“Yeah, but they didn’t make you dress up, did they? It’s not like someone held you down and forcibly dressed you as an elf.”
Bede doesn’t look impressed – although I can’t tell whether it’s Sam’s piss-taking or the fact he’s currently dressed like a stray from Middle Earth that’s causing it.
“They were one short.”
“I thought that was the dwarves,” Nadiya says casually, walking past with a boxful of power cables. She doesn’t even break her stride when Sam and I both applaud her – but she glances over her shoulder at us and grins. “Thank you, I’ll be here all weekend!”
Bede looks even less impressed.
“That’s what you get for offering to help out the LARPers.” I can barely breathe, never mind get the words out. Bede’s legs were not designed for tights. Let alone shiny ones. “Are you sure they weren’t just messing with you?”
He shakes his head sadly. “This never happens to any of you lot.”
“Because,” Sam chimes in from her spot on the empty registration table, swinging her legs back and forth, “none of us actually join in.”
“I’m sorry – much as I’d love to stay and carry on this little team-bonding exercise, I have to go and give an elf his tights back.” Bede stalks off with his head high, and the sounds of our deeply unsupportive and desperately unsympathetic laughter in his ears. His dignity remains intact(ish) most of the way across the lobby – right up until the moment he steps into the lift just as Aidan steps out. They collide smack in the middle of the lift doors, and Bede swears in a most un-elfish way. Sam laughs so hard I worry she’ll pull a muscle somewhere – but as usual, she goes one better. She somehow manages to fall right off the table, backwards, in a shrieking cloud of laughter and swear words.
Aidan raises an eyebrow at the carnage. “I’m missing something.”
Sam rolls onto her stomach under the table. “Aidan!”
He leans sideways and peers down at her. “Evening…”
“Loved your reading. Seriously. It was aces.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” She nods.
“Thanks. That means a lot.”
A fist clenches tightly shut somewhere in the pit of my stomach. It’s like someone has tied my insides into a knot and there’s a person pulling on each end of the rope.
Well, that particular train of thought can…umm, get knotted.
“Anybody going for dinner – oh.” Nadiya is back from dumping the stuff in the ops office. “Why’s Sam under the table? Isn’t that usually your spot, Lexi?”
“You are on fire tonight, aren’t you? All this comedy.”
I’m aware of the quizzical look Aidan is giving me, but I ignore it for just a couple of seconds longer than I need to – and then I panic in case he thinks I’m ignoring him. Which I kind of am.
“It’s a long story,” I mutter in his general direction.
“You like sitting under tables?”
“Turns out it’s not so long after all.”
With his usual timing, my father breaks the tension – choosing this exact moment to summon me via the walkie-talkie currently tucked under my arm. “Lexi? Where are you?”
I fumble for it, drop it (twice) and finally manage to stop it howling with static at me. “Here!”
“Which is…?”
“Registration. We’ve just closed the desk for tonight. I figure if any day members aren’t here by now, they’re not coming.”
“Oh. Right.”
He’s using his Just-One-More-Thing voice.
I reply using my You-Can’t-See-Me-Rolling-My-Eyes-Over-The-Walkie voice. “Is everything okay?”
There’s a long, long pause.
“Dad?”
“It’s fine. Nothing to worry about – I’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
“That doesn’t sound good…”
“No, no. It’ll be all right. You and Sam go have fun at your gig.”
“But the…” I stop.
“Lexi?”
“Nothing. Thanks.”
“Don’t be out too late. Come find me in the bar when you get in.”
“Will do. See you later!” I click off the walkie and put it on the reg desk, pretending not to see Sam staring at me as she clambers out from under the table.
“You didn’t tell him the Carveliers is off?”
“I did, but he’s forgotten. You know my dad. Besides, if he thinks we’re not going, he’ll only give us something to do.”
“About that.” Aidan is leaning back against the table, and he has something in his hand. Sam turns to say something to him – but her eyes skip his face entirely and lock onto the strips of plastic he’s holding.
“Are those…wristbands?” Her voice climbs to somewhere vaguely operatic. I didn’t think it could actually get that high.
Aidan’s got his smug chin face on.
“They are.”
“Not to…?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Migod.”
“Lexi?” And he actually holds the wristbands out to me.
“You’re kidding? Are those for the Carveliers? Tonight?”
He nods.
“How did you get those? It’s completely sold out! They’re not even putting people on a waiting list!”
“I’m with the same agency as them. After you said it was sold out, I gave my agent a call and asked if there were any hospitality passes going in the music department. Turns out there were three.”
“Three?” I look at the pair of wristbands he’s holding out.
“These are guest bands, which means you have to be signed in. By me. Sorry.”
I’m in the middle of thinking up a cutting (yet gently witty and reasonably grateful) reply when Sam leaps forward and snatches the bands out of his hand with a grin. “Thank you! That’s amazing! You’re amazing! I…” She freezes mid-dance. “These are…these… These are VIP bands. They…they…”
“Did I forget to mention? These bands come with an invite to go backstage after the show.”
The sound that comes out of Sam’s mouth is like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It’s a sort of yelpy squeaky hiccup-cough. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears any moment too. I’ve never seen her so happy; it’s like seeing a kid version of Sam in front of me – and in that second, in that heartbeat, I want to hug Aidan for doing this for her. I really, really want to – particularly when she starts running laps around the lobby, narrowly avoiding one of the hotel staff on his way out of the bar carrying a tray of cocktails. (Whoops. Dad’ll hear about that.) I can’t be grudging about it at all.
Instead, I look Aidan in the eye. “Thank you. I mean it – really. Thank you. She’d been looking forward to the gig for months. You’ve made her weekend. Year. Life.”
“It’s no problem,” he says with a shrug – and maybe it’s the lighting in here, but I could swear he looks a little more flushed than he did a minute ago. And over Sam, dancing around the lobby, and the noise of a group of Musketeers meeting up ahead of dinner, I’m not completely sure whether he actually says anything else or whether it’s a trick of the acoustics. But – for one insane second – it almost sounds like he says, “Besides, I didn’t do it for Sam.”
The Fleece is – not surprisingly – packed. It smells…warm. Sweaty – but in a good sort of way. It smells like dancing; like hundreds of feet attached to hundreds of people bouncing up and down on the floor and trying not to bash into the narrow pillars holding up the ceiling. Sam hasn’t stopped grinning all night – not since we walked past the long, long line at the door and flashed our wristbands while Aidan signed us in with a casual, “We’re on the list.”
“You hear that?” Sam squeezed my arm so hard I thought she was going to break it. “We’re. On. The. List.”
“Sam? You are the least cool person I know. The very least cool.”
But it was cool, and so is being here, surrounded by people who aren’t about to turn around and ask me for something. These are just people. There’s nobody here I have to look after – apart from Sam, who’s pogoing like her life depends on it somewhere in the middle of the floor.
I pick my way through the wall of People I Am Not Responsible For to find Aidan, lurking at the back where it’s quieter and the air’s cooler – not that it smells much better.
“Everything okay?” He has to raise his voice over the music and the crowd’s singing (shouting).
“It’s great! I just needed a breather.”
“Sam’s still out there?”
I give him something between a nod and a shrug.
I lean over the bar and shout to the barman for a couple of bottles of water. He nods to show he heard me, and carries on pulling pints of lager for people who have already ordered.
Aidan sidles up alongside me. “I meant to say thank you – for today.”
“What do you mean?” The barman bangs two sealed bottles of water down in front of me and I pull out a handful of change – but Aidan shakes his head.
“I’ve got this.”
“No – you got us in.”
“It’s a couple of bottles of water, Lexi,” he says as he pays. “It’s not like you’re stinging me for a magnum of vodka.”
“I thought only wine, champagne and stuff, came in magnums?”
“Sounds like you know more about it than I do.” He raises an eyebrow at me like he’s trying to be provocative. “Get through a lot of magnums, do we?”
I snort, picking up the bottles and tucking one under my arm for Sam. “I’ve been helping my dad on these conventions since I was a kid. One of the first proper jobs he gave me was to check the F&B orders.”
Aidan frowns. “Eff and bee?”
“Food and beverage. It’s what the hotel charge for…” I catch myself right before his eyes glaze over. “Wow. Sorry. This is the most boring conversation in the world, right here. It’s hard to switch this stuff off sometimes.”
“Do you like it?”
“Like what? Checking the F&B? God, no. That’s a nightmare.”
“I meant the conventions. Helping your dad.”
“I do. It’s hard to fit it all in sometimes, but I really, really do.” I gulp down half my water in one go.
“Fit it in?”
“Around sixth-form college. Apparently, running a convention doesn’t count as a good enough reason to get off doing essays. I’ve tried.”
“Why don’t you ask your dad if you can do less?”
I choke on the mouthful of water I’ve half-swallowed.
“Do less? For the conventions, you mean?”
“Uh, yes?” He looks puzzled.
“No way.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love it.” I ponder this, then decide I need to explain a bit more coherently than that. “At least, I love it when everything goes right.”
“And when it doesn’t?”
“Then I love it a bit less, maybe? But I do still love it.” I cock my head to one side and look at him – and even though his face is neutral, scanning the crowd, I think what I’ve said makes sense to him. “I imagine it’s a bit like writing, from what I’ve heard authors say.”
“Funny,” he says. “I was just thinking the same thing. On a good day, it’s the best thing in the world, but on a bad day…” He winces. “Can’t seem to stop doing it though.” His pained expression turns to a grin. “I guess you know how that feels.”
The room is suddenly hotter than I imagined a place could ever be. I am standing on the surface of the sun.
I am changing the subject.
“Talking about writing…I know you said your book wasn’t your parents’ sort of thing, but they must be pretty proud of you, right?” I wave my bottle at Aidan by way of punctuation – and slosh water all over his shoes. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Proud? Why?”
“You’re an author. You write books, and then you get to go and read things you made up in your own head to other people and they listen. That’s pretty impressive.”
“You think it’s impressive?” His eyes narrow, and somehow they look warmer, lighter. Almost mischievous.
Ah. “I was theoretically saying that some people might find it impressive.”
“But you don’t?”
“I’m my father’s daughter. You’ve got to be a pretty big deal to impress me.”
“Like my book did, you mean?”
I don’t know how to answer. Is this a game? Is it a way to avoid talking about his parents – because don’t think for one second I didn’t notice that particular conversational swerve?
Am I supposed to have a clever comeback? Or am I meant to tell him the truth?
And what if I get it wrong?
“I didn’t do it for Sam…”
What if I imagined he said that; and what if he actually did?
“Where did you go? I’m dying out there! Oh, water. Amazing.”
Sam saves me.
Sam always saves me; sometimes from other people, more often from myself.
But this time, do I even want to be saved?
She snatches the second bottle of water from under my arm and downs the whole thing.
“How good are they? HOW good? Are you coming back or what?” She grabs my hand and starts towing me into the middle of the crowd – then stops. “Hold up.” She drops my hand. “Did I just…were you guys…what was that?”
I shake my head and laugh. “I don’t even know.”
Even in the dim light, I can see her eyes narrow at me.
“Lexi Angelo. You like him.”
“I do not.”
“You. Do.” Her whole face lights up with it, this shining realization she’s had. “And you know what? You are going right back over there to—”
A loud squeal of feedback from the stage makes everyone comedy-groan.
“We’re almost done for the night, but we’ve got time for one more song.”
A round of applause. Cheering, and a few shouts for more.
“And we actually want to dedicate this one to somebody here tonight, kind of a friend of a friend of the band – can we have the house lights on, maybe?”
The lights around the bar fade up a little – and Elis, the Carveliers’s singer, peers out into the crowd.
“Sam? Where are you?”
I feel Sam tense. “It’s not me,” she whispers – more to herself than to me.
Nobody answers.
On the stage, Elis shades his eyes with the flat of one hand, the other keeping his guitar slung behind his back. “Samira?”
Nobody answers.
It feels like the silence drags on for ever. She’s shaking. She’s actually shaking; I can see the great lion’s mane of her (natural, for once) hair moving.
I crack. I stick one hand straight up and wave it madly, pulling at her arm with the other. “She’s here!” I yell. Elis looks right at us as I half-drag, half-carry her through the crowd as it parts in front of us. “Sam’s here!” I risk a glance back at her face midway to the stage and she looks totally dazed; she’s either about to burst out laughing or into tears. It could go either way. I get her all the way to the front and park her right in front of Elis, who beams down at her.
“Nice to meet you, Sam. You having a good time?”
“’s.” She nods, but you’d have to be standing where I am to hear her.
“Do you know ‘Sung in a Minor Key’?’
“’S.” Louder this time – loud enough for him to hear.
“You want to hear it?”
She doesn’t even manage to make a sound this time. Just a nod, and a smile so wide it could blind the moon.
As the Carveliers launch into their last song of the night and Sam beams and sings along, I look round – and right at the very back of the room, behind all the faces and through all the voices, I’m sure I see him.
He’s smiling, and he’s looking right at me.