AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you excited?” Charlotte twists around in the front seat, her hazel eyes sparkling.
“It’s a bit early for me,” I mutter.
The drummer beside me places a hand over her mouth to suppress a yawn. “I told them this plan was far-fetched. If we’d left at ten like I’d suggested, we wouldn’t be so fucking tired.”
Her yawn is infectious and my eyes water before I’m also yawning. “There must be places open for breakfast.”
Charlotte gives me a pat on the shoulder. “Great idea. I’ll tell Axel.”
The front door opens, and the keyboardist sits in front with Charlotte. Then the back passenger door opens and Veer slides into the seat next to mine.
“Hi.” He peers at me through his curtain of long, blond hair.
Axel’s words from yesterday rise to the front of my mind:Veer’s been on a downer since your argument.
It was just an exchange of words between two people who barely know each other. And his mood still doesn’t make any sense to me, considering that he spent the first two years of our time here acting like we hadn’t been intimate.
The more skeptical part of me wonders if he’s just paying me attention because he thinks I’m a sure thing.
“Hey.” I glance down at my lap.
“For fuck’s sake, can we please go?” the drummer mutters.
“Has Axel made the introductions?” Veer asks.
“I left that honor for you,” Axel says with a shrug as he steps into the front seat and fires up the engine.
“Ingrid.” The drummer holds out her hand. “I’m only in the band because I’m related to Veer, and they’ll replace me the moment they find someone with a dick.”
I shake her hand and offer her a sympathetic smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“Ingrid is Axel’s twin,” Veer says.
“Oh.” I glance between the pair, not seeing much of a family resemblance apart from their coloring.
Veer places a hand on the keyboard player’s shoulder and introduces him as Erik, who is also a distant cousin.
After that, there’s a tense silence. Charlotte turns around every so often to glance between Veer and me as though playing silent matchmaker.
I clutch my hands together, wishing she wouldn’t try so hard.
She probably remembers how much I raged about Veer not acknowledging me and now wants to put things right, but the window of opportunity when I gave a shit expired over eighteen months ago.
My mind drifts to how Professor Segul would never play such silly games. The man was never vague about what he wanted, even at the time he discovered I was a student and wanted a clean break.
It’s weird how a man can nurse a girl through a hangover without demanding anything in return, provide her with a generous living allowance because it’s his language of love, chase after her when she leaves, and take great pains to tell her she isn’t a whore, only for his ‘fascination’ to end.
I wish I could erase him from my memory, but the brief time we spent together set a minimum standard. If a man can’t make up his mind, then he may as well be invisible.
Axel drives through the high street, looking for a place that’s open on a Sunday morning at nine, but all he finds is a hotel, which by default has to serve a breakfast, but the receptionist takes one look at how the band is dressed and says it’s guests only.
In the end, we find a greasy spoon café, whose owner doesn’t mind how we’re all dressed. I make a point to sit with Ingrid at the farthest end of the table from Veer.
When we all order English breakfasts, they arrive half-cooked and covered in oil. Even the toast is only brown on one side.
“Hey,” Ingrid says, halfway into the breakfast. “Aren’t you the banana girl?”
I pick up my mug of tea. “You don’t take Finance and Accountancy?”
