Chapter Nineteen

I'm sitting at the dining table, staring at my laptop in something approaching despair a couple of days later, when Theo sticks his head around the door.

‘Do you mind if I join you?' he asks, casting a glance at my computer.

‘Of course not,' I say quickly. ‘I'm trying to work on this stupid academic book and getting nowhere. Do you want me to get out of your way?' I start gathering the pages of notes that I have spread across the table.

‘Don't be an idiot,' Theo says, moving into the room. ‘I like you being here. If I wanted to be alone, I'd have stayed in my room.'

‘Okay,' I say warily, because I've noticed the guitar he's holding in one hand. It's the first time I've seen any sign that he's working on his music since we arrived.

He strolls in and sits down on the sofa, pulling a small notebook out of his pocket, which he drops down beside him, his feet up on the coffee table.

He's wearing loose grey jogging bottoms and his hair is damp like he's just got out the shower.

I know for a fact that he spent the morning working out because I walked in on him in the office/gym while looking for a package that David sent while I was ill. He was lifting a heavy-looking dumbbell in a way that made his bicep curl and all the muscles pop out, and I had to go and lie down on my bed for ten minutes while thinking extremely pure thoughts.

‘Do you need anything?' I ask.

‘Nope.'

Theo doesn't say anything else and so I force my attention back to my work, reading over the chapter notes I've written for the hundredth time. Since we've been here, I've made precisely zero progress. It's funny how little I've been thinking about work.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Theo looking out the windows, his guitar in his lap. Finally, he starts playing.

He plays quietly, so quietly, and it doesn't seem like he's playing a song or anything, just strumming gently, absently, his fingers drifting over the frets. Occasionally he'll play the same thing – the same few notes – over and over again, and then he goes back to drifting. At one point he leans forward, pulling a pencil from behind his ear, and scribbles something in his notebook.

I feel like I'm holding my breath, like I don't want to do anything to distract him or let him know I'm watching. I start tapping at the keyboard in front of me so that he'll think I'm working, typing anything that comes into my head.

When I finally focus on my screen and observe the wild ramblings of a stalker that have appeared there, I backspace frantically, the cursor gobbling the words back up. If only it were so easy to delete the thoughts from my brain.

‘Is something wrong?' Theo asks. ‘Your face has gone pink.'

I smother a groan. ‘Just stuck on something.'

‘I know the feeling.'

My eyes slide towards him. He's slumped back in his seat, practically horizontal. The guitar is cradled in his lap.

‘You're making a start, though,' I say. ‘That's something.'

‘I guess.'

‘I like that bit you were playing. The bit you played over and over again.'

‘Yeah?' He sits up at that, a pleased smile on his face. He plays it again, louder now, the handful of notes that rise and fall, sweet and melodic.

I nod. ‘It's pretty.'

‘Pretty?'

I laugh awkwardly. ‘I mean, if you're looking for musical insight you've come to the wrong person.'

‘No, pretty is good,' he says, looking down at the notebook. ‘Pretty is actually just right.'

‘Oh,' I say. ‘Well, good.'

We both fall quiet then and I go back to staring at my screen. This time I don't risk letting my subconscious take the wheel. Especially because my subconscious seems to have an unfortunate interest in the man who is my friend, my work acquaintance. Nothing more.

‘Can I ask you something?' Theo asks.

‘Sure.'

‘What is the whole thing with you and music? You had that strange argument with Serena about it on her birthday.'

‘Ah.' I clear my throat. ‘That.'

‘Yes, that.'

‘It's a bit hard to explain. I know it's sort of weird…' I trail off.

Theo pats the sofa beside him. ‘Step into my office,' he says. ‘You tell me your weird and I'll tell you mine.'

I can't help smiling at that. ‘You're supposed to be working,' I remind him.

‘I am working,' he says. ‘Talking helps. It's all… simmering in the background.'

I decide not to question why I'm so happy to accept that reasoning, to pick up the cold cup of tea I've been nursing and take it over to the sofa. I don't sit right next to him – extremely proud of myself for establishing such a boundary – and I pull my feet up settling cross-legged, almost across from him on the corner seat.

‘So,' he says, strumming his guitar dramatically, ‘Clementine Monroe and music. The true story.'

‘I mean it's not very interesting.' I begin hesitantly. ‘I don't like listening to music. I'd just never come home and put the radio on, or go and listen to live music or anything like that.'

‘What happens if you hear music?' Theo asks.

I laugh. ‘It's not like kryptonite. Nothing happens. I don't have a meltdown if I hear music. I hear it all the time, obviously. Music is everywhere, I just don't… seek it out or pay attention to it. I know Lil's music and I've been to see her play a few times, but otherwise…' I shrug.

‘Mmmm.' Theo tilts his head. ‘Glad to hear that my playing isn't going to strip you of your superpowers. But there must be more to it than that? Did you always feel that way?'

I shift uncomfortably. ‘No. When we were growing up there was music in the house all the time. My mum was a singer and she plays the piano.' I look at him and he nods.

‘I know your mum,' he says. ‘I mean I don't know her, but I know who she is. I'm a big fan of hers, actually. It's gutting that she stopped so young – her first album was brilliant.'

Theo can't know that his words hurt, but something in my face must give it away because he frowns. ‘What did I say?' he asks.

‘Nothing.' I shake my head, fix a smile on my face. ‘She was a wonderful musician; it's great that you like her music.'

‘Okaaaay,' Theo draws the word out, clearly unsure what is going on.

I clear my throat. ‘Anyway, thanks to Mum there was always music. She loved Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell… you know, anything with that sort of folky, story-telling feeling. She wrote her own music too.'

‘She definitely had a Stevie Nicks vibe,' Theo muses.

‘That's why Stevie was our favourite,' I agree. ‘Serena, Lil and me, I mean. We used to love listening to Mum's album best – the one she made – but her Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac records were a close second.' I smile. ‘They were the soundtrack to all our witchy happenings.'

Theo's own mouth lifts in response.

‘Anyway, Mum listened to all sorts and so did we. Petty was basically a teenager and she was in a real grunge phase, mad about Nirvana; Ava's always been into classical music, and they made sure we had all Ripp's albums too, that we knew what our dad did. That we were… proud of him.' I clear my throat. ‘Me and music, it was uncomplicated for a long time. Normal.'

‘So what changed?'

‘My dad,' I say, fiddling with the sofa cushion. ‘It's not that much of a mystery. My relationship with him deteriorated pretty sharply when I was a teenager and could finally see his bullshit for what it was.'

‘I know he was pretty wild. I'm guessing Ripp Harris wasn't exactly a model father?'

I give a humourless laugh. ‘You could say that. I actually saw more of him splashed across the papers than I did in real life. I remember once – I must have been nine or ten – I had a role in the school play, some tiny part, but I was thrilled and nervous. Ripp promised he'd come but of course he didn't turn up. Afterwards I was frantic, crying, insisting to my mum that something bad must have happened, that he'd promised he'd be there. She tried to calm me down but I was hysterical, convinced he'd been in a horrible car accident and no one was looking for him.' I still remembered the tang of fear from that night. Being on stage, searching for his face, baffled later that no one would listen to me.

‘The next day there were photos of him in the paper with his tongue down the throat of some actress. He was in Milan, I think. Somewhere sunny and glamorous, anyway, somewhere far away from a school play in a draughty assembly hall.'

I blink. I haven't thought about that in a while.

‘I'm sorry,' Theo says quietly.

I wave my hand. ‘Don't be. The point is, it was only one of many, many disappointments. Death by a thousand cuts, that was my relationship with Ripp. I think at first I blamed the music for taking him away from us, which is… ridiculous, but it was how I made sense of it at the time. I suppose I felt like the music industry spat out my mum, and corrupted my dad, and I just didn't want anything to do with it. It was a sort of reverse teenage rebellion, turning my back on my parents' world. Giving up rock 'n' roll and turning to Chaucer instead.'

‘I can see that.' Theo rubs his jaw. ‘I'm just surprised it lasted so long.'

‘It didn't exactly,' I shrug. ‘A year or so. Then I turned seventeen, and fell totally in love with a musician.'

Theo's relaxed posture remains the same, but there's nothing sleepy about his eyes now.

‘We were together almost a year. That's a lot at that age, isn't it? A week before my eighteenth birthday we broke up.' I continue. ‘It was… bad.' That was an understatement. I was pretty sure most seventeen-year-old's breakups didn't get covered by the national press, but I wasn't about to get into the details with Theo.

‘Let's just say he ended up confirming all my worst opinions about musicians and the business they're in. It wasn't a conscious decision after that, to cut music out my life; it just happened. At first everything reminded me of Sam – then I suppose it was habit, and yeah, it's a petty little dig at Ripp too, a way of showing I'm not interested in anything he has to offer. Music and heartache – they're wrapped together pretty tight for me.'

‘Is this the ex you ran into at Carl's funeral?' Theo asks, then his brows lift. ‘Wait. Seventeen? Is it the same breakup you were talking about yesterday? The one where you came here afterwards?'

‘Yes, to both those things,' I say, and then, after a pause, ‘That was Sam. Sam Turner.'

‘Sam Turner?' Theo frowns. ‘As in the drummer Sam Turner?'

‘The one and only,' I agree.

‘But isn't he…' It's Theo's turn to trail off.

‘Ripp's drummer?' I keep my tone light. ‘Yep. And if you're trying to do the maths, he got the gig right before we broke up.' I don't feel the need to clarify that it was actually the same day, but the anger that is still there, fifteen years and a ton of therapy later, must show.

‘Shit,' Theo whispers, obviously drawing some conclusions that aren't precisely wrong. ‘What a dick!'

‘Ripp or Sam?'

Theo slumps back. ‘Both, I guess.'

‘Can't disagree with that.'

‘So that's why Serena said that thing about you and rock stars? That you'd never be in a relationship with one?'

‘What?' I start. I'm surprised by the question, but when I look at him his face gives nothing away; he's just watching me closely again. ‘Er… yes, that's why. I've already had two of them smash my heart to pieces. You know, fool me once and all that.'

Theo is silent and I have absolutely no idea what is going through his mind. Judging by the look on his face, whatever it is isn't good.

The quiet makes me feel awkward. I hadn't realized he even remembered Serena's comment. I don't even remember Serena's comment, not exactly. I think back, something about me chewing off a body part before going out with a rock star. Perhaps Theo's been feeling bad about that, the fact that I slept with him without knowing what he did for a living.

‘But you don't have to worry,' I say finally, and Theo blinks, looks at me like he'd forgotten I was there. ‘What happened between us. You and me. Maybe I should have said something earlier. There are no hard feelings.'

‘No hard feelings?' Theo repeats.

‘I mean, I didn't know you were… you, when we slept together, but now that I do, I still don't feel like you've been…' – I flounder – ‘added to that list.'

‘The list of rock stars who smashed your heart to pieces?' he says slowly.

‘I think this is coming out wrong.' I twist my fingers together. ‘I'm just saying we never talked about it and things were awkward at first but I'm glad we're friends now. I never expected that night to turn into anything more, so it's not like I can be disappointed you turned out to be a rock star with a… vibrant sex life.' I wince. Did I really just use the words ‘vibrant sex life'? Oh God, I am so deeply, deeply uncool.

‘I get that you're all about keeping things casual,' I push on, desperately, ‘and I was the one who said I wanted to try a one-night stand first and then you said you did too. Consenting adults. Boundaries. Crystal clear. I don't want you to think that I hold anything against you. I mean, it wasn't great that you didn't tell me who you really were, but I do get it: I get why that must have been nice for you, that I didn't think of you as Theo Eliott.' I'm rambling now.

Theo just looks at me coolly. ‘I didn't say I wanted a one-night stand.'

It is literally the last thing I expect him to say. ‘What?'

‘I didn't say that. I asked you if a one-night stand was what you wanted, you said maybe, and I said perhaps we should find out.' He ticks the points off on his fingers.

I blink. How did he even remember all of this? And what was the difference between what he said and what I said?

Theo gets to his feet then, the neck of the guitar clasped loosely in his hand. He comes to stand in front of me and with his free hand he reaches out and gently tips my chin so that I'm looking right up at him, right into his eyes. There's no hint of sparkle there now.

‘Clemmie.' His voice is rough, deeper than usual. So deep it sends a shiver over my skin. ‘Let me clear up a misconception that you seem to be labouring under. I will admit that that wasn't my first one-night stand, but it was the first one in over a decade. And I wasn't the one who left the next morning.' He lets those words hang between us for a second before continuing. ‘So don't tell me that I'm the one who wants to keep things casual, okay? You feel however you feel, but don't put words in my mouth.'

He just looks at me for another beat. Then his fingers move from my chin, drifting up along my jaw in the lightest touch before his hand falls away.

‘I'm going to go and work now,' he says calmly. As if nothing momentous has happened at all.

‘Okay,' I manage. ‘I'll see you later?' It comes out as a question.

‘Yes, you will,' he responds, and I don't understand why the words sound heavy, weighted with something. It's not until later that I realize they sound like a promise.