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“I didn’t understand and it does matter. You’re right. I wanted you to be someone else. I wanted you to be real. I was angry when I figured out you were the girl in the gym, but I
have no right to want to change you. None at all.”
She dropped her head, stared at the mini mountain ranges in the churned up sand at their feet. She looked suddenly spent, nothing left to fight him with, nothing left to make him care. “Do you hate me?”
He exhaled, pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. “I don’t hate you. I did this morning when I figured it out, but you’re hard to hate, Rielle. You’re confusing as all hell, but I don’t hate you.”
She pinned her eyes on his. “I could do with a friend, Jake. Just for the tour.”
It was odd how a little shouting could make you feel better. His rage burned out the moment she dropped her eyes to the sand. Now he felt depleted, off balance. He had thrilled to Rielle as the rock star and lusted after her as the mystery girl in the gym. That they were the same person made his head spin and he couldn’t sort out his feelings.
“I don’t know, Rie, but I can try.”
28. Intervention
Lying on his side, Rand watched Harry. Curled beside him, warm and soft, abandoned to her dreams. He dared not move in case he woke her. He wanted this moment to be a long-play track, to stretch heroically forever. After two nights, he couldn’t imagine not wanting to wake beside her. Not that either of them had slept much.
He’d only dozed and then woke with music in his head—creeping out of the rumpled sheets to scribble in the filtered light of early dawn. Something fresh and gentle, not Ice Queen style. Beautiful instead of punchy, lyrical instead of throbbing, older and wiser and full of secret intentions.
This thing with Harry was almost enough to make him believe in minor miracles. She had swum out of his near forgotten longings and punctured his sense of the future with new meaning. Now there was a choice. A life with Harry or a life without. A life without her was a black pit of despair—inconceivable that he should have to attempt to live it. A life with her needed her permission.
Until the day claimed her, he had every glorious possibility open to him, so he wanted her to rest, long and tender, while he fantasised his way through the building blocks of loving her.
He saw her smiling at him across a dinner table, home cooked food on the plates. He saw her working, coming home to him with stories of her day. He saw her opening presents on Christmas morning, and annoyed at him about spending too long in his studio. He saw her in his arms by firelight in winter, and splashing him in the sea in summer. He saw her in jeans and evening dresses and nothing at all. He saw her happy and sad, excited and quiet, delighted and angry, and he saw himself with her in every mood and motion. She was home.
But the longer she slept the more nervous he became. He climbed back into bed to be nearer her. What if she didn’t feel the same? What if this whole romance was a just a flash flood, out of nowhere, quick, deadly and done with, leaving him impossibly, inadequately prepared to go on alone?
He checked himself. His runaway passions and dire self predictions made for good song writing, but poor life management. If growing up with Rielle had taught him anything, it was that few situations were ever as bad or as complex as you thought they’d be, and there was always a way to make things better. He’d take whatever Harry would give him and make a life that worked.
While he watched her chest rise and fall with even breaths, and her eyelids twitch with the deep pull of sleep, his thoughts skipped to Rielle. It was a bad time to leave her alone. The closer they got to Sydney, the worse it was for her. Growing up had taught Rie life hurt and the only way you could survive it was to fight against it and pretend you didn’t care. The accident had made her into a warrior and him into a sage and both of them survivors and poets.
He’d almost dropped off to sleep himself when Harry made a breathy sigh and stretched. He was instantly awake. This was it. What would he see? He lay still and let her meet the morning. She rolled toward him, her face serious, a slight frown above her pale eyes. He felt his breathing kick up a pace, catch in his throat.
“We’re in big trouble,” she said softly.
“There’ll be a flight this morning.” He lurched for the simple explanation for her solemn expression, grasping at the obvious first.
She shook her tousled head, and he started a swift calculation of what he could do to make things better. He could back off a little, give her more space; he could let her call the shots; he could quit the band.
“No. We’re in big trouble because one of us might need to move house.”
He heard a choir in his head, a host of angels singing new anthems he’d write for them. To be sure it wasn’t just the early stages of tinnitus, he said, “Do you mean that?”
She wriggled into his arms, pressed her forehead on his. “Not to be melodramatic or anything, but if you leave me I’ll quit work and become your number one most scary, stalking groupie. I will follow you to the ends of the earth, or your last tour date, whichever comes first. I will simply force myself on you until you take pity on me and let me,” she faltered, “I don’t know, let me shine your guitars.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Like a prayer.”
He brushed her lips lightly. “You think we can do this thing together?”
“I think we can do anything we want together.”
“I won’t always be in this band; there’s other stuff I want to do.”
“And I want to keep my career going, but it’s a portable credential. I can move.”
“You move beautifully.”
