“Can’t sleep?” Ollie said, as though he’d read Shay’s mind.
“Not yet. Sometimes takes me a while if I don’t get drunk after a gig. What about you?”
Ollie shrugged. “I’m not used to lying on a bed that’s moving.”
“You don’t like it.”
It wasn’t a question, but Ollie shook his head anyway. “I prefer my bedroom static.”
“Seems legit. But you get used to it after a while, honest.”
“I guess we’ll see. How are you, anyway? Do you need anything? Drink? Something to eat.”
“Don’t you fucking start with that shit.” Shay reached across the table and gently flicked Ollie’s forehead. “I’ve been diabetic since I was four years old. I can look after myself.”
A ghost of a grin warmed Ollie’s face. “Fair enough. What can I do for you, then? Are you ready to talk?”
“Actually, yeah. I spoke to my dad, but I don’t want to bother you if you’re busy.”
“I could do with the distraction as it goes.” Ollie’s grin faded, and left him seeming as tired and rattled as he had from behind. “Where do you want to start?”
“At the beginning?”
Ollie’s grin returned, and he shook his head. “Nah, son. The best stories don’t go in order.”
“So you’re not going to tell me who I am? Where my name comes from?”
Ollie leaned back in his seat and folded his arms loosely across his chest. “Not yet. If I’d known you were coming into this blind, I might not have told you what your name even was until the very end.”
“Is this a game to you?” The question sounded more loaded than Shay had meant it to, but Ollie seemed to relish intensity, regardless of where it came from.
Like now as he tilted his head sideways and studied Shay across the table, curiosity and speculation making his grey eyes glitter. “It’s not a game, but I do enjoy uncovering someone’s history, puzzle piece by puzzle piece. And if you don’t reveal the obvious answers in the beginning, the end picture is somehow… I don’t know, clearer, I suppose.”
“You sound mad clever when you say shit like that. Sure you ain’t a professor or something?”
Ollie chuckled. “As a working class London boy, I’ll take that, but no, I’m nowhere close to being a professor. My degree is shit because I spent most of my uni years smoking weed and drinking rum.”
“Worked out okay, though, didn’t it?”
“If you say so.” Ollie’s eyes clouded again. “Anyway. To answer your question, no, I’m not going to tell you where you came from until we get there. I’d like to start in 1864, if that’s okay with you.”
Shay blinked. “What?”
“In 1864,” Ollie repeated as though it made all the sense in the world. “There’s a library in Belfast I’d like to go to with you before your gig on Friday. There’s some reference books there I want to show you, on camera, but I can give you more details before then if you’d prefer it that way.”
Shay chewed on his lip. Being on stage brought him to life in ways he couldn’t describe, but cameras made him twitchy. Smuggler’s Beat had vowed never to record any videos that weren’t live performances, and Shay had never watched any of the YouTube interviews they’d given over the years. The thought alone made him want to die. Could he handle having his arse shown to him with a lens shoved in his face?
He had no idea, but somehow the idea of living through the whole thing twice seemed worse. “Nah. Let’s do it on camera. Get it over with.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Ollie made a note Shay couldn’t make out in his notebook, his handwriting small and neat and nothing like Shay’s rough scrawl. “No offence, but you don’t seem like a man who can fake much.”
“That a bad thing?”
“Not to me.”
Another weighty silence settled over them. Shay craved the moment of warmth they’d shared when their thighs had been pressed together. His entire body screamed at him to close the infinitesimal distance between him and Ollie, but he didn’t have to.
Ollie moved first.
