“Sorry?” Ollie tilted his head. “What the fuck for?”
“For everything.” Shay nudged Ollie again, his elbow lingering gently against Ollie’s ribs. “My ma raised me to see people for who they are more than what they do. I didn’t do that with you because my teeny brain had associated you with work more than being human. How fucked up is that?”
“Everything about doing what you love to make a living is fucked up.”
“You think so?”
“No doubt.” Ollie hated the cynicism lacing his words, but it was too late to take them back, and part of him didn’t want to. Shay was living his best life with only a fraction of his identity tied to his soul, and Ollie was jealous. He pictured Shay on stage, his body moving in synch with the musiche’d created himselfand wanted to scream.I want what he has.But that would never happen, because he’d had it once, and it had burned away.
“Hey.” Abruptly, Shay was right in front of Ollie, his lovely face so close Ollie could’ve kissed him if they were different people in different places. “I really am sorry. Sometimes how I feel about stuff doesn’t make sense until I’ve written a song about it, and I’m not there yet with this whole… family thing. That shit makes me a weirdo.”
He thinks he’s the weirdo.It was endearing and horrifying all at the same time. Ollie wanted to touch him. Press their legs together, run his hand over his shoulder, up his neck and into his silky hair. Perhaps even hug him. But they were in the middle of Belfast with full hands. “You’re not a weirdo, Shay. And how you see me doesn’t matter.”
Shay nodded and laid the laptop bag at Ollie’s feet. “Fair enough.”
He walked away.
Chapter Six
Despite havingan all-access pass to the tour, Ollie didn’t come to either of the Belfast shows. Shay didn’t have to search the crowd for him. Somehow he just… knew.
The second show was sold out, the crowd packed into the traditional venue, drinking ale and stomping their feet. It was the gig of dreams—Shay’s dreams, at least—but as he drew the show to a close on his penny whistle, a flat sensation stole over him. A mournful melody played out in his head, and he couldn’t let it go.
A call for an encore went up. Larry offered Shay the cajon drum, but he shook his head. Smuggler’s Beat never played the same show twice, and tonight—rightnow—he had to play something brand-fucking-new or his head would explode.
His bandmates had played with him long enough to know he was about to do something offbeat. They stepped quietly back but stayed close enough to join him if and when he signalled. He didn’t know if he would. How could he when he didn’t know what might come out until he lifted a harmonica to his lips.
The melancholic melody came back, but in the time that had passed between the end of the last song and the beginning of the next, it had grown a more tangible purpose. Shay often played the harmonica when he had no words to sing, just a feeling. He poured everything into it, and the single notes that came out said more than he ever could with his voice.
It was that way now. The melody was arching and painful and spoke of a grief Shay hadn’t believed belonged to him. It spoke of the emptiness inside him he’d never recognised until this moment and the missing segments of his heart he felt guilty for wanting.
Shay faltered. Always the best at reading him onstage, Ben stepped forwards with his violin and picked up the tune, adding an Irish lilt that brought the crowd back to the party. Ben was clever like that, could read an audience in a way that Shay didn’t even want to, and on nights like this, Ben was his lifeline.
The song evolved. Larry found a beat, and Jumbo wove a storming bass line into the roots of the melody. Mara picked up the melodeon, and the chain was complete. It was like having a jam session on a rollercoaster, but it worked for them. Improv had always been the heart behind Smuggler’s Beat, and never more so than tonight.
They played out. The crowd roared. It was over.
And Shay left the stage as off-kilter as he’d arrived.
* * *
The buswas parked right outside the venue. In the morning, they’d leave to catch the ferry to Cairnryan in Scotland, but for now they were free to roam the streets of Belfast and celebrate the gig of the tour so far.
Shay trailed the others down a bustling street, poking at his phone as he stalked the venue’s hashtag on Instagram to get some early reviews of the show. It wasn’t something he often did, but tonight the sensation that he’d somehow fucked up wouldn’t quit. Even when the posts he came across were all positive.
Ben dropped back from the group and draped an arm around Shay’s shoulders. “You okay, superstar?”
Shay scowled. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not? You smashed that encore tonight. We’ve got to nail that track down next time we’re near a studio. It wasinsane. Where did it come from?”
Of course he would ask that. Ben wasn’t much of a writer—he didn’t have the patience—but he had an intuitive mind—a curious mind—and Shay usually had an answer for him. But not tonight. Though he’d shared the song with five thousand people, he didn’t feel like dissecting the emotions that had put it there. At least not with Ben. “I don’t know.”
“Liar.” Ben grinned. “Don’t matter, though. Just let it do what you need it to do. Hey, are you hungry?”
That was another reason Shay adored Ben—his propensity to leave shit alone when he met a brick wall. And Shaywashungry. He’d eaten enough to stabilise his blood sugar for the show, but they hadn’t had dinner yet. Perhaps that was why he didn’t feel right.
If you say so.
