Page 220 of Love at First Fright

And now here it was. His voice filling this room, wrapping around every person present.

Movement caught my eye—the journalist in the corner booth. Middle-aged woman with sharp eyes and a sharper pen, scribbling notes onto a pad. NME. Actual fucking NME. I’d almost fainted when Bat told me she’d be here, and I still hadn’t recovered.

My stomach twisted. Nerves for him. He deserved this so much.

“You weren’t lying. He’s absolutely brilliant,” Mike, sat beside me, whisper-shouted into my ear.

I glanced at my new uni mates, Mike and Emma—two of the older students, who like me, were currently enrolled at UAL studying music production. They both sat forward in their seats, completely captivated.

On my other side, my mother was equally transfixed, whilst Emily grinned. My sister, looking more relaxed than I’d seen her in years. Doctor hours were brutal, but she’d taken the night off for this. For me. For Bat.

Lily sat in Emily’s lap, nine years old now and sipping cola through a straw. Thrilled to be up way past her bedtime. Thrilled to be watching Uncle Bat on stage.

Uncle Bat. Fuck. That still got me every time she said it.

Last summer we’d all gone camping together—me, Bat, Mum, Emily, Reuben, Lily. Pitched tents in the Lake District and spent three days hiking, swimming in freezing water, cooking beans over a camp stove. Bat had taught Lily how to skip stones. Emily had taken approximately one million photos. Mum looked set to cry every time Bat and I held hands.

It was truly the best time of my life.

Bat’s eyes found mine across the crowd. His fingers never faltered on the guitar, but his mouth curved—just slightly. Just enough for me to see.

My heart performed a sequence of acrobatic squeezes.

He held my gaze as he sang the bridge, voice stripped bare and achingly honest.

I’ve been a ghost too long, fading in the dark

You brought me back to life, you stitched my broken heart

The journalist’s pen moved faster.

Emily squeezed my hand.

And Bat—my Bat, my impossible second-chance miracle—poured everything into that song. Every regret. Every hope. Every fierce, defiant declaration that we existed, that we mattered, that love could bloom even in the wreckage of haunted manors and stolen bodies and ectoplasm-stained bedsheets.

The final chord rang out.

Silence.

Then the room erupted.

Applause crashed over us like a wave. People were on their feet—Mike, Emma, strangers who’d never heard Bat’s name before tonight. Lily bounced in Emily’s lap, clapping her small hands together.

I stood too, throat tight with fierce emotion. “That’s my guy!” I wanted to scream. “He’s mine! All mine! And look how bloody amazing he is!”

Bat bowed. Grinned that crooked grin that looked the same even in different skin, that still made my knees weak. Then he launched straight into the next song—something faster, heavier, the type of track that made you want to move.

I glanced at my phone. Nearly midnight. We’d be catching the last train back home to Brighton soon. Cat would be waiting for us on the doorstep—yes, we’d actually named him Cat because we’d kept saying “the cat” until it became too late to call him anything else. He’d demand treats even at two in the morning, smug little bastard.

Home. Our home.

I still hadn’t quite recovered from that day we’d moved all my stuff two years ago. Hauling boxes down narrow stairs, Bat complaining about my excessive mug collection, both of us laughing until we couldn’t breathe.

The first few weeks together had been weird.

Not bad. Never bad. But adjustment after adjustment stacked up until I felt like I was drowning in logistics and existential crises.

Bat was alive again. Walking, talking, eating crisps, taking showers that lasted forty-five minutes whilst I banged on the door shouting about water bills. Alive in Brad Harrington’s body, with Brad Harrington’s face, Brad Harrington’s thick rugby thighs and Brad Harrington’s voice that still made me flinch sometimes when it said my name with such tenderness.