Page 17 of Electric Boy

“Rahul?” Michael asked.

“The tall one back there with Julian. Keyboardist, guitarist, any instrument you fancy really. This stunning creature here is Mel. She’s Julian’s kid sister, as you’ve no doubt gathered.”

“Bassist,” she said flatly. “And employer. I’m the one who gives them their day jobs so they can keep making their daft music.”

“She means she owns Collier Vinyl. The record shop where Julian and Rahul work,” Kwambe supplied when Michael looked at him blankly.

“You own it?” Michael asked, genuinely impressed.

“Our nan left it to me,” Mel said, not sounding particularly grateful. She sucked in a lungful of stale marijuana before passing the spliff back to Kwambe. “She hated our mum, and I’ve always been the responsible one out of me and Jules, so she left it to me in her will. Imagine Julian running a business.” She snorted. “He couldn’t handle money if it were made of strawberry bootlaces. And he loves strawberry bootlaces.”

Kwambe extended the spliff in Michael’s direction but Michael waved him off politely. He hoped Mel’s assessment of Julian was a hyperbolic one, but he had enough experience with the flighty young man now to guess that it probably wasn’t.

* * *

“I know him,” Rahul hissed. “I know him from the Barber. His ‘saving’ you was no coincidence.”

Julian gave him a sceptical look. “What you on about?”

“He’s bad news. That man only wants one thing from you and it isn’t friendship. And once he’s gotten it, he’s going to leave you in the dust.”

“You got it all wrong. Michael isn’t like that. I mean, yeah, I reckon he’s a bit sideways, but he hasn’t tried anything. We’re just mates, that’s all.”

“For now. But how long until you’ve had one too many and you get all gooey like you get and he takes advantage?”

“I told you, he isn’t like that.” He folded his arms over his garishly patterned blouse. “You wanna know what I think? I think you’re jealous.”

Rahul’s pulse skipped. “Jealous? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just like you always hated Aisling, right? Hated her because you were jealous, more like.”

Rahul’s vision was starting to blur around the edges slightly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I haven’t been jealous a day in my life.”

“Bollocks. You can’t stand seeing anybody spend time with me but you ‘cause you don’t have anybody but me.”

Rahul’s vision came back into focus, relieved, but he was beginning to feel more indignant by the moment. “Come now. That isn’t fair, is it? I know loads of people.”

“Loads of people? Like who? Kwambe? Mel? Leroy? You hang out with them when I’m not around, do you?”

“I might do. What would you know? I don’t tell you everything.”

“Yes, you do. You ring me up to tell me what you’ve had for breakfast and you want me to believe you wouldn’t tell me if you’d been getting drinks with my sister?”

“Look, that isn’t the point. I’m trying to tell you, that man’s trouble. You have to stay away from him.”

“I have to, have I? I’m so sick of everybody telling me what I have to do. If it isn’t Aisling, it’s you, and if it isn’t you, it’s Mel. Maybe I want to make my own mistakes. You ever think of that? Because they’re my mistakes, Rahul.” His voice dropped and he blew out a hot breath. “Michael isn’t what you think, and even if he were, maybe I just want to find out on my own for once, yeah? I don’t need you to -- I don’t need you…” He trailed off and, instead of finishing his thought, he let the phrase “I don’t need you” hang in the air between them like rancid smoke.

He may have seen the hurt look that was no doubt making its way onto Rahul’s face, or maybe he’d just had enough, but he shook his head and spun on his heel, taking hold of Michael and dragging him towards the stairs. Michael waved half-heartedly at them as he was manhandled away.

Rahul’s heart hadn’t experienced so many ups and downs in one evening since that fateful dinner when his parents had told him they were getting a divorce.

Chapter Eleven: Physical (You’re So)

Julian slammed his empty pint glass down on the table and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d clearly forgotten, or didn’t care, he’d been wearing a bit of lip colour because the gesture smeared it halfway across his cheek. He hardly seemed to care about anything, wrapped up as he was in his rant.

“And I mean, he was at the heart of half me and Aisling’s fights. Like, I love the bastard but it can all get a bit… much, you know? We been best mates since we were kids, and been hardly apart since. Every day I see him -- at the record shop, at rehearsal, at the Barber, at the Mango. Everywhere I turn, he’s there. I get that he doesn’t have anybody outside of me -- I mean, he’s got his mum and his half-brother or whatever, and he’s got Kwambe and he’s got Mel, but it isn’t the same as having somebody you’re close to. Not like me and him are. And a man needs a break every now and again from being somebody’s only person, doesn’t he?”

He picked up the second pint he’d preemptively ordered and sucked down a breathless gulp. Michael massaged his temples in annoyance. There were many things he could tolerate as far as Julian was concerned. The one thing, however, that he could not abide was Julian talking at length about another man -- regardless of whether or not that man was a platonic acquaintance, an ex-lover, or a lifelong friend.