London’s cacophony drowns out our silence – blaring horns, a siren blasting from an ambulance, a police car, a fire engine. A man on a push bike screams obscenities into the dense night air after an electric bike cuts him up. Someone on a stolen Lime bike pedals against the hill, the incessant beeping telling the world they haven’t paid to ride. We drive past a bar and the bass from the music spills out into the street, pounding against my skull.
‘Your mum hates me,’ I whisper.
‘She does not!’
‘She thinks I’m going to break your heart again. She thinks you won’t tell me how you feel because you care too much about me being happy.’
His shoulders droop. ‘I’mfine, Sienna. I would tell you if I wasn’t.’
My feet throb. My head is pounding. The air is heavy – the heat from the day will remain long after the sun has set. London’s humidity is stifling. My sweat acts like a glue, sticking my body to the leather seats. I lean my head against the headrest, my baby hairs pasted onto my skin. I let my head drop to the side, looking at Luc carefully while he gazes out of the car window. I take the opportunity to stare, to watch a singular drop of sweat run down the back of his neck, trace the curl patterns in his hair.
When he catches me looking, he mirrors my stance. ‘Hey,’ he whispers. His breath licks my cheek, close but still far away. ‘I’m shattered.’
I swallow. ‘You and me both.’
Kareem drops us off and I hobble up the steps, my legs aching from the tension and length of the day. The gasping dryness in the back of my throat pulls me towards the kitchen. Luc follows me inside and throws himself on the sofa.
‘Wine?’ I offer.
‘Sure,’ he agrees. I grab a pottle of pinot gris rosé from the wine fridge. I take two glasses and the bottle in my wine bucket gadget with cooling blocks from the freezer through to the living room. I put both glasses on a coaster and pour us a medium measure.
Luc smells the rosé suspiciously before taking a small sip. ‘Oh my god, that’s delicious.’
‘Right?’ I agree. ‘It’s always pinot grigio this, pinot grigio that but actually I think pinot gris is better.’ I take a sip. ‘I find it richer and less acidic.’
‘When did you become a sommelier?’ Luc takes another sip. ‘I think I agree with you there but will make a firm judgement after we’ve finished the bottle.’
We sip our wine quietly.
‘This might be a good Instagram opportunity,’ Luc reminds me.
I sigh and pull my phone from my pocket, taking a picture of the wine and two glasses on the table, the ambient lighting of the warm lamps in all corners of the room making it feel more romantic than it is. I caption it ‘celebrating’ with a white heart emoji and tag Luc before uploading it to my story and putting my phone away. My 150 million Instagram followers can analyse that. The papers can write it up, add a picture of me and Luc taken while in Wembley with his family. I hope Luc warned them those pictures would happen.
Luc grabs his own phone and reposts it for his newly found Instagram followers on his story. He’s gone from five thousand to nearly half a million since our second first date. I know it makes him feel funny… so many people watching his every move. I’ve noticed that he cleared out most of his old posts. I don’t blame him. It’s overwhelming.
‘How’s everything going with your voice?’ Luc asks. ‘I didn’t want to ask you in front of anyone else.’
‘Fine, I think. It’s feeling a bit better already. I’m not allowed to sing until the tour starts and they’ve taught me some new techniques to help,’ I sigh. ‘I have to hope for the best.’
‘I hope that it does work out okay in the end,’ Luc whispers.
‘If I don’t fully recover and have to go on tour anyway and then end up wrecking my vocal cords and leaving myself without a career… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get to have that normal life I was craving so much a few months ago.’
‘But you want both?’
I laugh. ‘Why is it that we always want what we can’t have?’
‘I think that’s a general rule of human existence,’ he mumbles. He looks away and breathes heavily, running his hand through his curls.
Placing his wine glass on the table, Luc approaches the vinyl player and makes sure it’s connected to the speaker, before putting on a record I’d forgotten I own: one of Joe Johnson’s early albums. The record belonged to Grampy before his player broke and he gave all his vinyls to me.
Joe was a complete pioneer of the music industry as it is today, before his untimely death from an opioid overdose at twenty-seven. Joe Johnson’s early albums changed the way we all work. Not many of those around, but Joe was a triumph.
The music filling the room is raw, vulnerable, Joe’s voice araspy wonder. Luc stands in the middle of the living room, letting that sound fill every spare inch of space. I watch him intently, unable to take my eyes off the way he moves, his own musicality which he doesn’t let out very often. He insists he can’t dance, that he has no rhythm. I’m not sure that’s the case.
He stops moving, the music slowing down even further as the next song plays. It’s one of those tracks which is almost haunting, the reverberation paired with the rasp in Joe’s voice, especially in this beat.
Luc holds out his hand and I join him. He wraps his arms around my waist and my own drape over his shoulders. Luc sways, and I move with him by the force of his body.
