Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (41 page)

S.J. nodded in greeting to each of them before stopping at Emily. “What an interesting name. Emily Thomas—it’s rather old fashioned.”

“And yours too. Rather mythological.”

Neil appeared at that moment, saving Emily from ruining Andrew’s career.

“How is everyone doing this evening? Mr. Green is amazing, isn’t he? And you, Andrew, you were—”

“Phenomenal.” S.J. zeroed in her attention on Andrew, ignoring the rest.

“If anyone is phenomenal, it’s Memphis,” Andrew replied, blushing as he finished off the last of his drink.

“There’s a distinct difference between hearing music on a track and hearing it live, from the lips, as it were. Don’t you think, Neil? How long have you known about this man, really? Were you holding out on me?”

“Of course I was,” Neil said with more than a hint of condescension. “It’s what keeps me awake at nights. How to make your life even more difficult, S.J.”

Robert snapped a few shots as if this was his only form of discourse.

“It seems Mr. Green has a question for you,” S.J. whispered to Andrew.

He excused himself, leaving an awkward silence in his wake, but he soon returned, and his face was alight with enthusiasm. “He wants us to play.”

“You’re shitting me,” Christian muttered. “Really?”

“Our choice.”

“Hell,” was all Simon could utter.

“So what’s it going to be? Nothing sedate. Boy band rubbish, mate?” Andrew asked Simon and neatly ducked a blow.

“Boy band what?” S.J. asked.

“You know,” said Christian, barely able to talk through his laughter. “It’s Simon’s deepest darkest secret. He wants to be every twelve-year-old girl’s fantasy. Two guys wailing into one microphone with the big bad drummer in the middle, pounding away.”

“Then by all means,” said S.J. enthusiastically.

With evil smiles all around, the three men jumped up onto the stage. Memphis took the microphone.

“Looks like we got ourselves an extra treat this evening. I’ve heard these boys play, so y’all might want to hold onto your woman or man or whatever you got next to you, but that’s just ’cause I’ll be playing along.” He chortled and moved his chair to the side, taking out a harmonica and beaming from ear to ear.

Simon took his place behind the drums, sizing them up, and Christian draped the bass over his shoulder and strummed a bit, getting comfortable, while Andrew took hold of the guitar he had been playing.

“Oh dear God,” muttered Zoey at the sight of all three of them up there.

Christian was right. There was something about two men at one microphone and one behind a set of drums that could make even a twenty-something group of women with ample education fall to pieces. Andrew started counting off, and then his hand struck his guitar. Zoey started screaming as the beginning chords exploded. Christian’s face plastered against Andrew’s as their lips blazoned the lyrics into the microphone. Simon pounded the drums with wanton frustration of a song about sex, about wanting it and not having it, then having it but not getting enough of it. It was a wonder they remained standing.

Christian, usually sedate on bass, had his face contorted into some gorgeous pseudo-coital expression that was riveting. And Andrew, oh Andrew, he was just too elated, too on fire to do anything but smile and cock his head like a teenage boy, then fall back, purse his lips, and tear into a wild, inhuman riff. By the time they hit the bridge with the requisite “oooos” wailed in tandem and their sweaty cheeks pressed together, the crowd was on its feet.

Possessed by the sound, people began to dance, rocking, pounding their feet. Those who weren’t dancing stood on chairs to get a better look at the stage as Simon smashed away on the drums and Andrew improvised, his fingers on fire.

Out of nowhere, Neil took Emily’s hand and pulled her out of her seat. He swung her into the horde and began to dance, and they laughed so hard they almost fell down. It was a side of him she had never seen. A wave of elation crashed over everyone, and they were singing and dancing; the old were young again, and the young were unleashed. The photographer was firing pictures off so fast he seemed like a strobe light with legs. And S.J. was mesmerized.

Neil spotted her too, and made a sound in the back of his throat as he spun Emily around hard.

“Neil,” she shouted over the din. “What’s wrong?”

She could only hear bits and pieces of what he was saying; the riot around them was too loud. “She promised the photo shoot, that’s it. That’s the only reason—she would have never—And now she wants to sign them. They need someone else. She’ll only—never mind. Forget it.”

Determined to keep him talking and knowing from the look on his face that she probably would not get any more information about S.J. from him, she plumbed her mind for anything they might have in common. “I’ve been doing some research about your house for a paper of mine for school. I was wondering if you knew anything about the previous owners. Or any history of the house.”

“I bought the place about ten years ago in an estate auction,” he yelled to her over the commotion. “I never met the owner.” They danced a bit more before he lowered his lips to her ear. “My wife was getting her treatment at UC, the location was convenient, and she adored it.” She had to strain to hear him now and stood on her tiptoes. “She didn’t want to die in a hospital. We had hospice until the end.”

She looked up to him. “I’m so sorry.”

Before she could ask another question, The Lost Boys finished with one last scream. The crowd went wild, stomping and clapping and demanding more, but Andrew shook his head and held his hand out. “Thank you, good evening,” he managed to shout through the racket. “’Twas a pleasure.” Christian and Simon smiled and waved, and with that they trotted off the stage.

Neil looked on as Andrew took Emily in his arms and swirled her around, laughing as he kissed her. He was riding the high of performing, buzzing with infectious energy. People had started to swamp them, asking for their autographs. The guys signed a few bar napkins graciously; Simon grinned as two girls giggled like crazy and snapped his picture on their phone. Across the room, S.J. began to make her way toward them.

“Let’s all get out of here,” Andrew announced to their table.

“Excellent idea!” Without hesitating, Emily grabbed his hand and all of them, Neil included, headed for the door.

They dashed into two taxis, yelling back and forth on where to go next, and decided on a nearby club in an attempt to burn off their newfound energy. Once there, Neil opted out of dancing, and with a rare smile at Emily claimed the best partner was taken and excused himself to make a few calls at the bar.

“We won’t be long,” she promised him and felt a twinge watching him stand alone.

After slamming down endless shots, the guys hauled the girls off to the dance floor and into a throng of gyrating, feverish bodies, the music blaring in their ears. Emily couldn’t make out Christian or Zoey in the flashes of light that pierced the blackness as the beat pounded up through the floor. Simon was visible, along with what remained of his tuxedo. He shook a pack of cigarettes in Margot’s direction and cocked his head toward the exit.

“No! I want to dance,” she said in a challenge. He threw the pack over his shoulder and swung her madly into the crowd. Emily could almost hear her laughter over the blare.

That left Andrew. Smiling like Satan himself, he circled her slowly and then placed one hand on her hip and one on the side of her face. He seductively drew her to him, leaving nothing but his lust between them. His lips trailed along her cheekbone.

“You were made perfectly to be loved—and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.”

He spoke the words of Browning as though he had written them. His arms wound around her waist, and he kissed her with abandon, then pressed against her, melting into the music. Her mind raced with unanswered questions, but she could only throw her head back as his mouth devoured her neck, her eyes falling shut.

The music and the tequila ignited stars of arousal behind her lids, a maddening, dizzying hunger rampant again between them. He could feel her surrender, and he forced himself hard against her, the song getting louder and raunchier by the second. He gazed down at her, his hands tight on her hips.

“How? How can I want you like this? I was raised better than this, you must know. With manners and etiquette. So proper, so poised at all times. If you cut me, I swear it’ll run blue. My father’s people were all the epitome of English culture, Emily. My mum, Christ, she’d die a thousand deaths if she knew what I’m thinking of doing to you right now. There’s sanity in this head, I swear.

“I wasn’t raised to want to keep you tied up in a bed. I wasn’t raised to want to keep you as my slave, my whore.” His mouth was hot against her skin as he gasped the words, making her moan. “I adore you beyond reckoning, but one look from those exquisite eyes and I’m no longer sane. And it terrifies me as much as I crave it. Crave you. Because the longer I’m with you, the longer I touch this skin and kiss this mouth, the more I can’t control it, and it kills me and…I love it.”

His mouth collided with hers. She kissed him back, channeling all the passion and fears she possessed, letting him know she felt the same torture, the same inexplicable longing, and she feared drowning in it too but was unwilling to do anything to stop it.

We are lost. So gloriously lost.

Later, after the men had mercifully burned off some of their energy and the women had begged for a reprieve, they ended up at a neighborhood favorite, Mad Dog in the Fog, an English pub not far from their home. There they offered the type of Guinness Simon demanded, the darts Christian was dying for, and the booths where Emily could put her aching feet up while keeping Andrew at arm’s length. The women were exhausted, but by the looks of things, the men had just started the evening. Neil had not yet bid them goodnight but sat tending his drink, watching them all.

Somewhere after the second round, the bartender announced that it was trivia night. The somewhat blitzed bunch looked to Andrew, and he waved his Guinness in the air as if to say
bring it on
.

The topic was 1960s music. Periodically, the bartender would shout out some question to which the three of them would fire back a response. It quickly became embarrassing; death glares came their way from both a group of tourists and a rather drunk Irish soccer team. During an intense moment of Christian and Simon arguing over whether it was the heroin or the alcohol that killed Janis Joplin, Neil leveled Andrew with a cool stare. “If S.J. wanted you before, she’s going to really want you now, you know that. That little performance back there clinched the deal.”

Emily couldn’t tell if Neil had spoken in jest. Andrew merely sipped his Guinness and shrugged his shoulders. “Doesn’t matter. We’re doing the photo shoot, period.”

“What?” said Simon, breaking off from his argument in mid-sentence.

“I don’t trust her.”

“But what happens if I do?”

“The woman’s a shark.”

“And your point is? What better kind of person to have rep us? We don’t have to love her—we just need her to do her job.”

“Can’t we have both?”

“Yeah, and I’m going to grow a third tit. ’Tisn’t possible, Paulie.”

Neil put down his drink. “I wouldn’t say that.” The three men stared at him. “There are a lot of talented people out there, seasoned people, people who know the ropes, who would be lucky to take you gentlemen on. I know quite a few.”

Andrew shot Simon a long look, a look that had
I told you he wouldn’t take us on
written all over it. “So you changed your mind about managers, Simon? Since your previous plans seem to have fallen flat?”

“No, I’m being realistic. Isn’t that the word you’re always using? So the way I see it, one in the hand, as they say. We can’t wait around forever. This woman is at the top of her game, right? She’s also fronting some serious talent, so why not let her work her magic for us? Andrew, shit, we can’t go back out there and have you do it all by yourself again. We’re in this to make it, and I don’t want to make it without you, but I don’t want to wake up one day and be some gray-haired old geezer telling my kids about how I played backup for some other band. Some band they idolize. Fuck, the only thing more pathetic than old rocker has-beens is old rocker wannabes. This is our time, man. What are you afraid of?”

No one said a word. Andrew silently stared up at the bar.

“You three are the best I have seen in a long, long time,” Neil said levelly, breaking the tension. “Plus, you’re intelligent and grounded. You’re willing to work hard, and you’re loyal to each other. Simon is right. Your time to step up is now.”

“Neil…” Andrew began.

“Let me finish. You need to think about this, talk about it amongst yourselves. It’s a huge step, an important and hopefully life-long relationship, not something you can decide over a few beers. S.J. is very successful—that is true—there’s no denying that. But there are other things to consider.”

“You don’t want us to sign with her, do you? Why?” Andrew asked.

“My feelings about S.J. should not factor into your decision.”

“Like hell they don’t. What gives?”