Shit. Shitshitshit.

“Reading tabloids, Kay? Have you really sunk that low?”

“Very funny, Pierre,” I mutter. “It’s research.”

My eyes stay glued to the computer screen even as I answer him. A story on Sherbrooke Station’s trip to Ottawa has been blowing up in the past few days, and I narrowly missed being a part of it. As I stare at the photo of me ducking down and yanking my scarf up over my face, I feel almost shaky with relief that I managed to hide myself in time.

If anyone recognized me and linked me to Matt, it would only be a matter of time before all the Last Bastion details got dug up and dragged into things. Atlas would shut down the story just like they did last time, and La Gare probably wouldn’t survive it. I probably wouldn’t survive it either. Any damage repair I’d done to my career over the past year would be gone in seconds.

This is why shacking up with rock stars is a bad idea. This is why I have Rule Number Two. I haven’t even kissed Matt Pearson and it’s already been insinuated that I’m an escort.

Which I have to admit is pretty hilarious, even given the circumstances.

I wonder if Matt thought the same thing when he read it, which he must have done by now. Sherbrooke Station fans have been freaking out. The internal battle between the urge to text him and the equally insistent urge to maintain a professional distance is put to rest when my phone lights up with a message from him.

Kind of have some bad news. Can you talk?

I message back to say I’m at work, and then demand to know what the news is anyway. His reply arrives a few minutes later.

Condensed version of the story: Atlas PR is taking over our media relations, so you’re going to have to reschedule all your interviews through them. Don’t shoot the messenger, okay? Shayla was gonna tell you, but I thought I’d do it and soften the blow by asking you to drinks.

I let my phone clatter onto my desk.

“Pierre, can you please do me a favour and shoot me right now?”

He makes a gun with his fingers and fires it at me.

“One of those days?” he asks, distracted by whatever he’s working on. It’s only when he looks over and sees me dropping my head into my hands that he gets concerned. “Hey, qu’est-ce qu’il se passe? You don’t look so good.”

“I think I just lost my Sherbrooke Station story,” I groan.

“Lost it? How?”

I lift my head up wearily. “It’s hard to explain. I’ll be back, okay? I need to see what I can do about this.”

I grab my phone, intending to head into the hallway and give Matt a call to get more details. Whatever is going on, contacting the Atlas Records PR department is not an option. I doubt they even noticed my first Sherbrooke Station story, but if they’re cracking down on media relations and someone remembers me from the plagiarism debacle, there’s no way they’ll let me near one of their bands. Nerves start to claw at my stomach as I wonder if Shayla already went ahead and mentioned me to them.

A door opens across the room just as I’m leaving my desk. I glance over to see Marie-France poking her head out of her office.

“Kay, es-tu occupée?” she calls out to me.

Technically I am busy, but I guess I can wait a few minutes and see if there’s any more bad news I have to face.

“Non,” I reply.

We take seats on either side of her desk once I’ve followed her back into her office. She takes one look at me and asks me if I’m all right.

“I’m okay,” I answer. “Just a stressful week. “

She nods as if constant stress is just a fact of life she’s come to accept.

“I take it you’ve heard about that Sherbrooke Station article?” she ventures.

“I have, yes.”

“That,” she tells me, “is the kind of article I want you to write.”

I balk. “It was in a tabloid.”

“That’s not the part I’m talking about,” she explains. “I want the style to be more sophisticated of course, but I want that same kind of controversy. I want something people will talk about. Take this band down if you have to. Find their flaws.”

What she’s saying makes sense. Anyone else reporting on Sherbrooke Station will be following the trend this article has set. People will want to know more. Painting Sherbrooke Station in a compromising light would be the most obvious way to go, and from what I’ve seen and heard so far, I know I could easily do it.

I think about watching Matt go crazy on stage, about the way he looked at me during the interview when he said how much music means to him, and I realize that what I’ve seen and heard has also made me unsure if undermining this band is what I want to do.

Not that any of that matters if I won’t be able to finish the story in the first place.

“Marie-France, I might have a problem,” I admit. “You know about my...history with Atlas Records. I don’t think they’d be too thrilled to know I’m doing a front page feature on their band. I’ve gone unnoticed so far, but the Atlas PR team is cracking down and now the only way to get to Sherbrooke Station is through them. I can’t see that going over well.”

“So don’t go through them.”

I stare, waiting for her to elaborate. She just stares back for a moment and then sighs, getting up to clap a hand down on my shoulder.

“You’re a smart girl. You’ll find another way. We need this story Kay, and we need it to be the best it can be. Quelque chose d’exclusif.”

She opens the office door.

“Vraiement, Marie-France?” I can’t help complaining. “That’s all you’ve got for me?”

“That’s all I’ve got, Mademoiselle Fischer. Now show me what you’ve got.”

Reluctantly, I get up from my chair and make my way back over to my desk. At a loss for what to do, I read Matt’s text over one more time. I was so busy freaking out about Atlas I hardly even took in the fact that he asked me to drinks.

The beginnings of an idea start to form. I need to get closer to Sherbrooke Station, and I have one of their band members literally asking if he can get closer to me. Suddenly I can see a light at the end of this dark tunnel, albeit a very morally dubious one.

No, Fischer, I warn myself. Do not go down that path. You have rules about that.

An image of me showing up at a shady bar to seduce Matt in heels and a trench coat with nothing underneath pops into my head. The fact that that’s my brain’s default definition of seduction should be proof enough it’s a bad idea.

I pack the thought away, my hand still hovering over the message. Strategic seduction might be off the table, but Matt and I have a connection. I can’t deny that anymore. The thought of being dependent on anyone—especially him—makes my skin crawl, but maybe if I suck it up and tell him I need help, there’s a chance he’ll be willing to give it.

* * *

I find Matt waiting outside the cafe on St. Laurent he mentioned. He’s leaning against the wall, wearing a deep green jacket over a pair of tight jeans, and straightens up when he sees me approaching.

“Look,” he says, pointing to my army jacket and dark blue skinnies, “we’re twins.”

“Right.” I bite my lip to hold back a grin.

Inside, the cafe is long and narrow, with dusky red walls and a musty, old bachelor kind of vibe. A few pairs of grey-haired men are sitting at tables with chess boards painted on them, eyes fixed to their games. Other than that we’re the only ones here.

“Hey, Roxanne,” Matt calls to the woman behind the counter.

Somehow she seems both strikingly out of place and like she fits in here perfectly all the same. She’s tall and graceful, her narrow waist hugged by a wrap top, dark strands of straight brown hair falling into her eyes. She looks like she could have stepped out of an old European film.

“Hey, Matt,” she replies. Her voice is tinged with a Quebecois accent. “Ҫa va?”

“Ҫa va. This is my friend, Kay.”

She dips her head at me and then asks what we’d like to drink. Matt orders a coffee spiked with Bailey’s and smirks at me when I get a large French vanilla with whipped cream on top.

“There’s that sweet tooth again,” he teases, as we take a seat at a table by the front windows. The chairs are basically antiques, and I can feel the hard wooden frame through the threadbare padding.

“Oh, shut up.” I set my drink down, running a finger up the side of the mug to catch some stray whipped cream before bringing it up to my mouth. I don’t miss the fact that Matt watches my lips from the corner of his eyes. “So you come here often? She knows your name and everything.”

“Sort of. Roxanne is Cole’s...” He searches for the right word. “She’s, uh, a constant theme in Cole’s life, if you will.”

I nod and can’t help asking, “You ever have one of those? A constant theme?”

Matt shakes his head. “Nope. Haven’t been blessed with one yet, or maybe cursed is a better word. Those two have been to hell and back more times than I can remember.”

“She looks hot enough to be worth going to hell over.”

He laughs and then gives me a searching look. “I’m kind of surprised you agreed to meet me. You didn’t seem too into the idea when I asked at the hotel.”

I decide to just get it over with and come clean.

“I needed to talk to you about the Atlas thing.”

Something close to hurt flashes in his expression before he covers it up with a wry smile.

“And here I was thinking you enjoyed my company.”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t. It’s just...” I trail off, not even sure where I’m going with this. “I’m a professional. This is a professional thing we’re doing here, and—”

“And you also slept in my t-shirt a few nights ago,” he interrupts.

I pick up my drink, gulping down a few sips to stall the conversation until I can steer it back on track.

“That was a mistake,” I say finally. “I’m sure you saw the article those tabloid reporters put out. That’s just one example of why we can’t...why this isn’t...”

I trail off as he leans forward across the table, reaching to where my hand is resting on it. We both watch as he flips my palm over and runs his thumb over the paper-thin skin of my wrist. I feel myself shiver, at both how unexpected his touch is and how such a simple point of contact can feel so suddenly intimate.

“You keep telling yourself that,” he begins, voice low, eyes still fixed to the pad of his thumb as it criss-crosses over my veins, “but you’re here right now anyways. You can’t tell me you don’t want to be around me. I know as well as you do that’s not true.”

“Matt...”

I try to pull my hand away but my arm is too heavy, held down by the weight of his spell.

“This doesn’t have to be difficult, Kay. Just tell m—”

“I need your help, Matt.”

With an extreme effort of willpower, I slide my wrist away from his grasp and clasp my hands in my lap.

“That’s why I’m here right now. That’s why I agreed to see you. I have a problem, and I...I think you might be able to help me with it.” I force the words out, hardly able to look at him.

He leans back in his chair, drumming the fingers of one hand against the tabletop as he considers me for a moment.

“You don’t seem like the kind of person who asks for help very much, Kay Fischer.”

My hand strays to my collarbone, tracing the point of the sword etched underneath my shirt. “I guess that’s an accurate observation,” I admit.

“So I take it this is pretty serious?”

“It’s about the article,” I explain. “You know how I told you I wasn’t one of La Gare’s premier journalists? This article is supposed to be my big break. La Gare is failing, and this Sherbrooke Station story is part of a focus shift that’s our last shot at saving the paper. If it works, it’ll be what I need to finally start moving up in my career.”

“And the problem here is...?” Matt prompts.

“The problem is that Atlas Records is...known to be difficult to work with.” I scramble for a way to keep this as vague as possible. I’m not ready to delve into my past misadventures, especially with someone so closely connected to the source of those misadventures. “It’s hard to explain if you’re not up to your neck in media semantics, but basically I’m not going to be able to finish this story if I have to go through Atlas to get to you guys.”

His drum routine on the edge of the table picks up speed until he suddenly lifts a finger to point it at me.

“So what you’re asking is that I get the guys to go behind the back of our record company and let you keep interviewing us in secret in order to save your career?”

“It sounds pretty terrible when you say it like that.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, “it kind of does.” He grabs his mug and tips it upwards, draining the rest of his drink before setting it back down. “Fortunately for you, I might be willing to indulge your selfish favour if you’re willing to indulge mine.”

He pulls the zipper of his jacket up and motions to my drink.

“Finish that. We’re going on a little adventure.”

“What?” I demand. “Is that your selfish favour? I think I’d like some more information first.”

“Just finish it. There’s something I want you to see before I ask.”

He’s already getting up from the table and waving goodbye to Roxanne, so I don’t have any choice but to chug back the dregs of my French vanilla and join him on the street. It’s already dark out, the neon lights of a St. Laurent night reflecting off the wet pavement and piles of melting snow. I stop to pull my gloves out of my pocket, but Matt’s already jogging down the sidewalk.

“Come on!” he shouts. “Our bus just went by.”

I take off after him. “We’re getting on a bus?”

He won’t answer any of my questions as we climb aboard an STM bus heading in the direction of the Old Port. We turn right onto Boulevard René-Lévesque and continue until Matt signals for us to get off at a stop in the heart of downtown.

“Matt, seriously, where are we going?”I pant, trotting along after him as he looks both ways before jaywalking across Rue Peel.

“For this next part,” he says, heading towards the base of a huge skyscraper, “you’re going to have to act like you know what you’re doing here.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here!” I protest, as we swing ourselves through the revolving doors and into an empty lobby. One side of it leads to a bank office that’s closed for the night, and the other opens onto a tiny Tim Hortons store.

“I used to work there,” Matt tells me, pointing to the Timmies as he steers us past it and towards some elevators.

“You worked at Tim Hortons?” I snort, distracted from how confused I am as I picture Matt in a visor, selling donuts.

“For like a month,” he says defensively. “That’s how I found out about where we’re going next.”

I resign myself to a few more moments of mystery as we step into the elevator and Matt pushes the button for the top floor. We exit into a hallway full of closed doors that I assume lead to offices.

“You sure we’re allowed to be here?”

“We’re not,” he says breezily. “Come on.”

He steps around me and leads us down to the end of the hallway, leaning into the push bar of a grey door that swings open to reveal a concrete staircase. We climb up to yet another grey door.

“How many fucking doors are you going to take me through, Pearson?”

“Last one. I promise.” He grins at me, excitement written all over his face. “This is the part where you have to close your eyes.”

I cross my arms over my army jacket. “Don’t be an asshole.”

“No really, you have to.”

“I’m not closing my eyes, Matt.”

He shrugs. “There goes your story then, I guess.”

I make a sound that comes out close to a growl. “Fine.”

With my arms still crossed, I shut my eyes. I feel the heat of Matt’s body as he moves behind me, circling an arm around to rest his hand just in front of my glasses.

“No cheating,” he says into my ear. “Now walk forward, really slowly.”

“This is so, so stupid.”

I do what he asks anyway, the two of us awkwardly shuffling towards the door. Matt reaches his other arm out from behind me to push it open and I feel a blast of cold, March air draw blood into my cheeks as soon as it hits me.

“Are you seriously taking me onto a fucking roof?”

All he does is tell me to keep walking, the hot skin of his palm still shielding my eyes.

“Okay, stop!” he shouts suddenly.

“Jesus, Matt!” I shriek. “Is this some kind of murder setup?”

“Not quite. I have to take my hand off now, but keep your eyes closed okay?”

He moves away from me and I wrap my arms around myself. It’s fucking freezing up here. I’m about to tell him just that as he shuffles around doing god knows what, when I hear his voice right beside my ear again.

“I’m gonna put some headphones in your ears, okay? Just listen to the song for a bit, and when I tap your shoulder you can open your eyes.”

“This is the most insane thing anyone has ever asked me to do,” I inform him. “I couldn’t even open my eyes if I tried. My eyelashes are probably frozen to my face.”

I feel the rumble of his laugh as much as I hear it. Without being able to see him, it’s like he’s all around me at once. He fixes the ear-buds in my ears one at a time, and the wind and distant sounds of traffic are silenced for a few seconds before the song starts.

I’ve never heard it before. It’s a dreamy, electronic sound, meandering through a shapeless melody before a drum intro kicks in and the beat picks up. It’s the kind of music you listen to on long highway drives in the hours between late night and early morning. It’s the kind that makes you roll your window down to let the breeze snatch at strands of your hair, as the lights of some huge city come into view over the dashboard. It’s a song for the start of something, for that first breath of air, for letting go and jumping in.

There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I realize I’ve gotten so caught up in the music I forgot all about having my eyes closed. I slowly let them open, and when I do I almost scream.

I’m two feet away from the edge of the roof, with nothing but a small ledge to stop me from tumbling twenty stories down to the street. I start to back away and almost scream again when I collide with something solid. A pair of hands takes hold of my waist and I realize Matt’s standing right behind me, ready to catch me.

“It’s okay,” he says, loud enough that I can hear him over the music. “I’ve got you. Just look.”

I swallow, the shock of the moment passing and allowing me to actually acknowledge where I am. Buildings stretch out in every direction, some with roofs below us, some towering far above even from this height. The lights are dazzling, the roads and intersections crisscrossing like arteries and veins. I can feel the energy of the city pumping through them to the beat of the song in my ears.

Matt still has his hands wrapped around my waist, and I forget myself for a moment and lean into him, needing to keep hold of something solid as the rest of me starts to drift away. I feel something burning in my chest as I look down on all the streets I’ve come to know so well, made tiny and unfamiliar from this angle. Everything feels more immediate right now, like the past and the future have already hurtled themselves off the edge of the roof, leaving me standing here with just this moment.

I close my eyes again as the final notes of the song fade. I can feel Matt’s chest rise and fall against my back, his breath quick as it clouds the air around us. After a moment I pull the ear-buds out, but neither of us moves.

“Why?” I ask, surprised by how small my voice sounds. “Why did you show me this?”

“Because I knew you’d feel what I feel when I’m up here, when I listen to that song. You understand about me and music, Kay. You get it. I may not know you all that well yet, but I’m sure you feel the same.”

I watch as our breaths merge together in the air.

“I make music because of moments like this,” he tells me, sweeping one hand out in front of us across the skyline before bringing it back to my waist.

“Moments like this,” he whispers, his lips so close I can feel the ghost of them on my neck. “Not a lot of people understand that. You do. We’re losing ourselves Kay, me and the band. I can see everything that matters slipping away and I want to save it. I think you can help with that. I want people to know who we are, who we really are, and why we do this. You can tell our story the way it needs to be told. ”

“Matt,” I start, my voice rocky, “I just write for La Gare. I’m not a big deal or anything. I’m not—”

“You are. You are a big deal. The second I saw you I thought, ‘That girl right there is a big fucking deal.’”

A nervous laugh escapes me as he bunches the fabric of my jacket in his hands.

“So what do you say?” he asks. “Are we doing this?”

For a second, I wonder what he’s talking about: the article, or my growing need to turn around and wrap my arms around his neck before finally feeling that beautiful mouth move against mine.

“We’re doing this,” I answer, not knowing or caring which of the two I just said yes to.

I twist in his grip until we’re face to face.

“You can let go now.” It comes out as a challenge. “I know I’m not going to fall.”

One arm releases me so he can hook a finger under my chin. “You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

“That was your first mistake.”

This time I really do scream as he lifts his hand like he’s about to push me towards the ledge. I let out a string of swear words, but he cuts off all my curses with the pressure of his lips on mine.

I hesitate for an instant, and then I’m kissing him back, one hand cupping the scruff of his cheek as I clutch at the collar of his jacket with the other. I rock myself onto the balls of my feet to pull us closer, loving the way his skin warms from a shock of cold to a feverish heat under my touch.

I press my body even harder into his and he backs us away from the ledge, until he has me up against the wall beside the staircase. His tongue sweeps across my lips and I moan in spite of myself.

We kiss until I swear I see the city lights glittering behind my eyelids, until the notes of the song he played me are echoing inside my head again. Kissing Matt Pearson feels like making music. As we break apart and stare at each other’s shadowed faces, I know I’m not going to be able to get the song we just started out of my head for a long, long time.