With heavy legs, Ollie slipped under the barrier and approached the van. It was a rusty white transit, but a glance under the bonnet and a kick of the tyres convinced him it wasn’t a death trap. Shame it wasn’t going anywhere soon.
It had been a few months since Ollie had last driven. Living in the city meant he spent his life on the Tube or on foot, but he liked driving when his mood was right. It was probably the only time he ever felt as though he’d won.
He checked his watch. Seven hours till he could hit the road, and he still hadn’t told Shay. Sighing, he fished his phone from his back pocket. It was habit to keep it on silent, so he hadn’t heard Shay’s message come through. It was a picture of a bowl of Ollie’s family goulash, and his stomach growled even as his heart clenched a little.
Ollie:Did you speak to Agnes?
Shay:no, it was a fella who served me. i said i knew you tho. think that’s why they gave me enough for 75 million people
Ollie was too behind on family gossip to know immediately who the man who’d served Shay could’ve been, but picturing Shay among them felt… nice. Right. And terrifying enough for him to push it from his mind.
Ollie:So… I have news….
Shay:good or bad?
Ollie:Both.
Shay:good news first, i’m too happy in my lonely meat coma
Ollie:I found the van.
Shay:okaaaaaaay. bad news?
Ollie:It wasn’t at the venue. It’s locked in a car park down the road and I can’t get it back till midnight.
Shay didn’t reply straight away. Ollie locked the van and dropped his phone in his pocket, thankful he’d had the neurotic foresight to bring his laptop. He had a shit-ton of editing to do, and it was the closest he was going to get to Shay for a while.
Lacking any better ideas, he returned to the cafe that had used to house Rudolph Kaspersen’s hardware store. Luckily for him, it stayed open until late, and the all-day breakfast called his name. He snapped a picture for Shay, who still hadn’t read his last message, and drank as much coffee as he dared before he opened the video-editing software that fluctuated between being the finest technology ever invented and the bane of his life.
Today turned out to be a bane of his life day. Glitches, bugs, missing actions—nothing worked the way it should, and he was on the verge of hurling the whole lot through the cafe window when his phone flashed.
Shay:but you are coming back, right?
Ollie frowned. Why would Shay ask him that when he had thousands of pounds worth of equipment to return to the band? Did he seriously think Ollie was going to pull a fast one and flog it on eBay?
It’s not the gear he’s worried about, knobhead.
But that realisation made Ollie frown even harder. He was self-aware enough to know his flip-flop moods and mixed messages were likely giving Shay a migraine, but to think Ollie would duck out on him now?
You would. You still might.
The demon was loud—too loud. Ollie shut his laptop without saving any of the tenuous progress he’d made and stood with a screech of his chair. He stuffed his laptop into his backpack and tossed way too much money on the table.
Fuck car park barriers, he was getting out of here.
* * *
Ollie slippeda grateful fifty-pound note to the car park attendant and burned under the raised barrier. He navigated out of the city and hit the main road south, absorbed in the absolute mess of the van’s cab. Litter, partying detritus, even a half-eaten Fray Bentos pie, but he didn’t care. In the two hours it had taken him to track down the company managing the car park and persuade them to let him out, the pull to be with Shay had become desperate.
So much so that he’d forgotten to text him back, but there wasn’t much he could do about that now. Besides. It was nine o’clock. Shay was on stage.
Ollie fiddled with the radio. As luck would have it, it somehow picked up the northern radio station that was broadcasting the Newcastle gig. Ollie’s heart skipped a beat as the presenter cut the commercials and announced the band. He’d heard them play live a few times now, and seen them rehearse more than he could count, but this was different. Stripped back and acoustic, this was Smuggler’s Beat as he’d never heard them before.
This wasShayas he’d never heard him before.
The road faded as the gig played out. Shay’s voice filled Ollie’s every sense and drove him on, his foot pressing harder to the accelerator with each track. The band had a dozen instruments that they swapped around whenever the fancy took them, but Ollie knew when it was Shay playing. Knew which notes came from his heart and the drumbeats that came from his soul.
His voice was different too. It had always been raw, but now every song had an edge Ollie couldn’t describe, a depth that pulled him under, and by the time he rolled into Newcastle, he felt as though he’d combust if he didn’t get to Shay soon.
