“And how do you spell that? D…O…R…I…E…? Brilliant. Can I just open your book? Yep. That page. If you pop that on there…great. Thank you!” I smooth the neon Post-it note on the title page of the Piecekeepers hardback, and move down to the next person in the queue. “Hi there! Are you here for the signing? Great – can I jot your name down? How do you spell that…?” And on we go.
To their credit, the publishers have thrown a lot of money at this launch. I spent most of the evening putting up all the giant artwork posters and even propping a slightly-larger-than-life-size cardboard cut-out of Aidan in the corner behind the signing table. Bede kept taking selfies with it and giggling – I do worry about him sometimes. Then there were the books; boxes and boxes of them, shipped straight from the printer. By the time we’d unpacked them all and stacked them in neat piles along the table, with Lucy the senior publicist from Eagle’s Head lurking behind us to oversee things the whole time, I barely had a chance to run up to my room to change out of my book-dust covered, sweat-soaked shorts and top, shower, and change into slightly less sweaty shorts and top. In an ideal world, maybe I would even have had time to choose said clothes, rather than grab the first things that came to hand – but that’s just not my life, is it? Besides, these sort of go together, if you shut one eye. Sort of. Anyway, I made it back downstairs just in time to start queue duty, which means I am winning at my job. Just not at fashion.
The signing line is long, and it moves slowly. All the hype behind Aidan’s book means lots of people want to see what the fuss is about – and they want to do it before anyone else. Aidan…Haydn…whoever he’s being tonight, as far as I can tell, is having the time of his life; posing for photos and writing elaborate essays in each copy he signs.
That may be an exaggeration, but it feels that way from where I’m standing.
To pass the time, I tune in and out of the conversations in the queue around me.
“He is, though,” says a girl somewhere near me. “Do you think he’s single?”
I risk a casual glance around, waggling my pen like I’m counting the numbers in the queue, and I spot her. She’s a few places further down the line, with two friends. All three of them are staring at Aidan’s photo in the magazine, and each of them has a copy of Piecekeepers tucked under their arm.
“I’m going to ask him to follow me on Instagram,” says one.
“Is he even on Instagram though?”
“Is he on Snapchat? I know he’s on Twitter. I follow him,” chirps another one.
“This doesn’t say anything about Snapchat, but he’s on the others.” The first one pokes at the magazine; it must have more in there about his social media profiles than there was in the proof letter. Those profiles were just the Eagle’s Head ones. (I checked, okay?)
I scan the room. Bede’s mum and dad are over by the wine table – keeping an eye on it and waving under-eighteens towards the soft drinks while talking to Jenna, the junior Eagle’s Head publicist. Otherwise, I’m in the clear. No Sam to see what I’m doing and mock me. I slip my phone out of my pocket and open Twitter, tapping Haydn Swift into the search box. My screen fills with mentions of the book, the article, the signing right now (which will please Dad – he might not understand Twitter, but he definitely understands buzz) and a stream of selfies people have snapped with Aidan. I scroll through them. There’s a lot…and it strikes me how many of them are with girls just like those three in the queue. Do they have to lean in so close? Do they have to have a hand resting on his shoulder? Do they have to…
Sam’s voice echoes in my head: You’re worried you like a guy who doesn’t exist.
I’m not. I don’t. I don’t.
The problem is I don’t know him – not really. Pieces of him, sure – like the piece of him that wrote his book. But that still leaves a lot of him I don’t know. Haydn, Aidan… they’re the same but they’re different. That kind of reminds me of my dad, how he’s both “public Max” (friendly, genial, laughs a lot) and “home Max” (grumpy, can’t work the washing machine, always losing his phone in his office). I mentally push that comparison away. This is about Aidan, not Dad.
But who is Aidan? Could I get to know more of him than just pieces?
I didn’t do it for Sam.
All I can see is you.
Stomach flips and sweaty palms; eyes the colour of clouds in water and he smells like the sea.
I could (probably) ignore it all – if only I hadn’t read the book.
I wish I could unread it… No, I don’t.
Am I daydreaming about a guy who doesn’t exist?
But Aidan wrote Piecekeepers, didn’t he? Aidan’s the real Haydn – it’s Haydn who doesn’t exist. He’s just a name; the window dressing, the one posing for photos and signing books. Aidan, on the other hand…he is the one I see.
I search again, and there’s a Twitter account box, marked with the little blue and white “verified” tick logo. The official Twitter account for Haydn Swift, author of Piecekeepers (out this summer from Eagle’s Head Books). I click the “follow” button…and instantly realize that I’m still logged in under the convention account instead of mine. I panic-unfollow, then figure that he’s one of our guests so it doesn’t even matter. I re-follow.
He has an Instagram account, does he…?
“Seems to be going well, doesn’t it?”
Lucy is beaming at the queue – which is still going strong.
“It’s a really good turnout.” I stick my phone back in my pocket and shuffle my Post-it notes. “Definitely one of the best signings we’ve had in ages.”
“Between you and me,” she whispers, “I think the casting announcement for the film last week has made a huge difference. We’re already into the second printing for the hardback, and the official release date isn’t for another two weeks.”
“Wow. You must be really pleased!”
Up at the signing table, a girl is asking Aidan to sign straight onto her arm. I can hear her telling him she’s going to get it tattooed on permanently, and he looks like he’s trying to work out whether he can say no.
Lucy spots it too. “Oh, lord. Excuse me.” And she strides across to rescue her desperately uncomfortable author.
He doesn’t even look over at me.
Back to work then.
“Are you here for the signing? Great, can I just check how to spell your name? And that’s A…N…”
It took less than an hour for us to shift all the copies of Piecekeepers. It took significantly less time for the free drinks and snacks to disappear, but that’s conventions for you. As the last of his fans leave with their signed books – Are they fans? I guess so. Haydn has fans. Besides me, I mean. That’s…weird – Aidan caps his signing pen and stretches.
“Not so fast, cowboy,” Lucy says, putting a hand on his shoulder and pushing him back down on his seat before he can get out of it. “I need a photo.”
“I’ve been sat here for the last hour – you didn’t get one through all that?” Aidan groans.
Lucy is unrepentant. “No, I need a good one of you signing a copy. One we can use on the appearances page of the website.” She plonks one on the desk in front of him and pulls out her phone to take the picture. “Lexi – how about we get you in it too? You could pretend to be a fan!”
I ignore Aidan’s cough of amusement: my lanyard has got tangled with my necklace. “Me?” I say, trying to separate the two. “Oh, you don’t want me in it. I’m all sweaty and…”
“Come on, Lexi. It’ll make me look like less of a loser if someone else is in it.” Aidan beckons me over to the table and my insides are suddenly more tangled than my jewellery. “We can both be losers,” he adds as I stand next to him, really hoping he can’t hear how fast my heart is beating at this distance.
“Bit closer, Lexi,” says Lucy, pointing the phone’s camera at us. “Otherwise I’ve only got half your face.”
I can just imagine how awkward this photo’s going to be…but I duly oblige. Satisfied, she takes the picture.
“Great. I’ll put that up on Monday. Thanks, Lexi – and thank you so much for all this.” She waves a hand at the emptying room. “We really appreciate all the effort.”
“It’s no trouble. Really.”
“Hey, Lexi!”
Just the sound of him saying my name raises goosebumps down my spine.
Aidan Green. Haydn Swift.
You heard those girls in the line. Do you want to be stood there with them, giggling over him? Do you want to be fighting them over him? I don’t think so. Here be dragons.
No way are you sailing over that line. Nope. No chance.
“What do you think? Good for a photo?” Now the signing’s over and it’s just him and me and a couple of the other convention staff left tidying up, he’s clearly starting to relax. He has an arm slung around his cardboard cut-out’s shoulders – and he has to stand on tiptoe to do it. Just like I would have to do to put my arm around him. Not that I would want to, obviously.
“I think you make a beautiful couple,” I say. He stretches up and plants a kiss on the figure’s cheek, and it’s so ridiculous that I can’t stop myself laughing.
“Hang on. My phone.”
He’s patting his pockets, over and over – that panic-pat that everyone does when their phone or wallet isn’t where they thought it was.
“Everything okay?” I tug the largest poster down from the wall and roll it up with the kind of grace, ease and skill that only comes from years of experience; which is to say I get it all rolled up, then drop it and have to catch it as it unrolls across the floor. My words barely filter through whatever he’s doing.
Pat-pat-pat.
“It was in my back pocket earlier.”
Pat-pat-pat.
“Have you lost your phone?”
“Yes. I had it before the panel…”
“Did you give it to Lucy or Jenna?”
“No, no. And I definitely had it before the panel. I remember checking it was off when I sat down at the table.”
“And you’ve not used it since?”
“No. I…it must have fallen out.”
He looks thoroughly depressed – but at least he has managed to lose his phone in front of the best possible person. If anyone knows how to find a lost phone, bag, book or coat – or dog – at a convention, it’s definitely me. Or, you know, Sam. But Sam’s not here right now, so yes. Still me.
“Don’t panic. It’s probably under your chair from the last panel. We’ll go back and check – yours was the last event in that room for today, so it should still be there.”
“Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.”
I cross the room and hand my walkie to Bede’s dad, who is folding up the cloth from the drinks table. “Haydn thinks he dropped his phone in panel room one – I’m just taking him back over to check.”
“Are you finished for the day then?”
“Yep. That’s me.”
“Have a good evening.” He glances at his watch and frowns at the time – nine thirty. “Well…whatever’s left of the evening anyway. See you at breakfast – the weather’s supposed to be cooler tomorrow, so that should make life a bit easier.” He takes the walkie and tucks it under his arm along with the tablecloth, heading in the direction of the ops room. This section of the convention is slowly shutting down for the night. Now, it’s all about the evening entertainment – karaoke, parties, the cosplay catwalk… Thankfully, as always, I get to stop work. I could go and catch up with the others, but I’m too tired to be good company. And too sticky. No, once we’ve tracked down this phone, I’m going to go and sit under a cool shower until I finally stop sweating.
Aidan pats his pockets – apparently at random – all the way back to panel room one, as though he thinks his phone is going to miraculously appear somewhere he’s already checked fifteen times. The main corridors are deserted now, and I can hear someone vacuuming one of the workshop rooms. Sam always complains it’s spooky, walking around a convention after-hours, but I love it. It’s not spooky at all; it’s peaceful. Calm. It feels like a completely different place to the one we’ve been running around all day, which I guess just goes to show it’s the people that make a convention. You can set up all the art shows and book stalls you like, but without the people coming to see it – the people wandering the traders’ room and arguing about whether this comic is better than that comic, the guys in the corner of the bar drinking so much coffee they vibrate and play-testing the new tabletop game they’ve designed – without them, it’s not a convention. It’s just a load of stuff.
The lights are all off in panel room one when we push the doors open. Admittedly, it does look a little eerie inside; there’s only the green glow from the emergency lighting and what’s filtering in from the corridor. My shadow sprawls across the chairs – and as I stand there, another one joins it. Aidan’s.
“Where’s the light switch?” he asks.
“On the left, beside the door.” I set off down the central aisle while he looks for the switch.
“You’re not going to wait?”
“I know where I’m going.”
As the door swings shut, the lights flicker on with an electric hum and I scramble under the table on the stage. There’s no sign of a phone here – not hidden by the convention banners between the table legs, not under the chair…not anywhere.
“Anything?” Aidan shouts from the back of the room.
“Nope. Not here.” I clamber out – and realize as I look back across at him that he’s standing exactly where I was earlier…and I’m where he was. I wonder whether he did see me… “I can try calling it, if you tell me your number?”
I look at my phone. No signal. I should have thought about that; the signal on my phone is rubbish in this building, but it’s not a problem when I have the walkie – which I usually do.
“On second thoughts, that’s not going to work. The reception’s too crappy.”
“It’s off anyway. I don’t know where else it could have gone…”
“There’s one more place I can look – the stage is hollow, so maybe it’s fallen under.”
“How?”
“If it fell out of your pocket, it could’ve got kicked off the edge and somehow got stuck?” How am I supposed to know? I’m just trying to help. “It’s a bit dark under there – can you come hold my phone for me? I’ll put the torch on.”
He hops lightly up onto the stage and edges around the table as I jump down behind, pushing the black backdrop curtains aside on their runners. I toss him my phone, the flash lit up to act as a torch. “Here. Point it that way.” I point at the black hole under the stage.
“Are you sure?” He wrinkles his nose. “I wouldn’t want to go in there.”
“I’ll have to check it after the convention anyway – we always do, just in case something’s fallen back there and got lost. You know, like an author’s phone?” I add, and immediately wish I hadn’t, because it comes out sounding a lot more snarky than I intended. I cough, like this makes it any better. “It’s fine as long as you don’t wriggle too much.”
I crawl into the gap, shuffling forward on my hands and knees and peering ahead of me into the shadows. There’s a lot of dust, a handful of paperclips and absolutely nothing else. No phone.
“Bugger,” he says when I crawl out and tell him. The dust has stuck to my sweaty legs, and there are grim grey stripes down the front of my shins. I brush the fluff off my hands as best I can.
“It’ll probably turn up in the ops room tomorrow – don’t panic. Maybe Nadiya picked it up straight after your panel finished. We find phones all the—”
There is a loud grating sound from the other end of the room. I stare at the door.
Aidan follows my gaze. “What’s the matter?”
“No. No, no, no.” Ignoring him, I scramble across the stage and run down the central aisle; my fingers close on the door handle and I turn it and…
Nothing.
The door is locked.
“Rodney? Rodney!” I bang the flat of my hand on the solid door, hard. If only there was a window, a glass panel, anything, he’d have seen us. But as it is…
Nothing.
“Lexi?”
“RODNEY!” I bang again, repeatedly.
Nothing.
We’re locked in.
As that knowledge takes root, the lights click off.
“What the…?” In the darkness, I hear Aidan trip over a chair leg, then another, then bang into the door. Finally he makes it to the lighting panel and starts flicking switches. It stays dark.
“There’s a master switch for these function rooms at the end of the corridor. Rodney must have turned it off when he locked up,” I tell him gloomily.
“Wait – did you say ‘locked up’?”
“I did.”
“You mean we’re locked in?”
“Yep.”
“How?”
“We lock the convention areas when they shut down for the night – it’s the only way to guarantee the art show and the traders’ room stay secure.” Sometimes, I wonder whether Dad swapped me for a parrot at birth. This stuff just comes out of me.
“But…aren’t you supposed to check whether there’s somebody inside first? So this doesn’t happen?” Aidan can’t believe it. Neither can I actually; I’m going to have a word with Rodney when I see him next, that’s for sure.
“I guess he forgot.”
“But you can get us out, right?”
“In what sense?”
“You must have a key?”
“Why would I have a key?”
“Because you…you’re staff. You work here, right?”
“On the convention, sure. Not at the hotel. They let us have one key and it stays with our certified security guard. And last time I checked, I couldn’t magically unlock doors with the force of my mind, so no. I can’t get us out. Although…” I snatch my phone back from him and point its pathetic little light at the far end of the room.
The backdrops.
I’m sure I remember…
“This way,” I say, and walk into the dark. “I’ve got an idea.” Keeping to the side of the stage, I move round to the back, making sure Aidan’s still with me. “Through here.” I reach behind me and it’s only when I’ve done it that I realize I’ve grabbed his hand. His fingers twine through mine and at any other time I would be considering what this actually means…but right now, all it means is that bloody Rodney is so worried about knocking off for his dinner that he didn’t do his job properly.
With Aidan’s fingers locked into mine, I move along the curtain until I find the edge of the fabric panels. “Here we go. It’s somewhere here…”
I fumble at the wall, and then I find what I’m looking for.
A door handle – and it turns.
The door swings open, and with a whoop I pull Aidan through it and into the light.
A couple of hours ago, we couldn’t have stood here without either being trampled or swept away; we are in a vast, galleried room packed with tables selling books, trading cards, plastic figures, T-shirts, toys, cosplay weapons, wigs, outfits…and right now, it’s totally deserted. As it’s on a different lighting circuit (one Rodney has clearly forgotten about), it’s also still lit – so unlike the panel room, we can actually see what we’re doing. Even if the light is horrible and fluorescent and makes me feel like my eyes are bleeding.
“This is amazing,” Aidan says, turning in a full circle.
I am, admittedly, less amazed. And my phone still has no signal because my network is useless here. “Yeah. It’s just swell.”
“Nobody says ‘swell’. Not unless they’re in a black-and-white film.”
“I happen to like black-and-white films, thank you.” Maybe a text message would get through? I start tapping one out to Sam – it’s worth a try.
“You do?” He’s stopped turning.
“Look, Aidan. I’m kind of busy trying to get us out of here, so can you maybe leave taking the piss until I’ve sorted that, please?”
“What made you think I was going to take the piss?”
I’m about to remind him of the first time we met when I realize he’s serious, standing there watching me with his head tilted to one side and his thumbs tucked in the back pockets of his jeans. He blinks at me through his glasses. He suddenly seems surprisingly calm about our situation. I point this out to him and all he does is shrug.
“I didn’t have anywhere else to be tonight – did you? Might as well make the best of it.”
I picture the shower in my hotel room. The pile of notes from college that need to be turned into something I can actually hand in. “That’s not really the point…”
“You just need to look at this the other way around,” he says with a wink.
“We’re locked in the convention complex, with no way of telling anyone we’re here – and probably no way of getting out until the morning. Please tell me what the other way of looking at this is,” I snap. I check my phone again – my text didn’t send. Bollocks.
“We’re not locked in. They’re all locked out.” He spreads his arms and spins around once more.
“Who’s they?”
“Everyone.”
“Or, to put it another way, I’m locked in here with you.”
“Yes! It’s an adventure.” He pokes at a display of carved wooden wands on the stall closest to him, shooting a quick look over his shoulder at me.
“But it’s…weird.”
“You think I’m weird, is what you’re saying. I’m weird and you don’t want to be stuck in a big room with me.”
“Noooo…”
“You read my book, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes…”
“Then you know me. And you know that I am definitely not weird.” He picks up one of the wands and waves it around, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like “Swish and flick”.
“Put that down. What happens if you break it?” I pull the wand out of his hand and set it back on the velvet cushion on the stall.
“Then I’ll pay for it,” he says. “I’m not as much of a prick as you think I am, I promise.”
“Who says I think you’re a prick?”
“Sam.”
“What?” When did he talk to Sam about me? More to the point, is there anyone Sam hasn’t spoken to lately?
“That first time we met – when you threw me out of the green room. Remember?”
“Vaguely.” Like I could forget…
“You stormed off.”
“I did not storm off!”
“And she stayed at the party, and she told me exactly what you thought of me. Believe me, she didn’t hold back.”
I try to hide my smirk. “She usually doesn’t.” I relieve him of the imitation elvish dagger he’s picked up. “Besides, you were a prick.”
“My writer brain notes the use of past tense there.”
“Don’t push it.” I shake my head.
“All right. But you said I was being a prick – how so?”
“You took the piss out of me. About my clipboard.”
His laugh bubbles up and out of him and echoes around the empty hall. But it doesn’t feel like he’s laughing at me, somehow – even though he is.
“You’re joking. You have to be joking. That’s it?”
“What do you mean, ‘That’s it’?”
“Come on, Lexi. I was embarrassed, and I was trying to make you laugh. It wasn’t supposed to mortally offend you!”
“You what?” He was embarrassed?
“You looked so fed up.”
Did I? Maybe I did; after all, that was the time we were all running round after that little dog, wasn’t it?
“It was because of the dog,” I say, and he opens his mouth to ask what I mean. I cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it. Besides, who says I wanted someone to make me laugh? You’re like one of those van drivers who roll down their windows and shout ‘Cheer up, love!’”
“Have you finished?”
“No. Yes. Shut up.” I turn away from him, hoping that’s enough of a sign I am actually finished.
There’s a rustling sound from behind me, and when I turn back around he’s wearing a long blonde plaited wig from the next stall along. It looks ridiculous. And – despite being locked in, despite having no walkie and no working phone and not being able to have my shower, despite the fact my dad’s not spoken to me all day but I’ve seen him outside on the hotel steps talking to Bea on his mobile every time I’ve walked through the lobby – I can’t stop my sudden giggle-snort, any more than I can stop it turning into something bigger, something that cuts off my breath and wraps its arms around me and won’t let me go until I’m actually crying with laughter.
“How do I look?” he asks, twirling one of the plaits – which catches on the frame of his glasses.
I press my lips together, hard. I try to breathe through my nose and just end up making a sort of spluttering snort.
“Mmm. You’d have thought there’d be a mirror here somewhere,” he mutters, peering over the back of the stall to look for one. He’s actually holding the plaits back so they don’t catch on anything on the table.
“Aidan. Here.” My voice comes out in a squeak as I get control over my body. I point my phone at him and take a photo, turning it round so he can see the screen. He beams as he examines my shot.
“Oh, yes. Sod the glowing magic balls – here’s my next cover shoot, right here.”
He takes the wig off, slipping it back over the stand it came from with surprising care. I watch his fingers smooth down the plaits, and all of a sudden it feels like someone has sucked all the oxygen out of the room. Because that’s what’s happened, isn’t it? The air feels thin and flat and as though it’ll never be enough to fill up my lungs no matter how much of it I breathe in, and my head is spinning and spinning and spinning.
When he looks up at me, his eyes lock onto mine and don’t let go. “Can we start again?”
“Start what again?”
“Everything. Us.”
“Us? Yeah, no. You mean you…and me.” I turn my back, pretending I’m suddenly very, very interested in a stage make-up kit – when really I just can’t quite tell what my face is doing and I’m not sure I want him to find out before I do.
“You know what I mean.”
“Nope.” I had no idea you could get special kits just to cover tattoos. I wonder whether that girl from the signing would really have got his signature tattooed on… What makes me so very different from her, when you think about it?
What makes you different, says a small voice somewhere between my ears, is that everyone else has it backwards. They’ve only met Haydn. That’s who they get to see – they don’t even know Aidan exists. He’s a secret; something private and quiet, a figure standing behind the curtain.
And right now, I’m talking to Aidan. Blonde plaits and all.
Because however much I try and talk myself out of it, I know it’s true. I do know him. I know him because I read his book, and I know who really wrote it. I saw him threaded through every line of it and I can see him even now. I could hear his voice there, I could feel it; I could feel him. And it’s the same voice that seems to be lodged in my head, playing back on loop when I least expect it. Aidan’s voice, echoing in an empty corridor. Aidan’s voice, raised over the sound of a band and their crowd. Aidan’s voice that follows me around.
I’m not with someone I barely know, I’m with someone I want to know better.
I look back towards him just as he pulls his glasses off and wipes them with the hem of his T-shirt – I glance away again, but I’m too slow to miss the flash of skin beneath his shirt. “So we’re seriously stuck in here till morning then?” he asks, pushing his glasses back up his nose.
“There’s…”
Something makes me stop. I was about to say that, actually, there is a fire exit – right at the back of the space, and most likely alarmed so that opening it will end up triggering the system for everything on this side of the building. But it opens onto an alley at the back of the hotel, so we could definitely use it to get out…
But Aidan doesn’t know that.
This is my chance. Maybe my only chance; my chance to see if I’m right. To find the fault line between Aidan Green and Haydn Swift once and for all.
“There’s what?”
“Hmm?”
“You were saying something?”
His eyes through the lenses of his glasses. A tempest reflected in water.
His hair an unruly dark cloud.
He makes my skin prickle, like an oncoming storm; one I want to walk right into.
“You said ‘There’s’ and then you stopped.”
There’s a door, there’s a way out, there’s an exit…
It’d probably cause a massive problem anyway. Fire brigade out, people standing around on the pavement in their pyjamas, all that. And they’ll probably pass the cost on to the convention (and Dad)…
“There’s not much we can do. That’s what I was about to say.” Can he hear the lie? I don’t know. Would he tell me if he could? Would he be angry? He doesn’t exactly seem upset, trying on wigs and swishing wands around – but how would I know?
“Right then.” He tilts his face up to the ceiling, staring at the glass roof high above us. The sky outside is dark but clear, and the glass reflects us standing below it: two tiny strangers, staring at ourselves. It gives me an idea.
“Aidan?”
“Mmm?”
“You said I was looking at this wrong. You said it should be an adventure.”
“I did.”
“All right then. You want an adventure? Follow me.”