“But . . . but . . .” I looked at the dead thing in my hand. It felt heavier than usual, like a deadweight.
“Toss it on the bed,” Mark said. “Do it.”
I looked at him, then the bed and then my phone.
“Do it. Come on!” he urged.
I looked at my phone again and then at the bed and then, as if tossing a Frisbee, I let it fly out my hand. It landed on the bed with a soft thud. I gazed at it for the longest time, caught between wanting to pick it up, and wanting to leave it.
“We’re going to be late,” Mark said again and I knew we needed to go. As I walked out the room, Mark put his hand in the air.
“Fiver,” he said with a massive smile that was so contagious I found myself smiling back, despite the circumstances.
I gave him a high-five as I walked out without my phone, for the first time in as long as I could remember.
CHAPTER 33
I watched Mark on stage. He seemed to be completely transformed. The version of Mark I knew before he slung that guitar over his shoulder and climbed onto the tiny stage that wobbled when you moved, was completely different from the man I’d come to know.
There was something so loose about this version of Mark. Like a scarf in the wind, being blown about by something else. Something wild and free that was unraveling in the corners and coming apart because it wasn’t tethered to anything. He was lost in the sounds the instrument was making. Lost in the thud of drums and the wail of vocals that Faizel was belting out. Look, they weren’t going to be winning any battle of the bands anytime soon, and Faizel was no great vocalist. But it didn’t seem to matter. Because on that little stage, in the small cramped restaurant, with the bad purple lighting, they were rock gods. They were the best band in the world and their songs were Billboard chart toppers, even though they were basically covers of eighties rock ballads.
I moved my eyes away from Mark and looked at the crowd around us. Everyone was seated at small tables around the stage and something soon became very apparent. All the women were looking at him. Every single one watching him getting lost in his guitar. They all had similar looks on their faces of adoration and awe and . . . God, they all looked like they were in love with him. I stifled a giggle and then glanced over at Samirah; it was clear she knew what I was thinking.
“I know!” she said biting into one of her fries. “Half the town is in love with him.”
“Why?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Personally, I don’t get it, but everyone else seems to.”
“I don’t get it either,” I said, amused as hell.
But the look Samirah gave me made me think she didn’t quite believe me. “Just wait. His power seems to know no limits.”
“Not going to happen,” I protested. But I didn’t believe that as much as I would have liked.
“Wait. It usually kicks in around the third or fourth time someone meets him.”
I shook my head. “I’ve met him more than that and I’m totally fine.”
I looked down at Samirah, who was counting on her fingers.
“What are you doing?”
“If my calculation is correct, by the end of the night, you should be madly in love with him and you’ll have no idea why. That’s what everyone says. That they have no idea what it is about him.”
I burst out laughing. My laugh was so loud that a few people turned and looked at me.
“Sorry,” I mouthed when someone gave me a dirty look.
“This is their best song,” she mouthed back, and then held her finger over her lips and shushed me.
I looked back at the stage. Faizel and the drummer had left. Mark was alone and he’d changed over to an acoustic guitar. I watched, fascinated, as he pulled a stool up towards the front. He sat down on it and started strumming. A soft, sad, haunting tune came out. The lights dipped lower, the room darkened. Small beams from the footlights shone all patchy and uneven, casting dappled shadows across his face. He strummed the guitar with so much feeling and my eyes were drawn to his fingers, dragging slowly over the strings.
There was something so erotic about watching the tips of his fingers gliding and catching on the strings like that. I looked around the room, and it was clear that almost every female there was thinking the exact same thing.
A collective in-breath was taken as every single woman in the room gazed at him. This acoustic guitar solo was clearly more than simply that. It was one of those elaborate mating dances and displays that birds of paradise give while trying to lure a mate. This was like an advertisement for more . . .
Oh shit, it was working on me a little bit. That pitter-patter on my diaphragm was back. Tiny and furtive, fairy feet. I felt my body leaning in, watching him, every single move he made. The small flick of his hair, the way he moved his neck back and forth to the beat, the way he tapped his foot on the ground. I felt a nudge in my ribs, which zapped me back to reality.
