ride home?”
Izabel looked over at Luke and rolled her eyes. “Really?”
Luke just smirked, then looked to the blonde with a smile. “Sorry, babe. Got a gig to get to. But it’s three minutes to the tram stop if you go left out of the apartment building.”
Without another word, she left and Izabel waited for the door to click shut. “Well, that wasn’t awkward. Where’d you find her?”
“She works the self-checkout at Tesco. Was just finishing her shift when I went to get some lunch.”
“So, now you can’t go back to Tesco ever again, right?”
Luke laughed. “Nah. I’ll just switch to Aldi for a bit.”
Izabel shook her head. “You’re a dick.”
“Yeah, but I’m the dick who’s letting you stay at his apartment for free.”
She slumped down on his beaten-up, ugly, brown leather sofa. “This is true. Thank you.”
Luke took a large swig of beer. “We’re all we’ve got, right?”
“Yeah. We’re all we’ve got.”
It had been their motto since their father had died when she’d been fifteen. The firefighter hadn’t stood a chance against the warehouse fire, but his death had left a gaping hole in their lives, especially Luke’s. It hadn’t helped that their mum, processing her own grief, had checked out on the two of them leaving Luke to look out for them both. Luke had dropped out of his A-levels, unable to concentrate. But Matt had come to his rescue, dropping out with him so they could start the band.
Izabel had done the opposite. Doubled down on her studies.
So, when her mum found love again with her father’s best friend and followed the firefighter down to Brighton the summer after Izabel turned seventeen, there was no big drama. She’d simply sold the house and told them they were now on their own.
Except Luke had stepped in and held the two of them together. He’d worked as a painter and decorator every shift he could around stuff with the band to make sure they had a place to live, food to eat, and that she’d been able to go to university, even though he hadn’t.
Yeah. They were all they’d got.
“Where is your gig tonight?”
“Liverpool. Ben’s driving. What’s your plan?”
“Pop to the shop and get something for tea. Steal a beer from you. I need to write the yoga class schedules for September for the studio and write a grant proposal for the homeless shelter for repairs. And then send an email to all our local MPs to see if they can help us fend off the developer who we think wants to shut us down.”
“Fucking gentrification.”
“I know. The percent of Manchester population who need affordable housing is completely at odds with the redevelopment of Manchester. We need practical condos where single-parent families on minimum wage can thrive in with their two kids.”
The thought made her angry. Currently, the shelter she worked at was on the ground floor of an old mill building zoned for mixed-use. Some living, some offices, some business. None of it fancy. A developer was offering a shit-ton of money for the building but threatened to kick everyone out. And there wasn’t a plan B for the shelter. Rents were just too high in the city, and purchase costs even worse. The homeless congregated in the city centre, but the cheapest place they could find if they had to move was in Stockport, a good thirty minutes away.
“The only difference between me and the people I work with every day is the fact I have you. I mean, I’m technically homeless, but you let me crash here.”
“Iza. I’m proud of you, getting back on your feet again. You hold down a part-time job as the office manager at Gemma’s yoga studio and get paid a pittance to work the rest of the time at the shelter. I play in a rock band and wallpaper living rooms. With my mates. And despite Jase and Matt being at each other’s throats every day, it’s a fucking blessing. But you. You make a difference. People have somewhere to sleep tonight. Yeah, it’s summer, but come winter, people will survive the night because of you. It’s ridiculous how little you get paid given you were the only one of us clever enough to get a marketing degree. And I know you could be earning more doing something else. So, yeah. You can stay here as long as you need.”
Izabel took in a deep breath. “Thanks, Luke.”
“No worries. Look, I’ve got to get ready to go. The band’ll be here soon.”
She knew better than to mix with them. The last time she had, it had nearly torn them apart. Hell, she’d nearly broken herself into pieces. Such a massive and reckless decision, one made out of frustration and longing for someone else. Sure, alcohol had played a significant part. But, urgh, she wasn’t sure she could ever truly get over what had happened between her and Jase. It had been just before she’d met Harry. In fact, looking back, perhaps the reason Harry had looked so attractive was because he was the opposite of Jase.
Clearly, she was a terrible judge of character. “I’m going to head to the shops. Want me to grab anything for you?”
“Juice. Milk. And some cereal for breakfast would be great. Something for me to take to the gig. Sandwiches or something I can eat on the way. Means I don’t need to go shopping until tomorrow.”
“Wait, didn’t you say you were in Tesco earlier?”
“I was, but I got distracted.” Luke laughed and winked.
“That’s gross.”
Izabel grabbed her purse from her bag and left the apartment building. It was a beautiful evening. The sun was still shining brightly, even though it was six o’clock, and the air was warm without being humid. A fat bumblebee crawled aimlessly on the hard paving stones. She grabbed a leaf, encouraging the bee onto it, and then moved it to the shade of one of the bushes dotted around the building.
Thankfully, the store wasn’t busy, and she grabbed everything she needed for a cheap and cheerful stir-fry, plus the things Luke had asked for.
As she approached the apartment building, her stomach roiled at the sight of a white van parked outside. Guitarist Ben King waved in her direction. Alex, his younger brother and talented percussionist, tipped his chin in acknowledgement.
Jase was thankfully nowhere to be seen, likely in the back. But Matt…he leaned against the redbrick gate post, one foot up against the wall. He was scrolling through his phone, his hair fallen forward over his face, which gave her an extra moment to look at him.
She’d had a crush on him since the day her brother had brought him home from school, declaring Matt his best friend. And things hadn’t changed. They’d gone through school together, formed a band together. There had been moments while she’d been in college they’d lived together.
But Matt…with his thick, unruly dark hair…had been unattainable. Even more so since the incident with Jase.
She shook her head at her own stupidity.
Over the past few months, she’d passed Matt occasionally in the hallway, his apartment was two floors above her brother’s. Once, she’d embarrassingly witnessed him making out with a band floozy in the entry hall.
As if he felt her gaze on him, he looked up. She could have sworn she saw the start of a smile, quickly smothered by his brooding stare.
“How all four of Nan Palmer’s grandkids ended up with such great hair was a mystery,” she said. “Curls for days on all of you. The Kings as blond as the Palmers dark. It’s so unfair.”
“Izabel,” he said gruffly as she approached him.
“Hey, Matt,” she said as brightly as she could muster.
He looked utterly edible. The soft grey T-shirt hugged his broad chest and flat stomach with fabric so worn, it was one wear from falling apart. She itched to run her fingers over it.
His hazel eyes remained focused on her. When they were younger, when they were out in bars or whatever, he’d sometimes let her sit on his knee when there weren’t enough seats at their table. Having been so close to him she could savour the earthy scent of him, she knew those eyes had flecks of gold in them, how they crinkled at the corner when he grinned.
Damn, she’d been so stupid.
“Are you ready for tonight?” she asked, unable to come up with anything more original.
“Almost. Will be good to get through a soundcheck.”
Luke bounded out of the apartment building, and she reached into the bag and pulled out the items she’d got him for the ride. A bag of crisps and a ham with no mayo on white bread. “One most boring sandwich on the planet,” she said, handing the supplies to him as he passed her.
He brushed a quick kiss on her cheek. “Best sister ever.”
There was a flicker of a smile on Matt’s face again. A smile that would never quite bloom for her again.
“Didn’t realise the lovely Izabel was out here,” Jase said.
Izabel’s stomach turned at the sound of the voice.
Come on, Babe. I’ll take care of you.
I’ll make sure you get home okay.
He might not notice you, but I do. I’ll treat you better than he would.
Urgh. Those words. She’d believed him. Heck, he’d believed them. Worse, he’d meant them, which had become clear in the stone-cold sober quiet of the morning. How had she found herself at such a weak point that his words had been able to override the knowledge it would ruin her chances with Matt forever?
Matt unfurled himself from the position against the wall and disappeared into the van without another word.
And Izabel followed his lead by hurrying into the safety of the apartment building.
She closed the door and leaned back against it, breathing a sigh of relief as the van’s engine roared to life and faded into the distance, taking a piece of her heart with her.
There were a handful of rules Matt had set himself when performing live, and as he quickly looked down at the setlist taped to the floor, he realised he’d broken just about every one of them, tonight.
“Champagne Nightmares, fucker,” his brother yelled in his ear.
Matt rolled his eyes. He knew and strummed the intro chords, trying to get his feet back beneath him.
The first rule was to never lose his place on the setlist.
The second rule, to not lose connection with the audience.
The third rule, leave real life off the stage.
The fourth rule, perform like every night is the first night.
The fifth rule, leave everything on the stage.
The sixth rule, remember your getting paid to do your fucking job.
And tonight, the gig in Wigan would net them a grand.
But he’d just fucked the first rule. And he’d definitely broken the second because he’d no recollection of any faces on the first few rows of the arena. He glanced down as saw a bunch of people totally into their music, and one woman who was eye-fucking him. He winked at her, and she licked her lips. Yeah. Easy lay if he wanted one.
And he’d broken the third rule by mentally bringing Izabel Bryson on stage with him.
Making good on his fourth rule, he got back into his groove, rocking out with Ben, the other guitarist, jumping onto Luke’s drum platform, and shaking some energy into his performance so he could make good on rule five.
Despite his best efforts, Izabel came back to the front of his mind. She’d looked tired, and he hated that. He’d been there when Luke had thrown a punch at the stuck-up twat of a banker or investment guy or whatever Harry was for fucking Izabel over. And if the bouncers of the club hadn’t been heading their way, Matt would have got a kick in too. But Luke wouldn’t have stopped, and Matt didn’t want to have to explain to Izabel why after twenty plus years of knowing Luke, he’d not been able to keep him out of trouble.
When he heard they’d split, his heart had expanded a little in hope. But then he’d remembered his promise to Luke to keep his hands off his sister…and what Jase had done. And as much as he wanted Izabel for his own, to love and protect from the Harrys of the world, he couldn’t go where his brother had already gone, even if Luke agreed.
Even if it had only been once.
Even if his brother had walked a very dubious line of consent, even as Izabel had stuck up for him and assured Luke she’d been in agreement.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
He kicked the drum platform, then kicked again. Perhaps it was the alcohol he’d drunk, enough to take away the stage fright, but he could barely feel it. He kicked it harder, over, and over until he was certain his toes bled and the images of Izabel naked in his brother’s arms were gouged from his mind.
Alex looked over at him and he shrugged the glare off.
Jase ripped his shirt off over his head to the delight of the screaming crowd and Matt looked back at Luke who mouthed, “You okay?”
Matt nodded and finished playing.
His anger dispersed, he felt a lightness in his chest, and suddenly the crowd came back into focus.
When he walked off the stage fifteen minutes later, Luke threw his sweaty arm around Matt’s shoulders. “Want to tell me what that freak out was about back there?”
Matt shook his head. No way could he tell Luke it was about his sister. “Not in the slightest. It’s done.”
“Want me to find you someone to put whatever it was right out of your mind?”
“Are you my fucking pimp now?”
Luke laughed. “Nope. You just look like a guy with too much energy and nowhere to put it.”
“Unlike you, I can go a day or two without.”
Luke held his hands towards to dressing rooms where a group of scantily clad women hung all over the main act. “Why would you when all of these women are available?”
He watched as two women approached Jase with a grin.
Perhaps he should. Perhaps it would help him remember there were a hundred million women out there who could be the one for him. He shook his head. An easy lay wouldn’t find her. A quick fuck provided a release of tension but had the intimacy of walking naked through Primark.
Still, his eyes were drawn to a blonde, though not quite the cool blonde waves of Izabel. The woman’s figure was curvier, all hips and arse, compared to Izabel’s slighter frame. And when she turned and smiled at Matt, he could tell her eyes were dark, not the faded green of Iz’s. But she rocked her denim jacket, held closed by one button across a perky pair of tits, with nothing underneath. Maybe, he could snort a line of coke off her stomach and escape himself for a little while.
Fuck it.
He couldn’t do this tonight. The roadies for the main act had offered to get their equipment off stage, but by the way it was being piled up by the steps, they weren’t taking the same kind of care he’d take with the instruments. And it was clear their offer of help didn’t include packing it back into their van.
Nah. There was nothing in the club for him.
“Go,” he said to Luke. “I’ll load up the van with Ben and Alex. But no more than twenty minutes.”
“The mood I’m in, it’ll only take ten.”
Matt shook his head. “Didn’t you say in the van you’d already had that bird from Tesco this afternoon?”
“I’m a man with a big appetite. What can I say?”
Luke bounced away leaving him chilled in his sweat covered T-shirt. “Ben, Alex. Give me a hand with the kit.”
Alex looked puzzled. “We aren’t sticking around?”
“Fuck me. Fine. Twenty minutes.”
“You know dip and dash is my least favourite,” Alex complained.
“Lover not a hater. I know. I know.”
“It’s more that people love my tongue. How can I deny them?”
Matt rolled his eyes. “You’re down to nineteen minutes.”
“Fine. Fine. Nineteen minutes.”
Ben slapped Matt’s shoulder. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“This feels so wrong, doing all the work while they get laid.”
“Look at it this way, the van ride home will be a lot more mellow than the journey here.”
“True story.”
Once the equipment was in the van, Matt took out his notebook. Lyrics had always been a way release his emotions into the world. Sure, he worked out because he was vain as fuck and liked to look good on stage. But the art of distilling everything he was feeling into two hundred and fifty words was a meditative as it was cathartic.
She’s the one that can never be.
She’s the single best thing that ever happened to me.
But she can’t be mine.
No amount of time.
Will erase the visions that I see.
As choruses went, it would be a good one. It would also be the twenty-third attempt at writing a song about Izabel.
And therein was the problem. What he wanted to say, when he said it how he wanted to, made it crystal clear the song was for Izabel. Which meant Luke would guess his secret…he’d loved Izabel for years. When he toned it down to make it less obvious, it was like he was cutting out the authentic part of his song-writing. By censoring the lyrics, the song lost its colour and depth and density. It lost its weight, and bizarrely sounded more like a love song than even he’d be comfortable playing.
He glanced down at the time on his phone. Fuckers. It had been half an hour. Matt closed his notebook and shoved it into his backpack. “I’ll go round them up,” he said to Ben who was dozing in the front seat.
“Sure. Whatever,” he mumbled, not even opening his eyes.
Matt stepped out of the van into the loading bay of the arena. Given the sound proofing of the building, music mutely drifted into the empty space. He felt like a kid who desperately wanted to be inside but didn’t have the right credentials. His nan’s words from the previous weekend pierced his mind about going full-time with Uncle Allan.
For the first time in his life, he allowed himself to consider what it might feel like to concede they were never going to make it big. That no amount of effort on their part was every going to net them more than a modest income.
Was it enough?
The door burst open, a crescendo of noise filling the space as Luke, Alex, and Jase stepped out onto the concrete. They were jostling and laughing, like they did when Luke was drunk or high enough to forget what Jase had done, and Jase was spent enough to not rile Luke.
“I don’t care if you found something to drink, someone to fuck, or just had time for a decent shit. Can we get in the van and get moving?” he shouted.
Jase swaggered past him. “Perhaps if you’d done any of those three, you wouldn’t be such a miserable fuck.”
“Perhaps if I didn’t have you for a dick of a brother, life would be a better place.”
Jase flicked the bird at him, but he just ignored him and shoved him into the van.
Yeah, without Jase, he and Izabel might have had a future. And if he hadn’t been such a dick, if he’d called Luke out on his stupid rules, none of this would have been an issue. Perhaps he’d have been able to convince Luke that him and Iz dating wouldn’t be such an awful thing.
Yeah, he could blame Jase all he wanted, but it was time to admit, it wasn’t all Jase’s fault.