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Unknown number: Well, now I am intrigued. Why not?
Alex: She’s far too young, and brilliant, and, goodness, I feel like a lovesick teenager.
Unknown number: Sounds promising. How too young are we talking?
Alex: I don’t know, 10, maybe 15 years.
Unknown number: If you’re both older than 30, I’d say age differences don’t count as much. Is she cute?
Alex: Very…
Chapter Seven
Sitting on the balcony of her tiny flat at the marina, Morgan sipped a glass of Ribena from a wine glass. Anyone watching would assume she had a decent Shiraz or Merlot in there, but the truth was, she didn’t much like wine. She just liked the feeling of being an adult with a wine glass like everyone else used, and blackcurrant was the perfect fruity thirst quencher in her opinion.
Tonight, she was by herself again, like most evenings. Watching the sun start to drop in the sky above the masts of all the boats in the near distance bobbing up and down was as romantic as her life got nowadays. On a windy night, she could hear them all clanging as ropes and pulleys hit metal on metal like giant wind chimes.
Her flat was nice and quite spacious considering. She loved living here. It would have been nicer of course, had she been able to afford something nearer the actual harbour and not one of the blocks further back, but she wouldn’t complain. She still had a view of the marina and the sea.
She had great neighbours like Zoe, which was something you couldn’t always rely on nowadays. Zoe and Ken were always happy to pop in and check on Nightingale, a ginger cat she’d rescued as a kitten. She wasn’t sure he liked his name, but she hadn’t known at the time that he was a boy and not a girl. She’d shortened it at some point to Knight, and he seemed much more attentive, so she assumed he felt more seen now.
Maybe once she was a consultant, or a GP, she’d be able to live that dream of living right on the harbour overlooking the water and the bars. For now though, at thirty-three, this was as perfect as it would get. She just had to get through the next couple of years and then things wouldn’t be such a struggle financially, because honestly, she was only just scraping by as it was, what with her mortgage, student loans and all the other bills that came with being an adult. Not to mention, she was exhausted and bordering burnout.
Living the dream would have to wait.
It was still warm out. Just a slight breeze to remind you it was evening. She had three more days off now to relax and enjoy herself before she went onto a week of nights that would be stressful and exhausting.
In the background, she had Sasha playing on the speaker. Her mind went back to their meeting a couple of days ago and the offer of a job. Admittedly, that had been a disappointing turn of events. She’d hoped the phone call had meant Alex had felt it too, that natural pull towards someone that made you wonder if the universe really did work in mysterious ways. But really, who was she kidding, imagining a superstar would fall for her? She needed to stop thinking her life was a Hollywood Christmas romcom, and her soulmate would just fall into her lap.
It wasn’t even December.
She picked up her phone and GoogledSasha. That was all she needed: one word. One name, and a plethora of pages of information and photos and videos appeared on her screen.
Clicking on the first, she started to read.
“Forty-six?” Somehow, she hadn’t worked that out from the information Alex had given at the hospital, but then why would she? She was there to make sure she wasn’t having a heart attack and then pass her onto the relevant department, not check out her vital statistics and age. She also had to admit that Sasha, or Alex as she needed to get used to thinking of her, didn’t look forty-six. Morgan would have put her in her late thirties, maximum.
“I guess money does keep you young.” She chuckled to herself, imagining the pampered lifestyle someone like Alex must enjoy.
She’d never dated anyone older than herself before. Stopping that thought in its tracks, Morgan laughed. “You’re not dating her.”
Nightingale wandered out and looked up at her, sniffing the air as he inspected the balcony, like he expected to find someone else there who she must be talking to. When he didn’t, he turned his back on her and wandered inside, tail in the air.
Opening the next page on her phone, she found a gallery of photos. She scrolled through and found one of a young Sasha, on stage behind an electric keyboard with her band, Solar Flare.
She was cute. A little bit punk, but still cute.
There was a brief description and Morgan read it.
Sasha’s leap from child prodigy to superstar began when she joined up with Solar Flare.The band took off as one of the UK’s brightest musical talents of the decade. With hits such as “Don’t Leave,” “I’ve Got to Dance,” and “Pick Me.” Solar Flare was on a massive high. A tour of the US beckoned, and superstardom was just around the corner when tragedy struck. The tour bus the band was travelling on crashed at high speed onthe motorway. Sasha was the only member of the band wearing a seatbelt that night and walked away unscathed, unlike…
Morgan stopped reading; it felt macabre to be delving into it all, but she could understand why the woman still suffered from panic attacks when the next image she flicked to was a photo of the mangled bus lying on its side in the darkness of a wet night. Jagged metal and crushed glass sparkled under the flashing lights from the emergency services.
It looked like hell on earth.
The following image of the crash showed the coach in the daylight, and it didn’t look any better. Her trained eye could see the tell-tale signs of blood and emergency services debris scattered and left behind while paramedics had rushed to get the wounded to hospital.
She’d dealt with hundreds of car accidents in A&E over the last year. It was never an easy sight when the worst of them came rushing through the doors with paramedics shouting instructions and information at her.
