I didn’t go to bed. I took a long shower, staring at my feet as the hot water ran over my head. I thought about texting Phoenix, but they would want details and I was afraid that if I had to explain it, the night would lose its power.
I wasn’t sure what was more implausible: Carter and I walking the streets of Paris at night; his secret love of karaoke; or the fact that he had pulled himself together enough to write his own song. And then there was the kiss, which, in typical Carter fashion, had been spontaneous and poorly planned. It was probably a terrible idea. Being with him could only end badly. He’d summed it up himself: ‘The band, and everything.’ I told myself all this on a loop, but I also caught myself staring blindly into space, reliving the touch of his mouth on mine and thinking about what else he’d said: that he wanted something meaningful with me. That was the most implausible thing of all and I hadn’t known what to say, so I’d just kissed him again, and again and again, until the sun was up and I’d had to go back to my own room.
Everything was starting to make sense: the way Carter had tensed up in the interview, the way he’d rejected Richie to do karaoke with me, his tentative questions about Addie as we walked home. Our relationship had always shifted between extremes. When I wasn’t teaching him guitar parts, we were arguing about songwriting; when I wasn’t kissing him on the balcony at Regatta, I was telling him I didn’t want to be part of his harem. But I’d been so focused on how he had hurt me that I hadn’t realised we had both hurt each other.
When I got out of the shower, there was a text from Addie.
I threw my phone onto the bed and flicked through the clothes Saskia had neatly arranged in my closet, selecting a pair of black floral culottes and a rust-coloured bodysuit. The lack of sleep was starting to gnaw at my brain. I took a couple of paracetamol and headed for the lift.
My heart was hammering as I went into the breakfast room. I collected a croissant from the buffet and scanned the bored businesspeople and bleary-eyed tourists for Carter. What would I say to him? Would things be different between us now, or would last night be just a hazy memory for him? It would have been strange under normal circumstances: Carter the player, wanting something real with me. It was even stranger now that I had a fake girlfriend and a band to consider.
I couldn’t see Carter, but Sam was at a table beside the window watching something on his phone, so I lurched into the opposite seat.
‘Big night?’ He looked like he was trying to hide a smile as he poured me a coffee.
‘I haven’t been to bed yet,’ I admitted.
He laughed. ‘I know. You and Carter –’
‘What?’ I said, feeling my cheeks grow hot. ‘What’s Carter told you?’
Sam looked at me strangely. ‘He hasn’t. Twitter’s blowing up. Someone added a video of you and Carter doing Elton John. And not even one of his cool songs – “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”.’
I let out a breath. ‘Oh.’ But then I thought about what that meant. Sam didn’t know about me and Carter – if there even was a me and Carter – but everyone knew about our karaoke performance. Amir would go apeshit.
‘Is it bad?’ I asked.
‘It’s grainy.’ The diplomacy in his voice said more than he ever could. ‘It’s hard to tell it’s you. I had to look pretty closely.’
I shut my eyes. ‘That’s the last time I take advice from Carter.’
He grinned again, thoroughly enjoying my embarrassment. I watched the two figures on the screen weave around each other, shouting into the mics, and tried to pinpoint when, exactly, things had changed between us. We kept cracking up, trying to keep each other on track. There didn’t seem to be any indication of what would follow a few hours later.
Carter didn’t turn up to breakfast, and when we walked out to the car he pulled his sunglasses down so I couldn’t meet his eyes. If he wanted something meaningful with me, he had a funny way of showing it – although I hadn’t exactly told him what I wanted from him, either. I still didn’t know. I didn’t even know if we were still friends, which was really all the video showed.
Amir grabbed me by the arm as I came down the steps. ‘Look, Lily, if you’re gonna do an unpaid performance, you should at least sing one of your hits.’
‘Someone else had already taken care of that,’ I said coolly. ‘We thought we’d give the punters some variety.’
He broke into a satisfied smile. ‘So they’re singing your songs at karaoke bars now?’ he said, as though this were at least as important as topping the charts. ‘Wait till I tell Jen. I bet she’ll want to move the album launch forward.’
•
Sitting beside Carter was suddenly a lot more stressful than normal: I didn’t know where to put my hands, and every time our arms touched it was like I’d been stung. I did my usual Perennial Single Girl routine as the interviewer’s rapid-fire French questions were translated by an interpreter.
Carter watched carefully, clearly understanding some of the French, but I let the language wash over me. Towards the end of the interview, I caught the word ‘Addie’ in among the babble and a flicker crossed Carter’s face.
‘Lily, you’ve recently gone public with your relationship with Addie Marmoset, of the girl group Perfect Storm,’ said the translator. ‘You must really miss her when you’re away.’
‘Um …’ Perennial Single Girl slipped for a moment, and offstage, Amir smiled wildly as if modelling the facial expression I should have been wearing. ‘We try to stay in contact while I’m away,’ I said. ‘She texted this morning to say she missed me.’
‘Sweet!’ said the interviewer, the first indication she understood any English.
Carter was burning me with his eyes. Suddenly, he let out a string of French. I had no idea what it meant, but I caught an undercurrent of sarcasm. Amir shook his head at the derailment, and when we got back to the dressing room, he rounded on Carter. ‘When did you learn to speak French?’
‘Benefits of a private education,’ said Carter blithely, stalking over to the fire exit and pulling his cigarettes from his pocket.
‘What did you say?’ I asked.
His eyes swept over me, and I was jolted back to the early hours of the morning – his fingers on my skin, his mouth on mine. It was the first time he’d looked at me properly all day. ‘I just commented on how important it was, in this fickle industry, to have something real.’ Then he yanked open the door and stepped outside.
I stood there, frozen to the spot, trying to reconcile Carter’s cold voice with the memory of him touching his forehead to mine under the Parisian sky.
•
The driver behind us leaned on his horn as if that might somehow part the dense traffic, and I wondered if I was ever going to see more of Paris than just a karaoke bar and the view from a car window.
Amir ended his call and said casually, ‘Check your bank balance. Jen says your first pay cheque should’ve come through.’
I logged into my banking app, my breath catching when I saw the figure. Carter broke into an automatic smile, but then his face clouded over and I wondered whether the others had noticed how weird things were between us.
‘That’s our night sorted then,’ he said, turning to Richie instead. ‘Let’s go to the nearest club and buy Cristal for everyone.’
Sam muttered, ‘You don’t even like Cristal.’
‘And I’m getting a Fender Telecaster,’ Carter went on. ‘And a Jeep.’
‘What do you need a car for? And where the hell would you park it?’
‘A Jeep isn’t just a car, Sammy. It’s a way of life.’ Carter’s good humour had returned, but I was still spinning from his interview takeover. He’d seemed genuinely hurt by me talking about Addie, but I’d had no other indication that he’d meant what he’d said last night. I’d spent the whole day waiting for him to ‘accidentally’ touch my hand, or casually drape his arm around my shoulders – anything to confirm things had changed between us – and only now did I realise he might’ve been waiting for me to do the same thing.
Back at the hotel, we went to our separate rooms to change and I tried to work out what to do. Some other girl might go to Carter’s room and demand to know where she stood. Hell, some other girl would probably push him against the wall and kiss the hell out of him. But I’d never been that girl.
Or at least, I hadn’t before.
I dressed in the cropped top and tailored shorts Saskia had suggested I use for my next candid appearance with Addie, piled my hair into a messy knot, and knocked on Carter’s door. He answered wearing only jeans, his clean T-shirt in one hand. I rode the wave of fear, grabbed hold of him and kissed him fiercely. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it, and we fell back into the room, our bodies tangled together. On the bed, he pulled me on top of him, his fingers digging into my hair, and we kissed until there was a sharp knock at the door.
Breathless, I sat back on the bed. Carter touched his thumb to his bottom lip as though he expected there to be blood. His cologne was all over me – sandalwood and peppercorn. He’d tugged my elastic loose and my hair had fallen around my face.
‘Carter? You in there?’ It was Richie.
‘I’ll meet you in the lobby,’ he called back, not taking his eyes off me. He sounded surprisingly normal.
We waited in silence until we were sure Richie had left, then reached for each other again. I traced the line of his spine with my fingers and he shivered.
‘It hardly seems fair I’m shirtless and you’re fully clothed.’
I smiled like the confident person I wasn’t and pulled away from him. ‘Well, we’d better make that even.’ I stepped away from the bed, holding his surprised gaze for a moment, then picked up the T-shirt he’d dropped and tossed it to him. ‘Come on. They’re probably waiting for us.’
It wasn’t until we were out – this time at an underground nightclub, Mexican-themed, with a mural of sugar skulls and no karaoke in sight – that the enormity of the money sank in. Carter was splashing his cash around, buying drinks for strangers, and when he poured me a glass of Cristal I actually drank it. ‘It’s a special occasion,’ I said in answer to Sam’s raised eyebrow. Richie had taken off on a mission to find the world’s shortest skirt. I was desperate to join Carter on the dance floor, but I didn’t want to leave Sam, who was looking uncomfortable and nursing his Corona.
‘What about you, Jim?’ Carter said as he returned for another drink. ‘What’re you going to spend your first pay cheque on?’
His earlier mention of the Telecaster had reminded me of my own guitar aspirations, but I still felt self-conscious as I admitted, ‘I’m getting a Gibson Explorer.’
‘Steady on, Donadi,’ said Sam. ‘No need to spend it on the first thing you think of. Just take your time and let it all sink in.’
‘What are you spending yours on?’ I said.
‘I’ve already transferred it to Mum so she and Dad can get a better place.’ He narrowed his eyes at Carter. ‘Don’t worry though, I’ve kept enough to buy my own round of drinks.’
‘You gave it to your mum?’ I said.
‘She’s meeting a real estate agent tomorrow.’
My plan to spend big on an Explorer suddenly seemed very selfish. Dad wasn’t exactly poor, but I knew he still owed money on his mortgage and Jack’s uni fees were huge.
‘There’ll be more of it,’ I said. ‘You could’ve kept the first instalment for yourself and given them some cash once you were set up.’
‘There’s no guarantee of that,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what the rules are, Donadi. The album might be a total flop. The second single might not chart. Beatnik might drop us. I wanted Mum and Dad to be looked after before I went out splurging on guitars and Cristal.’
He looked pointedly at the Champagne in my hand, and when I raised it to my lips it didn’t taste so good anymore. A waitress in full Day of the Dead make-up walked past and collected the empty glasses. Across the dance floor, Carter smiled and beckoned me over, and I knocked back the last of my Cristal and went to join him. He didn’t pull me close, but it was enough to be sharing the space with him. I thought of everything I had – a band, and a number one single, and a huge pay cheque in the bank, and texts from Addie Marmoset on my phone, and Carter – and broke out into a massive grin as I gave myself over to the bass.