Page 6 of Electric Boy

“But you’re okay, yeah? You got home all right last night?”

“I didn’t, actually. You’re not gonna believe this, but I woke up in some bloke’s flat.”

Rahul’s stomach somersaulted. “You what?”

“I know! I can’t remember a thing, but apparently I got into a row with some wanker at the pub and he nearly clobbered me out in the alley. If it hadn’t been for this one bloke, I’d have gotten my head bashed in and left for dead out behind the B&P.” The more he talked, the more animated Julian became. “He’s like a saint or something. I was so pissed I couldn’t even tell him where I lived, but like an angel he swooped down and took me back to his posh flat. Let me spend the night. Even made me breakfast in the morning. Imagine that! I’m thinking I might ring him up sometime so we can grab a pint and talk about his mental life. He owns a block of flats and writes about serial killers. He’s handsome like an American actor and he goes round rescuing drunken idiots from death. How crazy is that?”

Rahul folded his arms back over his chest. Hearing Julian babble on about some good-looking man whose flat he’d spent the night in wasn’t exactly Rahul’s cup of tea. He could handle Julian’s obsession with that big-tittied girl because he’d realised that, as a girl, Aisling’s position in Julian’s life didn’t threaten Rahul’s. The bond he and Julian shared was special and it wasn’t one a girl, no matter how attractive, could understand. A man, on the other hand, could easily slip in and steal the precious real estate he’d carved out for himself in Julian’s life.

Other than Julian’s sister, Rahul had known Julian the longest. He’d been there for him through thick and thin, the good and the bad, blond hair, red hair, black hair. He had fought too hard and too long to maintain this friendship, and he’d be damned if some stranger was about to muscle him out of it.

He was also almost certain that this angelic saviour of Julian’s was a complete and utter liar. Julian getting into a bar fight? Sure, Julian’s sunshiny sweetness was juxtaposed by his prickly defensiveness, and sure, if someone tried to pick a fight with him or one of his friends, Julian would come at them like a buzzard. But drunk Julian? He was usually as gooey as a caramel and randy as a tomcat. He’d flirt with just about anyone who gave him a bit of attention -- the girl at the till, the cabbie, the bin men. Last night had been the exception to prove the rule. Last night he’d been in a brown study before he’d even begun drinking. Did that mean he could have started a fight with a stranger? Rahul highly doubted it.

This “angel,” Rahul thought, who had picked up a drunk, vulnerable, flirty Julian, most likely brought him to his flat, felt him up, and given him the old “oh, I rescued you” routine when he’d woken up in the morning. And the fact that Julian was going gaga over this creep was enough to drive Rahul to extremes. Extremes like…

“Wouldn’t having a pint with this saviour of yours make Aisling jealous?”

Rahul felt a bit guilty over how relieved he was to see Julian’s expression darken. Without the smile to brighten his face, he looked positively peaked.

“We’re over, me and her. For good this time.”

“You’ve said that loads of times.”

“But this time I mean it. You didn’t hear the row we had.”

“No, but Leroy phoned me up and told me. How do you think I knew to come over?”

“Leroy.” He wrinkled his flat nose. “If he’d told you the whole thing right, you wouldn’t be asking me about Aisling. She crossed the line, she did. This time we’re really finished.”

Rahul raised a sceptical eyebrow. “Really? So then you won’t be interested to know that she came round the shop earlier.”

Julian paused with a cigarette halfway to his lips. When he spoke next, his voice had an artificial, disinterested quality. “Oh? She came round? What, uh… what did she want?”

“She wanted me to tell you she was sorry, and that she was going to come to the gig tonight.”

Julian’s wide smile split his face. “She never!”

Rahul was quickly regretting using this tactic. “She did.”

“That Aisling. I knew she couldn’t stay away. I can’t wait to play some of that new material -- she hasn’t heard it yet. She’ll love the one I wrote about that time we were caught in the rain on our holiday in Brighton. She’s always got great notes for my songs. I’m always telling her she should --”

Rahul started to tune him out. Once Julian got started extolling Aisling’s virtues, there was no stopping him. You just had to let him run out of steam on his own. That was the thing about Julian. When he loved someone, he really let everyone know it.

They were both startled when the office door banged open. A diminutive form with a severely cut bob, enormous glasses, and an unimpressed expression appeared in the doorway. “What do you two ballbags think you’re doing?”

Julian swivelled around to grin at his sister. “All right, Mel?”

“Not all right. D’you know three customers have been in and out in the time you two’ve been gabbing away like washerwomen? I don’t pay you girls to gossip, I pay you to sell records.”

“I thought you paid me for the joy of my company.” Julian waggled his eyebrows above his sunglasses. “Are you trying to look more like Velma from Scooby-Doo every day or is that just a lucky coincidence?”

Mel’s shoulders hunched defensively beneath the scratchy fabric of her rollneck. “If I wanted good company, I’d have hired the Chuckle Brothers, not my knobhead brother and his knobhead mate.” Before she closed the door to her office, she threw out over her shoulder, “And you look like bloody Risky Business in those, mate. Take ‘em off. This ain’t Hollywood and you ain’t Tom Cruise.”

Out of blind familial defiance, Julian wore his sunglasses the rest of his shift.

Chapter Five: Love Will Tear Us Apart

The band was rubbish. They were always rubbish, but tonight they were particularly shit. Aisling might have been inclined to say that was only her opinion, but she could tell with just a cursory glance around the club that the general public shared her sentiments.