“Are we sure proper clothes are compulsory? I really do have a gold bikini in my suitcase…”
“Leia’s slave bikini? I don’t think so.” I glare at Sam across the top of the copy of SixGuns magazine she’s using as an impromptu fan. “And that’s mine,” I add, yanking it out of her sweaty hands.
“Take it. It’s not even helping.” She slumps across the ops office desk, peeling her T-shirt away from the back of her shoulders with one hand. “And those windows really don’t open?”
“Nope. I tried.”
There are windows along one entire wall of the ops room in this hotel. They don’t look out onto anything more exciting than the grimy concrete of a blank wall – and while they’re all sealed shut “for security purposes”, the one thing they do let in is the sun, even with the feeble, tissue-thin curtains drawn – which is in full-on June heatwave mode. I have never been so hot in my entire life.
Across the road from the hotel, the beaches of Brighton and Hove are packed with people in varying shades of crimson; this morning, the traditional “heatwave” photo of them spread across the pebbles was on the front pages of all the newspapers. This did not go down well with a convention crew stuck in the un-air-conditioned bowels of a hotel for two days, getting increasingly sticky and sweary and sweaty. It may be great weather for sunbathing, but it’s pretty miserable for a convention that takes place entirely indoors. Thanks to Dad’s…robust conversation with the hotel manager, we’ve managed to get additional fans installed in all the panel and screening rooms, but the author’s reading room is like an oven, and a couple of them have already gone rogue and led their audiences outside and across the road to the seafront and read there. I don’t blame them at all. Even if it did seriously piss Dad off.
“Is that your boyfriend’s cover?” Bede slides the magazine down to his end of the desk.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Mm-hmm.” He turns it face-up, and there is Aidan. The photographer has put him on the steps to the National Gallery, and obviously told him to look “moody”, because he’s half-scowling, half-squinting at the camera. Naturally they’ve got him holding out his hand and photoshopped some kind of weird glowing ball into it – because, magic. And I’m relatively sure that moody squint is because he’s not wearing his glasses, so he can’t even see the camera.
“Look at it. There’s no glowy magic balls in Piecekeepers,” I mutter.
Bede makes a snorting sound that could have been a rubbish attempt to hide a laugh. “At least they didn’t put him in a cloak with one of those big floppy hoods. You know – Traditional Fantasy Book Cover Number One.”
“Hooded Man With Sword?”
“Hooded Man With Big Shiny Magic Glowing—”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand. “Can’t.”
“Well, I think he looks good,” Sam says, perking up and spinning the magazine back along the desk, away from Bede. “And there’s a massive interview inside. They loved the book too.” She flips it open to the start of Aidan’s feature: a full-page photo (thankfully without the ball) and a three-page interview. “Oooh. Have you seen who’s been cast as Jamie in the film?”
“Mmm.” If I rest my forehead on the desk and then lift it ever so slightly, there’s a second when it feels like my skin is stuck to the wood and peeling off my face. It’s the weirdest sensation. I do it again.
“Hey! Look! There’s a thing about us in the event reviews page! Well. Not us, exactly…”
“Where?” Bede scrambles round to her, peering over her shoulder. “‘Last month’s convention…blah blah blah…big names…yaddah yaddah…but the procession of Angelo’s greatest hits…” He stops suddenly. I know what that means.
“Hit me,” I tell the desk.
“No, it’s…”
“They’re being bitchy about Dad again, aren’t they?”
“Really, it’s fine. Just the usual boring stuff.”
“Who wrote it?”
“I dunno. There’s no name – it’s just the regular convention column.”
“Give it here?” I click my fingers and Bede slides the magazine back to me. Peeling my face off the desk again, I sit up and focus. He’s right; there’s no byline on the article, but a quick flip to the contributors listing confirms my suspicions.
“There.” I plant my fingertip alongside one name and put my head back on the wood. It’s cooler than the air.
“Damien Woodman?”
I actually hear Sam pull a face. “The Brother.”
“Bingo.”
“So what’s that about?”
“One: he never misses a chance to get a dig in, not when it comes to that column. Two: I bet you any money he’s going to try and book Aidan for one of his autumn events. Any money you like. And I bet he’ll do what he always does and make it about the film adaptation – there’ll be a panel with someone from the studio, and a couple of the actors and the screenwriter…”
“I heard someone say it was going to be Joss Whe—”
“Quite. And Aidan will be tacked on the end like a crap show pony with ribbons in its tail.”
We all take a moment to ponder this particularly vivid mental image.
“It’s the heat,” I mutter. Too late; they’ve already judged me to the full extent of their judginess.
Bede hauls himself out of his seat. “I’ve got to go check the water supplies in the screening room.”
“Last time I was down there, it was the coolest place in the building. The guy with the short horror film event was ecstatic – he had a full house.”
I really, really don’t want to leave this room. Outside that door is a world where I have to be organized and polite and sensible and responsible – and actually, all I want to do is lie down on the floor and have someone pour ice on me. At this point, I don’t even have any preference as to who that would be. Anyone – as long as they bring lots and lots of ice.
“I’ll swap you the screening room for the cosplay workshop?” Sam asks hopefully. Bede frowns, then shakes his head. “Hot glue? Today? No thanks.”
“Coward.”
The door closes behind them, and there’s the faintest hint of a draught. It smells of feet. Nice.
I peel my face off the desk again and my legs off the plastic chair. My shorts feel ever so slightly damp. Also nice.
I paste my most professional attempt at a smile on my face, open the door, step out into the main corridor and…
“I thought you must be hiding in there – your flying monkeys passed me on the way over. Oh, hey – is that my issue? I haven’t even seen it yet.”
Aidan snatches the magazine, which I only now realize I’ve rolled up and brought out with me. He unfurls it and studies the cover. There’s a pause.
Then… “Wow.”
“Wow?”
“Glowy magic ball. Right there.”
My stomach lurches in a way I don’t quite understand. It must be the heat. Maybe I’m dehydrated.
“It’s a good cover. Very…” I fumble for the right word and eventually settle on: “Moody. Very moody.”
“I was going to go with ‘gimpish’.”
“That’s not even a real word.”
“It is now. I made it one. See how that works?”
“Doesn’t count until it’s in a book.”
“Is that so?” He tips his head to one side.
“You are not going to put it into a book just to prove a point.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of. I could do anything.”
“You could. But before that, you’ve got a panel and…oh no.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot him midway down the hall. He must have come out of the screening room and spotted Aidan – and now he’s bearing down upon us with the inevitability of an iceberg; the difference being that an iceberg would actually be pretty welcome right now.
“It’s the Brother. He’s seen you. And he’s coming – you don’t want to be here when he arrives, because you’ll never get shot of him.”
“What? The who?”
“Walk with me. Quickly. Walk with me this way.”
Without thinking about it, I loop my arm through his, the way I would with Sam, and I start walking.
“Where are we going?”
“Just keep walking, okay?”
“Can I keep the magazine?”
“Will that make you walk faster?”
“No, but like I said, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”
“Fine. Keep it.”
The doors to the service corridor are directly ahead – and if I know the Brother, he won’t follow us there. Service areas are always off-limits to general members; back there, it’s hotel (and if they’re looking for, say, a missing dog…convention) staff only. And Damien Woodman may be a prick, but he knows the rules. I shove Aidan through the double swing doors and peep back through the porthole window – as I thought, Damien stops dead in his tracks. He stares at the door a moment longer, then shrugs and wanders off, pulling a convention schedule from his pocket as he goes.
“You can thank me later,” I say – and I turn round, bumping right into Aidan, who is standing much closer to me than I realized. “Umm. Sorry.”
Even in this unbearable heat, at this distance I can feel the warmth from his body radiating out of him. Close up, he smells of deodorant and…I don’t know, some kind of cologne or aftershave or something. He smells like the sea, like he’s just stepped out of the sun.
I smell like crap.
Maybe he won’t notice.
Why is he so much taller than me? I hate having to look up to people, like they’ve got some kind of…moral superiority over me – which Aidan Green absolutely does not have.
I follow the line of his jaw, his chin – that chin. Still not over that chin. His mouth, his lips…
All the way up to his eyes, which meet mine. And they’re laughing, but somehow it’s not at me. Not like it was before. He’s looking right into me.
All the way into me.
I have to say something.
I don’t want to say anything. I just want to stand here and…smell him.
I have to say something. This whole situation is making me look creepy. Creepy, creepy Lexi.
I say the first thing that comes into my head.
“How come you’re not wearing your glasses?”
Well done, Lexi. Smooth. First you drag him into a service corridor, then you ask about his glasses.
He shrugs, but his eyes never leave mine. “It depends how vain I’m feeling. I can’t wear contacts, so it’s a choice between looking like a nerd or bumping into things I can’t see.”
“They’re not nerdy.”
“That comes direct from someone who never got called ‘Four Eyes’ at school.”
“Did you? Get called ‘Four Eyes’, I mean?”
“What do you think?”
“Umm…yes? How about now?”
“Nobody’s called me Four Eyes for at least three weeks, no.”
“No!” A stray hair glues itself to my clammy cheek. I peel it off and tuck it back somewhere behind my ear. My hands feel wrong, like I’ve not eaten in too long or like I’ve just been running. “So how vain would you say you’re feeling right now? On a scale of, say, one to a million?”
He looks at me quizzically, so of course I keep on talking. Of course I do. “And you really can’t see that well? How many fingers am I holding up?”
Who is this idiot other Lexi who has taken control of my mouth and can she please just…not?
I hold up three fingers, because what the hell else am I going to do?
“I don’t know.” He doesn’t even look. Instead, he tilts his head forward, just a fraction of a centimetre, just the breadth of a hair, as he whispers it: “All I can see is you.”
“LEXI!”
Sam’s voice fills the service corridor and we jump apart as though someone’s lit a fire between us. My heart is pounding hard enough to bruise my ribs.
“Sam?”
“I think your shorts just yelled at you,” Aidan laughs, pointing at the walkie-talkie aerial sticking out of my back pocket.
“Oh. Shit. Yes.” I pull it out and press the talk button. “Hi, Sam.”
“Where’s Ai…Haydn? I need him in the green room for his mic check and his publicist is freaking out. Send him over, will you?”
“What makes you think he’s with me?”
“Oh, please. Nadiya saw you guys disappearing into the service corridor behind reception.” She drops her voice to a guttural whisper, but in the bare concrete corridor it’s still foghorn-loud. “I have eyes everywhere.”
“I’ll…I’ll bring him right over.”
It’s just as well there’s already a heatwave going on out there, because hopefully nobody will notice the extra heat from the small super-fiery sun that used to be my face.
“Come on, come on, come on…” Sam is actually standing in the doorway to the green room, holding the door open and shouting at me as I hustle Aidan inside. Our little detour to avoid the Brother has left precious little time to mic him ahead of the panel – let alone soundcheck.
“Sorrysorrysorry…” I mutter.
“Never mind that. Stand here,” she tells Aidan through the mic leads she’s holding in her teeth, as she turns him round by the shoulders and runs a cable down the back of his T-shirt, clipping the battery pack onto his belt. “Mmm. Clammy,” she laughs. “What have you been doing?”
“Shut up, Sam,” I snap, ducking round in front of Aidan to make sure his mic is resting in the right place. “Did you check the levels?”
“I stood in for him at soundcheck – just don’t say anything in too manly a voice, ’kay?” she adds to him, before grabbing him again and pointing him at Bede, who’s waiting by the exit. “Go.”
The green room slowly empties; I wait for the door to close and then I go and hug the tower fan in the corner, draping as much of myself over it as I possibly can.
It’s coming. I know it is. It’s just a question of waiting.
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
Any second…
“So…you two seem to be getting cosy.”
“I’m doing my job, Sam. He’s doing his.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“What? Just because he did one nice thing, it doesn’t mean I’m crazy about him. Not like you, clearly.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She bats her eyelashes at me as I let go of the fan and perch on the edge of one of the sofas.
“I like his book, okay? It’s a good book. And maybe I was a bit harsh before – I mean, a complete jerk couldn’t write like that, could they?”
“They probably could.” She throws herself at the sofa beside mine, and lands with a mid-level thud. “Ow. Are sofas supposed to thud?”
“This one’s just as hard.” I rap on the cushion with a knuckle. It clonks. “These are definitely not the seats they promised us.”
Sam squints across at me from her position face down on the sofa and I give her a sarcastic look, just to let her know I’m not thrilled with her line of questioning. I can almost see it bounce off her and ping towards a photocopy of today’s schedule, stuck to the wall. Sam’s superpower is some kind of Teflon coating – everything just slides off her. Or is that Kevlar? I think we had an essay question on them in GCSE science, but I was in the middle of a guest cancellation crisis that week so I can’t be sure. It’s one of them, anyway. Maybe both. Hard to say.
To prove my point, she wriggles over onto her back and holds her hands up in the air to examine her nails, which appear to be painted yellow with tiny Batman logos on them. “You know what your problem is, don’t you?”
“Does it matter? You’re going to tell me anyway.”
“You’re worried you like a guy who doesn’t exist.”
“I’m not worried I like anybody.” (Which is true. I’m not even going to like Sam much longer if she keeps this up…)
“You like Haydn Swift, except he’s just as much a figment of Aidan Green’s imagination as those bloody wizards you keep banging on about.”
“Magicians.”
“Them too. But you know I’m right – even your mum agrees with me…”
“Woahwoahwoah. You spoke to my mum?” I stand up. This is new. This is…unsettling. “Why did you speak to my mum? How do you even have her number?”
“She gave it to me ages ago, remember? And I was calling Leonie, actually. I needed help with my French project.”
“So you rang my mum’s girlfriend?”
“She’s French, isn’t she?” Sam rolls her eyes at me, missing my entire point. “Anyway. Your mum thinks I’m right.”
“My mother’s affection for you has clearly clouded her otherwise sound judgement,” I mutter. “What did you say to her?”
“Not much. I just told her that you were conflicted.” She sits up and crosses her legs on the stupidly hard sofa. “I didn’t start it – she asked how you were,” she adds, looking wounded. Maybe she didn’t miss my entire point after all.
“What she was really asking was how I’m handling the Bea thing.”
“She was?” Sam looks genuinely surprised. She’s never been good at working out what people mean – what they really mean – when they ask things. My best friend always says what she means outright (at the time, at least – she’s also the mistress of I-changed-my-mind-what’s-your-problem?) and expects everyone else to do the same. It’s one of the reasons I love her.
Sam rearranges the platinum silver wig she’s wearing today. It can’t be cool, not in this heat. Maybe it’s boiling her brain? That would explain a lot, come to think of it. “Is she coming this weekend?”
“Mum?”
“Bea.”
My future-stepmother’s appearance at the hotel last time did not go unnoticed – or unmentioned – by most of the con staff. Little whispers curled their way around the bar, the ops office, the lobby like smoke; it’s her, she’s here, is that Bea? She’s become this mythic presence over the last few months, heard about but rarely seen. Like the Loch Ness monster. Or Bigfoot.
I keep having to stop myself from wondering whether she was testing the waters, deciding whether she wants to get involved in this part of Dad’s life, just like she’s wormed her way into all the other parts…
No, Lexi. That’s not fair. You’re being unfair. It’s his life, it’s up to him who’s part of it.
But what about me?
I…should probably stick to thinking about schedules right now.
At least with schedules I know where I am.
Schedules don’t let you down; it’s people that let you down. People can seem like they’re one thing and then turn out to be something else. Schedules are easy. People are hard.
I shake my head at Sam, who’s still waiting for me to answer. “Is she coming this weekend? I don’t think so. Not with the wedding so soon, and apparently she’s got a load of work to finish up before then – so Dad says, anyway.”
“When I get married, I’m going to do it somewhere sunny. On a beach. And everyone will have to come in costume.”
“York can be sunny.” Even when my father’s getting remarried, I can’t seem to stop defending him. There’s something wrong with that equation, somehow; it feels all backwards, like I’m the parent and he’s the kid.
“Imagine Bea’s face if everyone turned up in cosplay…” Sam’s eyes glitter.
“No. No, no, no.” I am picturing that very thing, and it doesn’t end well.
A bead of sweat tracks slowly down between my shoulder blades. “I’m going to go stick my head into panel room one and make sure they’re not dying in there.”
“You mean you’re going to check how Aidan’s doing, don’t you?”
“Haydn.” The name slips from my lips before I even feel it coming. Sam tilts her head to one side and eyes me thoughtfully.
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I’m trying to be professional,” I say, pushing the door open. “You should give it a whirl sometime.”
And as I walk out into the corridor, I trip over the step I had totally forgotten was there.
“Mind yourself, love,” says Rodney from behind his newspaper.
On the other side of the door, Sam’s too busy laughing to say anything…
The panel room is dimly lit, and – given the fact it’s packed out and standing room only – surprisingly cool, thanks to those extra air-con units we brought in. Aidan…Haydn – whoever he really is – is at one end of the panel table, listening to another author – a woman with long hair and a big hat, even in this temperature – answer a question. He looks relaxed and happy; all hint of the nerves I saw last time have disappeared. Maybe it was Aidan who was nervous; Aidan the writer, the behind-the-scenes guy who got called names at school. Haydn; what does he have to be nervous about? Haydn’s halfway to being a rock star. One who writes books – which makes him better than any rock star, really.
All I can see is you.
My stomach somersaults as he looks up towards the back of the room, right where I’m standing.
He can’t possibly see me; I’m in the near-dark here and the spots lighting the stage will be in his eyes.
He can’t see me. No way.
Nobody sees me – that’s the point. Nobody sees me and I’ve worked very, very hard to make sure that’s how it is. I don’t want to be the centre of attention; I can’t think of anything worse. I happen to like it in the shadows, with my lists and – yes – my clipboard. It’s safer here. So, no. He can’t see me.
But it certainly feels like he can, because he’s looking straight at me. Straight into me.
He smiles – just to himself – and lowers his gaze to the panel table, and I tell myself that it’s absolutely fine because even if the lights aren’t blinding him, without his glasses he doesn’t stand a…
Something metal glitters at the side of his eye. Glasses.
Typical.