Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3) (2 page)

She caught his hand and brought it to her chest. “I missed you.”

He felt the steady rhythm of her breathing, her heart pumped under his wrist. “I always miss you.”

If she’d taken the job as his assistant, travelling with him, looking after his bookings, transport and accommodation, this would be easier, but she’d seen through it, too proud to accept his help. She’d used the excuse of needing to be available for auditions, and while it was a fair call, he hated the fact he was raking in the money and she was struggling in a retail job where the shifts were short and too infrequent.

He should’ve asked her to move in with him before now. For Taylor he’d sacrifice his privacy and he was hardly home for more than a few weeks at a time anyway. He’d ask her this time, but he needed to pick his moment.

She released his hand. “You don’t have to rehearse, you know.”

He kissed her forehead and though his nose itched, he didn’t sneeze. “Can’t wait to see everyone.” The guys bent the rules so much for him, it was the least he could do to front for a run-through before a show when he was in town.

They listened to the radio, a pop station on the way to Moon Blink, singing the chorus to some new hit that didn’t have many more words than,
get it in, get it up, get it out, get it over
, delivered in a tongue twisting syncopated rap beat. He had the singer’s intonation down the third time the line came around. It was a good warm up.

Moon Blink lived up to its namesake. It was cool and dark inside the club. He bumped into a table before Angus almost hugged him off his feet.

“Vox! When did you get home?”

Arms pinned, he could smell the beer on Angus, but on his clothes, not on his breath. He’d been cleaning up, which meant someone hadn’t shown up for their shift and Angus had to fill in again. Nothing glamorous about owning a bar. “Last night. Figured you wouldn’t mind if I crashed rehearsal.”

Angus steered him to the bar and there was coffee in front of him before he took a seat. Taylor slid in beside him.

“So Trill, you kept this one to yourself?”

Angus was irritated. Damon closed his eyes as the coffee hit the back of his throat, as the beginnings of jet lag made itself known. No sound came out of Taylor, she would’ve shrugged.

Angus gave Taylor her nickname after the amazing bell-like quality she had in her upper range, and it was his band, his bar, that employed her to sing three nights a week, but the best that could be said about his two closest friends now was they tolerated each other. It never used to be that way. Some days that was more annoying than others. Today it was exasperating. He’d need a nap before the show tonight or his own frustrations might come prowling out.

He pushed his cup forwards for a refill. “I thought it might be fun to surprise you.” Fronting up with no warning had been Taylor’s idea. Why he was helping her out he didn’t know. He felt her elbow insinuate itself between his ribs and refused to give her the pleasure of reacting, except she pushed harder and his cup hit the saucer off centre and he had to use both hands to stop it flipping over; still coffee sloshed everywhere. Technically a win for Taylor.

Angus mopped up and put a wet towel in his hands. “You’ll sing with us tonight?”

“Hell yeah.” Then he’d be home. His mates, a small audience, songs from musicians he admired to sing, no pressure to do anything but have fun.

Angus refilled his cup. “How long are you around this time?”

“A couple of months.”

“Months.” Angus and Taylor in duet. He laughed. It’d been years since he’d been around for months. “I’m booked on a couple of small jobs here, favours really. I need the break.” He’d been working solidly for the last three years with very little time off and way too many flyer miles accumulated. Underneath the niggle of jet lag was a more bone deep tiredness, it sat under his eyelids like emery board and in the back of his throat like a lump of sand. He had six months to rest and plan the next year’s work commitments.

Sleep would help, not needing to be anywhere further than a couple of local recording studios would make a difference, and being with friends instead of living like a road warrior in hotels and sound booths, buddying with people he’d likely never meet again, would make a huge improvement to his stress levels.

Angus clapped his hands. “The band is back together again.”

Taylor huffed. As well she might. If he sang with them more often it would change their set list and she’d have to share the stage.

“Tay, you okay with Damon on your stage?”

“Of course I am.”

Ah indignant, thy name is Taylor. Damon swivelled his stool so his knees grazed her thigh. “Trill?”

She cupped his jaw with both hands. “You’re an idiot.”

He snorted. She was all right about it. “I love you too.”

Angus clapped again then rubbed his hands together. “We need a new set list. Got any preferences?”

“No rap,” he said, on song with Taylor, and they all laughed.

They settled on some U2, Clapton, a little John Legend, Michael Buble, James Blunt, Bruno Mars, and covers from the bands One Republic, London Grammar, The Fray and The Stones. A list of artists entirely in his range. It left Taylor singing backup, but she refused to do much more than that and her favourite Pink ballads,
Try
and
Sober
. They’d do
Give Me A Reason
together.

They were still arguing over that when Jamie and Sam came in.

He heard the door thunk shut and braced for the inevitable mauling. It came, a headlock from Jamie. He had to slap the bar to get him to let go, then he copped a bear hug from behind from Sam. Sam kissed him on the back of the neck so he made an elaborate show of wiping it away.

“Man, when did you get home?” Jamie sat on the stool beside him. Angus poured more coffee.

Sam was still standing behind him. Untrustworthy. “Last night.”

Sam did the lips to the back of the neck thing again, this time with sound effects. He would’ve gotten a mouthful of hair, Damon needed a cut badly.

“That’s it.” He swung the stool around and grabbed Sam by the shirt and they wrestled, haphazardly bumping into chairs and tables, grunting and laughing. Sam taunted him sprouting dialogue from
Dystopian Conflict
, pretending to be Lord Wrack to his Sky Pirate Captain Zice Vox.

“I banish you to the Red Star Dystopia, Vox.”

“You couldn’t banish breakfast, Wrack.”

In
Dystopian Conflict
, the movie and the video game, that was the line that got Vox into big trouble, his galaxy ship impounded and his pirate queen, Umbria Starstarter, taken hostage. In the sequel he’d just finished recording,
Dystopian Outlaw
, the actress who voiced Umbria had taken a shine to him, offering to start his star anytime he liked. He’d spent an uncomfortable ten days declining the opportunity.

Sam tried to wrestle him to his knees. “Filthy pirate scum.”

He choked out, “From spew spawn like you, Wrack, that’s a compliment.”

“He’s staying a while.” That was Taylor, and it had the effect of distracting Sam long enough that Damon got his arms around Sam’s knees and tipped him over. They both went down tangled with a couple of chairs, and Angus yelling at them to quit it.

He sat on the floor and laughed. It was good to be home. Sam hauled him up and half an hour later he was singing U2’s
Beautiful Day
just to prove it.

2: Sound of Alone

Georgia pulled the grimy wooden blinds closed and collapsed into the only chair not piled with boxes or other household guff. It would take hours to unpack and get sorted but she didn’t give a hoot that this tiny flat was grubby, messy and missing a connection to functioning electricity.

It was her private space. If she never unpacked a box, washed a plate, scrubbed soap scum off the shower curtain she’d yet to hang, no one would care. She sprawled in the chair and breathed deeply of dust and musty smells and they were cleansing. This was freedom, this was her new life and it was joyful. She’d start over with her old name, in this new space where no one could make her feel responsible, guilty, frustrated or angry.

She could wear all those emotions without judgement, without needing to cover them over with smiling patience and polite forbearance like cheeks that needed colour or eyes that didn’t pop.

She could be grumpy and slobby, flippant and silly. She could sing off-key without worrying about anyone’s headache, or dance like she was having a fit without complaints she was being juvenile. She could eat junk food till she packed on the weight and exploded in oozing fatty lumps out the seams of her clothing. She could cultivate bad breath till the scent of it permeated the whole flat and seeped under the door into the street, making dogs howl and cats drop dead.

Even better, she could lie in bed all weekend, or watch endless bad television, or play games on her phone all day, or take up a dorky hobby like scrapbooking. Or she could sit in this comfortable chair all day and read a book, if she could find one, and no one would need a meal, or a complaint heard, a pillow plumped, attention for their bitterness and misery, or an audience for their betrayal.

She was done with the need for attention most of all. When it had been necessary vigilance she’d borne it better, with sucked up grief and determination, with a constant ache in her chest. With love. But once the fear wore off, once a reasonable recovery was imminent, it was the attention that wore her down most of all, because it was always so opinionated and unforgiving.

And Hamish had never been that way before.

But whose fault was that?

She struggled upright and pushed a box of kitchen gear out of her way with her booted foot. There was enough space between the chair, the new old coffee table and the two suitcases to dance. She took her phone out of her hip pocket and thumbed through to her music, picked the Cyndi Lauper track
Girls Just Want to Have Fun
, and played it through the tinny phone speakers. It was her new anthem, except fun was taking this whole break free thing a little far. What she wanted was to be alone, to be uninvolved, careless and quiet. Not to be defined as a patient girlfriend, a caring wife, a nurse, a companion, a slave. Not to be the one who ruined it all.

Cyndi sang and Georgia faked a dance step that was more a sideways old lady scared of breaking a hip shuffle than a recognisable groove. Not that she had much dancer in her anyway, but somehow in all that time with Hamish she’d lost her sense of rhythm, along with the logic of who she was without him.

And without him was bliss, a deep hot bubble bath, a feather bed, a big mouthful of chocolate praline, endless coffee refills you didn’t have to make yourself.

So getting her hippy hippy shake back should be easy.

But maybe not today. She dropped into the armchair with a grunt. Today her back ached from humping suitcases and boxes up the stairs. Today was all about the savouring, and she could do that while slumping. It was the equivalent of a day spa appointment that was going to last the rest of her life. It was indulgence and choice, ease and relaxation served with real peppermint tea that was steamy and fragrant.

It was so weird.

She’d hadn’t been on her own, truly on her own, without someone in the next room whose needs she’d committed to meet, for eight years. And even before that, after Mum died, with Dad’s drinking, there’d been that need to be the one who cared, who was responsible, whose needs came last.

That realisation was probably why it was hard to get out of the chair. She felt heavy with the difference. Not that it mattered. She could rust in this chair and no one would mind. That was such a lonely loser thought it made her smile. Because that’s exactly what she wanted, to be alone, and if that made her a loser then bring it on, baby, embrace the lame, cultivate the nerd, and institutionalise the geek.

She swung a denim-clad leg over the arm of the chair and fist-pumped, feeling vaguely stupid for doing it. Because for all the sit in the chair till she fused with its second-hand distressed leather notions, she had to get at least part way organised. She had a new job to start Monday and in that particular sphere she had to show a whole lot of anti-loser characteristics. Which meant finding appropriate clothing to wear, sorting out the bathroom and working out how to manage without a power supply and still have decent hair.

The better casual clothes she needed were in the red suitcase. The confidence she needed had to be summoned, and it wasn’t going to be as easy as ringing for a pizza. But she’d managed to conjure cool, calm and professionally collected during the Skype interview a month ago, and that’d been a disconcerting experience, pitching her heart out about her experience to her laptop screen in a cubicle at the library while a man in a tweed jacket with actual elbow patches and a cloth cap scowled at her over the partition.

He was reading something that exuded old book smell and making increasingly aggressive shhh noises. She was reading the expression on the faces of two people whose Sydney-based recording studio she fervently wanted to work for and sprouting off about her Bachelor’s Degree in Audio Engineering.

At about the time she mentioned being a panel operator for Radio London Mode, tweed man stood up and glared at her. She ignored his looming presence and went on to talk about her stint as house engineer for the Little Shakespeare Theatre. Tweedy lost it and started complaining loudly while she grimaced and explained how she’d been the engineer for a variety of freelance contracts in the advertising and documentary making industry over the last four years. It wasn’t the career she’d hoped to build, it was what she had to trade with.

But Tweedy was making noises akin to a human distress beacon so she’d been forced to acknowledge she was logged in at the library because she’d needed a private space. She didn’t tell them Hamish would’ve made life even tougher for her than Tweedy had. She did tell them she’d need time to relocate from London to Sydney. Then she expected to wait with all the pleasure of having a dead limb from pins and needles before the inevitable analysis of her résumé revealed her patchy work experience and killed the opportunity like catastrophic blood loss.