Page 222 of Love at First Fright

Bradford Senior had grunted. Poured us weak tea. Changed the subject to Bat’s knee—the one that supposedly ended his rugby career yet didn’t seem to bother Bat at all—and whether he would ever consider coaching instead.

Bat had navigated it all with grace I didn’t possess. Learning Brad’s history through careful questioning. Filling in gaps. Becoming someone new whilst wearing someone else’s face.

Then, three months after Grimthorne Manor burned to the ground, Brad’s grandfather died.

Heart attack. Quick, apparently. Bradford Senior had rung in tears, and Bat had driven us to Sutton immediately. We’d attended the funeral. Stood in the church whilst a priest droned on about a man we’d never met.

The will had been read two weeks later.

Bradford Senior and Brad—well, Bat pretending to be Brad—inherited a fancy townhouse in Bath. Georgian. Four bedrooms. Worth an obscene amount of money.

It sold within a month.

I’d stared at the email on Bat’s phone until my brain short-circuited. All those zeroes. Split fifty-fifty between Bradford Senior and us.

“You’re rich,” I’d whispered.

“We’re rich,” Bat had corrected, hands shaking.

Filthy rich. To us, anyway.

We’d done what any sensible adults would do when suddenly flush with inherited cash: we’d spent four months backpacking through Europe.

Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Rome. Hostels and cheap trains and street food that made us sick but tasted divine. Bat had marvelled at everything—technology he’d missed during his years as a ghost, how easy it was to navigate foreign cities with Google Maps, how everyone now had a tiny camera in their pocket.

Bat’s camera roll quickly became a chaotic shrine to our travels: him with gelato smeared across his nose, grinning like an idiot. A selfie outside some dingy venue in Berlin where one of his favourite 90s bands played during their reunion tour—Bat flipping off the camera with something close to reverence. Me, unconscious and drooling on a train through the Alps. Both of us sun-drunk in Venice, attempting the Lady and the Tramp spaghetti thing in a back street and nearly choking. His Converse dangling over the Vltava in Prague, the water dark and glittering below. That blurry disaster where we’d tried to photograph ourselves kissing and only captured our chins and half my ear.

He’d look at them when he thought I wasn’t watching. Swipe through slowly, like he still couldn’t believe they were real.

We’d kissed in the shadow of the Colosseum. Made love in a cramped hostel bed in Vienna whilst other travellers snored two metres away. Drunk wine on the banks of the Danube and planned futures that felt impossible and perfect in equal measure.

Then we’d come home and become truly sensible adults.

Put down a sizeable deposit on a house in Brighton. Not London—I was done with London, with its grime and expense and endless grey streets. Bat didn’t want Bristol either. Too many ghosts of memories.

Brighton felt right. Seaside town. Quirky. Gay-friendly—a place where two blokes holding hands never warranted a second glance.

“Perfect for raising our future ghost baby,” Bat had said whilst we’d toured the property.

“You promised me twelve ghost babies,” I’d corrected.

The estate agent had looked mildly alarmed.

We’d spent a thousand pounds on hiring a private detective to track down Michael. Just to stop Bat wondering. Michael was still alive, up in Scotland, seemingly living a good life, despite what killing Bat must have done to him.

Finally, we’d used the last scrap of money to get me back into uni. UAL this time. Finishing my music production degree. Learning the technical side, the mixing, the mastering.

One day I’d be the one producing Bat’s albums. That was the dream, anyway. The two of us in a proper studio, creating music together.

I’d started writing songs too.

I hadn’t shown them to Bat yet. They sat in a password-protected folder on my laptop, some lyrics scribbled in notebooks I kept hidden under the bed. Most of them were probably rubbish—desperate lyrics about seizing chances before they slip away, about refusing to give up, about clawing your way toward something that matters before it’s too late. Uncomfortably honest stuff.

I’d play them for him soon. Maybe even after this gig, when we were home and riding the high of his performance. When I felt brave enough to be vulnerable in a way that still terrified me.

The song ended.

More applause crashed over the venue. Even louder this time.