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One
Z
Idon’tknowwhatthe fuck I’m doing here.
The thought rattles around in my chaotic brain as spotlights burn my retinas, blinding me to the inhabitants of the grungy underground bar. Tucking my chin, I hide behind the unruly locks of my ink black hair and dissolve into muscle memory, letting it guide my long, nimble fingers over the fret of my acoustic guitar.
It’s been too long since I’ve allowed my throat to produce anything that resembles sound other than heathen grunts and mumbled speech, and my lack of practice performing is audible in the quiver of the notes I force through my lips.
The crowd doesn’t care one way or another if I’m any good. It’s a proper bribery situation. They came for Selma’s famous cocktails, only to be submitted to my awkward thirty-minute performance to test out the same songs I’ve been stuck on writing for months now. Should they pass my own critical judgment, I’ll finally post them up for licensing.
God knows I need the royalties.
People continue their drunken, sloppy conversations while I tear my soul apart on the small stage. In a smoky, low-lit room of nobodies, I am nobody, too. I can almost disappear.
Guilt winds barbed vines around my heart. I shouldn’t be here, no matter the shit state of my finances. It’s a dishonour to his memory.
But what else am I supposed to do? I’ve poured everything into music. I’m in no right mind to find a job outside of selling songs. And even if I were well off, I still wouldn’t be able to cut music out of my life. Without it, I wouldn’t have a purpose.
Shoving all of that mottled, gnarled emotion into my last song, I drown in the low, haunting tone my vocal cords finally produce. I hold out notes, chasing that hit of dopamine from somewhere in the pit I’ve found myself dwelling in.
When I’m finished, I crack my eyes open and blink a few times. Selma hits the switch to turn the spotlights off, knowing I prefer to slink off stage without conversation. It’s been a few months since I’ve played a set here, but I’ve come to form somewhat of a friendship with her over the years, despite my aversion to London.
The return of my surroundings is harsh and jarring, like stepping out into the midday sun when I’ve spent years in the dark or jumping from a hot tub into a cold pool.
Slowly, my brain registers that I’m not on tour. There aren’t thousands of fans shouting back at me. I’m in a cramped, dark bar sunk into London, and there are only a couple dozen heads positioned around pub tables, all turned away from me.
A few pity claps sound out as I release a shaky breath and rise from my stool. Initiate shutdown mode. Facing my fears never gets easier. I stare them down constantly, and all this exercise serves to do is shave away at my insides until I’m a raw husk. On the rare occasion that I do step on stage, I waste days after in fallout from a reality that is already hellish enough.
Part of me knows it’s possible to climb out of my self-made pit, but I’m staring up at the opening from thirty feet down with nothing but my hands and feet to get me out and the broken pieces of me whispering in my ear that I don’t deserve to escape.
Suddenly, I’m struck with the urge to turn around and give the crowd one more glance, almost as if a magnetic pull has a hold of me. My gaze locks on a pair of whiskey eyes. Gripping the fret of my guitar tighter, I take in his strong form lounged at the bar. He’s got a shag of blonde hair that hangs down one side of his head, the sides shaved tight to his scalp. Dressed in a sleeveless white t-shirt with the sides cut down to his waist, his tanned, inked skin is on display like artwork. And when he reaches for his pint, I glimpse the shine of a bar through his nipple.
As I’m mapping him out, his fiery gaze slowly drags from my combat boots, to my ripped black jeans that hug slim calves and thighs, to my paint-splattered band shirt under a plaid button-up, and then lands back on my eyes.
Heat licks up the back of my neck, scorching my ears and cheeks as blood rushes low in my gut. I swallow, watching him raise his pint and take a long swig from it. Condensation rolls down the glass to kiss his veiny hand. The bob of his Adam’s apple shouldn’t have me worked up, but somehow I can’t shake the desire to cross the bar and run my tongue over it.
He’s incredibly sexy.
My entire body tenses at that thought. Not that I haven’t come to terms with my sexuality. That ship sailed fifteen years ago. It’s just, I haven’t felt that flicker of… well, anything positive, in a long time.
Suffocating the excited things fluttering in my hollow chest, I quickly slink off stage and pack up my guitar in its case. Head lowered, I stride for the exit, mentally preparing for another late night in my rental house where I will continuously bang my forehead against my desk, littered with half-finished songs I plan to sell to artists with the actual fortitude to stand up on a real stage. No hood or mask to hide behind. No fake name to keep their real life private from the media.
“Z!” A high-pitched voice rings out above the chatter.
Cringing internally, I slow my pace and turn toward Selma, the owner of the bar, her bubblegum pink bob of hair a shock of colour in the dim space. She’s helped keep me fed and clothed by allowing me to perform here whenever I find my nerve. Though we both know the locals are growing tired with my set. It’s far too sappy for this scene. It’s only a matter of time before Selma’s sympathy dries up and I’ll be out of another stream of income.
“Great performance tonight.” She gives me a wink with her long fake lashes. “Are we going to get anything new? How about Friday night?”
I sink my teeth into my bottom lip as my eyes flit to the enchanting bloke across the bar. Heat floods my system when I find him still staring at me with those detrimental eyes, their depths warm like honey, viscous enough to trap me.
As if he hasn’t already thrown me for a loop, a slow smile eases onto his handsome face.
“I’m… uh… working on something,” I reply, giving in to the nervous tick of running my hand along the back of my sweaty neck.
When the guy shifts his focus to the man sitting next to him—a perplexing contradiction of soft features, long black waves of hair, corded muscle, and more ink than visible skin—my curiosity runs wild, starting at tattoo artists and quickly ending at musicians when I glimpse the guitar pick dancing between the second guy’s long fingers.
Panic grips me around the throat. Though the likelihood of them recognising me is slim.No reason to spiral out.
