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“No. You’re right. I’ll get on it ASAP. Meeting adjourned?”
Jude stood up decisively. “Meeting adjourned.”
My brothers had all had their little Apollo missions in the past. It seemed now it really was my turn.
Luna
Iclinked glasses with the barman and took a gulp of the bourbon-on-ice that was my customary celebration drink. My throat stung with the sweet-and-spicy liquid, an old familiar feeling. It was a routine I usually indulged in with little enthusiasm after a job well done. This time, I did feel a bit of a flutter of excitement in my chest. This project had been quite different to my others.
The barman took a swig and raised an eyebrow at me. “What’re we celebrating this time, then? Or is it another case where you can’t tell me?”
I looked at him darkly over my glass, my face straight. “If I did, I’d have to kill you.”
He stared at me.
“No really, I mean it,” I intoned.
He continued to stare. After a few moments, I gave in and smirked.
He shook his head and moved to serve another customer. “You’re a scary lady, Luna.”
I watched him go and took another sip. The sting in my throat was less harsh this time. I only really drank when celebrating a work milestone, so it always hit me quite hard when I did. The same barman had been present for quite a few of these small celebrations, and it amused me every time he’d tried to guess if I were a spy, or working on a top secret scientific project, or something equally bizarre.
The NDAs I signed didn’t usually live up to the secrecy to which I kept them. It was rare a celebrity memoir made the charts, though they tended to do decently well. But this was a secret I had to keep under lock and key, because this book had gained some serious publicity. Serious publicity resulting in the book shooting straight to number one in the charts, no less.
I was in it for the money. That sounds morally bankrupt, but I had my reasons. My client, Apollo Brock, was somewhat of a weird guy, but we’d bonded over the course of writing his memoir, to the extent I’d likely call him a friend. And the success of his memoir meant I was already contracted for the sequel – at an even higher rate of pay.
Looking around the dingy basement rock bar I frequented, I smiled. The posters were peeling off the walls, the paint was chipping where other posters had once been, and the glasses were clearly a mismatch of whatever the owner could find, rather than a branded set. In small groups, various punks of all ages gathered. It was a dive bar, but fights were less frequent than at most. When they did break out, it was usually some metalheads arguing about Metallica, or whatever, and easily sorted out by security telling them to hang their heads and go to opposite ends of the room.
No, I certainly didn’t splash out on the luxuries of day-to-day life. Why bother? I liked it better here. Cheap and not-so-cheerful.
Besides, I was saving all my money for my dad. Just because my dreams of a music career had gone to shit, didn’t mean his had to.
He was a composer, brilliant, but totally unaware of how he might have ever gone about getting his compositions heard. Or even played. He wasn’t getting any younger, and his dreams were humble compared to how lofty mine had been. He just wanted, once, to hear an orchestra play and record his music. I’d sworn to myself that I’d help him achieve his dream before he died.
That had been my driving force since my own career as a solo artist had been in tatters. That, too, was how I’d ended up in the career of celebrity memoir ghostwriting.
Well, it had started when I’d done a favor for a classmate who had gone off to be a rockstar, been offered a publishing deal for his memoir of how the band had fallen apart, and remembered that I’d been top in English class. He’d passed my name on, and it had gone from there. A long chain of wealthy people’s recommendations had led me to Apollo Brock, one of the wealthiest men in the world.
At some point I was able to cover my cost of living and could have started hand-picking my projects per my area of interest – biographies and memoirs of musicians. It was the idea that I could save up to achieve my dad’s dream that had led to my pursuit of more and more wealthy clients. It was in my best interests to stay on Apollo Brock’s good side, because it was with the money from his second book that I’d finally have enough.
Taking the last mouthful of my bourbon and coming back into my surroundings, I realized I hadn’t noticed the bar hushing just slightly. I surreptitiously looked over my shoulder to see what they were looking at.
There, by the entrance to the bar, was the most out-of-place guy I’d ever seen here. He was dressed in all blacks and greys, like so many of the other patrons, but he had none of the scruffy, slightly smelly charm of their outfits. He looked clean. His haircut looked professionally done, not with a pair of shears or blunt scissors like the other guys – and girls – in here. His stubble was artfully upkept, his face that of a male model in an edgy ad campaign for men’s fragrance.
I knew this guy. He was also, by coincidence, the last person I’d ever wanted to run into in this entire city, and for some reason he was at my regular bar.
To make things worse, this guy – Sylvester Brock – was not only my childhood sweetheart, but he was also the guy who’d sent my music career under,andhe was the half-brother of my newest top client, Apollo.
He locked eyes with me, and it was over.Fuck. He was heading over. I whipped my head back around and stared down into my glass, swirling it. The ice cubes that hadn’t fully melted clinked the sides in a little musical number of their own.
His footsteps stopped just a pace behind me. “Luna Black?”
I groaned silently into my glass. Audibly, I sent a retort. “The one and only.”
There was a scraping noise as he grabbed the barstool next to me and pulled it out. The next thing I knew, he was joining me at the bar, resting his elbows onto it. “What are you drinking?”
I didn’t look at him. “Nothing. I was just finishing up.”
