She left me a note.
On a sheet of paper.
From a notepad.
My notepad.
The notepad I’d used to write songs. Songs she’d inspired. Songs that were meant for her, and maybe even to her, and held her legacy, each word pregnant with so much more than its meaning. It was a cross between a poem and a letter. About us. About me. About the fucked-up thing that we were. Then, underneath it, underlined and in red, something else. More recent. The ink pressed so hard against the paper, it had torn around the letters.
You’re beautiful, Alex, but you’re empty. No one could die for you. And no one should have died because of you. –Indie
She’d quoted The Little Prince, and somehow, that hurt even more. The Little Prince was ours. I’d written her a song about him—and she’d twisted it against me. It dawned on me, in a Parisian hotel that looked exactly like all the rest, but also very different, that I’d finally found her. The girl who was worth all these songs I’d written. Then I’d lost her. The girl whose life I’d helped ruin.
There was a light at the end of the cold, dark tunnel of my existence: even I knew I couldn’t cancel the remainder of “Letters from the Dead” tour. Jenna was going to rip me a new one and stuff it with dynamite if I even mentioned such possibility. The insurance company was on my case, my record company breathed its rancid, corporate breath down my neck, and I was actually making a decent comeback and building a buzz around my next untitled album. Besides, my mates relied on me. Mates who, as much as I wanted to kill, I owed, too. Our relationship was messy and abnormal and completely off the rails. They constantly betrayed me in a bid to bring me back to life. And it had worked.
Until now.
I made a promise to myself that no matter how this shit was going to pan out, I was going to make sure Fallon did the right thing by Stardust and her family.
I stood by the kitchen island of my hotel suite, clutching her note until my fingers almost snapped. The scent of Indie was still in my nostrils and on my pillow and inside my fucking guts, when the door behind me opened. I’d been trying to get high off of bath salts unsuccessfully for twenty minutes when Lucas walked in and shut the door behind him.
Yeah, I was using again. Or at least trying. Shit, I wasn’t even good at being a drug addict. How embarrassing was that?
“Don’t even think about it.” I sniffed, trying to light up the little rocks of salt. How the fuck could you get high on them? I needed new mates. New, young, loser mates who’d teach me how to get high on pathetic things. And it hadn’t even been a full four hours since she’d left. I dreaded to think how I’d fare a week from now. Heroine? Crack? Riverdale? I’d die if I became the very thing I loathed.
“Don’t think about what?” I heard Lucas moving behind me, but didn’t turn around.
“Everything. My answer is no, no matter what. Don’t talk to me. Don’t apologize. Don’t offer your condolences. For the last time—I shagged Laura long before you’d met her. There was no need to shit on my only serious relationships, twice in a row.” I dumped the salts onto the counter in frustration, essentially walking right into a conversation with him. Idiot. I was an idiot. A part of me—albeit a small and insignificant and muted by the general bullshit swarming in my head part—realized I deserved it. Everything that had happened to me. Indie leaving. Fallon acting like a crazy bitch. My mates and agent babying me, lying to me, micromanaging every single breath I took, from my love interest to my records, deals, interviews, and general wellbeing. Lucas appeared by my side and wiped the marble counter with his arm, throwing the half-baked salts to the floor.
“You think this is about Laura?” he screamed into my face. “Are you mental? What’s wrong with you? It’s not about Laura, and it’s not about Fallon. It’s not even about Indie. It’s about you, you arsehole. I’m in love with you.” He shook, spitting the words in my face.
I turned around to fully face him. The words trickled in like rain through a cracked ceiling. Slowly but surely. If only I could wrap my head around them. “Huh?”
He took my arm and pulled it. I let him, too stunned to think of something coherent to say. Our faces were inches from each other, but far enough that I could see his expression. Tortured, almost like me.
“I’m in love with you. Have been for the past—hmm, let’s see, I don’t know, twelve years? Everyone knows. It’s obvious and plain for everyone to see. I started playing the drums because of you, for fuck’s sake. You needed a drummer, couldn’t find one—no one wants to be the drummer, it’s a lonely, reclusive job—so I did it. I wanted to be close to you, and you wanted to start a band, so I learned to play an instrument. Then I became your instrument. Then I picked up your leftovers—Laura, your idiotic lady friend, Fallon, and everyone else around you—to have more pieces of you. More precious pieces of Alex-fucking-Winslow, the guy who, unfortunately, possessed it. The charisma, the talent, the presence, those eyes. Those damn eyes, Alex.” He let go of my arm and cupped his hands over his eyes, shaking his head in exasperation and pacing around the room.
I wanted to light a cigarette to do something with my mouth—I sure as hell felt too inadequate to speak—but was too shocked to move. Everyone knew? Was I even living in the same universe as my mates? They seemed to have been keeping a lot from me.
“I broke you and Fallon up, not because I liked Will, or her, but because I love you. And loving you comes with the price of completely disregarding my own wishes and needs. Fallon made you fall deeper into drugs and depression. She was toxic for you, so I kicked her out of the way. And I’d do it again if I could. In a heartbeat. I would slay for you, Winslow. Now, Indie did the opposite. She rebuilt you. But of course, watching you fooling around made me want to hang myself every day. Knowing I’d pushed you into each other’s arms just about killed me. And I still did it. For you.”
Lucas threw himself across the black velvet couch, burying his face in one of the pillows. I inwardly wondered what kind of arsehole goes around living his life not knowing one of his best mates is in love with him. Me. I was that arsehole.
“You’re gay,” I said, rather dumbly, rubbing my sweaty temple. I wasn’t sure why I was so sweaty, but it might have had something to do with the fact I was so numb, I couldn’t even distinguish how fucking hot the room was. I’d been too busy trying to get high and to not think about Indie. Two things I’d categorically failed at.
“Gay as they come. And please, no Alfie jokes.” Lucas started rolling the zipper of his leather jacket. Up. Down. Up. Down.
It was weird to talk about him when my own world was in shambles. But I could no longer afford to be a shitty mate, and acknowledging that was a start. Plus, he looked like a sulking child. Sad and annoyed and defeated. I fell down to the settee beside him and nudged his shoulder with mine.
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t even sure what I was apologizing for. Not being gay? Parading half the female population of Hollywood at the Chateau in front of him? Making him play fairy godmother to me for over a decade? Inadvertently destining him to become a fucking drummer?
“Don’t be sorry. I’m nearly thirty and still mostly in the closet. I lied to you for years. Pretty sure we’re even.” Lucas wiped the snot from his nostrils with the back of his hand, staring down.
I didn’t know it was possible for my heart to break even more after Indie, but it did. It broke for Lucas. I jerked him into a hug.
“Oi,” I said, honing in on the wall in front of us. Nothing was okay, and yet I had to assure him it was, because Indie was right. I needed to find my soul and show it to people around me. “Look at me.”
He sniffed again and looked up.
“When did you figure out you like dick?”
“When we were twelve? Maybe thirteen? I’m not sure. I just remember wanting your heart long before wanting your dick. It was a January evening. I spotted you walking up and down the road with Tania on your back, yelling to the closed windows, ‘who knows how to tune a guitar?’ and thought…this sonovobitch is going to have a bathroom full of Grammys someday. You looked like a loser, but you were so far into what you were doing, I couldn’t help but admire that. Your voice had just broken, and so had your chin, with a dozen pimples or so. Do you remember that?” He laughed. “God, you were a joke.”
“I’m still a joke.” I smirked. I remembered that day. Dad’s mate, Duncan, had finally agreed to tune Tania and taught me how to play the first few chords of “Smoke on the Water.” “It’s just that, I’m not really sure if me being a joke is funny anymore.”
“You’re definitely still funny,” Lucas said, swatting my chest. He’d never done that before. Maybe he’d always wanted to, but didn’t know how I’d react. The thought depressed me.
“Please don’t relapse, Alex.” Lucas was serious again. But it was too late. Even though I hadn’t gotten high that evening, I knew with certainty that I would. And that I’d regret it. And that it’d take at least some of the pain of what had happened with Stardust away.
“Question,” I averted the topic. I took a fag out of the pack on the coffee table with my teeth and lit it, my arm still wrapped around his shoulder like he was my little brother. “If we were together, would I be top or bottom?”
Lucas laughed harder through his tears. “I’m always on top.”
I said, “Bollocks.”
He said, “See? Still funny,” and pressed his index against my nose, smiling miserably.
I still thought about Indie the entire length of the conversation.
Wondering what she’d think about all that.