“He’s,” Shikha paused to choose her words carefully, “got a lot on his plate right now. I think, Tani, right now he doesn’t need the love of his life. He needs his best friend.”
Which was her, Tani thought, her mother’s gentle caress both soothing and unsettling her. “I don’t think he wants to see me right now,” she murmured.
“And are you going to let that stop you?”
Tani thought past her hurt, her anger, her feelings of rejection. She thought back to the boy with the sad, angry eyes who’d walked into her life and had learned to smile along the way, to the man who had music in his veins and bottomless depths of love in his soul. Her best friend and the love of her life.
“No, I’m not.”
She pushed up from the bed to hug her mother before bounding off the bed. Shikha caught her hand and stopped her before she went far.
“Before you go charging off to slay his demons, there is something else you and I are going to do.”
Tani tugged at her hand, trying to release it from Shikha’s grip. “Can’t it wait?” She caught sight of her mother’s solemn face and she stilled. “What is it?”
“We’re going to the hospital to have you checked out.”
The words were a weight on her heart, her simmering hurt and anger rising to the surface. “I can’t believe he did that.”
“What’s done is done.” Shikha got to her feet. “We’re going to move forward but before that, we’re going to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting for us.”
“Ma-“
“We are not doing anything before we do this Tani,” Shikha said sternly. She looked at Tani’s tense, anxious face and her own softened. “Kabir will understand. He would want you to do this too.”
Tani nodded. “Ma, the wedding-“
“That’s already being taken care.” Shikha’s face was granite hard. “Your father has gone to meet the Malhotras.”
She got to her feet, walking over to Tani’s cupboard and pulling out a comfortable co-ord set. “Get dressed. I’ll meet you in the hall.”
Tani waited for her mother to leave before picking up her phone and typing out a message to Kabir.
“Are you okay?”
She waited an endless moment but the ticks didn’t turn blue. After another moment, she stepped back, tossing the phone down and heading to the shower. Her mother would come back and drag her out, if she wasn’t ready on time. But even hours later, as she sat in the waiting area of the hospital, her phone told the same story. The ticks didn’t turn blue.
CHAPTER 35
KABIR
He stoodin the middle of the stage, soaked in sweat, his heart thundering against his chest as he tore out an impossibly high note, the guitar screaming beneath his fingers. The strings burned faintly against his calluses, the metal hot from the stage lights. Behind him, Malik drove the rhythm harder, one last shuddering riff, a cymbal crash that sent vibrations skittering through the boards and humming up Kabir’s legs.
The final chord rippled into the cavernous emptiness of the stadium, swallowed by the endless space spreading out in every direction.
Above him, the rigged lights buzzed softly as they shifted through their cues, amber bleeding into blue, then a cold, unforgiving white that made the lingering haze glow. The air smelled of hot metal, dust shaken loose from speakers that hadn’t been pushed this hard in months, and the faint chemical tang of fog fluid from the machines warming up. A low, constant hum lived beneath everything, the sound of power flowing through miles of cables wound like veins beneath the stage.
The last note echoed and then there was silence, thick, breathless, and alive with the ghosts of brilliance.
“That was fucking insane!” Ayaan yelled, sprinting toward him and chest-bumping him hard enough to jolt the breath from his lungs.
Exhausted, empty, and held together by nothing but the last flickers of adrenaline, Kabir stumbled back, sweat cooling too fast on his skin. “Sound check’s done?” he called out, his voice booming through the empty stadium, an echo bouncing back a heartbeat later from the furthest corners of it.
“Hang on, adjusting reverb!” a sound engineer shouted, twisting a knob. A deep tone pulsed out of the speakers, rolling through the space like a slow-moving wave. A tech hopped onto the stage, tapping each mic head, each thud sharp, metallic, too loud in the vast hush. Malik’s kick drum thumped again, sending a dusty tremor through the floor.
Another technician crouched near Kabir’s pedalboard, the adhesive smell of fresh tape rising as he marked positions with neon strips. Someone tugged a cable, and it scraped across the wood with a dry, snaking sound.
Every sound, every smell, every sensation scraped across Kabir’s nerves like a live wire. For fuck’s sake, could they just be done already?
