 
The People Want Dance Pop

Luna Harlow
The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is complete coincidence.

First edition, 2016.

© Luna Harlow

Cover design by Luna Harlow. Images used in the cover are from Anthony Mooney/Shutterstock.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

About the author

Chapter 01

Where should we begin this story?

Maybe this is where it started. He was at a bar in London. The lighting was dim but atmospheric, even at four in the afternoon. He had a brief break from working that let him escape from the constant grind and drink to his heart's content and he was settling in to do that. He saw her – first her warm, brown, curling hair, that spiralled around a soft face just a bit too dark to be tanned, and then those big, round eyes. She laughed through plump lips and when she looked up, looked at him, the world stopped turning, the music stopped playing, and all the lights in the bar turned on, bright, for just that moment.

The reality was a bit different. She'd been seated with her friends at a table and he'd been noticing her, from where he sat. She'd been noticing him, too. Her friends left the bar and he moved down to sit next to her, entirely without invitation but hoping that her warm looks were a welcoming advance.

"Hi, I'm Wesley," he said, and hoped she wasn't put off by the roughness of his voice.

She bit her lip. She laughed, like an exhale of nervous breath. "I'm Gloria."

He told her he was a travelling musician and tried to sound cool and worldly, even as his palms sweated where he laid them on his jeans. She said she had to go.

"But you just got here," he said.

She smiled, ducked her eyes, and turned away.

"You could call me," she said.

She pushed a napkin in his direction and by the time he realised it had her phone number on it she was walking out of the building. He looked up to watch her walk away. There was something magical about the way she moved, the swing of her hips and the sigh of her shoes across the concrete floor, that had him transfixed. She shuffled away like a melody on the wind.

He smiled and tucked the napkin in the pocket of his trousers. He knew he'd be seeing her again.

When he talked about it later, to his friends, she was vivacious without shyly hiding behind her hair. All tits and winks and sly laughter, instead of folding her hands together and looking down at the table. It was a glamorous movie scene, the start of a sex comedy, instead of reality, and he couldn't stop recounting it.

"Why do you keep talking about this girl? You met her once," Uri asked.

"I'm going to marry that girl some day," Wesley said and felt the butterfly beat against his chest as he pictured it.

Then again, maybe it started like this. Uri in a forum, talking about rock and roll drummers. Uri in a video chat, laughing at Wesley's bad jokes. Uri's hand in his, saying, "We can do this."

Wesley had a friend. He loved him, he lost him.

(Oh, he didn't die or anything that dramatic. It's not that kind of story. They're just not friends any more.)

No, this is how it started: with the band.
Chapter 02

2011

Uri looked more delicate in person. That was the first thing Wesley thought when he picked him up from the airport.

Well, 'picked him up' was stretching the truth. Met him at the baggage claim and guided him to the taxi rank, more like.

Wesley didn't think he'd ever been more nervous in his life, standing there waiting, hoping they'd recognise each other from their photos, but when Uri finally turned the corner and saw him, Uri's face lit up and they ran to give each other hugs like in movies. It was pretty cool. He'd expected things to be awkward but they straight away started talking away like they'd known each other for years. Which they had, but liking someone's forum posts was different from liking them in the wild.

"My mum's putting on all the stops, mate," Wesley said, as their taxi drove away from the kerb. "Don't think she's ever been so excited to see one of my friends in my life. And my aunt and all that are on hols, so we've the house to ourselves."

"That's good. I'm excited, too." In person Uri turned out to look like an old Hollywood movie star, really cool and good looking, so it was a bit strange to see him tapping his hands on his knees like a total nerd. In pictures he looked slightly above average. In person he looked like he ought to be making people swoon as he went past.

"I love your accent. Say coffee," Wesley said.

"Coffee," Uri said, sounding exactly like the people on Seinfeld, and then both of them cracked up.

The cabbie probably thought they were nuts.

*

Uri was mad polite when he met Wesley's parents, calling them 'ma'am' and 'sir' and everything. They went straight to the table, because Wesley had been warned dinner would be ready as soon as they got home.

His mum was bringing her famous lasagne out, looking really happy to get to serve one of Wesley's friends. Wesley felt he should be embarrassed at what that said about his life, but he was just so pleased that his mum was pleased. She should always look like that. His dad was looking really proud. Wesley was pretty sure his own face was just looking hungry. The food smelled delicious. He couldn't wait to tuck in.

"Oh, I– I'm sorry. I should have said something. I can't– I can't eat that, I'm sorry," Uri said.

"Oh, are you a vegetarian, love?" Wesley's mum asked.

"No, it's just that I keep sort of kosher and, uh, the meat with the cheese, I'm sorry, I should have given a list. I'm really sorry," Uri said.

"Oh, I see," she said. She looked at the dish in her oven mitt-clad hands as if it was suddenly poisoned. "I should have realised. I should have looked it up before you came. Look, we'll bin it and we'll order something else."

"No!" Uri objected. "No, you should eat that. I'll get something else for myself. I'm sorry to be such trouble."

"Oh, no no no," she said. "You're no trouble at all. What do you say, Ian? Do we put this one in the fridge for another day?"

"That seems like the thing to do. We can probably order some thing in, can't we Wesley?"

"Yes, dad, we can definitely do that," Wesley said. Wesley put his hand on Uri's shoulder, so he would stop panicking. It was a bit funny, really, to see him so out of sorts over such a little thing. "It's no big deal, bro. You don't have to melt down just because mum doesn't have a kosher cookbook."

Uri looked so relieved when they found a take away menu for a place that sold kosher food, he looked like he was melting into his chair.

*

They took Uri's duffel bag and went up to the bedroom to chat, straight after.

"You can put your clothes in one of the drawers, if you like. Can you believe I used to fit in one of those things?" Wesley said.

"Yeah?" Uri said, looking up all shy like that.

"Yeah, I was tiny until recently. My mum says I just shot up overnight and then I couldn't fit anything."

Wesley jumped down onto the bed next to Uri, watching him bounce with the mattress. "Sorry, there's not a lot of space in here with my cousin's stuff, too. It's a bit cramped."

"No, it's okay. It's still bigger than my place."

"I can't wait until tomorrow. You and Zepp are a lot alike," Wesley said. "You should like each other."

"I hope so," Uri said.

*

Wesley woke in the middle of the night to a soft sound. He lifted his heavy head out of his sleeping bag as far as it wanted to go and looked around the dark room. Uri seemed to be shivering in his bag and Wesley made to cover him with a blanket off the bed until he realised the shaking kept time with the sounds of tears.

"Are you okay there?" he whispered into the dark.

"Yeah, it's nothing. It's nothing, don't worry."

"You should come up here where it's warmer. I don't mind it if your feet are cold."

"Okay."

Wesley unzipped his bag so he could gather Uri close when he made his way onto the bed. Under the mess of sleeping bags and blankets it was nice and warm, especially with the bit of extra body heat.

"See, plenty of room on the pillow," Wesley said, as he wrapped Uri up in the covers.

Uri wiped at his face, and smiled. First time away from his home and his wife – anyone would be overwhelmed. Wesley wasn't going to make a thing of it.

*

When they went out to meet him, Zepp walked up in baggy jeans and a loose shirt, with his headphones haphazardly placed around his neck. "Hey, Wes, who's the nerd?" he asked. He smiled wide out of one side of his mouth and scuffed his shoes on the ground.

"Zepp, this is Uri, the guy I've been telling you about," Wesley said. He really hoped they'd get along.

"Who's the metal-mouth?" Uri asked.

Zepp cackled. "Metal-mouth! I like this guy already."

"We should all play together. Zepp, I think you should consider being in our band," Wesley said.

"Your band is actually a real thing?" Zepp asked. He raised one eyebrow so high that Wesley started to worry about what that was doing to his face. "You live in different countries. How can you have a band?"

"We play over the internet," Uri said. "Obviously. I shouldn't have to explain that."

Zepp put his hands up flat to forestall any arguments. "Okay, okay, don't get defensive."

*

They all went to Zepp's house, to hang out in the garage. Back then, Zepp was pretty excited about living in a house that had a garage – not that his mum had a car, given her stance as an environmentalist.

Zepp yelled his plans to play in the garage with his friends as they walked through the living room.

"Don't torture the neighbours too much," Zepp's mum said.

"I'll torture the neighbours just enough," Zepp said.

"Good boy," she said.

Uri obviously hadn't brought his drum kit halfway across the world smuggled into his suitcase, but he dragged some old paint tins together with some off-cuts of wood, and sat on a crate. Zepp got his acoustic guitar from where it was hanging between pins on the wall. That left Wesley without an instrument to put his hands on given he couldn't just magic up a piano into the space.

Uri started off tapping out a slow beat. He kept it simple until he figured out the sound of the tins and then put a bit of flourish into it. After that, Zepp stopped watching Uri's hands, and paid attention to his own instead, layering a bit of rhythm over Uri's beat. Sometimes Uri changed what he was doing, and then Zepp would change his sound to catch up, too. Wesley watched them playing off each other and felt good.

"Sing something, already," Uri said. He was grinning at Wesley and Wesley couldn't help grinning back.

"Play me something I can sing to," he said. But he smiled and sang a note over Uri's tinny sound.

As soon as he sang, Uri stopped.

"What's wrong?" Wesley asked.

"I always forget you can do that. The first time I heard you sing all the hair on my arms stood up. You're so good."

"I'm okay," Wesley said, uncomfortable with the praise.

"No, you're– you really have a gift," Zepp weighed in. "I hear you and I think, that guy's going places."

"That's why we have to be in a band. So we can all go places together," Wesley said.

Zepp laughed. "Okay."

"Right on," Uri said, and started drumming the bits of wood against the paint tins again, just to give Wesley something to sing to.
Chapter 03

If Uri was willing to save up his pennies and visit Wesley in London, it was only fair for Wesley to return the favour and visit Uri in New York. That, and he'd always wanted to see it.

After a long period of struggling to try to afford it, and struggling to get his act together to get a passport, he finally managed to get on a plane. It was very exciting for him to get to see a city he'd seen so many times in movies and on telly. It was even exciting to get in a real New York taxi driven really fast by a real New York taxi driver.

After he paid the driver with real American green dollars and stepped outside to Uri's real New York building, he met Uri on the footpath and told him all about it.

"You're excited by everything. It's not that big a deal," Uri said.

"Say coffee," Wesley said.

"You've heard me say it before. You say coffee," Uri said.

It was pretty cool.

*

Uri showed him in. "I'd give you the tour but this is it, this is everything."

"Why do you have two sinks, bro?" Wesley looked around over Uri's head and let his bag drop at his feet.

"Why are you asking stupid questions?"

As soon as Uri folded him into a hug Wesley started feeling tired from the plane ride. He turned his head into Uri's neck and breathed him in. Already he smelled familiar. It started to feel to Wesley like he was really there, standing in his friend's flat, all the way across the Atlantic. He grabbed Uri around the waist, until it reached the point where standing there hugging his friend started to feel a bit weird.

So he stood back and smiled at Uri instead.

"You have to meet Miriam," Uri said.

And there she was, coming through the door way, Uri's wife – as young as he was and nearly as pretty.

Wesley wasn't entirely sure how he'd pictured Miriam, and yet the girl who stood in front of him was not quite it. She was nice, though. He liked that she had a long sleeve shirt and tights on underneath a floral dress and boots as dark and shiny as Uri's. Kind of like pictures of people from the 90s.

"We couldn't make up a bed for you because there aren't any spare, but we've put some blankets on the couch if that's okay," she said, smiling.

"No problems with that at all," Wesley said.

*

On the last night Uri's in-laws were out of town so they sat up talking half the night.

It was cold but, "If you leave the windows open nobody will know we were smoking inside," Uri said.

Uri's ash tray looked like a battered metal flower with its petals slowly unfolding.

"Yeah, that's because I could never get that bit there to seal up properly. I made it in high school. No point buying one when I have this," Uri explained.

"It's pretty cool, bro," Wesley said.

"You'll make his ego balloon up to the size of the room," Miriam said.

"Let me have my ego. There's not much I do well. I have to take compliments where I get them."

"It's just an ash tray," Miriam said.

But it was also the warmth in Uri's eyes and the slight smile on his face.

"Sing something for me," Uri said.

So Wesley launched into We Gotta Get Out of This Place, and Miriam soon joined in. She had a lovely tone to her voice. Uri mumbled the lyrics, too, but quieter so his voice was a soft breeze underneath them.

It was so easy with them. Wesley had never found friendship this easy in his life. He'd never had people he could talk to about everything before this point.

Sure, he had Zepp, but Zepp had an army of friends who didn't really get the token straight guy showing up to all their parties, and Zepp knew so many things that Wesley didn't understand. Zepp had conversational land mines he had to tiptoe around and interests he didn't understand. He had to be on his best behaviour with Zepp.

And he supposed there was Andy, an acquaintance he'd shared a class with, but Andy was a cool guy who was friendly with everyone.

Wesley relaxed into the moment. Talking about music, laughing over food, at a tiny wooden table, in a tiny kitchen. Until the construction noises outside decided they wanted to talk too.

Uri said, "It's time for bed."

Wesley made his bed on the couch. The night was not quiet but not loud enough for him to turn off his thoughts. He was so thankful to them for letting him stay there. He hoped it wasn't an imposition. Breathed.

*

He woke next morning to someone staring him in the face. The brother-in-law, maybe?

"You're still here?" the guy asked.

*

Uri managed to get up to see him before he left, even though Uri really did like his lie ins. He rubbed at his messy hair and said, "I suppose I should say goodbye before you disappear."

"Thank you, bro," Wesley said. "This has been really, really cool. I can't wait to tell Dana everything about New York."

Uri's eyes stopped looking so bleary. "Right, Dana. Your girlfriend. I almost forgot about her."

"That's because she's not here, but she'll love hearing my stories." Wesley did a thumbs up and hoped he didn't look nervous.

"I can't drive you anywhere so you're going to have to get a taxi to the airport. But, uh, goodbye."

And one last friendly hug before he left.
Chapter 04

March 31, 2011.

Uri and his black, shiny jacket taking up most of the screen.

"I have to tell you about Joey. We met online, right? So we're talking on this forum or whatever and he says he'll be in New York and we should hang out. And I said okay thinking he'd just be some normal guy and we'd walk around talking about music. And then we meet outside the building and he looks like everything he's wearing is new and I'm thinking, I can't invite him into my dump. There are rats.

"So he says, let's go to this place I know, and I'm thinking they're not even going to let me in the door because there's holes in my jeans and dirt and old rubber on my shoes. And I say to him that I can't afford it, but then he pulls out a platinum credit card.

"And then he says, 'like, you know, my mum's an actress'. She was in that big show in the 90s, Cool Address, and now she's on this daytime soapie called Ocean Beach or whatever that Miriam's aunt is always watching. And also his dad works in movies somehow.

"And just when I'm really spun out, he turns to me and says, get his, he likes that I'm so real. I'm so real. I'm just so much more authentic than anyone he knows."

Uri laughed.

"So I told him to buy me a meal that costs more than I earn in a day and said he should join our band. Because a rich guy that wants to blow everyone's ego up, that's what we were missing."

Wesley hadn't felt like their band was missing anything until that point but he felt bad for resenting Joey. He didn't meant to bulldoze his way into what Wesley had been building. He was just enthusiastic and ambitious and well-meaning but oblivious. But Wesley found himself a little annoyed by Joey, anyway.

*

April 13, 2011.

"Look, just consider this guy," Uri said. Wesley could see him shifting about in front of the computer, moving a pile of papers from one side of his body to the other. Occasionally his brother-in-law walked through the background with the baby.

It wasn't super empty of noises where Wesley was, either. In the background he could hear his parents talking to aunt Linda as they made clangy plate noises, and his cousin was bouncing a ball down the hallway.

"We don't need another singer. We have me. Do you not like my singing?" Wesley kept wanting to look down at his hands but he forced himself to keep his eyes on the screen so Uri didn't think he was trying to be rude.

"What? Why would you ask that? I love your singing voice. It's beautiful. When I hear you sing I feel like I'm in the presence of a real gift to the world. Don't ever doubt that."

"Okay." Wesley wanted to play it cool but he knew he was smiling. "Then why would we need this guy?"

"Joey, his name is Joey," Uri said, distracted again by whatever was happening in his home beside him. "And he has money. He has a lot of money. His parents are millionaires who want to invest in his future success or something."

"Well, I'm sold. Tell him he can join the band. I don't even care if he can sing."

*

May 10, 2011.

"He says we should all fly out to met him in LA," Uri said. "Should we let him pay for it?"

"Is he offering?" Wesley asked.

"Yeah, I think it's a business expense."

"But it's our business, not his. We haven't officially decided to let him in yet."

"I blew all my money on going to see you."

"Me, too." But at the time it didn't feel like blowing his money so much as the culmination of a dream.

Uri's sister-in-law stomped into view, and he turned to look at her when she made disappointed huffing noises.

"What have I told you about smoking in the house?" she asked Uri.

Uri sat there looking up at her, with smoke curling off the ciggie in his hand. "Don't do it?"

"Then why are you sitting here, inside, smoking?" she asked.

Uri deliberately raised his smoke to his lips, took a drag, and then blew out right in front of her, before shoving it tip down into the dinky little metal ashtray he kept on the table. "Are you satisfied?" he asked her.

"Not even a little bit," she said, shook her head, and moved away.

"So, we'll let him pay for it," Uri said, turning back to look at the computer.

"Maybe. I'll see what Zepp says."

"Right."

*

Uri was coming from a different direction, but Zepp and Wesley also managed to be on different flights. Uri and Wesley found each other first and sat down on their suitcases, near the airport doors. Zepp showed up with his hair bleached to a pale blond and without his glasses.

"So you finally got contact lenses," Uri said.

Zepp nodded. "You were probably right when you said I can't be a nerd and a rock star. But I've still got spare glasses in my bag just in case."

He was rubbing at his hair like he wanted everyone to comment on it but was trying not to be obvious about it.

"What did your mum say about the hair?" Wesley asked.

"She said I looked beautiful and very punk rock and she supports my choices." Zepp rolled his eyes.

"Your mum's right," Wesley said. "It looks cool."

*

Wesley didn't know what he'd been expecting, but the real Joey that stood before him wasn't it. Joey was wearing a band shirt, commemorating a concert tour for a band that broke up before he was even born. He had the kind of tan Wesley didn't realise people could actually get outside of magazines. He was wearing one pair of sunglasses tucked into his shirt, and another pushed up into his hair. Which looked kind of like a mop.

"I've been so excited to meet you. Uri makes you sound like the greatest band ever," Joey said. He sounded kind of like the people on TV, but he talked slowly enough that it was hard to believe he got that excited.

"We're not that good. I mean, we're okay. We're not completely terrible," Wesley said.

"We're pretty rough," Zepp said.

"I love the English," Joey said. "You're all so funny."

"I don't know about this guy," Zepp said, so only Wesley could hear it. The look on his face was about as sceptical as Wesley felt.

"Um," Uri said, pushing a hand through his hair. "This is Wesley, and that's Zepp."

He pointed each of them out in turn.

"I'm so happy to meet you both," Joey said, then hugged both Wesley and Zepp in quick succession. At that moment Wesley wasn't quite sure if he weren't actually hallucinating this in his tiredness.

"Why is he touching me?" Zepp asked. Joey stood back and smiled even wider. "We're strangers. Why would you be touching me?"

"I can feel that we're going to be great friends," Joey said.

By the horror on Zepp's face, Wesley could tell that he hoped not.

*

It was a bit weird to be staying at the mansion of someone you barely knew but Wesley was determined to think of it as an adventure. Adventuring, you see, being something he hadn't had enough of.

Joey waved his hands around a lot as he showed them around his gigantic mansion, and every time the bracelets on his right wrist made weird rustling noises. It was about the only thing distracting Wesley from being in the presence of so much money.

Joey showed them all into his bedroom, which Wesley was pretty sure was bigger than his entire childhood home had been, before his parents had sold up and moved them all to London. Wesley dutifully sat down on the carpet when Joey did. Zepp paced awkwardly before plopping himself on the bed and Uri sat on a backwards chair, like he was a cool guy who regularly hung out in rich people's houses. Joey crossed his legs and put his hands up like he was about to tell them some deep spiritual truth.

"I've always known it was my destiny to be at the front of a band," Joey said.

Wesley cleared his throat as loudly as he could.

"Travelling the world with my greatest pals," Joey went on.

"We've literally only met today," Zepp said.

"Making great music and getting so much pussy that even my crabs get syphilis," Joey finished. It became very clear why Uri liked this guy so much.

Uri ruffled Joey's hair and Joey soaked up his attention.

"That's my boy," Uri said.

"I've got two words for you, Joe" Zepp said. "Latex and polyisoprene. If you can't use one you can use the other. Don't get syphilis."

"My name is Joey. Joey! Not Joe," he said.

"Sure. I'm still going to call you just Joe, though," Zepp said.

Joey squinched his face up like a baby. He seemed to be always doing that whenever he was annoyed and he seemed to be annoyed by everything. "Why?"

"Too many 'y' names in this band," Zepp said. "I don't call Wes by his full name, either."

*

Wesley wasn't really sure about Joey as a person at that point, but it turned out he could actually sing passably well.

He wasn't much nicer about Wesley, either. "I guess you're okay for a back up singer."

"Hey, it's my band. I still haven't agreed to let you in yet."

Joey was looking at him like he thought it was a done deal, though.

*

He couldn't sleep in the night. Joey's house was too quiet; it was unnatural. Wesley pushed himself out of bed and plodded out onto the deck where Uri was already sitting, illuminated by moonlight. Wesley sat himself down next to him and stared off into the warm night.

"Joey's mom has pretty big jugs," Uri said.

"They're spectacular. You think she bought them?"

"Maybe. She could just be genetically blessed. There's a lot of that going round here."

Wesley breathed out.

"Are we okay?" he asked.

Uri finally looked at him. "Of course. Why wouldn't we be?"

"Then give me a light, bro."

*

Wait, hold up, Joey's mum – we didn't really talk about her yet, did we?

So Irene Hart really was a soap opera actress. She'd done her time in prime time and was now back in the daytime soapie she'd started her career on. You know all those movies where some guy has a hot mum with big boobs and long legs and bouncy hair and she wears a bikini by the pool that shows off her tan? Well, Joey's mum was like that, only Joey's mum scowled and put her dressing gown on as soon as she saw teenage boys in her house, and didn't look impressed by their plans to conquer the world with a band.

On the second day they were there, they all shuffled into the kitchen to see her sitting at the table reading the paper – wearing tight jeans and a tight shirt and looking like every gross milf fantasy Wesley had ever had – and she put her paper down and said, "Enough messing around. Do you at least have a business plan?"

"Um," Wesley said, as he sank further into the table.

"A financial plan? A marketing plan?"

"I have a lot of spreadsheets," Zepp said. He'd shuffled into a seat right next to Wesley. "I made notes. And a list of equipment. Sorry, it's not much."

Irene said, "Hmm," but Wesley didn't know if it was a good noise or a bad noise. "How about a name or a business address?"

"Uh, Zepp's mum's work place?" Wesley ventured. "It's where he keeps all the spreadsheets."

"We could call it 'Joey's awesome band'," Joey said. He was leaning against a wall and casually eating something out of a mug. Obviously enjoying watching them get interrogated.

"We are not calling it that. Our band is not just about you," Wesley said, eyes narrowed.

"So you are letting me in! I knew it!" Joey pumped his fist up and down, and milk spilled everywhere.

"It's probationary," Wesley said. "I can always take it back."

"You will grow to love me," Joey threatened.

"Sure, Joe, whatever you say," Zepp said, under his breath.

"Joey, clean up after yourself. You make Henrietta's life hard enough as it is," Irene said, and went back to reading her paper.

*

After that they had to have a serious discussion about what to name the band, because names are important.

"What about The Hippo Hypothesis?" Joey asked.

"No," Wesley said.

"What about Giraffes Over the ocean?" Joey said.

"No, and also that doesn't make any sense."

"Band names don't have to make sense," Uri said. Wesley scowled at him. Why was he taking Joey's side? "They don't. But that does suck."

"The Rhinoceros Conspiracy! It's what I named an assignment in eighth grade," Joey said.

"That's just as bad. Why are you obsessed with animal names?" Wesley said.

Joey shrugged. "Just watched a documentary. Hey, Zepp, you look like a man who likes a good conspiracy."

"It doesn't even have to be a good conspiracy. I could go a bad conspiracy right now," Zepp said.

"No. What are you doing?" Wesley protested. Trying to convince Zepp wasn't fair! Zepp loved when people played to his silly side.

"Maybe there could be aliens conspiring with the feds to ruin things for the rhinoceroses. It's a whole big thing," Joey said.

Zepp nodded. "I see what you're saying, and I like it."

"I am not calling our band The Rhinoceros Conspiracy," Wesley insisted.

*

They ended up calling it The Rhinoceros Conspiracy. Zepp and Joey kept up a conspiracy of their own, for months, talking about aliens fighting the rhinos, and how they should name the band in honour of that bravery from their horny friends. Every group email, every group chat, constantly. Eventually Wesley gave in just to stop them annoying him.

*

After that they made more of the important decisions. Or two of them did, lying next to each other in the living room after dark.

"I think you should be the one who signs the paperwork because you're older and have nicer handwriting," Joey said.

"That makes sense to me," Wesley said.

"And I think we should have a bass player, like every other band on the planet."

"Take that up with Zepp. It's been hard enough for him to meet two new people as it is."

"I already said to him we should have more guitarists and he shouted me down. And he said that you should play the bass, when you're already playing the keyboard, and Uri said you also write songs. We can't make you do everything."

"Maybe you can learn to play the bass."

"No, that doesn't work for me. My assets are charisma and nice legs. And I've been told my eyes are very dreamy."

"I thought you were going to sing, not just stand there getting looked at."

They were quiet a moment.

"Can you really play the bass guitar as well?" Joey asked.

"A bit. Not well. But if it's necessary, I can get better."

*

On the last day of their little vacation, Joey forced his email address and phone number on everyone, and promised to be in contact. Wesley had never officially accepted him into the band, but it seemed to have happened, even without that.

Before they'd even reached the airport to go home Zepp was already emailing Joey.

"I didn't think you liked him that much," Wesley said.

Zepp was laughing before he even finished the sentence. "Are you kidding? He's hilarious. I thought I was going to be the weirdest person in the band but he's the weirdest person I've ever met. He makes me seem super normal in comparison. I love it. I'm so thankful you decided to let him in the band. Best decision ever."
Chapter 05

Growing together as a band, purely over the internet, was hard but not impossible. Still, it was difficult to practice together when they couldn't be in the same room and not everybody had the same quality computer speakers.

So it was with great relief that Zepp mentioned his sister was getting married and suggested they be the wedding band. Or rather, mentioned that his sister had decided it should be that way.

Joey seemed pretty excited by it all. "Coke is so cheap here," he said, looking like it was the most exciting thing he'd ever learned.

"Please be talking about fizzy drinks," Zepp said. But from the look on Joey's face, they knew he wasn't expressing fondness for popular brands of cola.

"It's been a day," Wesley said. "You've only been here a day."

Why did they let him in the band?

Wesley had been working hard on his own but they still had to practise the list of songs Zepp's sister had sent over together as a band.

"There's no way we can play half of these," Wesley said, looking over the list one more time.

"Because we don't have a bass player?" Joey suggested.

"No, because I'm not sure Tori Amos and The Smashing Pumpkins are wedding appropriate."

"They're excellent," Uri said. "I wish I could have had these songs at my wedding."

Wesley looked up to where Zepp was standing. "Are you sure the hall has a real piano?"

"Didn't I text you the pictures? I thought I texted you the pictures. What else have I forgotten?" Zepp started pacing up and down and muttering to himself.

"You texted them to me instead," Uri said.

"Hey, is he alright?" Joey asked, watching Zepp start to bite his fingernails.

"Yeah, he's like this all the time," Wesley said, barely even paying attention. "Zepp, everything will be fine. Don't worry."

"That's easy for you to say. You don't have an anxiety disorder," Zepp said.

"You know you can get drugs for that, right? Legally and everything," Joey said.

"No," Zepp said. Very loud. He waved his arms around a lot in the universal gesture for 'not even if the fate of the world depended on it'.

"But why?" Joey asked. He looked shocked at the idea that anyone might say no to drugs, ever.

"Just no. We don't have this conversation," Wesley said.

*

Somehow, they ended up being dragged to the hen's do.

"I'm sorry, but Sunny is against all gender segregation, so she insisted we go to her party," Zepp explained.

Wesley was more worried about Sunny's friends making fun of him for wearing a collared shirt and not being up on feminist poetry, than about whether or not he oughtn't be at the party for a groom-to-be he hadn't met.

"It's fine. Older women love me," Joey said.

Zepp shook his head. "They probably don't."

Uri set himself up in the corner with a dog-eared book, a strategy Wesley manage to envy for the approximately four seconds before Sunny noticed and closed in.

"Seriously? You're bringing Great White Man literature to my party?" she asked. Even in speech, you could tell the words were capitalised. The sarcastic finger quotes helped.

"It's a classic," Uri said. He looked confused to be spoken to. He looked between his book and Sunny, and made a weird wobbly face, like he wasn't sure what expression to make. He probably just wanted to be left alone.

"Sunny, don't start," Zepp said.

"I can't stand books like that."

"You don't like The Lord of the Rings?" Uri asked.

"It's just another story about how privileged straight men and their platonic love is apparently more interesting and more important than anything else on the planet. It's not reality. And you know what, men don't talk about how they love each other. They don't say that to friends," Sunny said.

Wesley felt very small and unimportant but he had to say he disagreed.

"Look, a true love story between men would be a gay story. Instead of upholding the platonic bonds between men, let's have some gay stories," she said.

"I don't see why I can't have both," Zepp said, getting worked up. "Why can't I have stories about dudes who love each other in a not-gay way and stories about dudes who love each other in a very gay way. Men who tell their friends how they feel but aren't totally fucked up about it and men who suck dick, maybe even in the same story. Why should I have to choose?"

"I love you, bro," Wesley said, nodding.

"Right back at you," Zepp said.

"You're completely missing my point," Sunny protested. "And you don't even read books, Zepp, so why are you arguing with me."

"I read two entire books last year, Sunny," Zepp said.

"I can read something else," Uri said. He put his book away and unearthed the something else, as Sunny walked away, back to her friends.

"Hey, um," Zepp said, leaning in close to mumble near Wesley's ear, "I'm not actually going to have to talk about feelings, am I?"

"You can always read a book about them instead," Uri said, smirking, as he cracked the spine of Wuthering Heights.

*

Before the ceremony he found Zepp's mum outside the door, fingers curled around a smoke and blowing out into the air.

"Hey Mrs Zepp's mum," he said.

She looked at him, kind of like the way he imagined she'd look at a particularly disgusting insect. "It's Gertrude, as I've told you before. Just Gertrude. And if you must give me a title, it is and always has been Ms."

"Sorry, Ms Gertrude. I didn't know you smoked."

"It's my one vice," she said. She looked over the horizon at nothing in the way smart people always seemed to do. Then she tipped her fingers and ash fell on the gravel near her feet. "I gave up so many things, you know. All the drugs, all the sex. This is all I have left, just smoking."

It wasn't the sort of thing his other friends' parents would say so he found himself leaning back and blinking at her as if he could make her make any sort of sense in his head. Parents weren't supposed to act like that. Parents were supposed to be warm and a little bit fat and say things about how you had to be good like they did or bad things would happen to you. Zepp's family was very confusing.

"I know I shouldn't be encouraging you to smoke, but I'll give you a light, if you like," she said. She still wasn't looking at him.

"Really?" he asked.

"It'll give you lines around the mouth and fuck up your throat, and there's every chance you'll turn your viscera to ash, but everyone needs a vice," she said. She finally turned to him and smiled, with only half her mouth. "But try to stick to only one."

*

The ceremony was beautiful. Sunny entered the hall in a second-hand dress and fishnet tights, gripping her mother's arm, and when her groom saw her he started crying, like he'd never seen anything more lovely.

Their band actually sounded good, which was a relief all round. Plus, afterwards they got free food. Can't argue with that, can you?

*

They played a few songs in the reception and then Sunny shooed them off so she could set up her personally curated play list of romantic songs of the 80s and 90s.

"Go dance or something," she said.

She soon grabbed her new husband, so she could spin about with him, which was awful sweet to see.

"I can't dance to The Cure," Zepp said, grabbed Wesley's sleeve, and dragged him down to the table Gertrude was sitting at.

"Hello, Ms Gertrude," Wesley said, as he sat down.

"It's Dr Gertrude, actually," Zepp said, as he sat. Wesley groaned. Joey opened his mouth to speak and Zepp immediately cut him off. "If you hit on my mum, I will kick you out of the band."

"I was going to ask why there's no alcohol," Joey said.

"So was I," Uri said. "But that's because I'm old enough to drink in this country."

"Oh, we have to talk about the elephant," Zepp sighed.

"Ah, the elephant," Gertrude said. "Malcolm. We didn't want to risk that he would embarrass himself, but then he didn't even show up to his own daughter's wedding because he is an incomparable arsehole."

"Oh. Wait, I'm confused," Joey said.

"Dad's an alcoholic," Zepp said. Simple as that.

"I can't even believe my own daughter is participating in the patriarchal institution of marriage. How establishment." She was complaining but she looked happy about it. So weird.

"It's a time honoured institution and this was lovely," Uri said.

"You're all so establishment," Gertrude groaned. She hunched her shoulders over her plate as she slumped in her seat, incongruous in her navy suit. "It disappoints me."

Sunny appeared from the crowd, face flushed, hair going damp with sweat. She leaned down, put one arm around her mother, said, "Mum, you're the most establishment of us all."

And then she laughed while Gertrude made a terrible groaning noise. Zepp's family was weird.
Chapter 06

The man's hand was crawling its way up Joey's leg. Wesley narrowed his eyes at it. Joey was laughing at everything the man said but Wesley didn't find anything about this funny.

"Did you know that Joey's father owns lots of guns?" Wesley asked. He smiled as innocently as he could.

The man laughed, like he'd been joking. Then stopped. Carefully he took his hand from Joey's thigh. "What?"

"Yes, he showed me them. He has a very impressive collection. He knew we don't have many handguns in England so I think he was showing off a little. He has more than only handguns!" He wasn't lying, at least.

Joey's face was blank.

"You should tell him about this, Joey. I know you're very proud of your dad. They're very close. I'd say a bit protective of each other."

The man coughed. "Please excuse me. I remembered a phone call I have to make."

He walked out of the room, stiff as can be, leaving Wesley and Joey alone at the table with a lot of rich food. Wesley looked at Joey again. Joey seemed to be turning slightly red with anger. It was almost impressive.

"Why did you say that? My dad's a hippie who sold most of his earthly belongings to downsize to a tiny apartment and who was once nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for a film about saving the environment. He's not like you were implying."

"He is a hippie who owns an M-16 assault rifle. It's very impressive and scary. I didn't lie." Wesley popped an olive in his mouth. The food there wasn't bad.

"I don't know what you think you're doing–"

"I saw where his hand was."

"–but I didn't need your help. I'm just using what I have to help our band. He could help us be successful. We need this."

"I won't let some creepy old guy use you just because he might be able to get us some kind of deal. I won't have that on my conscience."

"What if I want him to use me? It's my choice."

"Not if you want to be part of my band. I sign the documents and get the final say. You have money. Use that."

"Fine," Joey said, and threw his napkin into a puddle of salad dressing.

They got up together and left. Wesley would never know if the man came back from his phone call or not.

*

"I can't believe you ruined that for us," Joey said. "I've only known you five months and already I know you ruin everything."

"I didn't even have to let you in my band," Wesley said.

"Oh my god, are you really have a screaming match about your stupid band in the kitchen at like four in the morning?" Joey's sister asked. She retrieved a bottle of Glenfiddich from one of the mysterious compartments in the shiny white wall of cabinetry and rolled her eyes from under a gigantic floral headpiece. "Grow up, already."

"Shut up, Jenna!" Joey yelled.

"Save me from stupid teenagers," she said.

Wesley didn't think that was fair. Joey was the only one in the room being stupid. Wesley considered himself very mature and sensible in that moment.

"We're arguing about very serious stuff, so you can butt out," Joey said.

"Oh yeah, so serious," she said.

She was almost out the door but Wesley didn't like the idea that anyone thought what they were doing was frivolous, so he had to say, "I think it's important that we get a manager that doesn't try to molest anyone. Joey disagrees."

"Shut up. Don't tell people that." Joey was getting kind of shrill.

Jenna stopped where she stood, bottle in hand. "Oh my god, Joe, try not to scrape the bottom of the barrel. I can't believe I have to save you from your own stupidity again." She sighed. "Listen, my ex-girlfriend's best friend is married to a guy who manages bands. Tom Gonzales or something? It's been a while. I still have his card. I hear he manages bands full of total losers with no talent, so he's perfect for you."

"Shut up, Jenna," Joey yelled. Which really was kind of inappropriate at four in the morning.

Wesley took the card. He hoped it wasn't far.

*

It turned out New Jersey and California weren't anywhere near each other.

*

Tom, contrary to what Wesley had expected, was a short little man with a tall skinny wife. They both seemed as narrow shouldered as each other, almost like they could share clothing. He stood there, in an aging band shirt and ripped skinny jeans, clenching his fists like he was looking for an excuse to punch someone.

It was not what Wesley had expected based on Jenna's (admittedly limited) description. "You're not what I expected when she said 'Tom Gonzales'," he said.

"What, because I'm Filipino? Need to stare some more?" Tom snapped.

"I wasn't!" Wesley protested.

"And you," Tom said, turning to Uri and pointing a sharp finger, "stop staring at my wife's tits."

Uri just rolled his eyes and muttered, "whatever," which is about what Wesley expected from him.

Wesley wasn't going to be staring at the wife's tits – he preferred women bustier, that was for sure – but she was wandering around in a tank top and no bra so he could see why Uri was distracted. Must be a model thing, but he wasn't going to ask. Joey had assured him all models wore no underwear and Wesley was just going to take his word for it.

She stomped off to another room, probably to avoid being gawked at.

"Naomi, make me a sandwich," Tom yelled.

"Make your own sandwich," she yelled back.

Wesley looked around as everyone talked. It was a nice house. There were wedding photos displayed on a bookshelf. Tom had worn a baggy blazer over his tank top and jeans and Naomi had worn a tiny little dress. They'd both had the weird floppy hair with chunky coloured streaks Wesley remembered everyone having when he was a kid. A particularly jolly Elvis was smiling and clapping in the background. They were beaming at each other, like there was nobody else in the world they cared to see.

"I will give you guys a chance because Jenna was the least annoying girlfriend Candice ever had, so if she gave you my card you must have something going for you. She knows better than to waste my time," Tom said.

"Jenna's my sister," Joey admitted.

"Anything else have anything to say?" Tom asked.

"Naomi's cool," Uri said.

Tom smiled really wide. "If you hit on my wife they will never find your body."

*

Wesley wasn't sure if Tom had separated him from the band and taken him to this terrifyingly well-lit store to scare him, but it was working.

"Okay, I'm going to tell you how the music industry works," Tom said, dragging his hands along the CD racks as they slowly walked through the store. Tom may have been dressed like an angry aging skateboarder who listened to old school punk exclusively but his hands were kind of elegant, in a man way. It was cool. Wesley wished he could look that cool.

"You probably think that you can play a few times and everyone will buy your CDs and you'll become a millionaire."

"Nobody buys CDs any more," Wesley said.

"A lot of people buy CDs. If you don't put music out in this format you will be leaving money on the table. And even if no one ever wants you on their label – likely – there are still ways to for indie bands to get CDs made up. But this store won't stock them. Not worth their time. Nobody will buy them. Nobody's heard of you. You can't afford radio airplay."

"Um..."

"You have no promotion budget."

"Uh, but there's the internet?"

"That's not enough. And every idiot that can play an instrument thinks the internet's going to make him famous. Millions of you. All competing for the attention of easily bored people who would probably rather be talking to their friends or looking at pictures of cats. Do you even have a YouTube channel? Have you even performed before an audience of people you're not related to?"

"Uh, well."

Tom wasn't even looking at Wesley. He was flicking through the CDs, fingers quick, like he was checking to see that he had already bought everything in the 'punk/emo' section.

"I read that nobody makes money from albums any more, anyway. It's all touring," Wesley said.

Tom looked up. That was a sceptical squint, definitely. "Nobody's making money from touring, either. It's a myth. Nobody's making any money from music. Except maybe Simon Cowell and Max Martin."

"Uh, but, that is, are you trying to say you don't want to help us out? Because you could just say that."

"No, I'll take you on." He pushed his sunglasses further back on his head and leaned against the bargain table. It really did look kind of refined and sophisticated how he did that. What was up with that?

"Really?"

Tom laughed. "I've got nothing better going on. I'm just letting you know, your enterprise is probably doomed to failure and in all likelihood you'll end up deeply in debt and very resentful of all the years you wasted. I don't believe in vague disclaimers."

"Okay. Cool." And just like that, they had a manager.

*

Once they had a manager, it was easy for Joey to convince his mum to give them money. Or as she said, 'inject capital'.

Wesley looked at the numbers. "This is so much money."

He'd never seen that much money in his whole life.

"It's hardly anything," Joey said.

"We're going to have to get an accountant," Wesley said. Because this was a lot of responsibility, in all those zeros. He didn't want anything to go wrong. How daunting.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea. I'll see if my mum knows someone," Zepp said.

And just like that, they were a real band.
Chapter 07

2012

"I think we should all put our hands together and ask the baby Jesus to bless our show," Joey said.

"I'm still an atheist!" Zepp exclaimed, face already red with anger.

"And I'm Jewish," Uri said, looking at Joey like he was the stupidest person he'd ever met.

"Do Jewish people not believe in Jesus?" Joey asked. He blinked a lot.

"Joe, how are you this sheltered? I genuinely don't understand," Zepp said.

"What about you, Wesley?" Joey asked.

"I like going to church because they feed us tea and bickies after," he said.

"That means you two can talk to baby Jesus together and leave the rest of us out of it," Uri said.

*

It was not a great start.

*

Tom believed in throwing bands into the deep end and hoping for the best, so they were travelling as the warm up band to the warm up band to a feminist ska-pop-punk band, Revolutionary Cheerleaders, that supposedly had a hit in the late 90s, but that Wesley didn't remember at all.

"I remember them," Zepp said. "My sister has their one album. It's called 'Rebellious Piranha and the Beauty Contest', which honestly makes Panic! at the Disco song titles look not that bad in comparison. I'm amazed they're still together. They must be ancient."

At that stage they mostly left each other alone. Which was good, Wesley felt, because The Rhinoceros Conspiracy were still in the process of getting their act together. Wesley didn't understand how they could all sound good separately, and yet together on stage things started to get messy.

Joey had knocked over the microphone stand during at least three different performances. He'd do this weird self-conscious shoulder dance when he was getting into the song and his ability to deal with gravity would fail. Each time, someone in the audience sitting up close had winced, and looked down at their phone. Every time it happened, Zepp paused a moment, before going back to concentrating on his guitar. Wesley knew he was thrown off his rhythm. The only person who kept going, sounding good, not worrying at all, was Uri, jamming out, hitting his drums with the kind of precision and power that made Wesley want to keep going.

Every time, Uri brought Wesley back to himself. So he tried to think of it like he was just singing to Uri until he could look in front again without getting distracted by worry.

*

"We need to practise singing together," Wesley said.

"We're doing that already," Joey replied, barely even paying attention.

"Harmonising. We need to practise harmonising. Otherwise we're just two dudes singing at the same time and nobody cares."

Joey sighed, a long and annoying sigh. "Fine. If I have to."

Wesley didn't know why Joey did that thing where he pretended he didn't care about the work. It was obviously not just a lark to him. Nobody joins a band and goes halfway around the world to play opening act to someone's opening act in tiny venues frequented by people who don't even speak the same language as you, just as a bit of a fun experiment. You have to really mean it to do that.

And Wesley had seen Joey take things seriously with other people. Which meant it was him, personally, that Joey wasn't taking seriously. He took a deep breath and tried not to let it get to him.

"Let's try the one about the aliens, again. I take the high note and you take the low note," Wesley said.

"Which one of you gets to Scotland first?" Zepp said.

"Okay, I'll play," Joey said. When he sung his voice was still cracking at the edges sometimes. But it was deepening out. He took the lower note and Wesley weaved in above him. It sounded decent, could someday sound good. He couldn't wait until they could afford a decent vocal coach.

"See, already better," Wesley said, when they'd run through the chorus once.

"If you say so," Joey said.

"We should practice doing this with every song on the radio in the car. Not just to get better at singing together but also because Tom would hate it. We probably don't even need the radio on. We can just sing random things."

"If Tom's picking the music, we'll just end up learning the greatest hits of Fall Out Boy."

"He also likes Green Day," Zepp said, proving he was actually paying more attention to them than the TV. "And some band called Transvision Vamp. And a lot of crappy old punk music."

"Yes," Wesley said, nodding. "If we sing along to Tom's music collection, we'll turn into a pop-punk band by accident. Uri will be delighted. But I think one of us should sit in the front seat at all times so we can take charge of the radio and play whatever we want."

"Maybe," Joey said. But Wesley could see he was interested in mischief.

*

The next performance was better. Halfway through their second song Joey turned to him with a growing smirk. Wesley could feel his face beginning to mirror Joey's as the music flowed through both of them.

*

Tom let them back into the venue to enjoy the night after they'd picked up their instruments and shoved them into the van, "But only for an hour because I'm tired and want to call my wife, so none of you go anywhere."

Uri took that as a challenge and disappeared somewhere almost immediately.

"I'll stick with you, instead," Wesley said to Zepp.

"Great. We can watch Joe sucker someone into paying for his drinks," Zepp said.

Wesley looked for Joey, to see him laughing in an over-the-top way with a middle aged couple who seemed to be pouring him wine.

"At least he's 18, now," Wesley said.

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose. "Great. I'll just email that blogger while you all make stupid decisions about alcohol."

"Oh, no, I don't drink," Wesley said. "Zepp won't, either."

But emailing people was a good idea, so Wesley waved his phone about until he got a wifi signal and could send messages to Dana and his mum.

When Uri finally walked up from a dark corridor Wesley hadn't noticed earlier, talking to some Swedish girl about Chicago hardcore, Tom declared that he'd had enough and dragged them all away, grabbing Joey by the shoulders and pushing him to the door even as he protested that Peter and Ingeborg wanted to talk to him about their art collection.

*

In bed he curled up into himself, trying not to think too much of the moment he and Joey finally nailed the harmony and made all the vibes flow right.

"Did you know otters hold hands while they sleep so they won't drift away from each other?" Uri said.

Wesley was too pumped to sleep, also, but he hadn't imagined the conversation would turn to otters, of all things. Music legends and that cool moment where the crowd got behind them and the guy in the audience who yelled 'yeah' a lot, sure, but not otters. "What? Otters in the sea? They do that?"

Uri hummed. "I saw a picture. Do you ever imagine how different humans would be if they had to hold hands while they slept?"

"Dude, how much did you drink?"

Uri laughed the way little kids do when they think they're being sneaky. "Not that much."

"Do you want me to hold your hand so you don't drift away? You're not actually in the ocean, bro. They're called blankets," Wesley said.

Uri laughed some more. "Sure, hold my hand."

It couldn't harm anything to do it. So Wesley muddled about until he could grasp Uri's hand, somewhere between their two sets of blankets. "Never telling anyone about this."
Chapter 08

The room was lit up with candles. Uri had his phone propped up on the table.

He looked over his shoulder, probably at the sound of Wesley's stomping feet. "It's my anniversary," he said.

"Is it Wesley you're talking to?" It was Miriam on speaker phone. Cute set up.

"Yeah, he's come to observe," Uri said.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude," Wesley said.

Uri finished lighting the candles and put his box of long-stem matches down. "You can join in, if you want? What do you think, Miriam? Should he dance with me because you can't?"

"Yeah?" Wesley asked.

Uri nodded. Wesley stepped into the room.

"What's he doing?" said Miriam's voice. "Is he going to dance with you, for me?"

"Sure," Uri said.

He held out his arms. Wesley put a hand on Uri's shoulder and the other in his outstretched palm. They stepped together, back and forth.

"You know, Zepp actually had ballroom dancing lessons when he was young," Wesley said.

"I don't really care about your friend's ballroom dancing lessons," Miriam said, through the speaker.

"He could give us tips," Wesley said.

"I would never take his advice," Uri said.

"Happy anniversary, by the way," Wesley said.

"Thank you," Uri said. He blushed and ducked his head. They turned, slowly, around the small space.

And Miriam said, "That's very kind of you, Wesley."

Tom came barging in ten minutes later, halfway through a sentence. They stopped and looked at him, and he stopped and looked at them.

"Still not the most weirdly homoerotic band I've ever managed," Tom said. Turned around and walked straight out again.

*

They packed up and drove through the night, squashed in together. Wesley fell asleep to the sight of endless roads under headlights.

Wesley woke from a dream. He blinked into the waking world, gloomy above his head. He was in the van. Joey was sitting in front of him, typing something on his phone. Wesley pulled himself up and away from Uri's shoulder and stretched a little.

"Are you going to take a picture of me?" Wesley asked.

"Already did," Joey said, tapping away. "The people of twitter like it very much. You two are, and I quote, 'oh my god, so cute'."

"What?"

Joey turned his phone around to show the picture: Wesley and Uri sleeping curled together, soft in the dark space of the back seat.

"I like how your head is piled on top of his head," Joey said.

"Why did you post that on the internet?" Wesley asked.

"It's an important part of our social media strategy, remember. The ladies love it when men have close friendships and hug and stuff, and then the ladies spend money."

*

He found him later, after they'd arrived at Joey's aunt's house in Paris, looking less smug.

Joey was curled over in the corner, face like a damp cloud. He wiped at his face with a curled up hand and tried to turn away from Wesley's view. Avoiding attention – that wasn't like him.

"What's wrong?" Wesley asked.

"I don't want to tell you. You'll make fun of me for acting like a baby."

"Hey, no I won't!"

"Really?" Joey looked up, big eyes still wet but already looking less rainy. He did look a bit babyish, Wesley had to admit, but he wasn't going to say that to Joey's face.

Wesley put a hand on Joey's shoulder and sat down beside him, letting Joey turn to face him in his own time.

"I miss my mommy," Joey finally said, face all wobbly. "Even though I'm 18 now and need to grow up already."

"If that makes you a baby, then me too, because I also miss my mum. All the time. It's my first proper time away from home, too." He'd thought he'd be more happier of the freedom but there was as much of that weird crushing feeling as there was at home, that discomfort in his chest that never really went away.

Joey started to smile, just a bit.

"Come on, little buddy" Wesley said. "My mum says there's nothing a warm cup of tea and a good hug can't fix. And then after that you can call your mum."

"Okay," Joey said, surprisingly pliant.

*

Morning light. Uri was standing by the window, smoking. The dark smoke curled around him and then drifted away into the breeze, carried off to some far away place.

"Hey there," Wesley said.

"Morning," Uri said, blowing out again. Smoke curled away like a cat's tail. He turned to look at Wesley and pinned him with those dark eyes.

"You always look cool when you do that," Wesley said.

Uri grinned. "I'm pretty sure you're the only person who thinks that."

Wesley fumbled with the cigarette in his fingers. "I'm dying for a smoke. Do you have a light?"

"Put it in your mouth," Uri said.

He did. Uri cupped the back of his neck and leaned forward until the burning edge of his cigarette touched Wesley's clean, fresh one. Wesley breathed in. It lit. Uri took his hands away and moved back, his eyebrows arched like he was amused at something.

"There," Uri said.

And then he kissed Wesley on the cheek, lips soft like a rain drop, before he walked away. Very dramatic.

*

They had to adventure through the city because Uri had never been to Paris before and had to test out his language skills on the locals.

Wesley didn't mean to dawdle behind the rest of the group but he couldn't help it when the shoes caught his eye. They weren't fancy or anything, just nice lace up shoes with a punctured dot pattern, the leather polished and shiny. He knew there was no way he could afford them. He couldn't even wear them anywhere. But they were beautiful.

"Oh, nice, Louboutins," Joey said from behind him.

Wesley startled. He hadn't expected anyone to notice him staring at a shop window like an idiot.

"You've got good taste. I like the broguing, too," Joey said. He was moving around, peering into the shop window, too, probably imagining all the shoes he could throw on his mum's credit card if he wanted.

"Oh, no, I wasn't really looking at that. I'm not really a shoe person," Wesley protested.

"You don't have to be embarrassed, just because you care about personal style," Joey said. He slammed a hand on Wesley's shoulder. "Is it the money thing? We'll work really hard until you have the money to afford them."

"I can't even afford cheap knock offs," Wesley said.

"Then we'll work really hard until we can afford you some cheap knock offs. Dream big, Wesley."
Chapter 09

"Where's Joey?" Wesley asked. It was about six in the morning and Tom was looking almost too fatigued to drive.

"Uh, last I checked he was getting a hand job from some girl in the car park," Zepp said.

Wesley did not want to be the person to interrupt that.

*

One of the strangest and most consistent parts of the early touring was teaching Joey how to be a real person.

"Is this what being poor is like?" Joey asked as he sorted his dirty washing into two piles.

Wesley had trouble believing that had even come out of his mouth.

Zepp, on the other hand, seemed like he was expecting it. "Yes, it is, and it's character building, so get stuck into washing your own clothes and stop whining about it," Zepp said.

"But I have enough character already," Joey complained.

"We're trying to build you a better character," Wesley said. Joey glared at him but, okay, he was kind of funny. Teasing him was turning out to be one of the best parts of the band.

*

Uri, on the other hand, was smoking all the time, even more than he did before. Wesley started to find it a little alarming, honestly.

"What's with the chain smoking, bro?"

"It's easy to get people to give them to me," Uri answered, which wasn't really an answer.

Wesley elbowed him.

"Eating according to, uh, staying kosher on five dollars a day is pretty much impossible so, um, I'm just going to smoke all day so I don't have to eat," Uri said.

"Oh, bro, you should have said something earlier. We decided on a per diem because we didn't really think about it much and you didn't speak up when we voted but we can pool our weekly food budget. It can just be $140 a week for all of us, and that's American money, so we can just buy food to cook. We keep staying in people's houses and hostels and stuff so we can make salads."

Uri bit his lip and looked away, but he looked back with something like a smile. "That was a stupid decision we made. You're right. We should pool our money for steamed vegetables."

"I bet there's no rule against putting frozen vegetables into a microwave. And we'll stop Zepp from getting scurvy from all the toast he's eating. I know you can cook."

"Okay. If I have to be the housewife."

"Better than you wasting away."

*

It wasn't all wacky fun times with his boys, though. Being away from home had its cost. Wesley wiped his face as he got off the phone with Dana. The guys were expecting him back and he didn't want to be that self pitying dickhead while he was working, but he knew he was going to be, knew he couldn't help it.

He sucked it up and walked back. Straight away Uri put a hand to Wesley's face and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Dana broke up with me," Wesley said. "Something about how we were more like pen pals than lovers now, like we couldn't just keep trying to email until we saw each other."

He'd be lying if he said he hadn't seen it coming but he still wanted to wallow in it, a little. Just a little.

"That's sad," Joey said. "I saw your pictures. She was hot."

"Shut up," Uri said. He threw an arm around Wesley's shoulders and brought him in close. "It's going to be okay. We'll take care of you."

"Okay."

*

He was as good as his word. He distracted Wesley with so many things. He talked to Wesley instead of Joey after every performance, he sat by Wesley's side in the car and he took Wesley with him wherever he wandered.

They wandered into a tattoo parlour where Uri revealed he'd borrowed Joey's credit card.

"I thought we should get something that matches," he said.

"Like one of those jagged heart best friend necklaces," Wesley said, and almost let his energy bubble out in a laugh.

"Yeah," Uri said, smiling and bright, " but a bit more permanent."

Then Wesley did laugh, because he couldn't help it.

"Flowers and fairies?"

"That's more the sort of weird choice Joey would make," Uri said. "Come on, haven't you thought about it? It would look cool, just the two of us. And we can get them where nobody can see so it's like a secret."

"You've already talked me into it," Wesley said.

Uri decided he was going to get a tiny little keyboard and musical notes somewhere on his lower back, so Wesley settled on a set of drums to match. It felt a little like being burned from the inside out, but when he pressed his fingers to the plastic wrap on Uri's back and watched him hiss at it, at the thing that joined them together, he couldn't find it in him to regret it at all.

They got back to where they were staying, keeping their laughter low. He wanted to change something else about himself, while the feeling was still buzzing under his skin that he could be someone new. He found an electric shaver, sat on the tiles, entrusted it to Uri's hands. When it was done, when they gathered the hair and tossed it in the bin, and swept it from all the tiles with a little brush, and put away the shaver, and stopped wanting to laugh, he looked in the mirror. Looked at his self, his almost new self. Without the hair he looked older, like finally 19 even as he was almost ready to say goodbye to that age. Like a man. Like they'd shaved off a bit of his remaining childhood and he didn't have to be the old Wesley any more.

*

"Tell me about your book, bro," Wesley said. He shoved Uri a little to the side with his shoulder as he forced his way onto the seat.

"Less Than Zero? Um, it's about, well, you know what an unreliable narrator is, right?"

"It's when a narrator doesn't make his bill payments on time."

"Funny guy. No, it's when a book is in first person and the narrative voice might be lying to you or gets things wrong or is crazy or something like that. So you can't really trust them."

"So you don't think you can trust this narrator guy."

"He's full of crap."

"Does it have to be first person? That's the one where the writer says 'I' a lot, isn't it?"

"Didn't you do this in school?" Uri asked. Wesley sent him a look that said, 'humour me and refresh my memory'. "Yes, it's like if I wrote a book where I pretended I was the character."

"Could it be like a TV show? Because there's that sitcom Joey watches."

"You mean, How I Met Your Mother?" Uri asked. "Oh, yeah. You definitely can't trust that narrator."

"So, you like that sort of thing?"

Uri shrugged. "This book is okay because everything that happens in it is so awful it makes me feel better about my own life. At least I didn't make choices this bad."

"That's the same way I feel when I look at Joey's tattoos. You should teach this stuff," Wesley said.

"Wouldn't that get in the way of my busy schedule of drumming and keeping you together?"

Wesley just smiled. He leaned in so he could let Uri rub a hand over his newly shorn head, over the short, sharp hairs that were already spiking up.

*

Wesley kept meaning to email his parents or his sisters, but he took advantage of having Uri with him all the time, instead, constantly staying up until the early hours with him and talking about nothing.

"Four am, almost no money, and we just played to a nearly empty crowd. Do you ever feel like you turn into a different person when it's nearly dawn?" Uri said.

"Not really, bro. I'm always me."

"It's like these hours change something in me." Uri looked out through the window at the light turning grey.

Wesley watched Uri and tried to figure anything about him out.

"Sometimes I wish I could obliterate myself," Uri said.

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," Wesley said. "It's not right."

Uri laughed. "I'm not going to jump off a bridge or anything like that. I was just making conversation."

Wesley wished he'd make a different conversation.

"We'll play again tomorrow. It will be better," Wesley said.

"You're right. We should be asleep." He stubbed his cigarette out and turned the sheets over.

*

And it was better. The other band on the tour had gone home because both their guitarists got really bad gastro, but that just gave them more time to play around with their act and refine their sound.

They looked at the crowd, who were vibrating at a frequency Wesley wanted to capture in a song.

"Look how pumped they are. I know it's for Revolutionary Cheerleaders but we can use that. Can we stage dive?" Joey asked.

"We are not insured for that so if you stage dive you're on your own," Wesley said.

But Joey knew how to capture that energy and use it for himself. The crowd didn't know them well enough to sing along but they clapped along, once they found the beat. When The Rhinoceros Conspiracy went off stage and Revolutionary Cheerleaders went on, they all merged into the crowd and watched the band with the rest of the audience. It was a great night. Kayla – the lead singer of that band – sang like a demon, the drummer played like she was possessed, and the bassist and guitarists seemed to be having the most fun that people could have. It wasn't Wesley's kind of music, but for that moment, he got it. That could be the magic of music and the night, and as it flowed through him, he felt a moment of peace and the sadness of knowing it wouldn't last.

*

After, the hostel they were staying in erupted into a party. Who wouldn't want to celebrate? And after all, Joey was 18 by this point and always happy to get away with being drunk in a part of the world where it was legal for him to do so.

Wesley clung to Uri's hand at first, even though Uri told him, "Don't be weird."

"I'm not being weird." He just didn't want to be alone.

But Wesley soon lost Uri in the crowd. Zepp and Joey, too, but that wasn't so pressing a thing.

The party was in full swing, taking up the entire kitchen of the shabby hostel. Wesley felt a little weird about it. Okay, a lot weird about it. He should have been giddy. Entire people turned up to the show and clapped them! What an absolute delight. He wasn't booed off stage. Nobody threw anything sharp or heavy at his face. An absolute triumph! But here he was, standing awkwardly in the middle of a crowd, while everyone else had fun around him.

He couldn't see Uri anywhere. Uri should have been there right next to him, keeping him company, keeping him from feeling so alone and stupid. If he could just find Uri then things would be fine. They would laugh together and talk about how great it was that their band, the thing they'd talked about and fantasised about for years, was now a real thing. They could talk about how strange it was to be travelling all around the world with a bunch of people they barely knew and how touring wasn't anything like what they thought it was going to be like. They could talk about how great it was to get to make music with their friends, even if almost nobody was listening to it yet and he was pretty sure they were losing money like they had money to lose. Or maybe Uri wouldn't want to say those things. Maybe Uri really was cooler than him now. Maybe Uri knew it was going to be exactly like this. But Wesley couldn't know because Uri had been subsumed into the crowd and couldn't be found anywhere.

"What are you doing?" came a voice to the left of him and Wesley blinked, startled. He felt stiff and stupid as he looked at Kayla, who was all fishnets and grime.

"Don't be such a square," she said. "It's a party. Have a drink like a normal person."

He didn't feel like a normal person.

She slammed a glass on the table and filled it with something about as murky and dark as the inside of the club had been. It slopped all over her fingers as she poured. There was nothing graceful or practised about Kayla; her every move was angry and confrontational, a message saying she was cooler than whoever was looking and didn't give a toss if you had a problem.

Wesley surveyed the room again, looking for Uri. Surely Uri could have defended him against Kayla. Uri would have told her to get lost, to stop pressuring Wesley, to– what exactly? Maybe he wouldn't have. Maybe Uri thought he was a loser, too. Uri who was here but not here. Uri whose eyes were as dark and murky as that club and this drink and everything in Wesley's head, who could have been judging Wesley all along, because who wouldn't be, why wouldn't he?

Wesley stood and stared at the glass, slick and wet and disgusting.

"Just have a drink," Kayla said.

Or maybe this is where the story really started: he took the drink.

*

The next morning he was fine. For the first time, he wondered why he'd ever been afraid of drinking. Probably all those stories Zepp had told him about having an alcoholic dad, he reasoned, but there was no way he'd be like that. He'd had a drink or two before Tom had come along and forced him to have a glass of water, there'd been no big drama, and everything had been okay. Kind of fun. His head didn't hurt and he definitely wasn't feeling like any of the people in the anti-drinking ads.

He smiled and whistled a tune as he helped to clean up the hostel kitchen.

It was a bit of a mess. The lady who stood at the front desk looked kind of miserable where she was standing, arms crossed in front of herself, so Wesley smiled even harder as he put bottles in the bins and wiped down the counters. She didn't change her expression. Maybe that was just her face. Wesley knew he shouldn't judge people for not looking happy all the time.

Zepp ran, laughing, into the front area of the hostel.

"Oh, hey, whoa, are you actually cleaning, Wes?" Zepp asked. He was doing the waving arms again and he left his mouth hanging open like he'd forgotten how to close it.

"Someone has to do it and I'm feeling in a good mood, bro."

"This is the most amazing development. If you're going to be doing this all the time we can be buddies in weird cleaning."

"That sounds great, Zepp. Let's be weird cleaning buddies."

*

Uri, when he appeared, had tiny bruises under the collar of his shirt and bags under his eyes. He didn't say anything, but Wesley didn't ask. He should have. Miriam would have wanted him to.

*

Finally, they moved out. Out of this stop and back onto the road, the new home that Wesley was slowly growing used to.

"What's your number?" Joey asked, fiddling with the radio. Tom slapped at his hand and Joe took it away immediately but he was still looking like he wanted to change the station.

"My what now? You already have my phone number."

"Your number. Sex number. I've been with 12 girls," Joey said. He obviously expected them to be impressed.

"Um, this is not really–" Wesley let himself trail off. He remembered all the girls in high school who'd burst out laughing when he'd asked them out.

"Zepp?" Joey asked, turning to look at the back seat, finally.

"I genuinely could not be less interested in this conversation right now," Zepp said.

"Uri?" Joey asked.

Uri sighed and looked away. As well he should. A conversation like this could only be disrespectful to Miriam.

"Tom?" Joey asked.

Tom smoothly turned the car on to the street. "Shut up. Nobody's impressed you got your dick wet. Wait to boast until you can last longer than thirty seconds."

Zepp and Wesley cracked up laughing, even as Joey frantically defended his prowess.

Uri took the opportunity to lean closer to Wesley and whisper in his ear. "It was a mistake."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Wesley whispered back.

In the front seat Joey was saying something elaborate and ridiculous about his high school girlfriend and her best friend.

"I know you noticed the bruises," Uri said in his muted voice. "Don't tell Miriam."

Wesley didn't want to be in the middle of this. "I don't even know what I would tell her. I don't know what you did there. How many times have you made this mistake so far?"

Uri looked out the window and then back at him. Joey was still telling his ridiculous story even as Zepp tried to argue with him. Tom turned the volume on the radio up.

"I don't know why I do these things," Uri said.

"If you knew, do you think you'd stop?"

Joey turned over his seat and stuck his head part of the way into the back space of the car. "What are you talking about?"

"Insurance," Uri said, scowling with what looked a lot like momentary disdain. "We're talking about how much we love insurance. Banking products. Interest rates."

"Okay, be boring then," Joey said, louder than the radio, and turned back to face the road.

*

But he made the same mistake at the next stop, too. Uri was smoking as he looked at a woman in the back of the bar, having emerged from some kind of darkness. Wesley could see it in the way the woman Uri was talking to was buttoning up her top and straightening out her skirt, and the way she touched his face.

Wesley approached, unsure of himself. He knew Uri could see him. Uri let the woman walk away without looking at her. He was only looking at Wesley.

"Aren't you going to ask?"

"It's pretty obvious what you were doing. I just don't understand why. Why did you marry Miriam if you weren't going to act like you're married to her?"

"You don't understand."

"Then make me understand," Wesley said. He just wanted it to make sense.

"Maybe I don't want you to understand."

"Then don't tell me about these things. Don't rub them in my face."

"You're not my wife, Wesley. You're not Miriam so you don't get to say anything about this."

Wesley walked away and left him to it.

*

"Good news, everyone," Tom said in the car, his eyes alight with some manic fire. "I've hired a driver slash booking agent, so I don't have to do all this shit by myself any more." And then he laughed longer than was quite comfortable to hear.
Chapter 10

Andrew was an utter dickhead. He could drive a car, that was fine, but he didn't like 'Those People', and there were many lots of Those People for him to dislike. Wesley didn't want to hear it.

*

Wesley shuffled Zepp over to Tom, who was sitting in the front of the van drinking coffee from a gigantic flask. He had his sunglasses on already and his phone out in his other hand. He looked at his phone a little as he scrolled with his thumb, looked up at the grey sky, and then looked at his phone again; repeated several times.

Finally Wesley pushed Zepp until they were right up by the van and Tom turned to look at them, eyes mysterious through the dark glasses.

"Come on then, tell him what you told me," Wesley said. He poked Zepp in the back to encourage him to speak. "Don't be shy."

"Is this important?" Tom asked.

"Uhhh..." Zepp said.

Wesley looked over his shoulders to see that Zepp was wringing his hands again, probably not even noticing it. He tried to step back but Wesley's body was in the way. Wesley grabbed him by the shoulders and reoriented him, pointing him to face Tom again.

"Yes, it is," Wesley said.

"All right then," Tom said. He put his phone down on his lap and jammed his sunglasses on top of his head. First thing in the morning like this, his eyes were faintly bloodshot and still dusted with a little of the previous night's eye-liner. His under eye bags were impressive.

"I don't want to make a fuss," Zepp said.

"You can whisper it in his ear if you don't want to say it out loud again. Can't he, Tom?" Wesley said.

"Sure, okay," Tom said.

Zepp had to be prodded again to get him to lean over and say what needed to be said. Wesley couldn't hear his whispers but he could see from Tom's face he was listening carefully. Zepp soon stood up again.

"Did he?" Tom said, to whatever Zepp had whispered. "I see. I'll take care of it."

Tom pulled his sunnies back down over his eyes and went back to staring out the front car window.

"Thanks for this, Tom. We really appreciate you taking this matter seriously," Wesley said. He dropped a firm hand on Zepp's shoulder, to steer him away and let Tom get on with his business things.

*

"Okay, I don't want to make a big thing about it, but I've got you an interview with someone from Soap Planet," Tom said.

"Soap planet?" Wesley asked. "Do they dedicate an entire magazine to soap? For cleaning?"

"No, it's about TV," Joey said. "My mum's been on the cover many times. It's really great."

"Oh, soap opera. Okay, that doesn't really explain why they want to interview us, a band," Wesley said.

Tom dragged a hand over his face. "Just go with it. Middle aged housewives can buy concert tickets, too."

*

"What are your favourite holiday destinations?" the interviewer read out from a note card.

What a silly question. Wesley squinted at the guy, but he seemed serious about asking them that. They were a band. Did anyone really care about their favourite holiday destination?

"I love Palm Springs," Joey said.

"Me, too," Zepp said. "Not that I've been there. I love it in pictures."

"What does that mean?" Joey asked.

"He likes the interior design," Wesley explained.

Joey scrunched his face up even more and looked more confused than ever. "How can you like interior design when you're always watching sport and eating meat? I didn't expect this."

"I can like sport and nice chairs," Zepp said.

"And you?" the man said. It took Wesley a moment to realise he was the one being spoken to. His mind was a million miles away, still on that morning's run and how badly he'd thrown up at the end. He was still a little dizzy.

"Well, I like everywhere we've been so far. I've never seen so many new places in my life. We didn't get a whole lot of holidays when I was kid so going anywhere new still seems a bit special, and I guess I like how people are so different everywhere, but still so much the same."

The man blinked a lot, then said, "Okay, Joey Smith, we'll go back to you."

Wesley was so hungry he couldn't spare the energy to be annoyed at being snubbed.

*

When they got outside Tom was alone.

"What happened to Andrew?" Joey asked. "I was going to ask him something."

"Family emergency," Tom said. He crossed his arms, definitively. "I'll find someone else."

*

"Joey can you help me with something?" Wesley asked.

Joey pointed at himself. "Really? Me? Are you sure you meant to ask me?"

"Of course I mean you. I'm having problems with some lyrics and you know so much about poetry."

Joey grinned. "Yes, you've come to the right person. I know so many things."

Wesley handed him some notes, collected on beer napkins and the backs of bottle-shape-stained receipts.

Joey mumbled a bit as he read:

I am caught in the web of your cigarette smoke  
I can't breathe the air you breathe  
You're the beat underneath my skin  
and my heart doesn't like your violent rhythm  
I can't soothe the wild thing that beats in your chest  
I can't even touch its wings

Wesley felt embarrassed as soon as he heard them out loud. They'd seemed a lot better in his head. He didn't know why he couldn't figure out how to make them rhyme, how he couldn't squash them all down until they fit a simple beat, why he felt so large with stupidity and couldn't just let them go.

"Wow, these are really intense," Joey said. "Bad break up?"

Wesley shook his head. He wasn't sure if he should say – there was every chance Joey would take what he said the wrong way and he didn't want to have to explain. Talking about these things always sounded not quite right. Still, he took the chance. "No, they're actually about Uri, but only a little bit. Well, they're more inspired by him. I mean, that I got ideas."

"Woah, really?"

"Yes, but don't tell him. He doesn't like people writing songs about him. He thinks they're all about Dana." But Dana didn't smoke. "It's all a bit dramatic, I know, but I just thought, imagine if things were a bit more, uh, you know?"

"Not really. What ever happened to Dana, anyway?"

"We just drifted apart. There wasn't anything big. And I still think she's nice. We're friends on Facebook."

"How do you stay friends with exes?" Joey asked, scrunching up his face. "I don't get it."

Wesley shrugged. He didn't see how it was a big deal. "It's not that hard. This is about Dana, though."

Wesley showed him a scribbled on scrap of paper with /I'm sad it ends, but I'm glad we're friends/ written on it.

"I thought that was about Uri," Joey said.

"Why would that be about him?" Wesley asked, confused. "Nothing is ending there. He's still my best friend. Forever."

"Okay, don't yell my head off about it."

*

Wesley liked that he and Joey were getting along pretty well, but it did mean having to talk to him about everything random thing that came into Joey's brain all the time. Like the time when he'd told Wesley he'd decided to replace all his jeans with skinny jeans, like it was some important declaration. It was almost like he'd been given the brother he'd never had and never actually wanted.

"I've been talking to someone from home," Joey began to say.

Oh here we go, Wesley thought: more nonsense from his California friends.

"...and they were saying that physical attraction and romantic attraction could be different things. So you can be physically drawn to someone but not emotionally."

Wesley nodded. "Makes sense. You've got that down. One day you'll learn how to have feelings like a real boy."

"But do you think it goes the other way? Like, do you think you can be romantically drawn to someone you don't want to be physical with?"

Wesley looked over at Uri who was pacing up and down with his phone pressed to his ear, looking as solemn and contemplative as he could get. And Wesley wished he were talking to Uri instead of stuck in this weird conversation.

"That doesn't really make sense," Wesley said.

"But if you really like someone and think about them all the time but don't want to get sexy with them--?"

"That's just a friendship. Don't be weird about it."

He drank the gross beer he'd bought and waited for Uri to come back to their table.

*

They wound their way back to England. Very soon, Wesley knew, he and Zepp would go to their separate homes. Uri had a place on Wesley's couch until he could fly home and Joey was going to bother Zepp and his mum. So Wesley took a chance to chill with Zepp while he had the time, especially because he had to say something he knew Zepp would appreciate.

"I was reading this book about this famous band and there's this bit where the guy mentions that he and this other guy were taking turns boning this one girl," Wesley said.

"Okay," Zepp said. He sounded sceptical about where the story was going, which Wesley found himself a little annoyed by, but he had a point to make and he was going to make it.

"And one of them was finishing up and he pulled out and sprayed everywhere, accidentally getting his spermies all over the other guy. And I think that's gross. I just want to say that I'm glad we're not that kind of band. I don't want a dude to get his stuff on me. Not that there's anything wrong with people who choose to do that in a consensual sort of situation, bro, but it sounds kind of gross."

"I don't know, I feel like I can imagine Joe or Uri in that kind of situation. They're both really slutty and kind of a mess. I bet Joe accidentally spurts on people all the time." Zepp had a really considering face on, like he was thinking deeply about the idea, the way a professor thinks really deeply about ideas.

Wesley had to admit it made sense. "They're not very neat people. But you and I are not like that."

"I did once have a boyfriend who liked me to come on his face. Does that count?" Zepp asked.

"I think it's different when you're doing it on purpose because someone asked you to, than if it happens by accident. If you choose it, then it's probably sexy. But I'd rather not."

"I don't think you're in danger of men accidentally ejaculating on you. Really, buddy, I think you're safe."

Wesley smiled. "That makes me happy."
Chapter 11

"Why are so many women always at our shows?" Uri asked. He didn't sound happy about it and Wesley couldn't figure out why. Uri took advantage of women that liked his drumming all the time.

"They must have excellent taste," Joey said, dismissing the conversation entirely.

"I started this band so I could play for real music fans, not a bunch of little girls," Uri said.

"I don't think that's quite right, bro," Wesley said. It was bothering him and he couldn't articulate why.

"I want to be like Nirvana, not Hanson," Uri said.

"Who are Hanson?" Zepp whispered.

Tom tried to smack Uri on the head, but Uri moved away. Wesley couldn't even figure out how he saw it coming.

"Plenty of women listened to Nirvana," Tom said. "I should know. I was actually alive then. And a woman's money is just as good as a man's money. Do you want an audience of middle aged music critics droning on about obscure indie bands, or do you want an enthusiastic audience of people who get really excited about your music and spend lots of money?"

"I'll take the second one, Tom," Wesley said. Maybe he just didn't get Uri's obsession with musical authenticity. It didn't matter what anyone else said. They were as real or unreal as the next band. Wesley just wanted people to like them.

*

Uri and Joey were playing around in the cramped space that passed for a dressing room. They'd somehow found a wig and plopped it on Uri's head and he was pretending to be a girl in awe of Joey's singing.

"Oh, I love that thing you do when you step up to the microphone," Uri said. He pretended like he was about to swoon and Joey had to catch him. "What's it called?"

"Singing," Joey said.

Zepp was about to fall over laughing. Wesley didn't think it was so funny.

"Oh, Mr Smith, you're so cool," Uri said. He flicked his extraordinarily long eyelashes a whole lot and pretended he needed to clutch at Joey's shirt.

Joey put an arm around him, said, "Tell me more about how cool I am."

(Years later, they would do this again without the wig. Joey and Uri making each other laugh without thinking of anyone else in the room. Zepp ignoring them to look at his phone. Wesley sitting there feeling bloated and stupid, trying to think of nothing.)

Uri shoved Joey away and shoved off the wig. Joey stumbled to the mirror to look at himself again.

Uri sat next to Wesley and asked, "What do you think? Am I pretty?"

"You're a handsome man. What did you do to your eyes?"

"False eyelashes, bro. I had to glue them to my face and now I look like some kind of cartoon. Amazing."

Wesley couldn't figure out why he was uncomfortable. "Your normal eyelashes are long enough."

Uri leaned over and breathed into Wesley's ear. "Don't be jealous. I may flirt but I'm always your girl."

Wesley laughed and shoved him away, like he knew he was supposed to. But he looked over at Joey who was, by this point, buttoning and unbuttoning his shirt in front of the mirror, and biting his lip like he was unsure of himself. Jealousy? That wasn't it.

*

He asked Zepp about it later, trying to make sense of it.

"You do get jealous. Maybe not now, but you used to when he paid more attention to his other friends," Zepp said. "Like the way you got when Joe joined the band."

"Okay. Yes. I did think 'why is he your new favourite friend? Why not me?' But then Joey was weird and useless and needed someone to take care of him. And I realised Uri just liked having someone look up to him."

"Joe is useless, isn't he?"

"He's like a baby animal trying to stand on its legs for the first time."

"I'm definitely going to tell him that," Zepp said, getting out his phone.

"I wish you wouldn't. I'm not trying to be mean. He just needs help a bit more than the rest of us, is all. And another thing – I like looking out for him."

"Too late. I already texted it to him."

Wesley tried to wrestle Zepp's phone away from him before he could put it away.

"Stop it!" Zepp yelled. "I can't afford a replacement if you drop it!"

He nearly did drop it. Zepp was wriggly like a fish but Wesley outweighed him by a lot and so the phone slipped out of Zepp's fingers and almost through Wesley's. He fumbled it with one hand, but managed to catch it with the other.

"Oh, you've locked it. What's your password, bro?"

"I'm not telling you," Zepp said. "Just give it back. I can't un-text him."

"Hey!" Wesley heard Joey yell from another room.

*

They'd managed to make their way back to England and so half of Zepp's family was turning up to see them. Far from what he'd been expecting, Zepp's dad was a quiet, shy-looking man. He smiled gently as Wesley clasped his hand for a shake and said he was very proud. Not the ogre Wesley had imagined at all.

"Yeah, he's good at fooling people into thinking he's just a regular cool dude, my old man," Zepp said, later. "It's because he doesn't start drinking until 11:30. Did he really say he was proud of me?"

"Yeah, of course he did."

Zepp looked out at the stage and breathed out, heavy. "I wish he'd say things like that to me."

*

He could hear Zepp murmuring, "Don't fuck up," over and over, before they began to play. Wesley could feel them gelling together more and more every time they played, until eventually they'd morph into a horrifying blob of excellent musical talent. Okay, maybe not that. He was definitely feeling the vibes flowing well with him and Joey, though. They were harmonising and sounding good without sounding like they were trying to out-sing each other. Zepp also seemed to have gotten the point of paying attention to the drum beat instead of getting too into his head on stage. It wasn't perfect, but it was a vast improvement.

After their brief songs, they thanked the crowd and took everything but the drum kit off stage because the next act was going to use it, too.

Wesley was pretty sure Zepp was dashing off to talk to his family before they went home, so he turned to Joey for a bit of a chat about how they were going.

"Not bad tonight, I think," Wesley said.

"We could do better," Joey said.

"We will. But we've improved. I think it's important to pay attention to stuff like that."

"I mean, I was awesome. I don't know about you."

Wesley laughed. "We have to be fair, Uri is both better looking and more talented than either of us."

"That is not true! The audience loved me the most! And look at my cheekbones." Joey turned his head in what looked like an attempt to catch the light in a more flattering way.

"Yes, you definitely have bones in your face. We're all really impressed by that."

Uri had, by that point, wandered into the hallway in an attempt to catch the wifi signal to send something to Miriam. He looked at peace with being alone in a strangely dark hallway, so Wesley figured he'd leave Uri alone and Uri would wander back to them when he was ready.

"Come on," he said, grabbing Joey by the elbow. "Let's settle in to watch the other terrible bands they lined up."

*

Later he got bored of the truly atrocious hip hop act on stage and decided to see if he could find where Zepp had gotten off to. He looked around the bar and then outside.

He saw them at the edge of the car park, definitely something happening, the tense line of Zepp's body and his father curling over, Zepp's sister leaning angrily against the wall. He got closer. Wesley wouldn't have called it a scuffle, exactly. Not even a real altercation.

"Aren't you embarrassed?" Malcolm said. Wesley could see Zepp leaning back to avoid being in the range of the spit flying out whenever Malcolm opened his mouth.

"Of course not. I'm excellent," Zepp said.

"You're not excellent. You need to realise what you're doing isn't good enough before you ruin your life. You're embarrassing yourself up there," Malcolm said.

"Right, I can't even joke about having self esteem with you." Zepp blew out a long breath and threw his hands up. "Sunny, you can deal with this. I don't want to have to."

She jingled her keys. "Okay, dad, time to go home." And then she argued her father into accepting a lift, while Wesley followed Zepp back into the venue.

"You're a vicious little arsehole," Malcolm yelled, to their retreating backs.

(And he remembered it, later, like two sides of a coin.

"I'm really proud of him going for his dreams like that." Malcolm smiling, as much as his face would let him. He was like a sad old dog. Everything about him was a murky grey but for the red of his face.

And then like an angry dog, as he tried to spit on Zepp's dreams. Looping round, in his memory. How a person could be two things.)

*

"Guess my number now," Joey said as he got into the car. "15. That many girls have taken a piece of me. It's so nice to be used."

"107," Uri said.

"What?"

"107. That's my number. Beat that." Uri looked smug, with his wide smile and his narrowed eyes.

Wesley looked away.
Chapter 12

2013

"I met this girl," Wesley said.

"Great. Tell us all about it," Uri said, looking at his boots as he cleaned them.

"Yes, tell us! I love hearing about this stuff," Joey said. He looked very excited. Wesley should have known he would be.

"She has this amazing long hair. And really beautiful eyes," Wesley said.

"Do these eyes have a colour or is it enough for you that she has eyes?" Zepp asked. He looked amused, but he was paying attention.

"Oh, I'm sure Wesley wouldn't discriminate if the love of his life had no eyes. If it's fate, it's fate," Joey said.

"I'm sure," Zepp said.

Wesley knew if he didn't distract them soon enough they'd be poking at each other and then he wouldn't be able to tell them about Gloria.

"Her eyes are brown. And her hair is brown."

"And her skin is brown?" Uri asked, and he sounded jovial, but he was still looking at his boots.

"Yes, and her name is Gloria. Which is great because she's glorious. She's amazing. She was wearing a dress," Wesley said.

"Was the dress brown as well?" Zepp asked. "Because we seem to have a theme going here."

"No, I think it might have been yellow. Bright yellow like a sunflower. Or kind or orange maybe? It was dark in the bar. But she looked like a flower and when she walked it was like dancing and she is definitely interested," Wesley said.

He wanted to relive the details of their meeting as much as possible before they faded like a dream.

"Have you called her yet?" Joey asked.

"Do you think I should?" Wesley asked, in return.

"Buddy, if you think she's interested, you should definitely call her, before she meets someone else and forgets who you are," Zepp said.

"Oh, right you are," Wesley said.

Uri scoffed, but at least that meant he'd been paying attention.

It was probably a bad time for a phone call so Wesley decided to get his phone out and text her instead.

'Remember me?' he started with. And then 'Its wesley, we met a t the pub', when he realised how vague the first one was. And then 'I thought u looked prity in ur dress' just in case she met a lot of Wesleys at the pub on a regular basis.

Then he had to put his phone back away in his trouser pocket and sit on his hands so he didn't send another text. He didn't want to look too eager.

*

He didn't check his phone after the gig but she'd texted back by the next day. 'Yes, I remember'. He found himself thinking that her correct spelling and sentence structure was really cute, but the short message was disappointing. He frowned. Was that a sign she wasn't interested? Or did she just not know what to say? He didn't really know what to say either, but he didn't want to let any chance he had with her slip out of his fingers.

He paused to think, fingers waiting above his phone's screen. He needed to draw her into conversation but he didn't really know how to do that. He was much better in person, he thought. Then he could just look at her and figure out what to say next. In a text message, he had no clues. He could ask Joey for help because Joey was good at getting girls interested in him, but Joey was also an idiot who didn't know what to do with girls once they were interested, and Wesley didn't want to be doing anything Joey would do anyway. After all, it wouldn't be good for Gloria to be liking him for acting like someone he was not.

'U interested in meeting again while im in town' he typed and sent. He nodded. Straight to the point but not too mushy. Probably not too many spelling errors. There was no way she could be freaked out by that and if she wasn't interested she could just let him know straight away, instead of letting him hang there waiting too long.

His phone beeped with a new message. 'Sure. When and where?'

"Yes," he said, shaking a victorious fist in the air. "I'm in."

*

She was somehow even more beautiful the next time he saw her. Wow, she looked good in sunlight. He already couldn't believe a girl who looked like that wanted to hang out with him. What kind of luck! Already he loved the way her hair tumbled over her shoulders and the shy way she was biting her lip as she smiled.

"Hi," she said, as she looked up from her feet and then looked back down again.

"Hi," he said back.

It was cool in the park and a breeze blew around them, picking up the leaves and letting them dance through the air around them. The air smelled damp and soft. Gloria, though, she smelled bright and exciting, like flowers and fruits and fancy wines. He stepped closer to her, because he liked that, but he wasn't going to start smelling her or anything because that would be weird.

"So, uh," she said, and tucked a piece of hair behind her hair. "I don't think you said what you do? For a job. I got the idea it's something where you get to travel a lot. So you're probably not a student. Unless you are, in which case stop me rambling before I embarrass myself."

"I'm a musician. I'm in a band and we do travel a bit. We're just starting out but we're doing okay."

Her eyes got really big as she looked up at him. "In a band? I thought you might be a travelling salesman or something like that. You seemed like a really sensible person. But you're in a band. That must be really exciting."

He tilted his head and tried to look casual. "We're not the Rolling Stones or anything like that. It's not all wild parties and groupies. I wouldn't like that. I do like being sensible, you see, so I remind everyone to go to bed at a sensible hour and to budget appropriately."

She laughed. It was pretty cute. He was going to tell the boys about that – she even had a cute way of laughing, a little sound that came out muffled as she curled into her scarf.

"Do you play an instrument or do you sing?" she asked. She looked really interested. That was good. He very much wanted her to think he was interesting for as long as he could make himself seem that way.

"I do both. I play the piano. Well, mostly the keyboard, because you can't fit an entire piano on the plane. It's hard to put the seatbelt on them." He tried for a joke, but he wasn't sure it landed. She was smiling – good, but she was looking back and forth between him and the ground – not so good. Or maybe she was just trying to listen attentively and he was talking about himself too much. "I also fill in with other instruments sometimes, but I'm mostly a piano kind of man. But that's enough about me. What do you do with yourself?"

"Oh, I'm still at uni. I don't think my dad will be happy until I have a million degrees."

"Is he a strict kind of dad?"

"No. No way. He's a softie. He just wants me to be happy and successful, you know? But in his head that means all the education." She kicked at a pile of leaves and then looked up at him again. He smiled at her, at her big eyes, and that soft expression. He just wanted to hold her gaze, to hold her. Already she seemed so nice. He didn't want to lose his chance with her.

"I know what you mean," he said. "Not in the same way. But it's nice to realise that whatever they say, that's just what your parents want. You know what I mean?"

"Yes, I know what you mean."

They strolled slowly around the park, talking to each other. Just small things at first, the things they did with themselves, their favourite colours (she liked orange sometimes, and yellow others, and he was pretty sure he liked purple all the time), their favourite foods, their favourite times of day (she liked 10AM, because by then she'd had five cups of coffee and finally woken her brain up, and he liked whatever time of night he'd just come off stage and was still buzzing). It wasn't the kind of thing Joey would enjoy – he'd once suggested people should have their first date on a roller-coaster to see how they deal under pressure. And Uri would probably say it sounded kind of dull. But Wesley had enjoyed himself.

It was nice, and he hoped it was the start of something, even if he had no idea if she'd ever want to see him again.

She checked her phone and said, "I hate to say this, but I really should be going. My parents are expecting me back."

"Okay. That's cool. I mean, that I get what you mean."

"But I want you to know that I had a really nice time," she said. "I want to be clear that this isn't a brush off."

"I'd like to see you again," he said.

She smiled that secret smile of hers. "I'd like that, too."

"I will text you," he promised. "But you should go so you're not late."

"Yes, I should do that. And you should definitely text me. I'm really going now. Okay, goodbye."

She still didn't move for a moment, as they looked at each other, but then she laughed and turned to walk away. He waved as she moved off, and then she started to jog away, in the direction of however she was getting home. He watched her until she was out of sight.

"Yes," he said to himself, clutching one hand into a triumphant fist. "I am definitely in with a chance."

*

He was texting her first thing the next morning. Already he was starting to think, I don't care if I seem too eager. She'd texted back by lunch time, saying she'd love to go to dinner with him. That meant that he had to think of a restaurant they could eat at that he could afford. Without trying to borrow money from his parents, who had problems enough without him leaning on them like that.

By lunch he was asking his friend Andy for help. "Hey, Andy, say there was a girl."

Andy looked up from his sandwich. "And you need to know how to impress her."

"She's really classy and I am so broke, bro. I want to take her to dinner but I don't think I could even afford Nandos right now. I need your know how."

"You have come to the right man. I have a list of every place I took Cheryl to when I met her. Nothing is over ten quid in any of them."

"Nice."

*

He always liked in American movies how the man would drive up to a woman's door and she'd get in his car and they'd drive off together into the sunset. But he didn't have a car and could barely afford to walk, so he met her outside the restaurant instead. It didn't look too shifty or anything. Just a bit run down, maybe, but nice.

Gloria looked stunning. Her hair was all up and she was wearing a clingy dress in a bright yellow-green colour. She looked like the kind of person you could take somewhere fancy and she would fit right in, but also her boobs were spectacular.

"You look nice," he said.

"Thank you," she said. She was smiling and biting her lip. Shy but sexy. He liked it. "Please tell me this is a date. Not just hanging out. I don't dress up this much to hang out."

He blinked, confused. "It's definitely a date."

"Because last time we met at a park and you didn't even try to kiss me. I wasn't sure."

"Maybe I just don't kiss on the first date. I'm not that kind of boy."

"Then why the park?"

"I thought people might be walking their dogs. Then I could get to know a beautiful woman and pat some dogs." He tried for a cheeky grin so she wouldn't realise he was panicking inside.

Her laugh was like lights sparkling over water. "You look nice, too."

He could tell he was blushing, already. Things were going so well.

*

She looked even more beautiful under the fluorescent light inside.

"Tell me more about your band," she said. "What are you called?"

"We're called The Rhinoceros Conspiracy. I promise, I didn't come up with the name. I don't really get what it's supposed to mean."

"I don't think I've heard of your band."

"Yeah, we're really obscure. Nobody has heard of us. You'll be able to say you knew about us before we got cool. Of course, that means we have to get cool."

"I look forward to that. So, who's in this band? Unless it's just you. Can there be a one person band?"

"I think so. Or, there are plenty of solo artists that I thought were bands because they use a name like a band, but not their own name. It can be kind of confusing. I know Zepp's sister is into Nine Inch Nails, who I always thought were a bunch of people, but apparently it's just one guy."

"I don't know who that is. I listen to EDM," she said.

"Oh, I like that! I like a bit of everything. I didn't really answer your first question, did I?" He grinned.

"I still want to know who else is in your band." One of her hands was in front of her face as she talked, and her fingernails were dangling in front of her mouth. They were bright and colourful with little flowers painted on them. That probably took a long time.

"Well, there's Zepp, who plays the guitar. He and I met in line to get take away heaps of years ago and he gave me his email and then when we both moved to London, he was like, let's catch up! And then it turned out we both played instruments, so we hung out a lot.

"And then there's Uri, who's like my best mate in the world. We knew each other on the internet forever, and we decided to have a band together, but he lives in New York so that was really difficult until now. It's great that we're really giving the band a go, because now we get to see each other all the time."

"That does sound nice," she said. She dragged one her nails along her lip and, oh, he wanted to feel her nails dragging along his back. Immediately. But he hadn't finished telling her what she'd asked and they were right in the middle of the restaurant, so he couldn't say so.

"And there's also Joey, who started off as someone only Uri knew, but he made us let Joey join the band."

"What does he play?"

"He doesn't play any instruments. He just sings. He's a bit rubbish, really. It's a good thing we like him so much, else we'd kick him out of the band."

"It sounds like you have a lot of fun together."

"Oh, it's very serious work. It's not just mad banter and hijinks. It is a real job."

She shook her hands in front of her, splayed out like she was trying to ward something off. "I wasn't trying to say it didn't seem like a real job! I'm sorry for how I put it. I'm sure it's very hard work."

"Oh, no, I didn't mean to sound defensive. I didn't think you were judging me. You don't seem like that kind of person."

She breathed out a long sigh. "I'm relieved."

"So, what about you? What do you do with yourself?"

"Well, you know, when I'm not studying I like to hang out with my friends and have a good time. I like to dance."

"We should go to a club next time," he said, nodding along to an imaginary beat.

"Definitely."

*

They ate. The dumplings were delicious.

He couldn't stop looking at her lipstick all night. Her lips were bright purple. He loved the way it made her smile look like a work of art in one of those museums Joey went to.

"What are you staring at?" she asked. Her tone was curious, not accusatory. She bit her lip and looked down at her plate. He couldn't tell if she was blushing, but the whole look was almost too cute.

"I like your lipstick," he said. She smiled as if she couldn't help herself.

"Thank you. I wasn't sure, you know? I'm always hearing that men like a woman to look more natural."

"I've watched a woman put on the natural look. I don't think it's any more or less natural than what you've got going. And I like having an excuse to look at your lips."

She looked down at her food but she was smiling. Good sign. Wesley felt the date was going well.

(He remembered Dana sitting on her chair by her make-up mirror, lit by the bulbs on her dressing table. After they took everything off the night before, she would get up in the morning and put her face back on. Foundation she'd special ordered to match her skin tone; concealer under the eyes to make her look awake; blush and highlighter and a whole case of eye shadows.

She used to talk him through it, because he liked to watch from the bed.

"I'm drawing my eyes in like the girls in one of your cartoons, so they can be seen from the cheap seats."

It was always strangely sexy to watch her put her mascara on and do up her shirt before she left for work.

And then sometimes she'd pause and say, "Your friend Uri doesn't seem to like me much."

And he'd reply, "Don't take it personally. He doesn't like almost anyone.")

*

"I'll let you walk me to my door," Gloria said, and so he did.

He wanted her purple lipstick to leave a mark on his mouth. He didn't want anyone to be in doubt about what he'd been doing.

He chased her up the stairs and then leaned down, slow so she could back away if she needed to. Her lips were soft. Her skin was warm. She smelled of fancy hair products and expensive perfume and after dinner mints.

"You could come in, if you wanted," she said.

"No, I have to meet Gaz early at my day job tomorrow."

"Oh."

"This is not a brush off. I'm into you. I promise I just have to get up early and if I go into your house I'm not going to be any good at doing that."

She smiled as wide as she could. "You're confident."

"I'm sure you'd keep me up all night talking about puppies and watching sweet romantic comedies."

"There's only one way to find out."

"Next time," he promised.

"Okay. I can wait."

*

Waiting, that was the big thing. He felt like he could hardly think of anything but her. It turned out there was a whole world outside his love life, though, as he remembered when he caught up with the rest of the band.

*

During sound check Zepp and Joey had to stop a moment to do a weird secret handshake they must have made up the day before. They got confused in the middle and then waved their hands about a lot while arguing about what their handshake actually involved. Wesley didn't see why they couldn't stick to fist bumping like anyone else.

And then Joey had to practice Little Yellow Boat, like he was personally serenading Zepp, while Zepp almost lost it laughing. Wesley rolled his eyes and looked back at Uri, who was testing how well his snare drum filled the space with sound. Uri wasn't even bothering with practising the song; he just tapped one thing or another, and nodded like he was making mental notes.

The show that night ended up being a bit of a mess. They barely made enough to cover Tom's beer. On the way out Wesley overhead someone asking why the guitarist and lead vocals even bothered to show up, and winced. Wasn't going to let anyone know about that. They just needed a bit more work on their act and they'd be great, he knew it, but there was barely any time and they were off to try their luck overseas again soon after.

He pushed it out of his mind and let himself think of Gloria on the way home, as the sky turned red and pushed away the stars.

*

The next time he saw Gloria she took him out to dance. He meant to argue more about paying, really, honest, but she had feminist objections to him paying all the time, and it would be wrong to get in the way of equality like that. Well, that and he had utility bills to pay and he hadn't got enough hours on the work site in the last month to spend big on a night out.

"I need this," she said, buying a drink at the bar. "It's been such a long week. Do you want one?"

He shook his head, but she bit her lip and said, "It's okay to let me buy you a drink. You paid for dinner last time. It won't make you less manly to let me spend a little money on you. And I won't expect you to put out."

So he laughed and let her pay for his beer. It wasn't exactly a sacrifice.

For someone who'd built up two of his best friendships by talking to people online, Wesley could be surprisingly bad at talking to people in person – at least in situations where he hoped to get to speak to that person again – and so it was a great relief that the only thing to really do at a club was dance badly while getting thoroughly plastered. He figured he'd hold off getting thoroughly plastered for a later date; better to ease into these things. Dancing badly, though, that he had in the bag. His flailing about made Gloria laugh, which felt like the highlight of his entire existence.

Her dancing wasn't the funny kind. Instead she was graceful and sexy, like everything else about her. Not the controlled, practised moves Dana had, but the kind of quality dancing that came from enjoying it and doing it whenever she could.

"I come here with my best friends all the time," she said in the brief pause between songs.

The DJ wasn't really very good and Wesley figured he could have done better, but the mix of music was alright and he whispered as much into her ear. Bit more David Guetta than he would have liked, but he didn't mind a spot of Ellie Goulding or Jessie J. "Fun to dance to, innit?"

He'd been good and hadn't drank too much, so as not to overtax her pocket book. He knew her parents had money and all but she was still at uni and he knew from TV how expensive that was. The upside of that was he could walk her home at the end of the night without wobbling over too much. Bonus! He was a bit sweaty as they walked out into the night, but so was she and she didn't seem to mind if he was getting her a little wet.

"How do you know the words to every song?" she asked, on the way to her place.

"Gaz has the radio on all day at the construction sites and when me and the lads are touring all we do is listen the radio in the van all the time. We've started playing this game where the person who correctly guesses the title and artist of a song the quickest wins. Something to do."

"That sounds like fun."

It wasn't really. Zepp always guessed every song released before 1975, because his parents listened to that stuff, and Tom had the 80s locked down. Uri always complained that nobody played any music he liked. Then he complained when the oldies stations played the music he did like, because he didn't want anyone to think Nirvana counted as classic rock yet. Then there'd be a stupid argument – the same stupid argument they had every time they got in the van – and the scenery would whiz by without anyone taking it in and by the time they got to a hostel or someone's friend's flat they'd all be dying for a shower and some alone time.

But he said, "Yeah, it's a great time. Nothing more fun than singing along with my boys to the best music."

Which he and Joey did, mind, especially when they knew it was going to drive someone else crazy. They'd figured out singing along to Whitney Houston was the quickest way to get Tom to blow a gasket when it wasn't his turn to drive.

"We could still dance when we get back to your place. Put some tunes on, have a bit of a waltz."

"You can waltz?" she asked.

"Not well."

She ushered him in, locked the door, put on something he didn't recognise. It sounded old-fashioned and sweet. It was easy to take her in his arms and sway to it. They turned in careful circles so they didn't bump into the couch and with each step he found himself leaning further into her hair. She was warm and soft. She smelled nice. Couldn't ask for anything more.

"I don't know the words to this one," he said.

"Sing me something you do know."

So he launched in to 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow'. His mum had always liked that one and he'd learned to sing along. He knew all its textures, its dips and valleys. He could sing that one in tune even if he went deaf.

Gloria said, "Oh," like she'd had a revelation, but she let him sing it to its end.

He stood up straight to look at her properly. Whatever was in her eyes, he knew she'd let him kiss her. So he did.

He cradled her head in his hands and started off gentle. Soft like the last time they'd kissed. Then she grabbed at him, dragged him right up close and it was like a switch in his head went off. Simultaneously exciting, and a relief, like this was a thing he'd been waiting for a long time, even if he didn't know it.

He gathered her hair in his hands and let it spill through his fingers. He applied himself to kissing her soft, delicate places, the fine points of her cheekbones, the place where her face met her jaw. Her mouth fell open on a gasp (and it would echo through his mind again and again throughout the night).

"Bed," she said.

"Bed." He nodded.

She led him into her room by the hand. She didn't waste time taking her dress off so he didn't waste time, either. Dragged his own clothes off and kicked off his shoes. Looked up and wow she was so naked. Her skin glowed in the lamp light as she tipped herself back onto the bed. He followed her there. Put his face to her knees first and let himself lick his way up.

Up, up to where she was wettest and warmest, so he could chase her moans with his tongue. Licking until his jaw hurt, up and around and inside her. Her body arched on the bed, tilting her further toward his mouth. Her thighs trembled around his head. He made his home in her damp folds, trying to tease out the unique song of her ecstasy.

She touched his head, fingers shaking along his damp hair line.

"That's enough," she said, and her voice was soft and shaky as she breathed it out.

He slid a finger along one of her inner thighs where the wetness had spread and then put it to his mouth, tasting even more of her.

Her eyes were wild. He ached. He wanted to be inside of her in any way she would let him.

When he moved up the bed he leaned in to kiss her again, and she let him, accepted him into her mouth. He felt like he was licking her own orgasm back into her. The kisses were slick and open, with spit and whatever else they were trading between them, and every bit of wetness she gave back to his skin he felt should turn to steam and fizz away into the air around them.

God, he was so hard, that appendage just dangling between them, as he held himself up from the hottest part of her. He couldn't remember where the condoms were. He had a dangerous fantasy of just going in without one and filling her up, so he pushed himself up and away to get some air and think clearly without doing something too stupid.

"I really really want to fuck you right now. And I mean a lot," he said. His skin was overheated and damp and he could barely wait to dive back into her.

"Thank you," she said. She bit her lip and flicked her eyes away, suddenly shy all over again.

"But I don't remember where I put anything including my friend Mr Latex."

She smiled, reached back to her bedside table, and opened a drawer full of useful supplies. "You're not going to run out."

So he reached over and grabbed. He struggled to get it open and he fumbled it on.

And then he was in. In, in, in. The heat of her, her smell, the way she moved against him. Everything collapsed into that, and that driving need.

Afterwards he was content to lie against her, halfway covered in the sheets. He didn't want to move until morning.

"That was an excellent decision," she said.

*

After that, they were at it constantly. At his place, at hers, in her car, on top of the car, in the bathroom at a club, on a friend's couch while he was out for a bit...

The tour didn't have much time in London, so he had to squeeze in as much time with Gloria as he could.

Meanwhile, the boys ribbed him every chance they could.

"Why are you smiling all the time?" Zepp asked. "It's unnatural."

"And why won't you give me details?" Joey said.

Wesley looked over to where Joey were perched on the edge of a couch, gigantic limbs threatening to spill over the edge at any moment.

"Because I don't want to make you feel bad about yourself," Wesley said.

"Oh, I get it, big man, thinks he gives women all the orgasms. Let me be the first to say I have never had a complaint," Joey said. He squinted and waved his arms around to reinforce his point but it just made his perch on the couch look more precarious.

"Not to your face," Zepp said, "but that girl last week at the pub told me she wished you'd use less tongue."

Joey turned to look at Zepp. "She did not!" And then he really did fall off the couch.

Wesley immediately got up to check on him.

"I'm okay," Joey said, as he thrust one arm up into the air. "Nothing's broken, except my fragile self esteem."

*

And if he noticed the boys ribbing him were only those two, well...

"You've been quiet lately," he said to Uri.

"Have I?" He looked up at Wesley like there was something he was expecting Wesley to notice. But Wesley wasn't that smart, so he couldn't figure it out.
Chapter 13

"I'm interested in how your band works, as a business," Gloria said.

Wesley rolled his head to look up at her face, from where he was laying on her breast. "This is not how I assumed the afterglow would go."

"Sorry," she said. "That's probably a weird thing to say and to think. I know most people fall straight asleep but I get so much energy straight after sex and my brain starts whirring and I just want to figure things out and solve problems. I know it's strange."

"No, it's cool. It's like your sex-based superpower."

She laughed and put her face in her hands.

"After enough orgasms, you'll be able to solve all the problems in the world," he said.

"No. I'm not that good."

"No, it's okay, Gloria. It's not that weird. You're just really interested in businesses and stuff like that. It's cool. You don't need to be embarrassed."

"Okay," she said. She slid down the pillow so she was lying next to him and could look him in the eye, instead of looking down from above (not that he'd been planning to complain about getting a face full of her boobs).

*

Okay, go back, rewind. While all of this was happening, he really was working at his job, finesse-ing the album, practising with the band until they sucked less.

"I don't see why we can't spend more time recording this," Joey said, waving his hand at the wall like that meant anything.

"Joey, time is money, and we don't have that kind of money in the production budget. You know that. You were there when we made it," Uri said.

"Your hot mum went over all the figures with us," Wesley said.

"Stop talking about how hot you think my mother is," Joey shrieked.

"Where is Tom during this argument?" Zepp asked. He yawned around the question. "He should be managing us."

Tom was busy managing a trip to the loo.

"I don't see why we have to go with the live version of Little Yellow Boat," Joey said.

"Because we already recorded it." Wesley could feel a headache coming on. "We can just release that version. We agreed I could produce our songs. We put it to a vote."

Zepp mumbled something about their terrible voting. Joey tried to argue more about wanting more time, and Uri cut him off with another argument that Wesley was barely paying attention to.

"Look, I know your friend with a record deal got all sorts of time and money to record a single, but we don't have that," Wesley said, over their arguing voices. "We're not signed to a label and we don't have a big fancy advance. We're working off that loan from your mum until we can actually earn something from performing. This is what you agreed to."

"Joe, just let him use the live version of Little Yellow Boat. It's a stupid song, anyway," Zepp said.

"Hey! We worked really hard on that, Zepp," Wesley said.

"You mean you wrote it together as a joke when you were drunk," Zepp said.

Wesley shrugged to concede the point.

"But, Zepp. We're going to escape on our little yellow boat, from our little yellow moat, and be free. What could be deeper?" Joey said. He tried to be serious but he always ended up laughing at his own jokes and then Zepp pretended he didn't love them.

But Wesley had loved writing that song with Joey, just like he loved playing it with all of them, so he smiled and let it be.

*

He met up with Gloria again. She'd taken him to a cool spot he was pretty sure he couldn't afford to eat at.

"My friends are meeting me here later. Is that cool?"

"If you want me to clear out by then--"

"No, I mean, you should meet them."

Wesley looked around at the shiny surfaces and fancy decor, and back to Gloria looking like a spark of light on a gloomy day. "I bet they're great," he said.

*

Gloria's friends looked real classy. Nice jewellery, sensible skirt length.

"So this is the man you've been talking about," said one of them. As she sat her charm bracelets clinked against the table.

"Um, this is Nicole and Beatrice," Gloria said, not indicating which was which.

"It's lovely to meet you," Wesley said. He was already feeling a bit out of his depth.

The one on the left in the wrap dress with the subtle blonde highlights leaned forward and smiled at him. "So, Wesley, Gloria's told us all about you," she said, in a way that made him sure Gloria hadn't been talking about his personality.

"Um, really?" he mumbled.

"She's shown us every text you've ever sent." He didn't know whether to panic about that or not.

The one on the right in the fancy red blouse said, "We've given her advice. I was the one who told her to ignore your bad spelling."

He swallowed. "I just got a new phone with better auto correct."

"Isn't that cute?" said Red Blouse.

"She's making it sound worse than it is," Gloria said. "I haven't been dissecting your texts. I just asked for advice from my girl friends."

"It's fine, love, I do the same with the boys," he said.

The whole time they were talking he sat there wondering if they were insulting him or not. He didn't want to be suspicious. If they were friends with Gloria they had to be nice. He couldn't tell if they were judging or just teasing.

The conversation faltered when Gloria had to go to the loo. The girls looked at him, then at each other, then back at him.

"Um, I like your dress," he said to the one on the left.

"Boden," she said. Smiled and nodded.

He wasn't sure what to add.

"Listen," the girl on the right said, leaning across the table. Wesley felt especially alarmed. "Gloria will only be in the toilet for a second."

"Okay."

"I don't really get it, I mean you seem nice, and you're okay looking," she waved a dismissive hand in his face, "but you're not that hot. But she likes you. So don't fuck it up."

"I will try really hard not to," he said.

"Acceptable," she said. She leaned back and picked up her drink again, sipping from the straw with narrowed eyes.

Gloria returned almost immediately. "I hope you didn't talk about anything too interesting while I was out of the room."

"It was awkward silence," Wrap Dress said.

Gloria paused in shuffling back into her seat, to look over at her friend, and then back to Wesley.

"You weren't gone long enough for anything too bad to happen, sweetheart, don't worry," Wesley said. He put his arm on the seat behind and she relaxed into it. Good sign.

*

When she woke up the next morning she was sorry for asking about business immediately after shagging.

"No, it's fine, love. It's just not as interesting as you'd think," Wesley said. "It's all administering things and sending scans of receipts to the accountant and arguing every time we take a vote on anything. Just like any other business, I guess."

"That's what I find interesting," she said. She looked apologetic about it, which made him feel bad. "I'm sure to you it's all very mundane because you deal with it every day."

"If you really want to hear how confusing collecting societies and copyright laws are, I can definitely tell you all about it when I get back."

"Back from where? I didn't know you were going anywhere."

He slid his hand up her side, so she'd realise why he'd been absent-minded. And also because she was there and warm, and he could.

"I've got a brief trip to Canada coming up, but you should definitely email me while I'm away," he said.

"Canada?" She seemed surprised.

"Yeah, it's promotional, I guess? It's only for a week. I'll be back with jet lag before you even know it."

She pulled on his shirt. "You better still be interested when you get back. I mean, I'm interested in you."

"I'm more than interested. I like you. I really like you," he said. "And I know you're probably not there yet, but I wanted you to know."

"I'm close to there," she said. "Not far off."

"And I'll wait for you to catch up."

*

They flew for what felt like forever, Joey complained about having to fly economy the whole time, as if anyone cared, and went via rental car to Tom's cousin's house. Joey started whining and moaning again as soon as they got out of the car.

"It's so cold," Joey complained. He was covered in a big puffy jacket he'd borrowed from Tom, over another jacket, over a jumper and a scarf, his thickest skinny jeans, socks and gigantic shoes. His hands were tucked under his elbows but Wesley knew he was wearing gloves as well. About all of Joey that Wesley could see uncovered was his face.

It wasn't even that cold.

"I'm so cold I might die," Joey said.

"We're all going to die someday," Uri said, as he hitched his duffel bag higher.

Zepp held out a hand and Uri high fived him without even looking. How did he do things like that?

*

He kept up an email thread with Gloria the whole time they were there. He checked it whenever he could, sneaking his phone out of the pocket of his jeans, constantly, to see if she'd said anything new. Sent her pictures of food and several half-naked selfies. She sent back a blurry picture of her bra.

"Come back to earth and stop staring at your phone," Zepp said.

"Are you still texting that girl?" Uri asked.

"Is it too early to tell her I love her?" Wesley asked.

"Yes," said Zepp.

And straight away Joey said yes, too.

"Uri?" Wes asked.

Uri rolled his eyes. "Yes."

"You're not even really in a relationship with this girl yet," Joey said.

"What do you mean, I'm not in a relationship with her?"

"Have you had the talk?" Joey asked.

Zepp burst out laughing, and rolled onto his side. Wesley couldn't figure out why.

"But it's pretty obvious that some thing's happening there. I've met some of her friends." He thought that was a reasonable bit of evidence. Meeting someone's friends could be almost as serious as meeting their family, really, if you thought about it. It was always a bit of a risk to do that, like you were just putting it out there that you liked someone, and your friends had to like them, too. So many things could go wrong.

Joey shrugged. "Did you really though? You went out. Her friends were there. That doesn't mean it's serious. You know, everyone keeps things casual these days, anyway."

"Joe knows absolutely nothing about relationships, Wes," Zepp said. "Seriously nothing."

"Hey!" Joey said, and Zepp said, "When was the last time you went on more than one date with anybody?" and then they were arguing about whatever nonsense they liked to bicker about.

Wesley rolled his eyes, but he turned to face the wall and worried. Was it only casual? There really was only one way to find that out and he wasn't going to ask on the phone. He blew out all the breath in his body and let himself fall heavier into the chair.

"You're just her walk on the wild side. You know that, don't you?" Uri said. He'd leaned right in to breathe on Wesley's ear.

"But I'm not wild," Wesley said.

"I'm telling you this because I don't want you to get hurt when it ends. Use her for what she'll give you but don't get too into her. Girls like that don't settle for people like us."

Wesley turned to look at him. Uri was smiling, as if what he'd said was remotely okay. "There's nothing wrong with people like us."

But he put his phone away, and tried to pay more attention.

*

Joey got annoyed when he found out it was Wesley's birthday and he hadn't told anyone, as if he ever did, so he made Tom take them out somewhere.

"Because 21 is a big deal," Joey said.

"It's just a birthday," Wesley said.

"You have to celebrate birthdays," Joey said. "People buy you presents. They make you a cake and it's okay, because birthday cake on your birthday doesn't have any calories."

"I don't think it works like that."

"And they laugh and cheer and kiss your face and tell you how much they love you. It's the best. How can you not want that?"

"I haven't celebrated since my 16th when I invited twenty people and the only person who showed up was Andy."

Joey scoffed. "It's okay. You have us now, and we appreciate and celebrate the importance of you. We have to take you out. Did you really only have one person show up?"

"One person I wasn't related to. And I guess Zepp sent me a card."

"See, and now he's here with you. I bet he'd love to buy you a friendly birthday beer."

Wesley tilted his head to consider it. He probably would.

*

Joey's first lesson of how to celebrate birthdays was tips on how to get people to buy stuff for you so you didn't have to pay for it yourself.

"But you have so much money, bro," Wesley said, feeling a little scandalised.

"It's not my fault if people want to spend money on me," Joey said, smirking. "And also, like, my mom has threatened to stop paying off my credit card so I'm going to have to earn more money if I want to buy nice things. We have to get really rich and successful."

"We do," Wesley said. "We need to get big. I'm aiming really high for us."

"Really high," Joey said, and winked at an older girl down the bar who looked like she was contemplating buying them drinks.

"It is a bit sneaky how you do that."

It worked out well. First drink of the night and he didn't even have to spend his own money on it.

When Joey went off to chat somewhere else with the girl at the bar, Uri came up and took his seat.

"You're thinking of that girl right now, aren't you?" Uri said. He bumped Wesley's shoulder and smirked.

"The one Joey just went off with? No way, mate. Not my type."

"No, I mean the girl you haven't shut up about for weeks."

"Oh," Wesley said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it, so he could get back to looking at her last message again. "Gloria's a woman, not a girl. She's sexy and mature."

"How mature?" Uri asked. He was laughing under his breath.

"She told me she'll be 24 in November. She was all, oh no, I'm nearly thirty, and I said to her, you're not anywhere near thirty yet. Save the panic until you're 29, at least."

"Oh, she's an older woman. I get what this is about now. Show me a picture of her," Uri said.

Wesley flicked through his gallery quickly to make sure it was nothing inappropriate. He didn't want Uri to see a picture of Gloria in her bra, even by accident. He settled on a picture he'd taken that night out with her friends, her collarbones safely covered, Gloria smiling serenely as the lights from behind lit up the edges of her hair like a halo.

"There," he said. "Isn't she pretty?"

"Oh, when you said her skin is brown, you didn't mean a tan. Do you always go for biracial girls?"

"Not on purpose."

"There was Dana, and now there's Gloria. When you touch her, are you thinking about how she's so dark and you're so pale?"

"No, I'm usually thinking that I can't believe she lets me touch her boobs."

"I think about that with Miriam. Her pale skin against my hands. How I'm so much darker than her." Uri put his hand on Wesley's arm to show the difference in their skin tones. "Just like you're so much paler than me."

"I'm not drunk enough for this conversation."

"Think about that next time you see her."

Wesley shoved off the chair and away from the bar, so he could go talk to Zepp instead.

*

It was a good night. Surrounded by his boys, smiling and laughing, Tom not shaking his head in annoyance too much. Wesley took Joey's advice to heart and managed to get thoroughly plastered mostly by looking friendly to strangers and mentioning it was his birthday. And presto! People kept buying him drinks.

He didn't have regrets until they were heading back to where they were staying. Nothing against Tom's driving, it's just that Wesley had never felt car sick until that moment. The movements of the car felt like they were sloshing around everything inside him. The world wobbled in front of his eyes.

"Stop the car," he moaned.

"For gods sake, why couldn't you have done this before we left?" Tom said.

"Stop the car," Wesley said, again. He could barely keep everything in.

Tom brought the car to an abrupt stop. Wesley opened the door and immediately chucked all over the road. It splashed everywhere. He could feel more waiting to come out, so he stayed hanging there.

"Don't throw up on the rental car," Tom yelled.

Too late. Wesley could see a splatter on the edge of the door jamb. He leaned down and threw up again. Couldn't decide if it felt better out than in.

"This is the worst part of dealing with 20 year olds," Tom said.

"I'm 21 now," Wesley said.

*

Back to London, all of them having an official meeting at Zepp's mum's place, because she had a large open plan living area.

"Great news, everyone. Little Yellow Boat is on a Top 40 chart somewhere in the world," Tom said. "It's number 40. I don't know why people are buying it. But we should celebrate."

"Number 40, not too bad," Wesley said.

"Yeah, 40, I'm cool with that," Joey said.

"Which country?" Zepp asked.

Tom scrolled through the information on his phone. "Australia."

"Right on, Australia! Impromptu hallway dance party," Wesley said.

Immediately Joey started jumping about. Zepp waved his arms about a lot. Uri even bobbed his head a bit which was as close as he would get to dancing. Wesley bounced as much as he could and boxed out a beat for their little dance party.

"We should go there. I have a cousin in Melbourne. He'd put us up," Zepp said.

"Yes!" Wesley wasn't sure whether or not he or Joey had said so at the same time but they were definitely all feeling it.

"All right. I'll try to get onto a booking agent," Tom said, and walked away back to his room.

*

Of course, that meant he had to let Gloria know the next he saw her.

"We're going away on tour again soon but I want to keep seeing you. I mean, I don't know if that's obvious that I like you. I want to keep talking to you," Wesley said.

"I like you, too," Gloria replied. She didn't look happy about it.

"As much as I like you?"

"I thought I was already your girlfriend. I introduced you to my friends." She was looking down at her feet. He could see he had insulted her somehow. He didn't mean to. He just had to choose his words right and hope he could dig himself out of that hole.

"We didn't talk about it, but I hoped that meant something and you weren't trying to say I was just a friend to you. And Joey said that people keep everything casual now and I shouldn't read into it."

She looked up and away, but not too quick for him to see the hint of wetness in her eyes. He'd only gone and screwed it all up.

"Then you shouldn't listen to your friend Joey," she said. "He sounds like an idiot."

"He is an idiot. I'm an idiot. I wasn't– I didn't mean– I just wanted to make sure we were both wanting the same thing. I know what people say about people in bands, but I swear I wouldn't have slept with you if I didn't want this to go somewhere. I just want to be with you. Only now I've gone and buggered it up so you probably don't want me any more."

She looked at him again, all distressed. "No, I definitely want to be with you. I thought you would read all my signals." She clutched at his shirt and sniffed. "I'm the idiot for expecting you to know what I meant without saying it."

"No, I'm the idiot for not asking you sooner."

She held him close. He found, when they clung together like that, he could rest his chin near the top of her head, and smell her hair.

"You're definitely my girlfriend now," he said.

"Yes. And girlfriends get texting and calling privileges so you'll be hearing from me all the time."

He hid his smile in her hair. "Good."

*

There was only one thing for it. He had to get her to come to their show.

*

Wesley wiped the sweat from his face. "What did you think?"

Gloria looked pretty giddy. It could get like that, being in a big crowd. It was like the joy and energy was contagious. Sometimes after concerts, he'd stumbled home bubbling with energy, feeling like he was drunk on nothing but music. But that was just the crowd working on you. It didn't mean she'd like the music.

"It was amazing," she said.

"Really?"

"Yes. I didn't think this would be my kind of music and then it was really fun. I understood, you know? I got why people were clapping and stomping their feet."

Wesley pushed a curling tendril of hair back from her face. She was sweating, too, her face aglow with it. It was hot and stuffy and alive in their little corner.

"Also," she said, "that last song was really dance-y. That's more like the stuff I like, anyway."

"So you didn't just like it because you like me?" he teased.

"Oh, that, too." She fiddled with the collar of his shirt, like she was fixing him up to look presentable. But he suspected it was just that there was too much energy left in the room for her fingers to know what to do with. "You were great. You're really talented. And really hot."

"You're really hot, too."

"We should get out of here and be really hot together."

He pulled her to his body. She wasn't fussing with her outfit and she didn't seem to mind that he was getting her even sweatier. "I don't even know if we'll make it to the car, to be honest."

"Think you'll have me against the car doors, in full view of everyone in the car park. Not even manage to get the doors open before you spin me round and open me up."

"Really? You'd get arrested," said another voice.

Wesley spun around to see Joey grinning at them in a way that promised he'd never hear the end of this. He was just as sweaty as Wesley was feeling, looking lit up by the electricity of the night, and about to be really obnoxious.

"Shut up, Joey," Wesley said.

"Zepp, come here!" Joey yelled. "It's time to embarrass Wesley in front of his new girlfriend."

"I'm so sorry, Gloria," Wesley said.

"No, it's– it's fine?" She didn't look like she thought it was fine – she looked like she thought she might explode from embarrassment – but she was biting her lip like she was trying to play down her nervousness so she could get on with something. Already Wesley was figuring out her quirks and habits. It was nice to get to do that.

"I'm impressed that they're already ignoring us to gaze into each other's eyes. Even I didn't think it would be this fast," Zepp said.

"It's love, Zepp! You can't get in the way of love," Joey said.

Wesley looked at them, already ganging up to annoy him. "Shut up, Joey!"

"What? I'm encouraging you in your romantic endeavours," Joey said. And to Gloria, "Is it true he has a really big dick?"

"You can't say things like that to someone you've just met, you utter dickhead," Zepp said, and smacked Joey in the arm. "I'm so sorry. I can't say sorry enough."

Wesley sighed. Gloria was still held in his arms but now she seemed to be hiding in them more than anything.

"I suppose you might as well meet Uri, too, while we're at it. Collect the whole set of my terrible friends and get it over with," Wesley said.

"Okay," Gloria said, a soft hum against his shirt.

*

Uri was in the little room out the back, packing things up. He'd put a clean jacket on, zipped up over his clothes, and compared to the rest of them he looked clean and nice. Wesley started to think the rest of the band looked like a pack of thugs in comparison, himself included.

Wesley had dragged Gloria back here to meet Uri, but now he didn't know what to expect. His heart was in his stomach, which was totally the wrong place for it, and he breathed out a deep breath to steady himself. He needed Uri to accept Gloria. He needed things to be okay. Uri had said some things, but he hadn't met her yet... Maybe things would be fine.

Uri looked up, narrowed his eyes, and stood stick straight.

Or maybe things would not be fine.

"Hello, Uri," Wesley said, trying to conceal his growing worry.

"Hey. I'm guessing you're not back here to clean up."

"Not really. Um..."

Uri rubbed his hands off on his jeans. "You must be Gloria. I'm Uri," he said, and offered a hand for her to shake.

She shook it. "Wesley talks about you a lot. I was really looking forward to meeting you." She was smiling and looked at ease.

"He talks a lot about you, too. We've all noticed that he really likes you. I'm very happy to meet you. You seem as lovely as I expected."

Oh, thank goodness. Good-mannered Uri.

"Thank you. I can see why you're such good friends," she said.

"That's very kind of you." Uri smiled at Wesley, and Wesley was smiling back in relief. "I'm sure you want to go home and enjoy some time together, so Tom and I can clean up."

"Really?" Wesley asked.

Uri nodded. Wesley took him at his word, took Gloria, and left.

*

"What did you think of all those louts I work with?" Wesley asked.

"You weren't kidding when you told me Joey's a bit of an idiot," Gloria said.

"He was extra stupid tonight."

"I think he still acts like a teenager," she said.

Wesley wanted to shrug but he couldn't do that while steering the car. Wouldn't do to crash over nothing, after all. "He is still 19."

"He must be like a younger brother to you. I was not quite expecting him, I think. You told me he was so popular with women so I imagined he'd look more like Chris Hemsworth. He's got an almost feminine look to him," she said.

"I don't think he looks like a girl. I just feel like his jaw widened a bit but the rest of his face hasn't grown up yet. If he had shorter hair he'd still look like he was seven years old." He acted like it, sometimes.

"I didn't really get an impression of the blond one–"

"That's Zepp."

"–but Uri seemed very nice. Polite, and he seemed very responsible. I can see why you're friends with him."

"Yeah? I'm happy you feel that way. He's my best mate in the whole wide world."

His girlfriend and his best friend getting along. Could life get any better?
Chapter 14

Oh, he did have time for one more thing before they left for Australia.

Wesley checked his tie again in the car window. He'd figured it was hard to go wrong with a black one but by this point was wondering if it just made him look like he was going to a funeral.

"You don't have to be nervous. My parents aren't ogres," Gloria said.

"It would be fine if they were ogres. I'm sure they'd be really nice ogres."

He smiled to show he was joking but inside he was bricking it.

*

Their house was nice. Really nice. Like, these people could afford to buy new things that weren't flat-pack nice.

"These are my parents, Cindy and Sanjeev," Gloria said. "And this is Wesley, he's a very talented musician."

Cindy was dressed up all nice but Sanjeev wore fairly casual attire. Not Wesley's personal idea of casual, but he did have short sleeves and an open collar. Wesley was beginning to regret the tie.

"So nice to finally meet you, Wesley," Cindy said.

"My parents work in finance," Gloria said.

"And what do your parents do, Wesley?" Cindy asked.

"Um. Mum does stuff around the home and dad worked in a factory until he did his back in."

"I see. How fascinating," Sanjeev said.

Lunch was all polite conversation about stuff Wesley didn't understand. Gloria's parents talked about books they were reading and Wesley tried not to let on he'd never heard of any of them. He tried to focus on his food and smile and nod when he could

"How many languages do you read?" Cindy asked.

"Just this one. Sorry," Wesley said. By the look on her face, apologising only made that worse. "I just need the loo. Is it back that way?"

Sanjeev nodded. Wesley escaped to a place where he could get a bit of air.

*

Gloria's mum caught up to him in the hall way on the way back.

"Oh, Wesley," she said. She didn't sound particularly impressed.

"It's a really nice house you've got here," he said, trying to make nice.

She seemed to be eyeing him warily, so he smiled to make himself seem as nice and harmless as possible.

She sighed. "It's my husband's style. I prefer Swedish minimalism."

"My friend Zepp says that's really tasteful."

"What kind of home do your parents live in?"

"They're staying with me at the moment. It's just until dad is better. We were staying with my aunt but it felt a bit crowded so when I had enough money to move out I told them they should stay with me instead," he said, unsure he should admit that much.

Still, her shoulders did relax a little. "That's very responsible of you."

*

"I'm sorry about that," Gloria said, as soon as they got out of the door. "They're usually not that bad."

Wesley walked with her as they slowly made their way to her car. "No, they seem lovely."

She raised an eyebrow at him. Okay, point taken.

"They seem like really respectable people that care about you a lot. I'll win them over. It's not in doubt."

"I'm sure you're right," she said. She leaned back against her driver side door so he could kiss her just right before they went their separate ways for the night.

"I'm sorry I have to go work now," he said, pulling back. "I wish I could stay the night with you, instead."

"It's fine. I know you have to work. In fact, your work ethic is one of the sexiest things about you."

"Oh, yeah?"

She nodded.

"You'll have to tell me all about that later." He wished it was later, already. But he backed away from her car, and let her go.

*

Wesley collapsed into his chair. He was exhausted.

"How did it go? Tell me everything, Wesley," Joe said. He was leaning so far over the edge of his chair that Wesley felt he had to lean back just to get a little space.

"Yeah, Wesley, tell me everything," Uri mocked.

"Good, I think. Their house was really fancy," Wesley said.

"Yeah, how fancy?" Zepp asked.

"Zepp, you'll love this – they had real Royal Doulton plates. Not even the old stuff you can find in charity shops. And that wasn't even their good china."

"Wow," Zepp said.

"And the food was really nice. I did definitely get the feeling they thought I was stupid and poor, but it was good, I think. A good start."

*

In the plane on the long haul flight to Australia, Zepp shuffled right up to Wesley's side. "Lana Little is going to be touring Australia while we're there, and it's too late to get tickets, but maybe we'll spot her on the street or something."

"Who?" Wesley asked.

Zepp smacked him with a magazine. Wesley looked at it – the front page declared her the next Beyonce. Wesley was pretty sure they weren't done with the current Beyonce yet.

"Oh, that girl. Isn't she on a Disney show?"

"It's not Disney."

"I don't know how you convince anyone you listen to cool music."
Chapter 15

"It's so cold," Joey said. He looked a bit angry about it.

"It is winter," Wesley said.

"Nobody told me Australia could get cold," Joey said.

"Did we really need to?" Wesley asked.

"It's not cold," Uri said. He had a jacket open over a loose shirt and looked as comfortable as a person could be. "Stop whining."

Australia obviously wasn't quite what Joey had expected, though Wesley didn't mind it yet. The wintry air temperature was fairly mild, and though the wind was smacking them all in the face, his hair hadn't grown long enough for that to trouble him yet. The same couldn't be said for Joey, who was angrily trying to grab all his hair at once and shove it in a hair tie. Bits kept escaping and blowing in his eyes and he kept brushing at them and trying all over again. It was pretty funny, but Wesley bit his lip and kept his amusement to himself.

*

They took two planes, a bus and a train. They somehow managed to figure out instructions for getting a travel card and then they all wandered about, looking confused, not understanding any of the stuff Zepp's cousin had emailed. Tom asked about five different people where they were and how to get where they were going.

They somehow got to the train station, even with about nine hundred train delays and really terrible directions. Zepp checked his phone and got a message that his cousin was going to be late picking them up, so they just slumped onto a bench. Uri had to give a dirty look to an old lady who kept looking at them warily, so she'd stop. She conspicuously moved over to another bench, further away, instead. Wesley snickered to himself

"I'm hungry," Joey whined, so Tom went to harass various shop owners about what was in their food.

"Are you still a vegetarian, Joey?" Tom asked, as soon as he got back.

"I guess."

"Great, I've found something we can all eat," Tom said.

"Uh, Tom–" Uri began to say.

"No, sit down," Tom ordered. "They have a certificate that says kosher. We don't argue with the certificate."

Tom gave them as little opportunity to choose anything as possible but he made Wesley stand in line with him so he wouldn't have to carry it all on his own. And so that's how they spent the better part of an hour, eating burgers and chips, sat on a bench at a train station at night.

"I should have taken a picture," Joey said, once he'd gorged himself.

"Are chips and fake gravy part of your aesthetic?" Wesley asked. He was still stuffing his face with the last of a mini hot dog. It really did taste like meat, somehow.

"It can be, in black and white. Then it's artistic," Joey said.

*

When Zepp's cousin finally texted that he was nearby and they got out of the station, it was nearing 11 at night. Wesley was ready to drop. They drove for ages, out to what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Probably not the greatest place to base themselves from.

They got a brief tour of the house and Tom promised the guy that they wouldn't be too much of a hassle, and after that most of them shuffled off to bed.

Wesley still had work to do, though. He set up his laptop on the kitchen table and got out all the documents to review and stuff to go over. He was still working at 1am Melbourne time, when Zepp wandered into the kitchen for what looked suspiciously like a midnight snack, made Wesley save everything before nearly closing the laptop on his fingers, tossed all the beer cans in the bin and pushed Wesley in the direction of the bedroom.

Okay, it was a little cool at night. Wesley put on his warmest pyjamas before he fell into bed, and tried his hardest not to let Zepp's feet get up his nose.

*

The next morning he was woken by Joey who was stomping about with only a light hoodie and one of Tom's denim jackets over his shirt and jeans to ward off the elements.

"I can't stand this any more!" Joey yelled. "I'm freezing. We're going shopping."

He grabbed Wesley's hand and dragged him upright. Wesley decided not to fight against it.

"It turns out I'm going shopping," he said, to the guys.

*

In the city, Joey took a meandering, tourist-y path among all the shops. He wanted to stop in at all the designer stores, but Wesley steered him away. It would be too depressing to look at all those beautiful things he couldn't afford.

"Didn't your mum say you have to pay off your credit card by yourself now?" Wesley asked.

"Don't remind me," Joey said. "I'm still really sad about it. That doesn't mean I want to go back near that musty-smelling second hand shop, though. I don't care how cool the guidebook says it is."

"Let's just find a department store, then."

Once they found a store Joey considered good enough to go in, he wanted to wander around and look at everything, no matter how much it annoyed Wesley how inefficient their shopping trip had become.

"You're not buying shoes, Joey. Why do you need to look at them?"

"There's nothing wrong with appreciating beautiful things," Joey said.

When Wesley finally dragged Joey to the men's clothing section and found the sale coats, Joey had to touch everything and talk about how great everyone they knew would like in random items of clothing. All, wouldn't Zepp look great in this scarf, and wouldn't Uri really love that jacket?

And, "Look at this, Wesley, minimalist but classic, charcoal grey but not severe. It would be perfect for you."

Wesley looked at it and looked away. Shopping with Joey was just making him sad. "I don't need a new coat. I need you to buy something so we can get out of the store."

"Fine. I guess I can do that," Joey said.

He still made a production of the whole thing, carrying as many coats to try as his arm would allow and dancing about the change rooms like a lunatic. Still, when he finally bought something he looked very pleased with himself.

"I've never had a real wool coat before," Joey said. "I only used to travel places in summer. This is, like, really beautiful and warm."

Wesley got his phone out. "Look at the camera, Joey. Everyone must see the face of a man that has just bought a coat for the first time."

Joey put on his widest grin. It got more likes that anything Wesley ever posted about himself.

*

Wesley loved Joey but just shopping with him had been ordeal enough, so when Joey said there was a film he'd been meaning to see at the cinema and wanted someone to go with him, Wesley claimed he had a lot of work to do and couldn't go. Tom claimed the same, Uri said he was going to call Miriam and Zepp's cousin laughed and turned up the football. That left Zepp as the only poor sucker willing to go with him.

Once they were out the door, Wesley took the opportunity to send Gloria a message and hope she was available to send one back.

Wesley couldn't believe how lucky he felt as soon as he saw her face.

"It must be early in the morning for you," Wesley said. He loved the way she smiled as she looked up to her camera.

"It's not too early. How late is it for you?" she asked.

"It's about half seven. Zepp and Joey have gone to the movies so there's actually a bit of quiet for once."

"You must be pleased. Are you in a room with other people?"

"Yes, so nothing dirty can happen. All clothes must remain on," Wesley said.

"Yes, please leave your clothes on," Tom said, absently, in the background.

"Take off any clothes you want," Uri said. "I'm not stopping you."

Wesley had to turn to look at Uri's smirk. "Okay, naughty, fantasise about me and my girlfriend when Tom's not in the room to disapprove."

"Was I this obnoxious at that age?" Tom mumbled. Wesley could hear him getting up, and then Tom walked straight out of the room, to conduct his business in the kitchen instead.

Zepp's cousin started yelling at the TV a moment later.

Wesley looked back at his computer. "We're still going to keep this family friendly."

"I won't have the energy for anything X-rated until the uni year is over," she said. "I don't want to complain, you know, because I feel really lucky that I get to do all this, but I'm exhausted."

"You must have textbooks coming out of your ears," he said.

"That doesn't make sense," Uri said in the background. Zepp's cousin was still complaining about the umpire.

"Piles of textbooks," she said. "Almost as tall as I am."

"I love seeing you go after your dreams like this," Wesley said. "I don't really know anything about finance analysts and economic policy but it's cool that you like this stuff and you've just gone straight for it. You're not messing around. You're got yourself sorted out."

She leaned to the side and pulled a face. "Uh, I think you're the only person I've got fooled, actually."

"I can't eavesdrop on a conversation this boring," Uri said. "Go into the bedroom and have skype sex like normal people."

*

Zepp and Joey finally stumbled in really late at night, dying to talk about what they'd just experienced.

"It was amazing," Joey declared. "Visually recursive, tackling big issues like corruption in society and the effects of–"

"It was the worst movie I've ever seen," Zepp spoke over him.

"And the colour, and the lighting, such visual delight," Joey said.

"It was just half naked women and weird straight people sex. Joe's taste in movies sucks," Zepp said. He looked like he'd honestly prefer to poke his eyes out than see that film again.

"You just don't appreciate film art," Joey said.

"He doesn't look like he wants to appreciate it," Wesley said.

*

The good thing about them being together all the time was that when Wesley wanted to go out after a gig he could force them all to go with him. Band bonding, and all that. That didn't stop them from splitting off into smaller groups and making everything very difficult.

"I can't believe Uri is having better luck flirting with the bartender than I did," Zepp said. "The world just isn't fair."

"What?" Wesley asked. He looked over at where Uri stood smirking at the barman as he was pouring drinks, with all sorts of fancy hand movements. "But the bartender is a dude."

"Was Uri's tendency to fuck anything that moves regardless of gender supposed to be a secret? Because it's about as subtle as a punch in the mouth. I realised how not straight he was five seconds after I met him."

Not a secret, maybe, but Wesley hadn't been noticing. He'd known about Uri being a bit like that. And yet he hadn't known if Uri was sleeping with boys as well as girls, because his eyes had been closed so hard. "Can you always tell that stuff? How long did it take before you realised how straight I am?"

Zepp laughed. "Less than five seconds. Because, remember you defended that waitress from that drunk guy, but you also looked at her boobs. And you just have that vibe. Straight guy vibe."

"He hasn't hit on you, then?"

Zepp breathed out dramatically and scrunched his face up. "Not that I want him to, because no, but no. I'm literally the only person on the planet whose arse he hasn't tried to feel. I'm insulted. I don't want him to, but I'm insulted."

"You're hilarious, bro."

Wesley looked at Uri again. He was leaning on the bar with his arms crossed over it, an expression on his face that faintly resembled his patiently listening face, maybe. Was that flirting? They could have just been having a chat.

"Hey, Uri, you self-loathing prick," Zepp yelled, shoving himself upright. "Stop monopolising the wait-staff."

Uri told Zepp to get lost. It seemed to be how they showed they loved each other.

Joey flopped himself down in the seat Zepp had just vacated and leaned right into Wesley's ear. His gigantic, messy hair tickled the side of Wesley's face.

"Coke is so expensive here, I might have to develop a drinking problem instead," Joey whispered, laughing.

"Alcohol is also really expensive here," Wesley said.

"It's not fun," Joey complained. "I don't know how the Australians survive. Life here must be really boring."

"I'm sure they fill their time by fighting off wild animals."

"I haven't seen even one wild animal since I got here," Joey said. "I think they make all of them up. I bet kangaroos don't really exist."

Wesley looked up again, to see Zepp and Uri talking to each other, a look of delight on Zepp's face as Uri whispered what Wesley could only assume was an outrageously dirty joke.

"Yes, they made up the kangaroos just to annoy you. Go bother someone else."

"But I want to bother you tonight."

Wesley got up out of his seat to get away from Joey but Joey got up to follow him.

"Zepp, I don't think kangaroos are even real," Joey called out as they approached them.

Wesley looked at Uri, trying to communicate 'see what I have to put up with' with his eyes. Uri smirked harder. Obviously he found Wesley's suffering hilarious.

"That's right. They're a myth. Emus are also made up. It's a conspiracy to fool harmless Americans into thinking Australia is a scary place," Zepp said.

"At least it's not an evil conspiracy. I've heard worse," Joey said. He was obviously winding up for a supreme amount of nonsense. Wesley shoved him at Zepp so they could talk about that nonsense together and he wouldn't have to hear it.

He tried to indicate to Uri that they should move away by tossing his head in that direction, but Uri didn't read his signals. Uri only raised an eyebrow and continued to look amused.

So Wesley grabbed his elbow and dragged him just far enough away that he wouldn't have to hear about the aliens, instead.

"I was bored without you, bro."

"You can't go without my attention for a day, can you?" Uri looked happy about it, though. "Don't you want to talk about everything that's wrong with Australia with the bad comedy duo?"

"What could possibly be wrong with Australia? Sun, sand, some real quality wines. I feel like I like it here."

Uri huffed. "Terrible music."

"What are you talking about?"

"I was listening to this station that was supposed to be all indie, and they had this countdown, and it was all dance music," Uri whined.

"Who doesn't love a club banger?" Wesley said. Uri didn't. Uri hated dance clubs. When they went out to those places he liked to stand in the corner and scowl at people. It was honestly a little bit funny to watch.

"It's supposed to be indie rock," Uri said.

"I guess the people have spoken and the people want dance pop," Zepp said.

Wesley looked around. Joey was off in a corner, dancing by himself.

"Then the people have sucky taste," Uri said.

"What do you expect from the country responsible for Kylie Minogue?" Zepp asked.

"You love Kylie Minogue," Wesley said. He'd seen Zepp dancing and miming to Kylie plenty of times, even suspected he had all her albums.

Zepp shushed him.
Chapter 16

Everything was going great with their band. They were slowly rising through the charts (and it was very exciting that they were actually on the charts) and they were sucking less every day. In fact, Wesley had full confidence that someday they'd be halfway decent and they'd get somewhere through the power of hard work and determination.

Then Joey hooked up with pop singer and ex-TV star Lana Little.

*

Lana Little looked around their dressing room with raised eyebrows, then crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"Is this what you show your little groupies?" she said.

"All this space just for us," Joey said. He beamed with satisfaction as he spread his hands to indicate their little dressing room, littered with water bottles and clothes everywhere.

"I've seen bigger," she said.

Wesley already didn't like her.

Zepp had been very carefully fiddling with his shoelaces for what felt like half an hour. He'd carefully tied them, then untied them what seemed like a dozen times. He re-tied and double-looped them a final time, stood up, and wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. He turned and breathed out deep, like he was trying to steady himself, but his hands were shaking, and his eyes were rounder than that rabbit Wesley ran over that one time.

Zepp opened his mouth as if to speak and then deflated right before Wesley's eyes.

"Lana, you should meet Zepp," Joey said. "He's a huge fan."

"H-hi," Zepp said. "Wow. I've never met a superstar before."

"Then I hope I live up to your expectations."

Wesley thought her smile looked really fake, all unnaturally white teeth.

"We're going out to eat somewhere nice later, and you should come and be seen with us," Joey said. Did he think Zepp was a charity case all of a sudden?

Lana nodded. "It's all part of my indie artist outreach program."

Zepp burst into a strange high-pitched laughter. "That's funny. Joe, you didn't tell me she was funny."

"She's funny," Joey said.

Zepp's face went flat. "Yes, very helpful."

*

Later, when Joey and Lana were in the hallway saying goodbye to each other and Zepp had stopped staring blankly at a spot on the wall, he turned to Wesley and said, "Did you see her clothes? They looked expensive. Really expensive. I bet she doesn't have to worry about paying the water bill."

Wesley could feel his face hardening into a disapproving frown. "I don't feel she ever has to worry about anything."

"Was that weird and awkward? It felt weird and awkward," Zepp said, but he was already walking away so Wesley assumed he didn't want an answer.

*

It was when Joey was photographed holding hands with her and the photo was tucked into the corner of a gossip magazine, that things started to get weird. Journalists started to be interested in their band. But actually they were only interested in Joey's love life, and ignored the other three of them, while Joey gave vague, non-committal answers. People cared who Joey was but not, you know, that he was in a band or anything.

In person Joey was all, "Lana took me on her private jet."

In public all he would say is, "We're just spending time together." Which Wesley quickly realised was rich, famous person code for 'totally doing it'.

*

At the airport Zepp was struggling with his bags. Wesley stopped to help him but Joey walked forward into a wall of photographers, calling his name, a blank hit of noise. Zepp stopped struggling and looked up, just as Wesley had. Joey was consumed by the crowd; Wesley wouldn't have been surprised if they started taking him apart bit by bit like a bunch of ravening zombies.

"That arsehole. He's carrying my other suitcase," Zepp said.

"Well, you'll never see it again now," Wesley said.

*

Wesley had had a radio interview that morning which had already been scheduled long before the Joey and Lana nonsense, and yet that's all the interviewer wanted to ask about. He found himself still stewing about it hours later when he sat down to eat a sandwich.

"Do you ever feel like a side character in your own life, bro?" Wesley asked.

"Yeah, all the time," Zepp said. "I never feel like the main character in my own life. It's like nothing's about me; I'm just there."

Wesley squinted at Zepp. "I don't know about that. I definitely don't feel like I'm always in the background. Just sometimes. But at least we're not alone, hey?"

"Yeah, I mean, could be worse, I guess."

*

Try as he might, Wesley couldn't manage to keep his annoyance from everyone else.

"Do you have a problem with my girlfriend?" Joey asked.

"I don't have to like her," Wesley said. As far as he could tell Joey wasn't that into her either so he didn't get why he was being so confrontational.

"Is it because she's African American?" Joey asked.

"What?" Wesley had never felt himself get red with anger so fast. "That has nothing to do with anything. I don't like her because she's a bitch."

"I know you think you're open minded because your girlfriend's Middle-Eastern or whatever–"

"She's English. From England. And as for where her ancestors come from, I may be really bad at geography but even I know India is nowhere near the middle east."

He could hear Zepp mumbling about how it was all in Asia.

"None of us like her," Uri said, arms crossed against the wall.

"Zepp?" Joey asked.

Zepp only half looked up from where he was folded up on the bench, not looking anyone in the eye. "Don't get me involved in this," he said.

"I've learned a lot from Lana, and maybe the problem is just none of you have experienced like real discrimination, so you don't really get it," Joey said.

Uri's eyes narrowed. His fists clenched so hard Wesley could see the knuckles going red. "What."

"Oh, why would you do that? Now Uri's going to go on about the holocaust again," Zepp said.

"Yeah, you know what, Zepp? In Germany in the 40s you would have been right there in the camps with me. So maybe you could take genocide seriously, for once."

"Oh, okay, sure, I'll make sure to wear my pink triangle to the next stupid pointless band meeting, just so you know how seriously I'm taking things."

"What is even happening?" Joey asked. "What did I unleash?"

As Uri and Zepp continued to hiss at each other, Wesley edged towards the door. Joey followed him out.

*

Later, alone with Zepp.

"She's really not that bad, you know," Zepp said. "She's just straightforward. And she's got a funny sense of humour. She's nice, really. If you got to know her you'd like her."

Wesley crossed his arms and looked away. "Uri doesn't like her either."

"Uri doesn't like Joe having a girlfriend because it means Joe doesn't want to look for girls with him any more. He'd be the same with any girl."

Wesley thought of Uri, of jealous possessive Uri. The Uri who'd tried to talk him out of getting serious with Gloria; the same Uri who'd told Wesley he'd been more fun single even though Wesley had been unhappy then. He had to admit it made sense. "I guess if Joey's serious about her I can learn to accept her."

"I don't think he's serious about her. I think being Lana Little's boyfriend is just another idea he's testing out and it's going to end really badly."

"That's not any good, either," Wesley said.

*

They got back to Melbourne and Zepp's cousin's house just in time for a box to be delivered, for them.

"It must be the shirts you ordered," Tom said, as they hauled it into the living room.

So they used a pair of scissors in lieu of a box cutter and opened it up to check the merchandise. Wesley lifted one of the t-shirts out of the box.

"Well, this printed fine, I guess. Do you think this size would fit Zepp?" he asked Tom. "I want to see it on a person."

"Is it a small?" Tom asked.

"He's under the impression that he wears a medium," Wesley said. It was a small, though.

"Go find him and see," Tom suggested.

He didn't know where Zepp was but he figured he'd try the guest bedroom, only for him to find Zepp outside the door, looking annoyed at the world.

"Are you looking for Joe?" Zepp asked.

"Why would I be looking for Joe?" Wesley asked. He suddenly felt that he should have been looking for Joey. He still had the shirt in his hands so he tried to hold it up against Zepp's body, to get a size comparison.

"Joe's in a rotten mood," Zepp said, grabbing Wesley's arm and steering him away from the door.

"How do you know?" Wesley asked.

"He's been listening to the same Lana Del Rey song for half an hour."

"That's the only Lana I can listen to!" Joey yelled through the door.

"It's not bad until he gets to the Chris Isaak," Uri said, when they caught up with him. "Then he tries to sing along."

"Good. He could use the practice," Wesley said.

He took out his phone to send a message to Gloria: 'not sure if Joey broke up with gf but being very dramatic'.

When he checked his phone again she'd sent back: 'feed him icecream'.

Joey didn't eat ice cream but froyo was close enough. And they were about to go back to Sydney – froyo was everywhere.

*

Joey was grumpy the whole way up. He wouldn't talk until they checked into their hotel (and how excited was Wesley that they could afford a hotel?).

"You have to talk about it some time," Wesley said. He dumped his suitcase in a corner, by the table, while Zepp jumped on one of the beds.

"She broke up with me," Joey yelled.

"Was that three months? I think it's a record," Wesley said.

"Yeah, that's a record for him," Uri said.

Joey flopped back onto a bed and waved his arms about until he'd disrupted all the blankets from their peaceful resting shapes. "I don't think you're all taking my heartbreak seriously enough."

"Come on, we can get froyo and talk about it," Wesley said.

"Count me out. It's freezing," Zepp said. It wouldn't be freezing if he'd do the sensible thing and get a jumper out of one of the bags, but he was wearing a low-in-the-sides tank top, the better to show off the bruising from some recent hook up he hadn't managed to share any details about.

"I hate frozen yoghurt," Uri said.

"I guess it's just us, then," Wesley said, looking at Joey's pitiful figure on the bed.

Joey sighed, then forced himself upright. "Fine. I could stand to eat froyo."

*

He didn't talk much over froyo, either. Mostly, he huddled further into his coat and scarf, and scowled out at the world each time he brought the spoon to his mouth.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, little buddy," Wesley said, bumping his shoulder.

"Okay," Joey said. He had every appearance of trying to look as tragic and woebegone as he possibly could in his nice, clean, warm clothes, on a lovely night, halfway across the world from where he grew up. Wesley wasn't going to get in the way of Joey indulging his own sense of romantic drama.

*

Joey was stompy and moody looking as they went off to meet the video director but he turned on the charm as soon as they got there. Wesley could only feel a sense of relief. There's only so much froyo you can try to cheer someone up with.

Michael, the video director, was someone Joey knew through his parents. Wesley wouldn't even have considered getting a music video done, but Joey said Michael was holidaying where they were and would give them a good deal. Nothing fancy, obviously. Mostly standing in front of a green screen, pretending to play their instruments, while glitter rained on them from above. It only took a few hours to get out of the way so Wesley suspected it might end up a bit rubbish, but it was pretty fun (even if he was pretty sure he'd never get the glitter out of his eyebrows) and it felt like they were having the real musician experience for once instead of just play-acting at being a band.

Joey sidled up to laugh with Michael and his crew as soon as it was done, leaving the rest of them to chill out and wait with each other for Tom to turn up.

*

"Tom's here with the car. It's time for us to leave, Joey," Wesley said.

"No, uh, Michael said he'd make me dinner and we'd talk about some stuff? His wife's a very good cook," Joey said.

Wasn't really Michael making dinner if his wife was cooking it, was it? Wesley looked at the guy. He seemed safe, maybe. There was nothing jumping out as wrong with the guy. It was probably okay to let Joey go off with him, else why would it have been okay to work with him in the first place?

"Are you sure?" Wesley asked.

"Yeah, I need this, to cheer me up," Joey said, in that really sincere-looking way that meant he was probably bullshitting.

"Okay. Don't get back too late."

He nodded and let Joey be, then turned to his other boys and rushed them to the car.

*

Joey stumbled in at a ridiculous time of the night, stomping his boots about like he couldn't control his feet. Wesley wasn't asleep yet, anyway – too busy thinking about things he couldn't affect from bed. He didn't mind the idea of a chat.

"Have a good time?" he asked Joey, yawning.

"You're still awake. That's awesome," Joey said. That wasn't an answer, but that was Joey for you.

Joey thumped about a bit more, probably taking off his shoes, and then got under the covers, clothes and all.

"Hello," Joey said, looking right at Wesley. He was obviously dying to talk.

"Did he take you to see a movie then?"

"No," Joey said, and laughed.

"Fancy restaurant, maybe?"

"No, I went back to his place and he and his wife made me some dinner and let me drink some wine and then we all had sex," Joey said.

Wesley felt he was actually a little bit more awake now and not just pretending to be so could make 'I'm definitely listening' noises when Joey needed them. He really was listening.

"Have you ever had a threesome?" Joey asked.

"No. I don't really want to."

"Come on, it's every guy's fantasy, right? It's totally normal." Joey's cheeks were flushed as he pressed them into the pillow.

"Normal doesn't have to mean everyone wants to do it, though. Let people want what they want."

"Do you think Uri's ever had a threesome? I hope I'm beating him at something."

"I don't really want to think about that." But he did remember a story Zepp had told him that he probably shouldn't tell. "Zepp told me he was dating someone who wanted to have a threesome once."

"Yeah?" Joey said, sounding eager. "I bet."

"But then his partner and the other guy just went at each other and ignored him so he left them to it and went to make himself a cup of tea in the kitchen instead. I think he said the guy came out whistling and didn't even remember to be awkward until he saw Zepp standing there."

Joey cracked up laughing but it was smothered a little by the soft fabric of the pillow. "That's hilarious. I love it. Tell me more of Zepp's embarrassing stories."

"If you want more of his stories you're going to have to ask him yourself."

"I won't tell him you told me about this," Joey promised. He better not. Wesley didn't want to get in trouble for it. "Do you want the details of the sex?"

"Oh, alright. If you absolutely have to share."

"Okay, so, I went down on her and she definitely loved it, and then I went down on him, and then I totally boned her. I was very naughty."

"Wait, you what?"

Joey laughed a little more. "It wasn't weird or anything. I just went with it. Rock stars are supposed to experiment and stuff, right? It doesn't mean I'm gay or anything. Like, one dude can do that to another dude one time, without it being a thing. Right?"

"If you say so."

"I feel like I've replenished my, like, spiritual wholeness or whatever now. That thing with Lana was not good. I needed to try this to get it out of my system. I can go back to being the real me now. And I think that girl with the blonde hair who keeps showing up at our shows wants me so I'm going to hook up with her next."

As if there were only one girl with blonde hair in the entire country.

"Good luck with that."

"Okay. Thanks for listening, Wesley. You're a great friend."

Joey finally stopped talking and let them both get some sleep.
Chapter 17

"I'm taking all my thoughts about Lana and putting them in a song. It's a country song," Joey said.

"We don't do country music," Wesley said.

"It's for Garrett," Joey said, absent minded, as his hand flew across the notebook.

"Who's Garrett?" Wesley asked.

"He's a country singer Carrie put me in touch with."

"Okay. Who's Carrie?" Wesley asked, confused at this barrage of unfamiliar names.

"My stepmother. Sort of. Not really. It's complicated. I mean, it's not really complicated."

One thing at a time. "Why are you writing a song for a country singer and not for us?"

Joey finally stopped scribbling and looked up. "I need money to keep up my shoe budget."

Wesley looked down at Joey's boots. They were shiny black leather with gold-looking metallic bits. Fair enough, that probably cost a lot of money.

With Joey's writing hand out of the way, Wesley could see the lyrics. That was definitely a country song. Wesley felt relief at not having to sing it. He'd shelve his other thoughts until later.

"Tell me about Carrie."

"Carrie Hernandez. She and my dad aren't actually married but they've been together forever." He thumbed through the gallery on his phone until he came to a picture of a pretty woman with his dad. "That's her."

"Is there a big age difference between she and your dad?"

"Because he looks craggy and she looks like a beauty queen? A bit. Dad's in his fifties and Carrie's 45."

Wesley had met Joey's dad only once. He was a large, intimating man to look at, big forearms and leathery skin. He looked happy in the photo, with his arms around Carrie. Not so scary, after all. "I think your dad looks like John Wayne."

"I'm going to tell him that," Joey said, smiling. "Do you like John Wayne films a lot?"

"A bit. Zepp's made me watch Red River a lot because he likes Montgomery Clift."

"I don't think I've seen that one. I'm sad you didn't get to meet Carrie. When we went down to see dad, she was filming something somewhere else in Austin. She's a first assistant director. I don't expect you to get what that means."

He didn't. "Does she get along with your mum?"

"Yeah, my whole family gets along great. I'm really lucky."

"I can't imagine what that situation's like," Wesley said.

"You're the first friend I've ever had whose parents were still together and alive," Joey said.

Wesley ruffled his hair. "Finish writing your country song."

*

Early the next day they were jammed onto a bright red couch in a television studio. Zepp was squinched into the middle of the couch, folded up on top of himself, Joey was on the other side, and Uri was sitting on the arm of the couch. As far as Wesley could tell they were all trying to look like they weren't totally freaked out to be getting enough attention to be filmed for breakfast TV. You-can-call-me-Susan seemed less interested in most of them, however. She looked straight at Joey as they started the interview.

"I heard a rumour I'd like you to clear up for me," Susan said. "And you can see it here on the cover of this gossip magazine. So I'd like to know, and I know the audience would, too – are you secretly gay, and was your romance with Lana Little manufactured to throw the public off the scent?"

"No," Joey said. He looked completely bowled over by the question. Wesley couldn't blame him.

"Why would he need that? Nobody knew who he was until he dated her," Uri said.

"We have so much more going on in this band," Wesley said, "than just Joey's love life. Believe me, it's not that interesting."

"In that case, now that we've cleared that up, everyone wants to know what it's like being with Lana Little." Susan was still looking straight at Joey, whose smile was a bit stiff.

"Uh, well, she's nice and everything," Joey said.

"For example, I've been working out," Wesley said, trying to get Susan's attention. "The viewers might be interested in that."

"We also have music," Zepp said.

"Just nice? Because a little birdy told me you've been writing songs about her. Is that a sign of an imminent reconciliation? Are you hoping to get back together with her?" Susan said.

Wesley pulled his shirt off and threw it past Susan's face. "See, I feel like my ab workout's really going well. What do you think?"

She finally looked away from Joey. Her face froze, looking at Wesley's chest, and she dropped her pen. She didn't even seem to notice she'd dropped her pen.

Wesley winked at Joe. There were no more stupid questions about anyone's love life for the rest of the interview.

*

But Wesley's love life? Oh, that was going well. Gloria was taking her holiday with them while they worked their way around Australia, playing every venue of any size that would have them. Every time he saw Gloria in the crowd and every time he saw her getting along with the boys he felt a rush of pride from his feet up to the top of his hair that left him buzzing.

*

They were talking about tea and Joey had said something mad about putting it in the microwave. Zepp tried to say something about heating the water in a saucepan on the stove. Wesley couldn't let that stand.

"That's not the real English way of making tea. But it's still better than the American way of doing it," Wesley stated, confident in his belief he could defend his home country on this front.

Zepp had his face in his hands and was mumbling something about not getting involved in all the stupidity. Which Wesley thought was ridiculous because Zepp was getting involved in the band's stupidity half the time. He initiated a lot of the stupidity! And only pretended to be above it all when it suited him.

"Nope, my way is better," Joey said. "Gloria, you're an impartial judge--"

"She is not an impartial judge! She is completely biased," Zepp said.

"--So you can tell me what the actual English way of making tea is and whether or not it is better." Joey crossed his arms and looked serious like what they were talking about was of vital importance. Which it was, but he didn't usually look that serious about things even more serious than that.

"Uh, well first you subjugate India for a while and turn a good portion of its economy towards your tea plants. Then you put a tea bag in a mug and put the kettle on. It's quite simple, really," she said.

There was silence for a moment and then Zepp laughed even harder.

"I don't get it," Joey said.

"You don't get anything," Uri said.

*

Wesley had been happy for Tom when he'd said Naomi was coming. Tom had seemed kind of edgy with stress for weeks, even as he'd looked happy that he was actually guiding them to some kind of moderate success.

Naomi, when she arrived, looked thinner than Wesley had remembered. Longer hair, tired-er eyes. He didn't notice her saying much but it wasn't like he knew her very well. Still, nice to see her. Nice to know that Tom got to see her.

Of course, Tom having a date night with his missus meant the rest of them could go somewhere in the van and chill out overnight, gather some blankets and look at the stars.

Uri produced a rolly from beneath his blanket. "I brought a little friend, to help us feel better. Did you bring your friend, the lighter?"

"I'm not going to start calling my lighter one of my best friends, but it's in my pocket."

When Gloria arrived she scrambled into the back of the van next to them, pinching it right from Joey's hands.

"Hey, I was smoking that," he said.

"Too late," she said, blowing out a puff of pot smoke.

By the time Zepp turned up, Joe had gotten himself well indignant at being stolen from in his moment of need, even if Uri had more weed in his bag.

"It's the principle of the thing," Joey complained.

"I brought the stuff, so I say she needs it more than you," Uri said. "Stop whining."

"What is Joe moaning and groaning about now?" Zepp asked.

"You don't want to know," Wesley said. It was bad enough that he had to deal with it, without subjecting Zepp to it, too.

"You want some, Zepp?" Uri asked.

"No, way," Joey said. "Zepp's a nerd. There's no way he's into that."

Zepp rolled his eyes. "I'm standing right here."

"Look at him, Gloria. He needs it. Give it to him," Wesley said. "He's all tense."

Joey immediately started laughing, because he liked to do that. Zepp was still looking like it was paining him to be near Joey's eternal whiny energy, even as Gloria was passing him the weed.

"Did you hear how that sounded?" Joey asked.

"You see what I have to put up with?" Wesley asked, turning to Gloria. She did look very sympathetic.

She put a hand on his shoulder and nodded. "It's hard raising children."

"Hey!" Joey said, objecting to everything once again.

"Especially this one," Wesley said.

"Yeah, Joey, you're our problem child," Uri said.

"I am a good boy," Joey said. "All my teachers said so."

"They were lying to you," Zepp said, and passed back to Wesley. "It's not as good as the stuff my mum gets."

"Your mum smokes pot?" Joey asked, sounding completely stunned by this information.

"You've met my mother," Zepp said. "How can you be surprised by this? Really, you should be surprised that's the only thing she smokes."

"Give up the cigarettes then, did she?" Wesley asked.

"It's at least the sixth time she's quit but she wants to be good for the grandkid," Zepp said.

"I have faith in her," Wesley said. "I think she'll make it this time."

*

It got cold in the night. Wesley wrapped himself up with Gloria while the boys stayed chatting outside.

"You never told me what made you want to work in music in the first place," she said.

"I don't know, really. Just always wanted to. I learned to play the piano from a lady at the church we used to go to and then I learned a bit of music tech and that was it. What about you?"

"Me?" When she looked up at him he nearly got a mouthful of her hair. Worth it.

He nudged her side a little. "Tell me the story of how you decided to become a finance whiz."

"You vastly overrate my skill."

"Come on, tell me the story."

"I think I always just liked this stuff. Both my parents work in the finance industry and they were always willing to talk to me about it. It's not just numbers and money. It's a way of looking at the connections between countries and the things that glue parts of societies together. It runs through everything. If you look at where the money flows you can unravel almost any secret in the world. And, I have to admit, financial modelling is fun."

"You make it sound really poetic," he said.

She slapped his shoulder and laughed. "It's not poetic at all. Poetry is your stuff."

"No, I like it. I don't understand it at all. My family never had much money and my parents put everything they saved into bad investments. It's not a thing I've really paid attention to." Owning almost nothing was one of those things he had in common with Uri. Zepp's family wasn't poor any more and Joey would never understand. Neither would Gloria, but it was enough that she was willing to listen, anyway.

"I don't really understand your thing, either. Music is a lot more complicated than I thought."

*

The next day they were setting up in a new place. Wesley got to the venue early so he could check on it all being put together. He wasn't sure what was the best place to watch the madness until he noticed Naomi standing still where the audience would be.

Wesley stood next to Naomi and watched Tom work, listened to Tom yelling creative insults at everybody. When he looked at Naomi she had a strange expression on her face.

"Isn't it cool to watch what he does?" Wesley asked.

"Cool, sure. Watching his career finally take off just as mine is ending."

"But that's not Tom's fault."

She didn't soften her not-smile. "It's not anyone's fault. It's just the way it is."

*

They were up in one of the northern bits of the country. It was hot, hot, hot on stage so Wesley and Joey kept splashing their water bottles at each other. Wesley was having a good time of it. Joey was nearly drenched, which meant Wesley was winning. Zepp kept shuffling away whenever they got near him, hissing something about his electric guitar, and Uri basically ignored them.

Joey made a cheeky comment after one song and then the fight was really on, tripping over each other trying to be the winner.

Wesley looked up after he pinned Joey's face to the floor. Zepp had his eyebrows raised and a hand in front of his mouth, but Wesley was pretty sure that was a saucy expression behind his fingers.

"By all means, continue wrestling in wet shirts," Zepp said.

*

Wesley had definitely noticed that Zepp kept looking at a guy in the crowd and he was pretty sure that same guy had been to their last five shows. He was so excited to get to tease Zepp about it.

"Oh my god, you have a groupie," he whispered in Zepp's ear, at the side of the stage.

"Shut up," Zepp whispered back. His face was all red, but it could have been from the heat of the stage lights. Zepp had gone straight back to looking at that guy in the audience so Wesley was pretty sure he wasn't really embarrassed.

"Look at him. He loves you. Live the rock star dream," Wesley said. Zepp was laughing. "Do gay dudes have sexy guitarist fantasies, too?"

"Not all of them." Zepp elbowed him away. "Shut up and let me play my guitar."

Wesley bounced back to his seat, ready to play on.

*

"So, bro," Wesley said, sitting next to Zepp at what looked awfully like a re-purposed picnic table. "Tell me all about this tall Australian guy you keep eyeing in the crowd. Planning to hook up with that?"

Zepp laughed into his beer and looked very pleased with himself. "I've been hooking up with him, off and on, for most of the time we've been in Australia. Since, like, Sydney. He went down to Melbourne and now he's come up to wherever we are."

Wesley elbowed him. "You sly dog, keeping that from us. Does this hook-up have a name?"

"Jared. He's called Jared. He's a freelancer so he can go wherever he likes, and I guess, you know, that's working out really well for me."

"Make sure he treats you right," Wesley said.

"I, uh, I will," Zepp said. He laughed and rubbed at his red face.

Wesley held his beer bottle up so they could tap theirs together.
Chapter 18

Wesley had been trying to sell Uri on a more synth-y number for hours. The entire band had voted on it, and it was three to one, majority rules, but Uri just couldn't stand it.

"Why are we making more songs like this?" Uri asked. "Come on! We're a rock band. Not some sissy dance group?"

Sissy? Wesley was starting to wonder what decade Uri had time travelled from. "People like the dance-y stuff. They buy it and we're a business so I'd like us to make some real money."

"That's complete bull."

"It's like Zepp said. The people want dance pop."

"But I don't."

"Well it's not going to be the whole album," Wesley yelled.

Uri stepped back, blinking. "Okay, I get it."

Wesley was tired. He was so so tired. He needed a drink to take the edge off his anger, just one. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. That's not a good way to treat a friend."

Uri grabbed one elbow like he was protecting himself and tried a smile that fell away pretty quickly. Wesley immediately felt like the biggest dickhead in the world. His best mate and he couldn't even manage to talk to him right.

"We've still got time to discuss it," Uri said. "The night isn't over."

"It is for us. I have to go out, about now."

Uri looked away. "Right. You're going out with Gloria."

"And also Tom and Naomi."

"Because you thought a double date was a good idea. Have fun with that."

"I will. You should call Miriam. Or keep Joe company."

"Right." Uri shuffled out.

Wesley slumped where he sat for a moment, before pushing himself up to face the night.

*

"Okay," Wesley said, as he opened the cool-box he'd borrowed. "It's an open air concert so I've got wine and water crackers and lots of little cheeses. It's just really cheap wine. There's a five dollar shelf at the shop next to the supermarket, did you know that?"

"Trust you to find the cheap stuff," Tom said.

"What do you have?" Gloria asked.

"There's a rose, because it's sunny, you see, and I don't know what this one is. It just says white. It could be anything. I don't know that any of the cheeses match. I just grabbed a bunch that were on special and made sure I avoided the soft ones. Oh, and there's a bread board and a steak knife, because I could find any cheese knives."

"You'll be set for anything," Gloria said.

Wesley could hear the singers setting up, in the distance. He didn't really know anything about who was playing, only that it was free, and you couldn't argue with that.

He and Gloria set to talking about anything that came to their minds. The warmth of the night, England's chances in the Ashes that year, any bad jokes they'd been saving up.

Her laugh was so bright! Wesley loved that he could make her laugh like that more than anything. The way her eyes scrunched up, the way her body shook all the way through her legs.

He looked down to see what Tom and Naomi were talking about and, oh– they weren't. They were just staring straight ahead. Her hands were in her lap and their legs were folded away from each other.

As Wesley continued to stare at them, Gloria stopped laughing, too.

"How long do you think they've been like that?" Gloria whispered in his ear.

"I don't know. I didn't notice until now."

*

Gloria and he managed to ditch Tom and Naomi and leave them with the cheeses not long after that, and went dancing instead.

Her dress shook and shimmered as she swayed in the half-light. A jewel-bright green against the glowing brown of her skin. No gem could shine as brightly as she did. The lights flickered and danced against across her writhing arms, her rolling back, the soft waves of her hair. He couldn't look at anything else.

There was nothing dishonest about Gloria. Her laugh lifted him up so much higher than the day to day drudgery could keep him. It made him realise how much Uri had been dragging him down. He only hoped he wouldn't drag Gloria down, too.

He couldn't think of anyone else. He could only hope one thing: please, let me not be alone in this.

*

They were going back to Sydney to do some final things, and Gloria had a whole life to get back to, so he had to let her go home.

"I'm really going to miss you," he said, watching her put on her clothes in the early morning light.

"I'll miss you, too." She tucked in her shirt then leaned over the bed to kiss him again, and again. "Why do you have to be so pretty?"

"Uh, well, I just can't help being a pretty man," he said. He pushed her hair behind her ears and tried really hard not to drag her back into another kiss.

*

Uri and Tom had gone off to do something that Wesley didn't ask about, so when Zepp mumbled something about wanting to get out because Jared had stopped being in the picture, Wesley took the opportunity for a bit of bro time.

Wesley remembered to tell Joey about their outing last minute. "Just a minute, Zepp, I'll be back once I tell Joey where we've gone so he doesn't think we've abandoned him or he's the last survivor of a zombie plague or something."

"Zombie plague is only if there's body parts in the hallway," Zepp said.

Wesley did some finger pointing to show his agreement at that point, before he walked back up to Joey's room.

There was the faint sound of music from behind the door. A little humming, a little finger strumming. Wesley didn't bother to knock because the door wasn't even completely closed, which was obviously a sign.

He pushed the door open. "We're just going out for a bit, Joe."

Joey paused in his movements and looked up, spooked. Eyes big, eyebrows pushed halfway up his forehead, fingers frozen where he was hunched over a guitar. "Don't tell Zepp," he said, in an urgent sounding whisper.

"Don't tell Zepp what?"

Joey didn't move.

"Don't tell Zepp you can actually play the guitar and were just pretending you couldn't to make him feel useful? I'm pretty sure he knows," Wesley said.

"No, he's not allowed to know."

"Okay. I won't tell him," Wesley said. He backed out of the room and carefully closed the door. What a gigantic weirdo.

*

"Come on, I'm dying for a steak," Zepp said. He walked two steps ahead and even though they weren't touching at all, Wesley felt like he was being dragged along.

"Why couldn't we have all gone together as a band?"

"Joe's decided to be a vegetarian again now and nothing is ever good enough for Uri's special dietary requirements."

"He can't help being Jewish. What about Tom?"

"Tom can go get his own steak."

The pub Zepp was leading him in to was all lacquered wood walls and fresh dark red carpet. Wesley could smell wood and warm fried food and the faint hint of glue. And beneath that, the smell of beer. The smell of beer sunk so deep into the floors that no number of renovations could get it out. It smelled like childhood, felt like the warm hands of his father as he taught Wesley to play pool, like the bright smile on his gran's face at her 71st birthday. He closed his eyes and breathed it in.

"What are you standing there with your eyes closed for? I want to order."

They sat down for a good solid meal and a few beers. Wesley liked that he could catch up with Zepp by themselves, even if Zepp kept getting distracted by whatever sport was on TV.

After they'd finished their meal, Zepp dragged them to an even seedier looking place he said he'd heard good things about. Wesley couldn't tell any difference in the quality of beer. The music was alright, though. After he'd had a few he couldn't stop himself from singing along to the bits of songs he knew, even when some guy elbowed him by the bar.

"Are you from that fag band I keep hearing on the radio?" the guy asked.

"You hear that, Zepp? People have been hearing us on the radio," Wesley said.

"Yeah, I got that," Zepp mumbled, as he grabbed Wesley's elbow and tried to drag him toward the exit.

"You have that stupid song about boats," the guy said. He was almost stabbing Wesley with his pointing finger.

"Yes, that's us!" Wesley was too delighted at the idea of people listening to them to even care that the guy didn't like them.

"What are you smiling like that for? Are you stupid?"

Okay, the shoving was uncalled for. It was only the grip of his shoes on the carpet that had kept Wesley from skidding back from the force of the guy's push. He couldn't let that stand. He brought up his hands to push back. The total dickhead standing in front of him wasn't that big and tall. He could take him.

"I should not have let you drink this much," Zepp said.

"Don't start with me, mate," Wesley said.

The other guy turned with the force of Wesley's push. "Yeah, you wanna go?" But then, with a crashing noise, the guy smacked his bottle hard on the sharp edge of a table and let the beer spill everywhere.

Wesley let himself be dragged by the elbow away by Zepp, before the guy had even finished turning around. They ran straight out the door, not even looking to see if someone was coming after them. They were halfway down the street before they stopped to look around.

"Holy shit, what was that?" Wesley asked.

"That was you nearly getting into a bar fight with someone twice your size." Zepp's face had gone strangely blank like he was a cautious Muppet. The Kermit face, Wesley liked to call it.

"I can't believe he called us a... you know, that F-word. It's 2013! We're in Sydney! This place is supposed to be gay-friendly."

"Yeah, that happens," Zepp said. He didn't sound that bothered about it. "It happens everywhere. Don't make a big deal of it."

"But that's just not right!"

Zepp raised an eyebrow. "Okay, belligerent drunk guy, I don't actually need straight people to defend me from big, scary words. What I need is for you not to get yourself nearly glassed."

"I wasn't in danger."

Zepp didn't trust him to walk back so they took a taxi to their accommodation. Wesley had to admit, he was feeling embarrassed about the whole thing by the time they got in and snuck past Tom.
Chapter 19

The only sound in the quiet hallway was Naomi opening and shutting a door, and then the muffled thump-thump of a wheeled suitcase trailing behind her. The soft grey of her long, loose shirt matched the grey of the carpet, and the grey of the morning light. Her black boots and jeans matched her bags and her hair. With her sunglasses perched in her hair, she held her head high as she walked into the waiting lift.

That was the last Wesley ever saw of her.

*

Tom was staying in Australia another week. Wesley wasn't going to ask.

*

Everyone else was still sleeping and they were anxious about the idea they might miss their flight, so Wesley and Zepp left a note in the room and then went to the airport together. It was early, day barely emerging from the darkness of night as they went through check in and security. The airport personnel looked like they'd already been up for hours.

Zepp crashed into a seat at their gate, and Wesley followed. They leaned together, the hard plastic of the chair's arm an uncomfortable presence between them. Wesley wanted to sleep more, but the grey skies through the window were getting lighter and brighter.

"What happened with you and Jared?" he asked.

"It's over. He wanted to be allowed to screw other people and I just can't deal with that. It's not how I do things," Zepp answered.

"Me either, buddy."

"We must be the only two touring musicians ever with the monogamy gene."

"It seems like it sometimes."

*

Uri and Joey turned up at the airport, later, and came to find them, even though they were on different flights. Uri immediately ignored them for his phone, but Joey sat down, threw his arm around Zepp, and said, "And here's my favourite introvert."

"I'm not an introvert," Zepp protested.

Joey started laughing immediately, which wasn't very kind.

"Come on, Zepp. You get shy and you leave parties early," Wesley said.

"Shyness and introversion are completely separate things. And I leave parties early because everyone gets really drunk, and having grown up with an alcoholic dad, I find being around people that cry a lot and throw up on themselves super boring," Zepp said.

"Sure. But you always like to have your own room. And you don't always want to talk to us. I always want to talk to everyone," Joey said.

Zepp tilted his head at Joey and raised those dark eyebrows as high as they would go. "And that's why you're annoying."

"Hey!" Joey said.

"You never clean up after yourself, and he," and at this Zepp pointed at Uri, who was sitting down with his headphones in, obviously not hearing the conversation at all, "smokes likes a chimney and fucks strangers everywhere we go, and if you've ever had to share a room with someone who is making sex noises while you're trying to get some sleep, you know how awkward that is. And you," Zepp continued, turning to point at Wesley, "are always having feelings on the phone with Gloria, and then you ring off and have to have more feelings talking about it with me. Which is actually the least annoying, so if I have the choice of who to share with I will always choose you."

Wesley nodded. It seemed like fair reasoning.

"Anyway," Zepp went on. "I play to hundreds of people every night and don't feel shy about it at all. And the bigger the crowd, the better it feels. I'm definitely not an introvert. I'm just not really an extrovert, either. I'm sort of in the middle. Can you be in the middle? I think I'm in the middle."

"I think I'm in the middle, too, Zepp," Wesley said.

"Not really. You're a party person. I'm way more in the middle than you."

"The middle is boring!" Joey declared. "I want everyone to talk to me and love me."

Wesley could feel himself mirroring Zepp, raising his eyebrows at Joey, too. "We know. Believe me, we know."

*

After all that, he was glad to go back home. It had been a great fun tour, sure, but he was really tired. The Americans were flying on to LAX and he and Zepp were going home to London. Wesley couldn't wait to see Gloria, figure out the situation with his parents, maybe get a dog. He'd relax for a few weeks, if he could remember how.

*

Even though he'd been almost getting sick of being around everyone all the time while they were away, once he was home it was different, and so he and Zepp had to go to the pub with Gloria and have a nice night out. Wesley dragged Andy and Chez into it as well, because he didn't want to be the guy who ignored his friends from home even when he was back.

He and Gloria left early-ish, because she wanted to meet her friends for breakfast the next day, and he didn't want to be there without her.

There was not really anyone else out there, as they walked to find their car in the car park, other than a couple of cats having a fight and a couple of guys kissing against the wall.

Wesley went to unlock the car.

"Hey, isn't that Zepp?" Gloria asked.

Wesley turned to look at the men kissing against the building, squinting until he could pick out the bleached spiky hair on one of them, without having to see any of the other finer details. Zepp was a private guy. He probably didn't want anyone watching him get down to it.

"Get in!" Wesley yelled.

Okay, Zepp was a private guy that needed to be teased a lot.

"I give it a seven out of ten for effort," Gloria yelled, and Wesley cracked up laughing.

Zepp detached his arm from the random guy's hair long enough to extend his middle finger in a message you didn't have to know sign language to understand.

Wesley and Gloria laughed a bit more, but they got in the car and left them to it.

*

His mum cried when he asked his parents if they mightn't want to live with one of his sisters instead. It didn't go great.

"I didn't mean to upset her, dad, but Violet's 27 and she lives in an actual house. Why can't you guys live with her?" Wesley asked.

He'd made a list of everything he'd wanted to bring up and he could feel it crumpled up in his pocket, completely useless.

"Your mother's just very emotional right now," his dad said.

"I know that." Wesley looked at his knees so he didn't have to look his dad in the face.

"We are really proud of what you've achieved. It's just that we never get to see you any more. You went off with your band when you were 18 and now you're almost never home. Anne just wants to be able to see you."

"I know. I'm sorry." Wesley took a deep breath. "I might want to live with my girlfriend someday, you know. And it's irresponsible of Violet and Penny that they expect me to take care of everything. There, I've said my piece."

His father clapped him on the shoulder. "If you feel that strongly about it I can talk to your mother."

"Thank you." Wesley finally looked up at his dad. The pressure on his chest didn't go away. He couldn't wait until he could get back on tour.
Chapter 20

2014

It was Zepp slowly limping in to the room that first alerted Wesley to the idea that this might not be the perfect, fantasy tour he'd been envisioning. Not that he thought it was a bad omen, seeing Zepp wince as he paused and placed one hand on the wall. But it definitely wasn't good.

"What happened?" Wesley asked, after Zepp had finally made it all the way into the room.

"Car accident," Zepp said. "I don't really want to talk about it. I just want to get on with things."

"But, are you okay?" Wesley asked.

Zepp's face was screwed up into something bitter. His teeth were tight against each other as he hissed. Wesley couldn't help but get up to offer him a hand, even if Zepp immediately ignored it.

"I'm fine!" Zepp insisted. "Let it go."

He finally sagged into a seat next to Wesley. Wesley felt pretty weird about being the only one standing up, now, so he sagged into his seat, too.

"I'm still going to be able to play," Zepp said, quieter. "You don't have to worry about that."

"I wasn't worried, bro," Wesley said. He wrapped an arm around Zepp and shook him about a little, just to show he knew he wasn't delicate, but not for too long (because Zepp could be a little delicate at times; his skin bruised blue and green and red; he often couldn't sleep twitching in the night. But he didn't want to feel delicate and Wesley didn't want to make him feel that way). "But did you have an okay holiday?"

"I don't want to talk about any of it," Zepp said. "I'm not going back to fucking Yorkshire ever again, though."

*

Joey showed up with a scarf wrapped around his head.

"I'm going to grow my hair long like Steven Tyler," he declared.

"Are you going to drink a lot on stage and fuck up your feet like Steven Tyler?" Zepp asked.

Joey thought for a while, then nodded. "Yes."

"Okay, I'm not going to disable you from your terrible choices," Zepp said.

"I am," Wesley said. "Take care of your feet, bro."

Uri, when he showed up, was mostly shocked at the idea that Joey might not want to grow up to be David Bowie, any more.

"Look, there's only one David Bowie," Joey said. "I have to admit I'll never be that cool."

Wesley had hopped up to give Uri a brief bro hug when he arrived, but in all the banter nobody had noticed that Zepp decided to remain seated, until they had to move out.

"What happened to your foot?" Uri asked.

"Uh, nothing important. I might have sprained my ankle," Zepp said. Might have, in Zepp language, usually meant definitely did.

"He was in a car accident but he doesn't want to talk about it, bros," Wesley said.

"That's terrible. I should lift you up and carry you everywhere so you don't have to walk anywhere ever again," Joey said.

"That's really not helping, Joey," Wesley said.

"How did you get in a car accident and only sprain your ankle?" Uri asked.

"I just, I might have stepped badly getting out of the car. Whatever, it's not a big deal, let it go," Zepp said.

Uri looked at Wesley with a wry expression. "He tripped on the curb."

"Can we not?" Zepp said, clearly exasperated, as he limped past them.

*

Zepp was not fine. His hands were shaking pretty much all the time. When they weren't shaking he was picking at something, wearing marks into his jeans and the elbows of his sleeves. Even when he smiled his face looked very serious, like he was focusing very hard on looking forward without panicking and didn't remember he was supposed to be having fun.

Sometimes Wesley watched him close his eyes and put his face to his guitar, like it was some kind of security blanket. It was a little worrying.

*

In the crush of people on the train Wesley could feel his hands start to sweat. He couldn't wait to get where they were going, in the hope it would feel less sticky and gross. People kept jostling him with their bags.

Next to him, Zepp had his eyes closed. Joey was glaring at people between every stop (he always looked personally affronted every time they had to take public transport). Uri had his hands tightly clasped to a metal pole and was looking down at his feet, almost unmoving.

It was stuffy. Wesley remembered the time Zepp was trapped in an elevator with him and panicked about breathing recycled air. He hoped Zepp remembered he could breathe, now.

Somebody elbowed Wesley in the back. He half-turned to look at them, but he couldn't tell who it was. It could have been anyone. Zepp was breathing loud enough to spook a horse. Joey was still narrowing his eyes at every other commuter.

Zepp mumbled something, his eyes flickered to a close, and he fell, right onto Wesley's body.

Around them, people sprung to life. Somebody said something in French that Wesley didn't understand. Uri said something else in French that Wesley also didn't understand. And then still more French.

"What are they saying?" Wesley asked. Zepp was already coming to but he was heavy in Wesley's arms and Wesley shifted his grip so they wouldn't fall over.

"They're asking if they need to alert the driver," Uri said. And then a bit more French to the people around them.

"Did you say no? It's just his anxiety," Wesley said.

Uri made a shooshing noise to someone, and then Wesley remembered that Joey was still right there. "I said he'll be fine and we'll get off the next stop."

"Good."

Zepp rolled his head against Wesley's shoulder and made a god-awful groaning noise. Wesley made ready to carry him out.

*

Zepp very quickly looked like he was well sick of people fussing over him.

"Nothing was hurt but my self esteem and manly pride, which will never recover, especially if everyone keeps hovering over me," Zepp said.

"I'm not hovering," Wesley said.

"We should change your middle name to Hover," Zepp said.

"Wesley Hover Robinson. I like the sound of it," Joey said, from where he was perched on the end of Zepp's bed. "What is your middle name?"

"James," Wesley said.

"Mine, too!" Joey seemed really excited, which was probably a sign he wasn't completely free of illicit substances.

"Joseph James? What is with all the J names in your family?" Zepp asked.

Wesley didn't stick around for the reply. Because, really, could there be a more boring conversation topic?

Uri was cutting up food in the kitchen with Joey's aunt, so Wesley figured he'd do his hovering there.

"Is it safe to leave Joey alone with Zepp? The stupidity could rub off," Uri said, without looking up from his task.

"As long as it doesn't rub off on me, I don't care," Wesley said.

Then Uri did pause for a moment, before he swept a bunch of something green and leafy off a bread board into a battered old plastic bowl.

"Zepp wasn't this fragile before. He didn't pick a good time for it," Uri said.

"I don't think he picked it. I'm pretty sure he'd rather not have fainted," Wesley said.

"Fine. As long as he doesn't do it again," Uri said.

Wesley leaned back and accidentally shoved one of Claudine's chairs straight into her table. He righted it and then stood up straight again, looked straight at Uri's back as he worked.

Claudine laughed at them and said their friend could rest as long as he wanted.

*

Wesley figured he'd clean up around the place after dinner so they wouldn't be too much of a drain on their host. Joey bounded in to bother him, of course, because he couldn't be alone for a bit of peace and quiet for even a second.

"What's Zepp doing?" Joey asked. He was always looking for Zepp lately, like it was his job to make sure Zepp was cheered up to the right level and not too anxious. There was something entertaining about watching him trying to take care of someone, when he clearly had no idea what he was doing.

"He's on the phone to his ex," Wesley said.

Joey's eyes went wide. "Zepp has exes?"

"Yes, people other than you have lives."

*

Wesley stopped by the bedroom, where Zepp was texting madly. Zepp had to have heard him, from the way his eyes briefly flickered up, but he kept pressing at his phone anyway.

"We're going to have a vote about which songs to put on the set list, later," Wesley said.

"I don't care," Zepp said.

"That's a bit harsh, bro."

"No, really. I don't care which songs are on it. Vote for me and tell me after." His voice sounded even and reasonable, but Wesley wasn't sure he could trust that.

"If you're sure that's what you want."

Zepp nodded.

*

Wesley wanted to swap out Little Yellow Boat for Lover From Above, an admittedly weird dance-folk song he and Joe had written about romantic aliens that he knew would get people out of their seats and dancing. A magazine had called it 'Coldplay meets Ladyhawke' which didn't make sense, but nothing magazines wrote about them ever made sense.

"I'm in favour," Joey said.

"I'm against it. It's a terrible idea," Uri said.

"I want to do it. So, motion carried," Wesley said.

"No, motion is not carried. There's still someone else that has to vote," Uri burst out.

"Zepp said I could vote for him because he's not feeling well," Wesley said.

"I should go make him feel better," Joey said.

"No, I don't accept that. It is not fair," Uri said.

"I think Zepp would like it if you went to cheer him up, Joe," Wesley said.

"I demand a re-vote," Uri said.

Wesley looked sharply at him. "It's too late. It's done. You can't get everything you want."

*

Zepp was similarly disinclined to vote on their next album title, the next day.

"What if we called it 'Low Hanging Cloud'?" Joey asked. He swung around the kitchen and bit into an apple, and then commenced speaking with half-chewed food still in his mouth. "Because then it's like kind of angsty and deep but not like shove yourself off the cliff bleak."

"Whatever," Uri said. He was leaning back against the counters with his arms crossed and what looked like a low hanging cloud starting to set into his face.

"Zepp?" Wesley asked.

Zepp clenched his fists and breathed out in a very deliberate manner. "I don't care," he said.

"We need to make a decision eventually," Wesley said.

"I don't care!" Zepp yelled. "Stop asking me questions I don't care about!"

And then he got up out of his seat at the table and ran off somewhere.

Wesley looked at the boys. Joey looked startled but a sharpness has settled into Uri's eyes.

"Well, that was unexpected," Wesley said, and went to talk to Zepp about what was going on in his head.

*

The door to the bedroom was half-closed, so Wesley figured Zepp must be in there. He knocked at the door frame.

"You in there?"

"I'm very embarrassed," Zepp said.

Wesley figured that for a yes. He pushed into the room and sat at the other end of the mattress from Zepp. Zepp was folded up, skinny arms circling his pointy knees.

"You've been really tense lately. If you talk to me about it that might help you get over it. We can work things out and fix it."

Zepp shook his head and scrunched up further. There was only one thing in Zepp's life that caused him this amount of trouble.

"Is it about what happened with your dad? You have to talk about it, eventually," Wesley said. He meant it gently but he wasn't sure Zepp would hear it that way.

He watched Zepp look at his knees, then raise a hand towards his mouth like he was going to bite at his nails, then clench it into a fist and place it gently on his knees.

"If I have to," Zepp said.

"It's affecting things and we're all really worried. If the car accident was worse than you said you know you can tell me about it."

Zepp breathed out in a way that was almost like a laugh. "No. I just feel bad for letting it happen."

"You're not responsible for– wait, was your dad drinking before he drove?"

"Isn't he always drinking? It's getting harder to tell the difference between drunk him and sober him, these days."

Zepp leaned forward like he was going to curl into his knees, then pushed him self back up right. Wesley figured the least he could do was a hand on Zepp's shoulder.

"I don't know why I let it happen. It's just that dad had just got his license back and was so happy. And I guess sometimes you let the people you love talk you into things you know are stupid. I really did sprain my ankle just by not looking when I stepped out of the car. Nobody was hurt. I'm just an idiot."

"You're not an idiot."

"Can't tell that to anxiety brain. It doesn't want to listen." After a pause, Zepp continued to speak. "I'll be fine soon. I'll be back to my normal level of barely functioning before you know it. This is just a blip."

"I believe in you, Zepp."

"Good. Also, 'Low Hanging Cloud' is a terrible name."

*

Tom was sitting on the bed, watching his wedding video. The Tom on screen pushed his long streaky fringe out of his face and wiped away a tear as half-price Elvis asked if he, Thomas Gonzales, took Naomi Dizon... The Tom sitting on the bed had at least sorted his hair out.

"You still dress pretty much the same," Wesley said.

"What do you want?" Tom asked, obviously not happy to be interrupted from his wallowing.

"We've been having some interpersonal band drama so you're probably going to have to manage Uri before he starts sniping at everyone."

"Ugh," Tom said. He brought his hand up to push back his hair, just like he had in the video. "This is the last thing I need. Other people have jobs that take them away from everyone's drama. Why didn't I choose one of those?"

*

Zepp and Wes showed up first at the venue and set about setting up, chatting to other acts, and generally chilling out together. Zepp seemed a lot less anxious than the past few days. Must have been the result of getting his hands back on the beautiful polished wood of his guitars, in a place where clinging to them didn't look so weird.

Uri and Joey skidded in just on time. Joey was wearing a hideous sheer floral shirt that looked like it was made for sexy grandmas. Instead of watching him kick his feet about and be annoying, Wesley figured he'd turn to Uri for an explanation.

"I went out and got another tattoo, with Joey," Uri said. He rolled up his sleeves and showed off his arm, where plastic was wrapped over an angry fighting tiger, and a serpent lazily coiling over his shoulder.

"They look really cool, bro," Wesley said.

"Miriam hates all my tattoos," Uri said, and laughed. "But it's not her body. It's my body and I can put whatever I want on it, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so. What did Joey get done?"

"He got his mom's name in a love heart. What an idiot," Uri said. Wesley couldn't stop himself from cracking up laughing. He could feel his eyes wrinkling up and his head going back as the laughter vomited out of him. "I told him every girl he'll ever hook up with is going to be put off by it, but he said he doesn't care."

"What a mummy's boy," Wesley said.

Uri had to go have a chat with Tom, so Wesley found himself turning around with nothing to do. All the set up was pretty much done and he didn't want to get in the way of anyone else's jobs. Zepp and Joey had sat down together and looked like they were deep in conversation.

He got closer with the thought of interrupting them anyway, but thought better of it as soon as he heard them talking. Awkwardly eavesdropping it was, then.

"Which of my terrible qualities is your favourite?" Joey asked.

"Your gigantic ego," Zepp said.

They were kicking each other's feet at the table and ignoring that there were entire people in the room who were bored of their antics, as usual.

"My ego isn't the only thing that's gigantic," Joey said. He poked his tongue into one cheek and slowly slid it around, while Zepp laughed and kicked him again.

Were they flirting? Did they even know they were flirting? Was Wesley supposed to know they were flirting? Or was Joey just enjoying someone paying attention to him, again? That was probably it. Wesley tried to put it out of his mind.

Wesley turned around and watched Tom painting Uri's eye-liner on, line by line. If only he had a drink in his hand. Then he wouldn't be so bored.

*

"Okay, you may be wondering why I'm wearing a woman's shirt," Joey said into the microphone, in the dodgy banter section of the show. "But the woman who was wearing it didn't leave her number, so I couldn't think of any other way to tell her to come get her shirt."

That was so stupid, Wesley couldn't help but laugh.

"But, I don't know," Joey said, "I kind of like it. Maybe I should keep it."

"Now you don't have to take off your shirt to show off your tattoos," Wesley said.

"That is an excellent point," Joey said.

"Not so sure about the frilly cuffs, though," Wesley said.

"The print clashes with all your ink. It offends my eyes," Uri said.

"Zepp, your thoughts?" Joey asked, as if Zepp ever had thoughts about fashion.

Zepp just did a thumbs up and then looked back at his guitar.

"I'm keeping it," Joey said. The crowd screamed. Wesley wished they'd get that amped for their actual music.

*

After the show, Joey put his coat on over his outfit, without bothering with anything sensible like a scarf or jumper in between, then grabbed Zepp by the wrist and literally dragged him out into the night. Zepp didn't seem to be resisting. That left Wesley, Tom and Uri to do the responsible adult thing and pack up. Wesley felt ready to slump already.

*

Joey and Zepp turned up again late the next morning. They came through the door in wet clothes, laughing together. Joey ran straight past Wesley to do whatever it is he wanted to do, but Zepp stopped for a chat.

"Hey," Zepp said. His face was flushed and beaming. His damp hair was in greyish clumps, with the dark roots showing through, though it looked better than it had any right to.

"You look like you had a good time."

"Joe is crazy. He's completely crazy. He went straight in the pool with a fresh tattoo and said I should dye my hair like the ocean. I'm going to do it once I grow the purple out. Green and blue."

"Where did you go that had a pool?"

"And I thought about our album title. It's clunky so I vote against it but the basic idea is good."

That was not an answer about the pool.

"Everything is fixed, then?"

"Sure, fixed." And then he paused a moment. "I've got it!" Zepp yelled. "Let's call it 'Cumulonimbus'. Because it's still means a type of low cloud but it also makes us sounds intelligent."

Wesley nodded. "I like it."
Chapter 21

Joey laughed under his breath. "They'll let anyone into this party."

"I can't believe they invited us to an award show for British people, when half of you are Americans, and we're considering exiling Zepp to somewhere remote like Australia or Moldova. I don't even know where Moldova is."

"It's in Europe," Joey said. He sniffed, rubbed at his nose, scratched at his scalp. "Eastern Europe."

*

They bumped into a reporter on the red carpet that actually wanted to talk to them, which was near blowing Wesley's mind.

"How are you feeling?" the reporter asked.

"Good, we're feeling good, aren't we boys? I think we're all in high spirits," Wesley answered.

"You did have a lot of spirits," Joey said. Uri nodded along to that.

"And what about you? What are you thinking about, love?" the reporter asked Uri, shoving her microphone in his face.

"Eggs on toast," Uri answered.

"Well there you have it," Wesley said. "He's thinking of the eggs on toast we'll have back at the flat, after. What a profound statement from a profound man."

Zepp opened his mouth so wide Wesley didn't know how the top of his face didn't fall off, and laughed.

*

Inside, the awards show was boring.

Wesley got turned around trying to find the loo and ended up in a hallway, somewhere in the building. He looked around, confused. The world was swimming a little. He ducked around another corner and, oh– Lana Little, the international guest. He wanted to back away before she noticed him but it was already too late.

"Hello," she said in her too cool voice. She looked at him like he thought she might look at a particularly disgusting bug at the bottom of her garden.

"Hi," he said after a pause.

"I'm going to guess you're not here to tell me how much Joey misses me and how he was so devastated when we broke up."

"No, actually, he straight away went off and had a threesome with a video director, and told me all these details about how he'd like sucked a dude's dick, and didn't talk about you at all. Oh, wait, he's not gay now or anything. It was just a, a thing." It was rapidly becoming clear that this was the reason not to get drunk at industry events. Too much risk of running into someone he shouldn't and running his mouth.

Her eyebrows got really high but then she scoffed and her face went back to normal. "Of course. Rich white boys can do just about anything and people will defend their right to keep every last privilege. It doesn't really mean anything about who they are! Who needs labels? But if a black man does the same he's on the down low."

Wesley didn't really understand anything she said but he felt he had to defend Joey. "Hey, it's, it's not like that." But he couldn't figure out how to say what it was like because he was a little dizzy.

"I'm sure," she said. She relaxed against the wall. What was she even doing out here? She wasn't even doing anything. "The bathroom is back that way."

He looked where she pointed and wobbled away.

*

Wesley wasn't the only one who'd had enough to impair his judgement that night. The walls where they were staying weren't all that well insulated and he could hear half of what was happening in the room next to his. Uri was breaking something but he was laughing about it. Wesley wished he would shut up.

At first the voices were muffled and then louder, loud enough that he could make out what they were saying.

"Tell me you love me," Uri said. A girl's voice laughed and said he was funny. Why couldn't they put music on to drown out the noise like normal people did?

Wesley wriggled about until his head was underneath the pillow, almost enough to block all the noise. Almost enough to block his supply of air, too. He threw the pillow off and resigned himself to suffering.

*

He was still suffering from it the next morning. He couldn't help but scowl at Uri when they saw each other the next morning.

"I broke my jacket, so I need to buy a new one. Come with me," Uri said.

"How did you break your jacket?" Wesley asked. "It's leather."

"It's polyurethane. Let's go."

It didn't look like he had any say in it.

*

They rounded up Zepp and Joey too so they could have a nice wander through the shops together. Wesley steered them all into a charity store.

"If it's second-hand you can afford real leather," he said.

"Authentic, I think is what your people call it," Zepp said.

Uri raised an eyebrow. "My people?"

"People who care about indie cred," Zepp explained.

"It smells like homeless people in here," Joey complained.

Uri rolled his eyes and sorted through the coat rack. He was surprisingly picky, his fingers tripping over one jacket after another as he looked through the selection.

"It's vintage," Wesley said. "I thought people were into that."

He took a picture of a handbag with cats embroidered on it and sent it to Gloria with a funny caption, so she'd know he was thinking of her. "I wish Gloria wasn't on a work trip. She's good at shopping."

"Wow, it didn't even take five minutes," Zepp said.

Uri finally found a jacket sufficient to his needs and wandered over to a mirror to try it on. Wesley followed so he could make encouraging noises. Uri straightened the jacket and then pushed his hair back, as he stood tall, admiring himself.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"You look really cool, bro," Wesley answered. "Let's go get it."

Back by the counter Joey was modelling a bright pink feather boa he'd somehow unearthed, twirling around while Zepp took pictures and made silly comments. Wesley felt sorry for the lady working there.

"I see you've found a commoner scarf to your liking," Wesley said.

"I look fabulous," Joey said.

"You look like a fag," Uri said.

They all stopped moving at once. Then Joey blinked and murmured something that might have been the start of a question. The lady at the counter started telling him off for using bad language. Zepp reanimated and shoved Joey back in the direction of wherever he'd found the thing.
Chapter 22

It was hotter than the sun when they first set foot on the stage. With the sky so overcast it was a sulky heat, that settled on Wesley's skin like a heavy blanket. With the intermittent rain, the crowd seemed to sink ever more slowly into the ground – still into the music but steadily less energetic as the day wore on. It was sunny again by the time they finished, an orange glow hovering over the world, but Wesley was glad to finish.

After they packed up and put things away in the van, Wesley and Zepp headed off to see what mischief could be made at the festival. There was plenty of music Wesley wanted to hear, and there was the hope that he could get sloppy drunk in peace without someone hovering too much. The day did not provide that. Instead he was glad he'd put his wellies on as the rain finally set in. It turned cold and a little bit dark.

They huddled together until Zepp eventually said, "Can we just go back to the van already? I'm sick of this."

*

Everything got muddy and gross. Wesley was into it up to his knees, splattered all over his nice new jeans. They tramped across the field, getting steadily more mucky. Zepp was bringing up the lead, and Wesley was following behind him, hoping he'd remember the way to the van. If not that, at least he hoped they'd be able to find someone else from their group. They'd all gotten turned away from each other after their set, and now he and Zepp couldn't find anyone.

Zepp stopped still in front of him and Wesley bumped right into his back. He finally looked up from his muddy feet out in front of him, to see what made Zepp stop. Across the field there was Joey, smiling sunnily at a girl. That meant they couldn't be too lost, at least.

"Go on, go forward," Wesley said, nudging Zepp's back. "Best to collect him now."

Zepp started forward again.

Wesley watched Joey's progress with the girl, from a distance, as they made their way over. Joey was gesturing and laughing and doing that hair-flip move that seemed to work well for him. Wesley thought, good luck with that. The girl looked like a blonder, smirkier, younger version of Megan Fox, at least a 9 out of 10, so Wesley didn't think there was any way she could fall for Joey's flirting, which usually involved a lot of playing stupid and accidentally falling out of his shirt. She tilted her head – Wesley couldn't read her expression from afar – and then took the flower from her hair and placed it in Joe's. He was in! Wesley was impressed. Joey put his hand on the girl's face before he moved in to kiss her.

In front of Wesley, Zepp fell over into the mud.

"Are you all right there, mate?" Wesley asked.

Zepp had his hands on his knees and was looking straight down at the ground. "Sorry, sorry, can we go back? We don't need to, to talk to Joe. No way, he's busy. Who needs him? Let's find the van without him."

Zepp talked without looking up the whole time.

"Do you need a hand up?" Wesley asked. He put a hand on Zepp's shoulder so he could haul him up, if need be.

Zepp still didn't answer.

"You're right in the mud!" Uri said, from somewhere nearby.

"Oh, there you are, bro! Help me pull him up," Wesley said. He was very pleased with himself for having found the rest of the band without even trying. Now to find Tom and the van.

As he and Uri dragged Zepp upright, Wesley looked over at where Joey was, to see him walking away hand-in-hand with the girl, presumably for some illicit shagging in a tent. They'd be hearing about that for days, then.

As Wesley and Uri set Zepp back on his feet, and brushed him off (not very well, mind, he was muddy all the way to his thighs so dusting off his shoulders was not useful at all), Wesley could see that Zepp still wasn't looking over to where Joey had been. Oh. Oh, dear. That made sense of things. Bit of an unfortunate thing to come about, Zepp getting a crush on Joey of all people.

"Come on, let's find the van," Wesley said. "Joey's off exploring the world with the flower people so we'll leave him to it. We'll get you in different trousers and tell you the cricket score, yeah?"

"Okay," Zepp said.

*

Wesley was dragged awake by noises. It sounded like the sounds his dog made when he scrambled around the back of the car when he and Gloria drove to a beach holiday, but it couldn't be that, because his dog was at home. Also there were hissing noises that sounded suspiciously like Zepp getting angry at someone.

Wesley half opened one eye. Well, sometimes Joey reminded him of his dog, that was for sure. Wesley would honestly be a lot more pleased to see his dog at this time of night. Though from the way red seemed to be streaking across the sky behind Joey through the opened back-doors of the van, it was heading into morning.

"I don't need a flower crown, Joe. I need to be asleep," Zepp was whispering, but it was a really loud whisper.

Joey was sort of half sprawled over Zepp's legs, like he'd tripped when he'd tried to get in the van and hadn't bothered to get himself upright. He was holding some increasingly-crumpled flowers that Zepp seemed to be doing his best to push away from his face. And he smelled unwashed. They probably all did, in spite of Zepp's handy container of wet wipes, but the rest of them hadn't been having sex with strange women in a muddy field at least.

"But it made me think of you," Joey was saying.

"I'm pretty sure you weren't thinking about me while you were boning some woman, actually," Zepp said.

"I don't want to be thinking about either of you right now," Wesley said.

"Do you want details, Wesley? It was pretty hot," Joey said. He tried to wriggle his eyebrows, which just made him look even more like Wesley's dog.

"I never want to hear details about these things," Zepp hissed. "Give him your gossip later when I'm not there."

"But I wanted to share," Joey said, in his most annoying tone of voice.

"Just shut up," Wesley said. "I don't want to hear about anything. I want to sleep. I don't want to see you harassing Zepp. I want to sleep. Clean yourself up and go away so the rest of us can sleep!"

"Don't yell at me," Joey said, so Wesley threw Zepp's pack of wet wipes at Joey as hard as he could and then thumped about onto his side and dragged his sleeping bag above his head. He didn't want to hear any more of the argument.

There was more mumbled conversation, muffled through the material of his sleeping bag, and the feeling of the van moving about, and the sound of thumping movement on the metal. Geez, was Joey made of concrete? Why couldn't he get in a van like a normal person?

Wesley moaned and tried really hard to get back to dream land.

*

They were up with the sun, anyway. Wesley crossed his arms as he watched Joey and Zepp talking against the van. Zepp was leaned against the van and Joey was leaning over him with his arm by Zepp's head. It was the same lean that Wesley had watched Joey do on women in bars any number of times. No wonder Zepp was confused.

"What are you glaring at?" Uri asked.

Wesley gestured with his hand at Zepp and Joey, just as Zepp blushed and playfully pushed Joey back. Joey cartoonishly pretended like he was about to fall right over with the force of the push and Zepp laughed so hard he nearly fell over himself. Not good.

"Just trouble in the making over there."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at Zepp's face. He hasn't been that red since before that last idiot he got himself hung up on."

"Do you want me to talk to Joey about it?"

Wesley swung his head around to look Uri in the face. Backlit by the morning sunlight, his hair was all glowy at the edges but his face was all shadows.

"There's no need to embarrass Zepp like that. Just let it be," Wesley said.

"If you're sure." But even with his face cast in shadows like that, Wesley could see that Uri was looking past him. "I could distract Joey somehow so he wouldn't lead Zepp on so much."

Wesley looked back to Joey and Zepp talking in the sunlight. Zepp's hands weren't clenched into fists, his shoulders weren't stiff beside his ears and he didn't seem to be shaking out of his skin.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea, either. Maybe we ought to leave it be."
Chapter 23

"Joey and I are going to a party, but it's only for cool people, so you can't go," Uri said. He might as well have been Peter Howard on the playground in primary.

"Yeah, I'm so cool," Joey said, laughing.

Uri smirked from behind Joey the whole time.

"Oh," Wesley said. He'd always known Uri would start to get tired of him eventually. He only felt surprised it had taken so long. Replacing him as best friend with Joey, though, that was low.

"Look at his face!" Uri said. "He's taking it so seriously."

Wesley could tell when Zepp came in the room from the sounds of clattering about behind him and the way Joey instantly looked up and stopped that stupid smirk.

"Zepp, we're going to a cool person only party," Joey said, his pointing finger flicking between him and Uri.

"Then I'm glad I'm not going," Zepp said. "There's nothing more boring and annoying than people who think they're cool."

Wesley laughed but he could see the hurt look on Joey's face. Not so cool when people do it to you, is it?

He couldn't wait until Gloria arrived.

*

"I can't wait until your girlfriend gets here and you stop moping," Tom said.

"When is that happening?" Uri asked, like he didn't know.

He wasn't boasting about that party any more, and Joey wasn't either, so it couldn't have been that cool. Zepp and Wesley, on the other hand, had spent that night playing video games while online with Gloria who directed them and made fun of their lack of skills. It turned out to be a nice night.

"In a week. I miss her," Wesley said.

"Yes, we know," Tom said.

"You're lucky I like Gloria," Uri said.

Wesley didn't respond but he could already tell he wouldn't like where this was going.

"Or maybe you're lucky I don't like her that much," Uri said.

"She wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole, mate. She's a woman of taste and class," Wesley said.

"And I'm vulgar," Uri said, grinning.

"Why don't you tell me what you've been reading instead of trying to wind me up," Wesley said.

"A Separate Peace. It's about a pure and true friendship between men," Uri said.

"Like us?" Wesley asked.

"You wouldn't like it," Uri said.

"Because you think I'm not smart enough to like it?" Wesley asked.

Tom sighed deep. "You wouldn't like it because it's a terrible book," he said. "I had to study it for weeks in middle school. It's not deep. Stop snapping at each other and go do things."

*

Wesley wasn't sure if he was annoyed or pleased that Uri kept dragging Joey out to be vulgar with, instead.

*

He couldn't manage it all the time. After one gig they finally went out as a group, with Tom to baby-sit them, and Joey clung to Zepp instead. It was nice to begin with. Meant he could actually talk to Uri instead of only watching him smirk as he dragged Joey out of the room.

"This is a boring club," Uri complained.

Wesley didn't get it. Everyone else looked like they were having fun. Joey and Zepp were jumping about on the dance floor, making weird moves. Tom kept finding new strangers to chat with before wandering back, like he'd forgotten his plan to supervise them.

"Did I do something wrong?" Wesley asked.

"I don't know. Did you?"

Wesley looked up to search for Tom again but couldn't see him. The club lights were dimmer and the flashing colours didn't help.

Zepp and Joey were still easy enough to see. They kept moving closer together as the crowd filled out and stole their extra space. Wesley tried not to pay attention.

"Are you punishing me for something?" Wesley asked.

"Why would I be punishing you for anything?"

"Because you keep hanging out with Joey but without us. Why can't you invite me along?"

He still couldn't see Tom.

Wesley could see Zepp and Joey moving together. They swayed in the crowd, in and out of his vision. Zepp's hand on Joey's hip. Joey's head over Zepp's shoulder. He didn't like it. It wasn't his business, he knew, but there was something about it he didn't trust. He had a bad feeling crawling all over his skin.

He turned his head away. Uri was already looking at him, had obviously been watching him watch them.

"That really bothers you, doesn't it?" Uri asked.

"Joey has no idea what's happening there. Nothing good can come of it," Wesley said.

"I should do something about it." Uri was already moving to stand, looking over Wesley's head into the crowd.

"It's none of our business."

"But if it affects the band, it is our business."

"Leave them be," Wesley said, but Uri was already walking away.

Joey and Zepp had already separated by the time Uri was anywhere near them and looked like they were talking quietly. Zepp turned away, and Uri bumped his shoulder as he walked. Wesley didn't want to know.

He got his phone out, instead.

'I miss you', he typed out carefully, and sent. He didn't know where Gloria was at that moment or what time it was for her, but he wanted her to know. He wished she could be with him at that moment, just sitting next to him and chatting about anything, so he wouldn't feel this wrong underneath his skin.

He put his phone away and had a drink. There were enough bottles on the table that he didn't have to get up and buy anything of his own. Nice, that. Best to finish off Uri's beer so it wasn't wasted, and Tom had just abandoned a nice bottle of wine. He'd do his best to have a good time, all on his lonesome, and if anybody objected, well, he'd just point out they left him alone with their drinks; surely they should have known what would happen.

He looked up. Joey and Uri were dancing with some woman. Uri was rubbing his hands all over her, even though he'd promised Miriam he wouldn't do that thing any more. And there Joey was, enabling him. Obviously that was why Uri wanted to shove Zepp off the dance floor – with Zepp out of the way, he had a wingman with no moral qualms. He looked away, because why bother watching what you can't stop?

Wesley just wanted to talk to Gloria. But he didn't want to be that clingy guy, and she was probably at work and didn't want to be bothered. He wished he could be with her instead of stuck in this place.

And someone had left some vodka on a nearby table, and nobody would notice if he took it. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep him from texting again.

When Tom and Zepp finally returned to where he was sitting, they came together. Which was funny, because Wesley hadn't got the impression that they got along.

"It's time for us to get you home to bed," Zepp said, rolling his shirt sleeves up.

"Tip me in there yourself, will you?" Wesley asked.

Obviously Zepp didn't appreciate Wesley's jokes.

Tom was lifting Wesley out of the chair, before he even knew what was happening. It would have been nice to be asked.

"Come on, let's go," Tom said. Impatient.

Wesley looked over at Uri and Joey, still dancing. "Shouldn't we be getting the other two guys, as well? I don't think this is a good environment for Joey. Someone could lead him astray."

"How do you manage to say these things when you're this drunk?" Zepp asked. He was grabbing Wesley around the waist, as if he needed help being kept upright.

"How are they going to get home?" Wesley asked. Someone had to look out for them.

"They're grown men. They can make their own way back to the hotel. It's you I'm worried about," Tom said.

Wesley checked his phone, once they'd strapped him into the car.

'I miss you, too', Gloria had texted back.

*

He got up, took his vitamins, and washed them down with vodka. He was already a little sweaty and he didn't know why; the room was not that warm. His exercise routine felt especially hard that morning, like he was pushing a big rock uphill.

When he got down to where the other guys were, Joey and Uri were practically up each other's arses, whispering to each other and laughing over whatever it was. It made him want to throw up. No, wait, he still felt that way when he saw Zepp in the corner, reading an issue of New Scientist. Surely he couldn't be that hungover.
Chapter 24

But then, Gloria. Warm and in the flesh. Smiling with her orange lipstick and smelling like something beautiful.

He wanted to go out with her instead of just staying trapped in the hotel room. Nowhere fancy, just downstairs for a drink and something to eat.

Zepp popped up straight in front of them. "Can I third wheel?" he asked. "Uri is driving me nuts and I think he and Joe are high right now and there's only so many times I can watch the same episode of House Hunters before I want to stab something."

Wesley looked at Gloria. She looked as unsure as he felt.

"I guess?" Gloria said.

"Great," Zepp said.

*

Five hours later.

"It's the worst. Uri was all complaining about some stuff about, I don't know, rising anti-semitism in Europe, and I said to him, 'what am I supposed to do about it?' And then he got angry at me, like any of that stuff is my fault," Zepp said.

Wesley wiped at his face and took another drink.

"And Joe? I love hanging out with Joe when he's not high. He's the greatest," Zepp said, as he rolled his beer in his hands.

Wesley rolled his eyes, because he was more aware than he wanted of how much Zepp liked Joey.

"But when he's coked up he's so annoying," Zepp said. "And I mean, super annoying."

"I don't understand how he manages to find coke everywhere on the planet. And he doesn't even pay for it. People just give it to him," Wesley said.

"Yeah, and he's rich. He could afford his own cocaine. I couldn't even afford to sniff paint in this economy," Zepp said.

Wesley looked at Gloria, who was looking at her tall lemonade like it was more interesting than anything else in the room.

"Sorry, Gloria. This must be really boring for you," Wesley said.

"I wish we'd gone to see a movie because then I could at least join in the conversation," she said.

Wesley apologised again and went to pick up his beer, but Zepp moved it before he could.

"Don't you think you've had enough to drink?" Zepp asked.

"I'm not drunk," Wesley said. He didn't understand why people kept acting like he was.

"I don't know how you form complete sentences when you drink this much," Zepp said. "I can barely form complete sentences when I'm sober.

"Let's just get you back upstairs to bed and Zepp can text his mother about this problem instead of you," Gloria said.

She was already grabbing her bag and getting up, and Zepp was too, so Wesley figured it would be antisocial to ask to stay downstairs in the hotel bar, even if he really wanted to finish his drink.

"I'll have to check on Joey now because Zepp put that whole thing in my brain," Wesley said, as they were exiting the lift.

"Fine," she said. "Just meet me back in the room."

She sighed and walked off in that direction without even so much as a goodnight kiss.

At this time of night he could barely remember his own name, let alone which room Joey was in. He walked up and down the hallway until he saw a half-open door and decided to peek in a a little.

It was a little dark. He blinked to shake the blurriness out of his eyes.

This is what he saw: Uri's hands on Joey's back, not at all like he's trying to hold him away. Joey's face turned into Uri's neck to hide his drunken laughter. Joey's hands clutching Uri's shirt. Uri's hands stroking down Joey's spine.

This is not how I wanted you to distract him, Wesley thought.

It couldn't be what he was imagining. He closed the door.

Wesley knocked on Tom's door, a heavy knock-knock-knock, louder than he intended. He was feeling like he needed to lean on the wall, a little.

"What do you want," Tom said, opening the door, "and why do you smell like a brewery?"

"I think you should switch which rooms Uri and Joey are in. It's not good when they're together. They're a bad influence on each other," Wesley said.

"And this needed to be said at four am, because why?"

"Because I feel like this needs to be done now."

"Go to bed. I'll fix whatever problem you think this is in the morning."

"Okay. Good."

"Oh, for god's sake. I will help you to your room."

Wesley didn't feel like he needed it but if Tom wanted to feel useful, who was he to stop that?

*

He woke up in the night to see Gloria sitting up, hands around her ankles, illuminated by the blue light of the TV.

"Sorry, I just had to check the markets," she said.

He rolled closer to the warmth of her skin so he wouldn't be so cold on his side of the bed.

"Go back to sleep," she said.

*

Gloria went shopping in the morning, so Wesley decided to deal with any work he hadn't settled yet in someone else's room, because he didn't want to be alone. He let himself into Tom's room, only to see Joey sitting on the floor in his tracksuit bottoms and a giant hoodie.

"Hello?" Wesley asked, feeling a little confused. There was a vein in his head that felt like it was beating a pretty nasty drum beat, right on his brain. Anything would be confusing at that point.

"I live here now. I'll never leave," Joey said, explaining nothing.

"Do you want something to drink? I have the coffee machine set up perfectly," Tom said. So he was in there, and Wesley wasn't going mad.

"No, I'm fine," Wesley said. He parked himself on the floor right next to Joey, because why not?

"I might call up some food. Do you want any?" Tom asked. He was puttering about and being surprisingly helpful. Wesley was a little boggled.

"The thought of food right now makes me feel like I'm going to throw up," Wesley said.

"I'm doing a juice cleanse. I can't eat anything that hasn't been through a blender," Joey said.

"In the 90s, we would have called that anorexia," Tom said, smiling.

"Tom must have realised that he's lonely now that he's been through a big break up so he's moved me in here to keep him company," Joey said. Ah.

"Sure, we'll go with that," Tom said, laughing. He made them listen to the new Fall Out Boy album while Wesley went through all his emails and Joey flopped about saying weird things.

*

After that he went down to the hotel bar for a late lunch with Gloria.

They were just opening the menus to have a look when Uri came up to their table and placed himself in Wesley's view.

"What the fuck are you doing, getting Tom to move Joey out of my room?" Uri asked.

"Can we talk about this later?" Wesley asked. "When I'm not trying to have a meal with my girlfriend, maybe."

Uri dragged a chair from another table and sat. "We'll talk about this now."

"I just think that Joey's twenty years old and he needs guidance and someone to look up to," Wesley said.

"I didn't have someone trying to act like a parent to me when I was twenty. He's not a child," Uri said.

"Imagine how great things would be for you if you'd asked for that from someone," Wesley said. He looked down at the menu again and tried not to notice Uri at all.

"Are you jealous? Is that why you're playing this game? You wish I'd pay that much attention to you," Uri said.

"You wish I was jealous. There's no game playing here. I'm just making sensible decisions for the good of the band."

Uri turned to Gloria and leaned over the table toward her. "Does he do this to you? Just make plans to rearrange your life without asking you."

"Leave my girlfriend out of this," Wesley said.

Something flashed over Uri's face that he couldn't decipher.

"You know it's a shame Wesley doesn't talk about you more," Uri said, something like a smile dripping down from his eyes, "because I'd love to hear what it's like between your thighs."

Wesley smacked the table with both hands. "You treat her with respect." He was breathing so fast. He could feel everyone looking at him. "I'm sorry for yelling. Please don't do that again."

He shoved his chair back and stood up, hands shaking. Gloria was getting up, too. Wesley looked around the room too fast to see anyone's faces properly but he could feel himself being looked at.

"I need a drink," he whispered to himself.

"Sure, we'll talk later," Uri said.

"Are you coming back upstairs, Gloria? We can get room service," Wesley said. He put a hand to her elbow and she nodded and followed him to the lift.

*

The argument was in the air every time he saw Uri. The low, dark cloud that hung over everything, until Wesley felt sulky even with Gloria. He felt rotten over it.

"I'm sorry, Gloria. I should make the guys call the next album 'Something Really Awesome Is Happening Right Now' just so it's not such a bad omen," he said.

"It's not entirely your fault," she said. She put her hand to his face and he leaned into it, closed his eyes and just focused on her touch for a moment.

"We could call it 'The Future is Always Happy'," Joey suggested.

"That actually sounds ironically foreboding," Zepp said.

They were backstage and waiting to go on in front of a couple thousand people, that Tom assured them were screaming and excited. Wesley had been looking forward to it, at some point.

"Why is Uri late?" Zepp asked. He spoke like he was clenching his teeth but when Wesley opened his eyes he could see Zepp was looking very animated.

"He probably has some stuff to do," Joey said. Joey stretched like a cat and shook it all off, clearly caring about nothing.

Wesley looked at Gloria instead. Her mouth was stiff. He kissed her so she'd be soft, again.

"He'll be here," Wesley said, but to his own ears it sounded like a warning.

*

Uri arrived. He pushed past Wesley when he tried to speak, and grabbed Joey by the arm. Uri leaned down before Joey could get up and whispered something in his ear that Wesley couldn't hear. But he was smiling at Wesley when he did it.

Wesley felt his face form into angry lines. One fist was clenched so hard he could feel the nails trying to break skin.

"Okay, finally. Can we go now? I don't want to be late on stage. Let's go," Zepp said.

Everything was just fine. Wesley reminded his hands to unclench.

*

Gloria had to leave before he was ready.

She was quiet to the airport. She must have been tired. Wesley tried his hardest to make her laugh on the drive there, but the most she could manage was a half-smile. Which at least meant she didn't want him to feel bad about his jokes, but wasn't lifting up the mood any.

After she printed her ticket out, she turned to him. "We should probably part here. I have to go through security points and you should probably get back to work."

"Yeah." He nodded.

She looked away and then back to him, with that same weak turn up of the sides of her mouth. Was something wrong? Did he do something or say something he shouldn't have? "That was–" she trailed off. Breathed in and out deeply. "That was really intense. That whole week was really intense."

"I'm sorry about everything with Uri. It's getting kind of hard to keep him together. I wanted to be able to keep you away from all that. I mean, if that's what you mean."

"That's part of it."

She was looking down at her hands. Her fingernails were wiped clean of polish. Her shirt was grey and her jeans were dark blue, and even though he knew she was just dressed sensibly for the flight home, already he missed her bright colours and her swirling dresses.

"What are the other parts?" he asked.

"I didn't realise it was like that for you. Everything before was so small and contained. It just seemed like a fun little thing with your friends, on the road, and every time I heard your songs somewhere I'd get excited because you were really getting out there. But that was big chaos. I didn't realise your life was like that, now."

"Is that a bad thing?"

She looked up at him again. That had to be a good thing. "It's just something I have to think about."

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too."

He kissed her as best he could standing in an international airport. Flight boarding calls were announced in the background. Shoes squeaked across the floor. He pulled back to look at her, again. She was right there in front of him but already she looked a million miles away.

"When I get home I'll call you," she said. She clenched his hands once in hers, and let them go. Once she picked up her bags and turned away, she didn't look back.

He didn't have anything to worry about.

*

And yet, still, worry settled over him like an old blanket.

*

"Are you okay?" he asked.

He could hear her breathing down the line, rapid intake then out, spaced apart like she was trying not to cry. He didn't want her to be crying. He didn't want to be making her cry. Why was he so stupid? Why was everything going so wrong?

"It's just that it was really confronting, Wesley."

"I'm sorry. I don't know what you mean."

"I had to take some time to think."

"Make me understand," he pleaded.

"You just drink so much. Too much. You drink too much."

Not her, too. He didn't get why everyone was nagging him about it all the time.

"It's not that much. I just like to have a little fun at parties and de-stress sometimes."

"You drink first thing in the morning."

"Not all the time."

"And you have a bottle of one thing beside the bed, and bottles of something else lined up somewhere else. You drink from sun up to sun down."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I can't make you stop, can I? That's not ever going to happen." There was something remote in her tone of voice. Something final. He didn't like that feeling, like she was about to cut him adrift.

"I can stop. I can stop right now. I can tip everything out into the sink. There's nothing to panic about." But his voice sounded panicked. Why was he panicking? He was safe with Gloria.

"I just think I need a little space," she said.

"There's an entire ocean between us," he said.

"Just a little time. I need a break from us, so I can figure things out."

"No! Gloria, I love you. I can change. Anything you want, I can change."

"I just– I just need this space. Let me have it, Wesley. Just give me this."

She hung up before he could plead with her again.

"She hung up on me," he said, stupidly, to himself. "She hung up."

He let the phone drop from his hands. For a while after that, he stared at the wall. He didn't know how long. He didn't want to think. If she needed space to figure things out, she was finally going to figure out he wasn't good enough for her. And then it would be all over. What would he even do? So much of whatever was good in him was wrapped around her. Without her he'd be nothing but muck.

So he sat, and breathed, and tried not to think.

It got dark.

"Get up," he said to himself. "Get up."

He pushed himself up off the floor. The lights weren't on in the room so the only light was filtering in from the night world outside. The distant lights of cars streaked across everything he could see.

He moved to turn the lamps on, and make the bed. Something sensible to start off. And then once that was done, he picked up the bottle by the bed. It was a nice bottle of whiskey, only half drunk. He knew he should throw it out, just like he offered her. He should turn around, take it to the bathroom, and tip it down the shower drain. He looked at it and tried to imagine throwing it out.

He tried to imagine waking up in the morning without feeling like he was already underwater. But even as he imagined it, it was already too late. He didn't remember starting to drink, but then the world was cool and wet and maybe he could just finish it. It and everything else in the room.

*

He wasn't sure when he'd started crying. Was it before he went through the mini bar or after? He was definitely crying by the time he was in the shower. He didn't notice until he was thoroughly wet that he'd left all his clothes on, his jeans becoming thick with water.

He wanted to tip himself down the drain but he just couldn't get small enough to fit. He started to laugh. What a stupid thought. He wanted to tell Joey about it, to see if he'd laugh, but then Joey would just worry and Wesley was sick of being worried about. He was so tired of it. So tired, he could barely feel anything else.

*

Wesley was surprised to see Miriam's number lighting up his phone.

"Yes," he said, picking up the call.

"What do you think of the term 'emotional affair'?" she asked.

He looked into the darkness of the window outside his room.

"I don't really know what it means."

"It's this idea where it's like two people are having an affair, just with feelings. All the emotional intimacy, none of the sex. Your thoughts?"

"I don't think you have to worry about that with Uri. Are you calling because you can't get through to his phone?"

He stepped out of the hotel room and into the hallway. It was well lit, and yet there was something about it that seemed bleak. Some darkness in it that only he could see. Probably a sign he needed sleep.

"Yes, he's not answering."

"He's not in my room," Wesley said. He walked softly, slowly. He pushed himself up the hall, breathing through the pause in conversation. "He won't be in Zepp's room, either."

"I wonder where he is."

Wesley knocked on the door. Pulled the phone away from his ear. "Joey, have you seen Uri?"

No sound but the rustle of sheets. A heavy clod of a sound like a falling shoe. "Don't come in, I'm naked."

"You're always naked. Do you know where he is?"

"Why would I know where he is?"

Wesley pulled the phone back to his ear. "I'm sorry, Miriam, I can try Tom, instead. He might know."

Her exhale, soft through the line. "Never mind. I'll talk to him later."

Wesley plodded his way back to his room. Shut the door. Put the phone on the bedside table. Rolled himself into bed, clothes and all.
Chapter 25

Wesley felt bloated and gross, watery and sick in his stomach, dry and sore in his throat, the whole world a little green and awful. He was trying to hide it, blinking against the stage lights hoping the fans hadn't noticed. Everything hurt.

Joey abandoned his microphone stand to waltz over and sing to Uri, who was beaming from behind his drum kit. Wesley squinted against the light to watch them. How could they be happy when his life was falling apart?

Wesley looked over at Zepp, instead, who was focusing on his guitar to the exclusion of all else. He looked very serious but at least he wasn't the most delighted he'd ever looked. Wesley knew it was awful but in that moment he wanted someone to be as unhappy as he was just so he wouldn't be alone.

Something hit the stage near him like a slap. Were the fans throwing things on stage again or did something fall from among the lights? Why wasn't anyone else noticing this?

Against the blinding lights of the stage, Wesley couldn't see the crowd, only hear their rumbling screams and feel the ballroom shaking beneath him as they moved.

The drum and guitar sounds droned on. He should have come in to the song with his piano bits moments ago, but Uri seemed to be having too much fun to have even noticed. Was he just vibing on getting the spotlight for once, letting his music hum and build, a strange new rhythm he'd never added to the song before? Zepp was still looking only at his fingers as they plucked and patted his instrument. Who was he avoiding looking at – was it Wesley he didn't want to see, sweating old beer over the keyboard, or was it them in the centre, backlit and shadowed and flaunting everything happening between them?

Wesley pressed one key, the sound dropping into the song like a stone. Then another, starting into the tune. Then the next and the next, faster and faster.

He opened his mouth to sing and looked up toward the black space where the crowd must be. He was going to turn this sweet song about love into a funeral dirge and nobody was going to stop him.

*

He didn't have Gloria. He was pretty sure he didn't have Uri any more. But he had this.

*

He'd sounded good. The crowd had gone crazy with every melody he'd turned inside out, every song he'd sung like it was a different story than he'd been telling all along. It was the first time in his life there'd been more screams at him showing off than at Joey playing to the crowd. Unexpected, maybe. He felt he deserved it. Clenched his fist as he left the stage.

Zepp trailed along behind him as they left the stage saying, "That was a bit different. We sounded like a completely opposite band from the band I'm actually part of."

"Yeah," Wesley said. He strode out. He didn't look back to check if Zepp was keeping up.

Then there were more words but Wesley wasn't listening. He wanted to get back to the hotel. He wanted to get back to that mini fridge, with that bottle still waiting for him. It was lonely and cold, that bottle, and he was looking forward to warming it up, getting real familiar with it. He wanted to let it cool down every overheated part of his brain, until he was heavy like a sheet in water, sinking down into the deep. He wanted to sleep.

*

It was every bit as perfect as he'd expected. The bottle looked sweaty. His sweaty friend bourbon. He rubbed its cool surface on his face between drinks, cooling down bit by bit. And it wasn't alone, either, followed by its surprising friends, Chardonnay and lite beer. He left the bottles on top of the drinks list for housekeeping to deal with.

He was heavy. He slept.

*

It was when he was walking past Joey's room and heard him muttering something about 'Uri's party' that he knew something had to change. Uri's party that he didn't even know about. And it was just about time for Uri's birthday and he was excluding Wesley, like they hadn't been friends for years. Maybe Uri was just waiting for Wesley to reach out. Or, no, maybe he'd decided Wesley had been replaced in his affections and they weren't best friends any more. But Wesley could not accept that. He would not.

"Thinks he can have a party without inviting me?" Wesley stared at the mirror as he fixed his hair into place, with enough gel that he was pretty sure it wouldn't move until doomsday, and maybe not even then. He closed his eyes as he sprayed everything in the vicinity with hairspray then opened them to check his angles again. He'd finally mastered the perfect quiff and people would have to see it.

"He can do that. He's allowed to invite whoever he wants to a party. He can snub me. I can't reasonably stop him."

He checked his outfit again. As far as he could tell, the plain black shirt and jeans said 'I'm not trying too hard', and the very cool bomber jacket said 'but I am trying a bit and you should notice that'. Very on message. He thought Joey would approve.

"I'm going anyway. He can't stop me wishing him happy birthday. We're best friends; that's the rules. And I am apparently now the kind of person who talks to himself in the mirror. Never telling Zepp about any of this."

He scoured the room for a bottle that wasn't empty.

"I can't be that loser that goes to a party completely sober. Nobody likes that guy. That guy is so boring and uncool. I can be cool."

*

Uri looked surprised at the door. Or maybe horrified. Maybe he was horrified that he'd forgotten to invite his buddy Wesley to his birthday.

"I'm gatecrashing your party. Happy birthday Uri," Wesley said.

Uri stretched his hand out to block the door, as if that could stop Wesley from entering the room if he really wanted to. "Who says I'll let you in?"

Wesley put a hand on Uri's shoulder and watched as all of Uri's focus went to their point of contact. Wesley stroked his thumb over the tense muscles of Uri's shoulder. Uri's arm fell away from the door, to collapse by his side.

"You'll let me in." Never in doubt.

*

Inside, the party, such as it was, already looked a mess. There was junk scattered everywhere and a bunch of scowling people Wesley didn't know and also Joey sat on one of the couches with his hands around his knees like a naughty schoolboy awaiting punishment. Wesley leaned against a wall and watched as Uri fluttered about, trying to make everything look semi-respectable.

Wesley felt like he was losing it, his ability to read between Uri's lines. What was he doing? Why was he doing it?

Wesley tripped off the wall and grabbed for the door to the balcony, muttering, "I'm going to have a smoke."

He fumbled, but it was Uri's hand opening the door for him. Uri's hand on his hand, like at the nights on their first days on tour when they'd hold hands as they slept, silently curling toward each other. Wesley wanted to keep their hands together like they used to, but it didn't feel right. He turned, his back to the world outside, and Uri was holding him. Holding him close but not holding him together. Holding him too close, really.

"It's been so long since you tried to cop a feel while giving me a hug, bro. I almost missed it."

Uri let him go. He wasn't laughing but maybe he wasn't drunk enough to realise how funny Wesley was yet.

Oh, but the breeze was so good. Wesley walked further out onto the balcony to feel the air. He dragged his fingers along the dusty railing and looked beyond it to the world outside this building. There was a concrete slab extending out from beyond the railing. He could definitely get over and walk along it without falling. He'd feel like a superhero. He needed to feel like that.

He climbed over the edge, keeping fingers locked tight to the iron rail so he didn't stumble. The concrete didn't look so far from this side of the fence.

Up there the breeze was cold on his skin. The landscape of the world below wobbled in front of his eyes. It would be so easy to tumble down to the earth, his insides spread like raspberry jam.

"Don't let go," he said.

He heard the click of a photo being taken and laughed. Turned back, with one hand still on the railing, to see Uri still with his phone in his hands.

"Are you trying to get a memento, mate? Do you want me to pose?"

"Not on that ledge," Uri said.

Uri's mouth was smiling but Wesley could see him look at the edge and swallow. How could Wesley be panicking the Uri who knew no fear or boundaries? Wesley heaved himself up and over, feet landing with a slap on the right side of the iron fencing, even as Uri's breathing got loud enough to hear from entire steps away.

Wesley walked up close and put a hand on Uri's side where he was warm.

"Let's go inside. There's so much waiting to be drunk by me. Don't you want to see me drink until I can't see straight?"

Uri said, "Yeah." Soft voice like he was shy. He was shaking.

*

He remembers the night in flashes, even now.

They were sitting down, fenced off from each other by little rows of bottles. Uri put his arm on Joey's shoulder and said, "Joey's such a slut I bet he'd fuck everyone in this room if we got him drunk enough," and then Joey laughed. Or cried. Joey was always either laughing or crying and they sounded exactly the same.

(and also)

Wesley was throwing up in the bathroom sink and when he looked up he was red all over, skin and eyes and the edge of his vision. He rinsed his mouth out and went to get another beer.

(and also)

The sounds of scuffling and he ignored it, closed his eyes, tipped his head back and drank.

(and finally)

Someone's skin under his hands, trembling, as a door slammed, as he tried not to squeeze their throat, as there was laughing or crying or yelling at him, as Uri opened his eyes and said, "Do it. Hurt me."

(was it a dream?)

*

He emerged from the blackness of sleep, in his hotel room, tucked under the blankets and still wearing the previous night's clothes. Joey was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing several of Wesley's winter jumpers at once. He looked like a little kid dressed in his dad's clothing.

Wesley must have made a noise because Joey turned to look at him. "I borrowed all your sweaters. I hope you don't mind. No, I don't care if you mind. I'm very warm now."

"Did I get in a fight with Uri last night?" Wesley asked. It felt like someone had taken sandpaper to his throat.

"Maybe when I wasn't in the room. I didn't see anything like that but it was a terrible party and it's a good thing you gave me an excuse to leave with you."

"I did?"

"You threw up on one of Uri's terrible friends," Joey explained.

"Oh. He has friends that aren't us?"

"Yes, but terrible friends. Not awesome people like us."

Joey rolled onto the bed and flopped down with an 'oof''. Under that much heavy clothing it had to be hard to move at all.

"You don't have the woman you love here to hug you so I guess I'll have to do it," Joey said, as if he were doing Wesley a favour.

"Why are you always hugging people? I thought American men weren't allowed to do things like that."

"We're in the performing arts so we are outside the bounds of regular society and don't have to follow such stupid rules."

Joey rolled his head on to Wesley's shoulder and plopped an arm over him. He smelled warm and familiar.

"Can you even feel this through all those layers?" Wesley asked.

"I feel it in my soul."

Wesley turned a little to hug back. It felt nice not to be alone.
Chapter 26

Another day, another party. Joey had dragged him there because he didn't want to go with Uri but he didn't want to go alone. Wesley didn't really get why there weren't any other options, but he wasn't complaining.

The kind of people Joey knew were mostly pretty weird. They wore weird ugly clothing, layered in weird ugly ways, and said things like 'post-modernist' and 'hedge fund'. The upside is they had a lot of booze just lying around, so at least Wesley wouldn't be bored.

He was halfway through a drink when Joey looked up from the glass table to peer at him.

"Don't you think you should slow down?" Joey said.

Wesley held the bottle even tighter to his body. The conversations around them were slowly falling into silence as everyone in the room peered at the both of them.

"I'm not taking this crap," Wesley said. He stood up and pointed straight at Joey, leaned as he was over a notebook covered in non-specific substances. "It's pretty rich coming from you. One day you'll do so much coke your nose will fall off."

"No way. That can't happen," Joey said.

"Can, and has," Wesley said.

Joey wrinkled his forehead up until his eyes took up roughly half his face. He leaned back on the couch and shoved the notebook away. "I like my nose. I don't want to have to get a new one."

Wesley walked out with the bottle.

*

He didn't remember much after that point. He knows he followed someone to another party, and maybe another. Vague recollections that at some point he might have licked a floor, fallen through the wreck of a chair, lost something.

*

It felt like something had died in his mouth. That was the first thing Wesley thought when he woke up. Next was that he felt really hot and sore, like his skin had been stretched out somehow. And after that, was that his bed had become really uncomfortable in the night.

He opened his eyes. He wasn't in his bed. He didn't know where he was, but it wasn't anywhere near a bed.

He struggled to his feet. As he looked around him, all he could see was fields and roads for miles. He wasn't sure how he got there. He didn't know what day or time it was. When he looked down at his watch to check the time, the skin was bright red in weird patches. How long had he been sleeping in the sun?

He didn't know what to do. Should he get out his phone and call someone? What if it wasn't working? What if the battery had run out? What if nobody ever found him ever? He checked his pockets with one hand - keys, phone, they were all in there. Then he picked a direction and started walking. Eventually he would find something, even if all he found was the end of the road.

*

By the time he shuffled into the edges of a town, he was feeling sore and especially stupid. The people he walked past were staring at him, as well they should have, this strange dirty shuffling creature that he was. He probably looked like a fresh zombie from a movie, filthy and half alive, just crawled out of his grave. He felt like it, too.

He tried to communicate to someone that he just needed to use their phone, using only hand gestures, but they didn't get it. He couldn't speak the language, and he didn't have any local coins to use if he saw a pay phone, anyway. Not that he ever saw pay phones, any more.

He got lucky, eventually, when someone passed him a piece of paper with the signal for wifi and a password. His phone was almost dead, but it had just enough juice left for him to connect to the weak, wavering signal, and get a message out. He tried to smile as thank you, but his face didn't feel quite right.

He sat, stared off into nothing, and waited.

Hours later, Tom and Zepp arrived in a rental car. Wesley wanted to jump up and be excited about them being there but he was just so tired. He slowly stood, feeling like his body was creaking in protest the whole time. Tom flew out of the car, to straight under Wesley's shoulder.

"I'm so happy we found you," he said.

Wesley nodded as much as he could.

Zepp had opened the car door for Wesley, so he only had to push himself into the back seat. Wesley's fingers were slippy, so Zepp did up his seatbelt for him, too.

"There you go," Zepp said, patted the catch of the seatbelt, and slammed the door.

Wesley felt himself recoil away from the sound.

Tom and Zepp hopped back into the front of the car, and off they went.

Wesley was barely animated during the drive. He sat, looking out the window, and tried not to speak at all. Tom and Zepp were talking about rugby. Wesley had always had the impression that Zepp was mildly terrified of Tom, so for them to be speaking so casually as they drove him back wasn't something he would have ever expected.

"Aren't you going to yell at me?" Wesley asked.

Zepp wrenched his head around to look back at him. "No. Why would I do that?"

"Is it that I'm not worth yelling at? Am I a completely lost cause?"

"What? No," Zepp said.

"Nobody thinks you're a lost cause," Tom said, eyes on the road.

"Will we make that big club show?" Wesley asked.

He could hear Zepp drawing in air through his teeth. "Uh, about that..."

"We had to cancel it," Tom said. "Too late, you've already missed it. We told the club you were sick and paid the penalty."

"I'm sorry," Wesley said. He could feel water dripping down his face and touched a grimy finger to his cheek, to check if they were tears. He wasn't sure when he'd started crying. "I'm such a failure. I let everyone down."

"Hey, no, you're not a failure," Zepp said.

"You were unwell. You're allowed to be unwell. Next time get gastro instead of going on a bender," Tom said. He smoothly handled the car through a turn, and Wesley finally started to recognise the buildings. They weren't far from the hotel.

"I won't sugar coat it," Tom went on. "I wasn't pleased. That said, don't beat yourself up over it. There's no point in that. I've been dealing with bands a long time. You are not the first musician to get stupidly drunk and miss a show. You won't be the last."

*

They got him to the hotel, helped him into the room. Zepp turned the shower on and just the sound of the water made him want to collapse. But Wesley faced up to it. He took off his clothes and left them in a pile on the floor, and then looked at himself in the mirror, dirty and naked. The tear marks on his face looked like speed marks from little cars. He averted his eyes and stepped in the shower.

When he got out, Zepp was there to help him into his clothes like he was a baby. Wesley didn't fight. He accepted it, that he'd fallen this low. He sat down on the bed, so he wouldn't have to use his energy to keep himself up any more.

"Why are you so good to me?" he asked Zepp. He didn't look up as he said it. Instead he studied his knees, in his old trackies.

"I'm only average levels of good to you," Zepp said.

"I mean it. I'm just like your dad now. I'm a pathetic drunk. How can you stand me?"

"You know, when we first met I thought, my friend Wesley, he's too good. Nobody can be this good. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Here it is, the other shoe. Now I know you have flaws and you're down near my level. It's probably better this way."

Wesley could feel the tears trickling down his face, hot and bitter. It hurt to cry again, really stung the skin, but he couldn't seem to stop.

When Wesley looked up Zepp was flapping his hands around and pacing up and down.

"Tom, it's, it's, it's your turn to come in and babysit him. He's having feelings and I can't deal with this," Zepp said.

Tom strode in, obviously to relieve Zepp of his self-appointed duty, already saying, "God, why do I always have to be the adult in this band and deal with all this shit?"

"Because you are the adult. Officially. That's your job," Zepp said, as he shrugged on his jacket.

He slammed the door as he left the room – Wesley didn't think he did it on purpose, but Zepp didn't know his own strength when he got panicky, and things tended to get slammed.

"Okay," Tom said, sitting down on the armchair next to the bed. "Let's talk about your feelings like a couple of real fucking adults."

"I'm sorry," Wesley said, trying not to cry in the hope that anything he said would make any sense.

"I'm sure you are," Tom said. He crossed his legs at the feet and leaned forward, shoulders first. "You woke up in a ditch. Anyone would feel sorry for themselves."

"But I'm sorry for being an imposition."

"Sure. It's a pain in the neck. But dealing with things like this is my job. Not what you wanted to hear? You're 22 and you just got dumped. You'll survive."

"Why doesn't she love me?"

"Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't. I can't help with that. Long distance relationships are hard. I just got divorced because Naomi and I spent so much time apart we forgot how to say anything to each other." At that point Tom was still wearing his ring, the one last reminder of her he had left to let go.

Wesley looked up at the ceiling, at the room around him, and at his own hands flopped uselessly on the bedspread. "I should have been able to make it work. She's the one. My mum and dad were married at 18 and 19. I'm old enough for serious stuff."

"Your parents were married in a different century," Tom said, gentle. "And you are a touring musician. You live in a different world. You're not a failure because you got dumped; you just have to stop comparing yourself to your parents. But it's time for you to stop drinking. I've seen worse than this, but you're a good kid, and I don't want to have to see any worse than this from you."

Wesley felt sore about it, but he nodded.
Chapter 27

The meeting room in the church conversion was nicer than he'd expected. There was tea and coffee supplied, with little snacky things just in case he got hungry. There were comfy chairs all about. The overhead light bulb was one of those warm yellow lights instead of the scary fluorescent light he'd been expecting. And yet he was nervous.

He stood up and took a deep breath.

"Hello, my name's Wesley, and I'm an alcoholic."

It was hard. Some of the stories were kind of kind of heavy and he wondered what he was doing there. And yet, when he stood up to tell his story, when he laid it all out like that, it all sounded so much worse than he'd realised. It hadn't felt that bad when he was living it all.

*

On the way back to the hotel he strolled around with his hat pulled as far down over his face as he could manage, the brim a shadow keeping his eyes from the world. Which was very dramatic, yes, but he wanted to hide from himself, more than anything. It wasn't like anyone was looking at him. Whenever he looked up, everyone he passed seemed absorbed in their own stuff, looking at phones and food and books and street signs.

The hotel was mostly empty at that time of day, past check out but before the beginning of the check in rush. He didn't see any one other than the bored-looking hotel staff until he got to the floor they were staying at. And then Joey, clutching his arm and making hiccup-y noises, hiding behind all his hair.

Noticing Joey looking sad there in the hallway took Wesley away from being busy feeling sorry for himself. Well, it was for the best. He had to stop with the self-pity moment at some point.

Joey was wiping his face madly but his hair kept getting in the way.

"What's wrong, mate? Are you homesick?" Wesley asked.

Joey's eyes were very sad, which made Wesley feel very sad also.

"No, I– Well, yes, always. But that's not why I'm like this," Joey said.

"Do you want to talk about it, little buddy?" Wesley asked. He found it a little funny to call Joey 'little buddy' now, given he was pretty sure Joey was taller than him. Joey had claimed it was just higher heels on his shoes and bigger hair, but Wesley was pretty sure Joey had hit 6'1 at some point in the last year.

Wesley put a hand on Joey's shoulder to make sure he knew Wesley was willing and ready to comfort him, if it was necessary, but wasn't going to crowd him too much. It was difficult sometimes to take care of his boys, because they all needed such different things from him all the time. He didn't like to see them sad but Wesley felt he was perhaps the only person who understood the importance of a good chat about how everything felt, which was a bit silly, really.

"I can't tell you," Joey said, shaking his head. "You'd hate me."

"No, Joey, there's no way I could ever hate you."

"But what if– What if I did something really awful?"

"It can't have been that bad," Wesley said. "You're not a bad person, Joey. Whatever you've done, I'm sure it can't be all that awful."

"But it is! I'm a terrible person."

"Hey, no! None of that. Look, do you want to go in the room and have a good chat sitting down? Only, I think the hallway's not the best place for this sort of stuff."

"Okay," Joey said, nodded, and wiped his face on his sleeve.

Wesley steered him into the room, sat him down in a chair, and made him a cup of tea. "My mum always said there's nothing that can't be solved by a good cup of tea. So, let's have it? What's such a disaster?"

"Thank you for the tea, but I can't tell you, because it's only by keeping it secret that I can continue to fool you into thinking I'm an okay guy."

"You know I don't want to push you, Joey, but I'm a little hurt that you think I'm such a poor friend that I'd throw you over because you made a mistake once."

"But if you knew–! Uri said if people knew what I did they would reject me, and nobody would ever like me again. I can't stand the idea of that. If Zepp found out he'd hate me!"

Wesley felt a fire rushing up his face. He balled his fists up on the arms of the chair, so tight he could feel his ragged stabbing crescent marks into the skin.

"What's he doing saying things like that? How dare he? I'm so angry at him. I should tell him off right now."

Wesley made to rise from the chair but Joey's eyes went big and panicky and Wesley froze.

"No, don't do that! Don't tell him I said anything! Please, I don't want that. Don't get angry."

Wesley sat back down and tried to turn his anger off. Joey looked so upset that the last thing he needed to deal with was Wesley's anger on top of everything. He blew out a breath. "Whatever it is, remember that I very recently woke up in a ditch. I can't really judge anyone. You can't be more of a mess than me."

"I don't think it's actually a competition."

Joey seemed to have finally calmed down, at least. He was sitting reasonably still in his chair, hands cupped around the mug. There had to be something to Wesley's mum's belief that a nice warm drink was just the thing to make anything better, because it was working like gangbusters.

Joey opened his mouth like he was steeling himself to say something, so Wesley decided he could sit still and listen to whatever it was for however long was needed, without interrupting. Joey took a long time to say things, sometimes, but that was just because he was collecting his thoughts (and he did have a lot of thoughts. Sometimes, Wesley felt, Joey had too many thoughts).

"I think I like boys. I mean, not that I stopped liking women! I still like women. I'm not gay or anything. Not that there's anything wrong with gay, I mean, obviously there's nothing wrong with it. This is coming out not how I meant it to. What I mean is, I have come to the realisation that I am also attracted to men."

Joey nodded, decisively. Wesley wondered if he was the first person Joey had told, or if Joey had been giving his coming out speech to other people, too, but it sounded unpractised, so he doubted it. Wesley wasn't sure of the protocol – should he congratulate Joey on his courage? Should he send him to Zepp to talk about his new life under a rainbow flag? Wesley was a little confused.

"Oh, is that all? You had me thinking this secret was something dark and terrible, and there's nothing wrong with this at all," Wesley said.

"You don't mind?"

"Of course not."

"Are you going to tell me it's because some of your best friends are, you know, like me, or something like that?" Joe asked.

"No, that goes without saying. Which is why I didn't say it."

"But you don't have a problem with it."

"Of course not."

"Do you think that's why Zepp's been pulling away from me lately?" Joey asked.

Wesley blinked, confused. He couldn't make sense of that at all.

"I mean, because I'm," Joey said, and swallowed, "attracted to him. And maybe he can sense it."

Oh, no, Wesley thought. They're attracted to each other. Eventually they'll both realise it and hook up and it will be a disaster. This is terrible.

"I think it's safe to say he would not have a problem with that."

"Good. That's good. His friendship means a lot to me. I don't want anything to get in the way of that."

Joey looked relieved. Wesley should have been relieved, too, but he was already weary with worry at what Joey and Zepp were going to do to each other. There was nothing to be done about it now. Wesley just had to remind himself to stay out of the way and let them make whatever mistake they needed to.

*

Here's an upside – Tom had somehow managed to score them a gig as an opener for a middle aged boy band, of the actually playing instruments variety, on a massive reunion tour. Uri had a gigantic tantrum about how uncool they were, but Wesley didn't have the energy to pay attention. He was just happy to get some work to focus on.

*

Things were chaos back stage. The band's employees were walking everywhere, and music journalists crawling all over the place, to the sound of hair dryers and constant chatter.

But it wasn't the chaos Wesley had been expecting.

Honestly, if he'd tried to imagine what it was like backstage with Angel Love he would have imagined wild parties and groupies and constant booze from sun up to sun down. Instead he saw their bassist chasing a small, giggling child across the room.

"You look confused," John, the really popular one, said. "Were you expecting wild parties?"

"A little," Wesley said.

"My wife and I will be going out for coffee somewhere after. That's about as wild as we get. As for the rest of us, well, we're middle aged. Spencer was wild when we started out and now he has chronic injuries. And Bill has five kids and an ex wife to deal with."

"Does he have to pay her a lot of money?"

John looked at Wesley and burst out laughing. "She's the CEO of an investment firm. She out-earns him."

"My girlfriend works in finance. I mean, I'm not sure she is my girlfriend any more."

Zepp came bounding up, and ran straight into Wesley's shoulder. "This is so exciting! What are you guys talking about? Are you talking about how exciting this is? Hi, I'm Zeppelin. I'm very excited." No surprise – Zepp loved boy bands, with no irony at all.

"We were talking about how there will be no wild parties," John said.

"That's great!" Zepp said, banging his palm right by Wesley's neck. "Because my man here is newly sober! Isn't this great, Wesley?"

"How new?" John asked.

"Three days," Wesley said.

"Then you'll want to talk to Spencer. He can tell you all about his experiences in the program."

And the lights got a little brighter, as Wesley remembered he wasn't the only recovering alcoholic in a band in the entire history of bands. Bit of a cliché, really, but it made him feel better about the whole thing.

*

Spencer Campbell was the youngest member of Angel Love, barely 40, with dark blonde boy band hair and the kind of face that looked kinder for being a little weathered. He didn't seem to mind answering Wesley's stupid questions. And he knew they were stupid.

"Does it ever get any easier?"

"Yes and no," Spencer said. "The physical stuff goes away. I felt so alive the first time I could jog up a hill. It's the mental stuff that trips you up. You don't just have to stop drinking – you have to address the source of it."

"Like anger management therapy?"

"If that's what you need. Embracing the vulnerability of baring your soul in front of strangers. Accepting that the consequences of your actions continue to reverberate. People will never stop bringing up your arrest photos."

"I've never been arrested," Wesley said.

"Lucky you," Spencer said. "Committing to sobriety is a good first step towards avoiding that path."

*

They took advantage of the huge stage set up. Joey danced about as he sang like he was unable to stop himself moving to the beat. Wesley was feeling the vibe, too, and while he wasn't going to go full Chris Martin, he could feel himself bouncing in his seat as he played. Even Zepp had a bit of a shuffle going.

The crowd slowly started to fill in the stadium. They probably neither knew nor cared about The Rhinoceros Conspiracy. At that moment it didn't really matter.

Uri stomped off as soon as their set was done. Wesley left him to it. The rest of them stayed to watch the main act. To enjoy the real show, the fireworks and costumes, the skill baked in over time, the spectacle of a band that could make 60,000 women scream in unison. Not too shabby.

"We're never going to be that good," Wesley said, at the end of the night, when all the screaming was done.

"No, we totally are," Joey said. "That will be us in twenty years time."

*

Luckily, Wesley was sharing a room with Zepp that night. He was so excited to talk about things that he could barely feel his exhaustion and it was only the way his eyelids kept dipping down before he blinked them open that clued him in.

"I have so many things to talk about," Wesley said.

"Yeah, I'll bet," Zepp said. He stretched and yawned as he stood at the foot of the blandly tasteful bed he'd chosen as his own.

"I had this really great chat with Spencer–"

"Oh, are you on first name basis with him now?"

"–and I feel like I learned so much. There's so much about the way I've thought about things that I have to re-examine."

"Oh, great, more feelings talk," Zepp said, as he flopped himself into bed and turned on his side under the covers.

Wesley scrambled into bed, too. He was definitely too excited to sleep yet.

"For example, he told me a story about his childhood and it made me think, you know, I love my parents but maybe I do resent, a bit, that they've been needing me to pay their bills a lot of the time and my sisters won't pick up more of the slack. And so, I thought, how do I stop feeling that without drinking to forget it," Wesley said.

"Wow, this is worse than when you expect me to untangle everything in your heterosexual relationship," Zepp said.

"I don't mean to overload you, bro. I'm just excited and you're so good with this stuff."

Zepp groaned. "Okay, well, it was a situation where you felt like you had to be a parent to your parents. There's a word for that," and here Zepp interrupted himself with a yawn, "but I don't remember what it is. It makes sense that would annoy you."

"And I never even realised it until now. I never sat and thought that much about who I was. That's something I like about you, Zepp. You know who you are and what you're about."

"When you've been in therapy as long as I have you can't help but be uncomfortably familiar with yourself."

"And I've been doing some of those exercises from that book you gave me. It's really been helping me to figure stuff out."

"That's good. Worth the money, then," Zepp said.

"And also," and at this Zepp made the weird noise he made whenever he wanted to sleep but people kept talking at him, which was all the time, because he was a grumpy little dude.

"What is it?" Zepp asked.

"The dudes from Angel Love, too old for your taste?"

"Shut up! You're the worst."

"Who's your favourite Backstreet Boy? Any thoughts on One Direction?"

"I hate One Direction because they think they're too cool to dance, and nobody is too cool to dance," Zepp said.

"But you know enough about them to know that, you nerd."

Zepp pulled the covers over his head. "Go to sleep, already."
Chapter 28

Wesley knew using a pay phone to call her instead of his mobile was the kind of trickery that went against the spirit of apologising. He couldn't extricate how much he wanted to do all the steps from how desperately he wanted to hear her voice again.

The phone rang and rang. A twisted feeling opened up his gut and the back of his throat. Finally he got why Zepp was so afraid of talking on the phone. He didn't know if he wanted her to pick up or not. If she answered she'd hang up and then he'd know it was over.

"Hello?" She sounded wary. "Who is this?"

Breathed in, breathed out. "Hello."

"Oh, Wesley." What was that tone of voice? Was she shocked and if she was, did she hate it? Was that tiredness in her voice? Was she just tired, or tired of him? "I wasn't expecting this."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know I shouldn't have called. It's just that one of my steps is apologising. You probably don't want to hear from me now that you've broken up with me–"

"I didn't break up with you! I asked for a break. I thought you'd ignore that and text me after a few days and then you didn't and I thought you didn't want me any more."

"How could I not want you? You're amazing."

"It's been a month. You didn't even try to contact me."

"I was trying to respect your boundaries. I thought if you wanted to talk to me again, you'd call me. I just figured you'd gotten sick of me."

"I never know where you are when you're away. I don't know what time it is or what you're doing. Any time I think of you, you could be asleep. You could be working and not answering your phone. I don't want to get in the way of your career. I didn't want to be annoying, or that uncool nag girlfriend who doesn't get that you have important things going on and, I don't know. The longer it got the more I thought you must have realised what a drag it is to have someone like me tying you down."

"I never felt tied down! I could never. I love you, so much."

"I love you,too."

Wesley was crying really hard and he wasn't sure why, because he was pretty sure he didn't feel sad. He wiped his face with the back of one hand. "Do you still want me?"

"I do. I really do."

"I'm going to try so hard to be worthy of you. I'm going to exercise and eat right and lose all that beer weight–"

"You don't have to be skinny for me, baby."

"–and I'll buy you flowers and go shopping with you and try extra hard to understand all your finance stuff. I'll try so hard to be better. I'm sorry for everything I put you through."

"You don't have to–"

"I do have to. It's one of the steps. I was probably not supposed to do this one yet."

Her laugh was like glorious sunshine pushing back the clouds. "I love you."

"I love you, too. And I want you to know you can call me any time you like, day or night. Or text me, even if I'm sleeping, and I'll wake up just to answer you back. You're not the uncool nag, okay? You're definitely much cooler than me."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that."

"But I have to go because both Zepp and Tom are glaring at me."

"That sounds like some intense glaring."

"It is. So I have to go, even if I don't want to. I love you."

"I love you, too."

Wesley forced himself to hang up the phone, because he knew he could go on like that forever if left to his own devices. He did have a job to get back to. Zepp and Tom were probably right to glare.

Tom uncrossed his arms and stopped leaning against the van as Wesley walked towards them. Zepp kept his hands in his pockets, switching between squinting at Wesley and then looking away a lot. It was sweet of him to be nervous or concerned or whatever it was.

"That bad, huh?" Tom said.

Wesley wiped his wet face again and said, "She still loves me. How could anything be wrong in the world?"

"Thank goodness," Zepp said on a long exhale.

Wesley sniffed so he wouldn't start crying again as Zepp gathered him into a hug, before they stuffed themselves into the van.

*

Wesley wouldn't have expected it but Joey was actually being surprisingly supportive of his newly found sobriety. Unexpected, because Joey was the life of the party. But as messy as Wesley had seen Joey get, he supposed Joey was also kind of a good person underneath it all and he did seem to be off the drugs.

"It's because, like, okay, not that I was addicted or anything, because it's not actually addictive, it's just like habit-forming, but I'm not doing coke any more and if I had been addicted, though I wasn't, I would totally have wanted your support. So it's only fair to support you, too. You're my band brother," Joey explained.

Wesley looked at Zepp, who was biting his lip not to go on a rant. They'd had that discussion just the other day. Zepp had gone on about hormones and brain chemistry and something-or-other inhibitors and the summary of all that was that cocaine was so so addictive and Joey was full of crap.

Not that he figured Joey's coke habit had been anything like his binge drinking habit. Joey was just an obnoxious opportunist trying to live up to the rebellious Catholic boy stereotype, is all.

"Thank you. I appreciate your support," Wesley said. Because if he didn't Zepp would start going on about neurotransmitters or whatever it was, and they weren't that kind of band.

"You're a really good person and you supported me with that thing, you know, so I should be there for you, too." Joey had one hand over his heart and was staring with a minimum of blinking so Wesley knew he was really serious.

"Yeah, I think he gets it," Zepp said.

"I mean, you're kind of so good that I don't really understand how that happened to you, because you should have been too sensible for that, and you didn't even see it coming," Joey said.

That was the thing of it, wasn't it? That he'd thought he was too sensible for that.

Zepp smacked Joey's feet and hissed at him about not being a dick, and then they were leaning in together and having a sharply whispered argument that looked like it was about to descend into a childish slap fight. Zepp was sitting in the chair and Joey was on the table above him, so it could very easily lead to disaster if left to go on.

"It's okay," Wesley said.

Both of them stopped arguing at each other and looked at Wesley, like they were waiting for the next thing he'd say.

"I get really overwhelmed by things. And I don't like pain," Wesley said.

"But I thought... That thing you said with the candle wax..." Joey said.

"That's different. That's sexy pain, not real pain. I don't like being unhappy."

"Nobody does." Zepp spoke from up where he was perched, feet tangled together, with his hands placed neatly in his lap. "Sometimes you just have to sit in your unhappiness. But if you're unhappy all the time maybe you should see someone about it."

"It's not all the time. I'm happy enough, mostly. Only I don't know what to do with unhappiness when I get there."

Zepp made a weird noise and pointed a finger straight up at the ceiling. "I have an idea, but it's a surprise."

"I like surprises," Wesley said.

"I know you do, buddy," Zepp said.

*

If he was apologising to everyone, then he had to get to one of his most important people in the world at some point. With that in mind he knocked on the door and waited for him to come out.

Uri opened his door after a while, but his arms were crossed and his expression looked unimpressed, angry maybe, eyebrows flat and mouth a hard line. Wesley stepped back a little and Uri stepped forward. Wesley tried not to worry.

"I just want to say sorry for how I acted while I was drinking," Wesley said.

"Are you joking? That's the most interesting you've ever been. I don't see why you have to stop drinking," Uri said.

"You could stand to be a little more supportive of my sobriety."

Wesley wanted to thump Uri, just a little, so he crossed his arms in front of his body to remove the temptation.

"Oh, so I have to be supportive of your crap, but you don't have to be supportive of mine," Uri said. His arms were open, as if in invitation for a fight. Wesley didn't want to argue with him. He didn't want to have to.

"I'm supportive of all your shit."

"Right. You're not judgemental at all. And you always consider me."

"What are you bitching about?"

Uri let his eyebrows get flat on top of his eyes. "Hey, remember that time you invited your friend into our band without asking me first?"

"You did it, too." Wesley wanted to shove that look off Uri's face but he clenched his fists harder against his body.

"Because you did it first."

"When are you going to stop punishing me for that?" Wesley asked.

"When you stop wanting me to."

But he didn't. "I never wanted that. I didn't know you were angry about Zepp. I thought you guys were friends."

"Oh, don't make the puppy dog eyes. Why do you do that? It's so passive aggressive."

"Do you not like being friends with me any more?" He knew it. He knew Uri thought he wasn't cool enough. He'd tried so hard.

Uri scoffed and leaned back against the wall.

"I won't bother you, then." Wesley started to shuffle away.

"Wait. Where are you going? We weren't finished arguing. You're supposed to be my best friend. You can't just be all, 'oh sorry bro, if I don't get what I want I'll give up on you forever'."

"You still want to be my best friend?" Wesley turned back.

"Of course."

"Because I know Joey does all those cool things you want to do and is probably a lot more fun than me and doesn't expect anything."

Uri looked at his feet and then back up. "I could never be best friends with Joey. He's an idiot."

"And I'm not?"

"Not that much of an idiot." Uri pushed off the wall and pulled Wesley close for a hug. Wesley felt that breath go from his chest where he'd been holding it. "And don't you replace me, either," Uri whispered in his ear.

*

Next stop on the tour, Zepp disappeared in the shops. Wesley was sitting on a bench in the sun just outside the van, trying to soak up the warm, when Zepp reappeared and came up to him.

"I bought you a present," Zepp said.

Wesley looked up just as Zepp dropped a heavy book on his lap. 'Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Complete Morons Too Dumb to Look These Things Up Themselves'. Well, that was blunt.

"Sorry about the title. It's not the same as the one I have on my phone but I flicked through and it seems mostly the same on the inside. I find this stuff really helpful so I thought you might, too. I mean, it's not a big deal," and he went from scratching the back of his elbow, to scratching behind his ear, "but I looked through the whole book store. I'm not really good at looking in book stores."

"Thanks, Zepp. That's a really nice present. It's nice that you were thinking of me."

"Yeah, I thought it might be, you know, whatever. And if you don't like it you can just quietly re-gift it to someone else without ever telling me."

"No, I really do appreciate it. Thank you."

Wesley turned the book over to look at the back cover. It seemed like some intense stuff.

*

Wesley tried to read the book and put what Uri had said out of his mind. But it was still bothering him later, so he decided to crowd source his feelings.

"Would you call me passive aggressive?" he asked Zepp.

"What? Why is anyone calling you that?" Zepp asked.

"Don't worry about it," Wesley said.

Zepp put his hands on his face, just under his eyes, and looked around in a weird way. "Why are you asking me this? What happened? Did someone say that to you, because I wouldn't say that about you. I think you're good."

"No, it's cool, bro. I shouldn't have brought it up."

"Have you been reading what people say about you on the internet again? I thought we talked about that." Zepp still had his hands on his face and his eyes were so round they almost looked like they were going to pop out of his head.

"We did. We agreed not to do that. I have to be honest with you, I've broken that agreement many times. The people think I'm fat, but talented and misunderstood. A lot of older ladies want to tear my clothes off."

Zepp finally removed his hands from his face. "You're not fat. You're normal sized. What is wrong with people? I don't understand."

"That's not really the point, bro."

"At least the people on the internet say that I'm adorable. Why can't they be that nice to you?"

"Ha!" Wesley said, pointing at Zepp. "I knew you'd looked yourself up on the internet, too! I am not the only one to break that agreement."

"I can't help it!"

*

"Tom, would you call me passive aggressive?" Wesley asked, watching Tom sit down with a newspaper and a coffee.

"Not to your face. You'd take it the wrong way. I think you have trouble expressing your anger and you really want to be liked." He said it in a really bland way like it was no big deal.

"Oh."

"Better than being straight up aggressive. It's annoying when people start fights over nothing."

"So, you don't think it's something I should change?" Wesley asked.

"No, this is fine," Tom said, and flicked to the sports pages.

*

Wesley curled over onto his side. He could feel his face turning up into a smile. He was giddy with getting to talk to Gloria again. At least she didn't think he was passive aggressive.

"I love you," he murmured. His arm was pressed at a weird angle to keep his phone glued to his face but he could barely feel it.

"I love you, too," she said back in her strong, beautiful voice.

"So what are you wearing?" he asked.

"Do you want to hear what I'm actually wearing or what you wish I was wearing?" she asked.

"Anything," he said. "I just want to hear your voice."

"I'm wearing my work clothes. I wish I was alone so I could just take them off."

Wesley moaned and didn't even try to dampen the sound with a pillow.

"Underneath I'm wearing a lacy bra and those tiny little knickers you like. If you were here I'd let you take them all off me and I wouldn't care who was watching."

He dragged one hand down his chest to play around the waistband of his trousers. "I'm just wearing my joggers right now but I could take them off."

"I'm still in the room!" Joey yelled.

Wesley turned to look at him and yell back, "There's a solution to that, Joey, but it doesn't involve me getting off the phone with my girlfriend."

"Why are you always trying to have phone sex when I'm right there?"

Wesley threw a pillow in the general direction of Joey's face. "Go away."

"I have to get back from my lunch break, actually," Gloria said. "So call again in seven hours and then we can have the phone sex."
Chapter 29

Wesley had been on the treadmill so long his shirt was drenched with sweat. He could feel himself beginning to shiver all over in the cool hotel air, even with how warm and soft his muscles were starting to feel under the skin. But he needed to keep going. If he stopped he might drink. He needed to keep himself feeling awake and alive.

"I'm not sure this is an especially efficient way of conducting business," his assistant said from the corner of the room where she stood in her black suit, probably looking at the calender app on her phone.

He had an assistant now. That was so cool.

Wesley could hear the sound of a door opening and closing and then saw it was Tom entering the hotel gym. "Oh, are we going back to that thing where you used to exercise for hours instead of eating? That was not fun. Could you not do that again?"

"Wha?" Wesley turned the machine down and walked it out until it stopped.

"That was all 2012, 2013. You bulked up but you still looked like a strong wind would blow you over. I don't get what that was about."

"I didn't skip meals to exercise that often."

"That often, he says." Tom rolled his eyes. What was Tom doing rolling his eyes at people? He was in his thirties. Wesley definitely thought that was too old for eye rolling.

Wesley jumped off the treadmill.

"I'm not weird about food like Joey," he insisted.

"Right, and his regular adventures into a new style of starvation followed by a carb binge after a heavy night out. What an idiot. At least when you started drinking heavily you started eating real food again. That's not an invitation for you to start drinking again." Tom pointed a finger at Wesley's face and made a very serious expression. "I mean it. Don't drink."

"I get the point," Wesley said. He wiped his face on his shirt and immediately regretted it; his shirt was pretty manky with chest sweat already. "Can we just get on to organising promo for the next song?"

Joey turned up later, having gone for a 12k run somewhere outside the hotel. Wesley hadn't the foggiest where Joey could have gone that he wouldn't be recognised, but such was the magic of Joey, always doing things that escaped his comprehension.

"We should jog together some day," Joey said. He pushed his hood back to have a drink of water, and his hair fell out of its knot on his head, making him look like he'd been rolling in the grass. He always looked unkempt which was apparently part of his cool. On Wesley, looking unkempt just made him look poor and sick. It wasn't really fair.

"I couldn't do that," Wesley said. "I would hate it."

"No, we should do these things together. So I can support you. As part of your recovery." Joey was gesturing with his hands as he said this and very nearly sloshed half the bottle of water over his body.

Wesley could feel himself deflate, hunching over more the longer they talked. "No, I... I used to be very good at running. I'd run too fast and leave you behind. It would be annoying for you."

"Oh."

"It's better for me to stick to the gym so I don't try to push too hard or disappear anywhere."

Joey nodded. The last strands of his hair flew out of the elastic and flopped around his head. "That makes sense."

Wesley blew out that breath that was sticking to his ribs. "Thanks, anyway."

Joey nodded. "We should shower."

"Together? Bro, we're not that close," Wesley said.

"I repeat, still not the most homoerotic band I've ever managed," Tom said.

*

On his way back from the gym, Wesley bumped into Uri coming out of someone else's hotel room.

"No words of judgement?" Uri asked.

"Why would I bother?"

"Yeah, why should you bother with me?" Uri's voice was sharp but Wesley didn't want to play.

"That's not what I meant and you know it. I'm not the one married to you. Do what you like."

Uri huffed out, "fine," as he shuffled past Wesley toward his own room. Wesley needed to shower again. He was still so sweaty.

*

Miriam arriving didn't fix anything.

*

At 11am it was mostly quiet in the hallways. Anyone checking out had already done so and most of the hotel patrons were off seeing sights. Occasionally, Wesley heard the faint sound of a television show, dialogue and sound effects incomprehensible through the muffling effect of a door.

It was as he finally got near his room that he heard louder sounds, people talking. Yelling more like. A bit of mumble mumble as far as he could tell, and then...

"Yeah, and I fucked your friend Ruth, too. What do you think of that?" Oh, that was Uri. Wesley really didn't want to be hearing this. He swiped his key-card to get into the room.

And then in Miriam's cold voice, "Why should I think of it at all? You've fucked everyone."

Wesley let the door slam behind him and immediately dashed to the telly, turning it up as far as he could without being a complete nuisance.

*

Her mouth was a hard line when she turned up to watch them practice. She crossed her arms in front of her chest in a way that made her modest outfit severe, and said nothing.

"Tell Joey to stop singing that stupid alien song in the wrong key," Uri said.

"I'm not doing that. You're imagining it," Joey said.

"Hey, no, nobody needs to argue," Wesley said.

Miriam remained still and silent, even as they tried the song over again. After half a minute Uri stopped playing without warning and said, "He's doing it again. Why do we have so many stupid alien songs?"

"We only have five," Zepp mumbled.

"Tell Joey to–" Uri said, before Joey cut him off with, "I'm standing right here. Talk to me, not them."

Miriam turned and walked out. Uri dropped his drum sticks on the floor and followed her out.

"Fine," Joey said. "If he's going to walk out, then I'm going to call my dad instead of wasting my time."

"You do that," Wesley said, and sighed.

*

Wesley caught up with Miriam later, on a smoke break. She was squinting against the brightness of the Texan sky. Something about her face made her look like she thought she could take on the whole sky and fight it away.

He tentatively said hello.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "We just keep putting you in the middle of our strife and it isn't fair to you."

"None of that was your fault," Wesley said.

"I think there's enough blame to go around."

He wasn't the smartest person around but he knew enough to tell she wasn't just talking about earlier that day. "I mean, he is who he is."

"He has a new tattoo of birds flying on his wrist. I looked at it and thought, am I the one you want to fly free of?" Miriam said. "Of course, then I remembered something that happened when he was 16. He told me how he'd found an injured bird by the side of the road and when he took it to the vet he called them every day to check how it was. At the time I thought how gentle and kind he must be because he was completely terrified of birds."

Wesley tried not to laugh. Of all the things to be scared of.

"Maybe the tattoo is about that. Or maybe he's just addicted to body modification," she said.

"Well, he's definitely a sex addict, so that's also possible." No point pretending otherwise.

"I used to wonder if it was my fault that he got this way, you know, that I couldn't be enough for him. At 18 he made me feel like his whole world. I thought that must be true love. Now I realise he's that way with everyone."

"I mean, if he's depressed that's not something you can fix." He pressed his hands to his knees so he wouldn't fidget. She didn't make any sound of acknowledgement, so he continued on. "I also feel at fault because I do insensitive things like tell him he's like a brother but I don't think about how that makes him feel."

"His brother's been dead for six years now. It's not fresh."

"Still, I feel that I should consider his feelings more. Wait, whatever happened to the bird?"

"I don't know. He stopped talking about it and I never asked."

Wesley felt uneasy. "Do you ever think about letting him go?"

Miriam finally looked away from the sky. "Who else has he got? He wouldn't survive on his own."

*

They'd figured he would make it there in his own time but Uri didn't show up for their next gig. Instead, he called half an hour before they were due to go on, saying he felt sick and they should play without him.

"That's just irresponsible," Zepp said.

"Sometimes you have to give people a chance when they're going through some stuff. Like we did with Wesley," Joey said.

"Was he giving you a chance yesterday? At least Wes is trying and doesn't just decide not to show up to things. He missed one thing because he was unconscious. Why do we keep giving Uri chances?" Zepp asked.

"We're like family and family has to stick together," Wesley said.

"I don't know about that. I haven't talked to my aunt Susan since she became a heroin addict and I'm a lot happier for it," Zepp said.

"He's not doing heroin," Wesley said.

"Well, you know, it's not like he's never done it," Joey said.

Wesley just breathed out, nice and slow. Managing his anger, that was the key. "We'll just do things a little differently tonight. We'll be fully electronic and more synth-y instead of a rock band and everything will be fine in Vegas."

*

In fact, Uri didn't follow them to Vegas at all. He checked out of the hotel with Miriam and Wesley didn't know about it until he checked his texts on the way back.

He stopped in his tracks and everyone crowded around him to look at his phone.

"Look, I'm sure Tom knows a drummer we can find last minute in Vegas. Lots of bands have come out of there. I bet there's tons of drummers," Wesley said. If he reassured them he could reassure himself.

"This is what I was talking bout," Zepp said. He stomped off ahead and left them to deal with the rest of the stuff.

"He said he'd meet us in California," Wesley called out.

Zepp did a rude hand gesture and continued stomping away.

Wesley walked back to the van where Tom was still sitting in the driver's seat. He banged on the door until Tom opened it. He didn't look any more pleased than Wesley felt.

"Oh, did you just get the same magnificent message I got?" Tom asked.

"Can we fix it?" Wesley asked.

"Can we trust that he'll show up in California?"

"Why is everyone acting like he's leaving us? He'll be fine," Wesley said.

Tom opened the door and jumped out, and Wesley stepped back. He almost bumped into Joey who was coming up behind him.

"Calm down," Tom said.

"I'm calm. I'm calm already. Joey, why are you crying?"

Joey wiped at his face. "Maybe Zepp's right and Uri's leaving us behind."

"Stop crying. Why should you get to be the most upset about this? I loved him first. He was my best friend. He pulled away from me."

"Stop yelling at me," Joey said.

"You need to stop having this tantrum," Tom said. "We all get that sobriety is hard for you but the solution is to manage your anger properly now that you can't drink it away."

"I'm not..." But he was. He felt himself shrinking as he realised how he was acting. "I wish Uri was here so I could yell at him instead."

"You're not in love with him, are you?" Tom asked.

What? "I wish. Then at least being this upset would make sense." Even as it came out of his mouth, he was surprised by it.

"Why would that help?" Joey asked.

"It's not mysterious," Tom said. "You met this guy on the internet when you were an intense, sad sixteen-year old with no friends. That's why you're co-dependent. I just needed to know if it was a gay thing because there's a lot of that in this band."

"I'm the straight one," Wesley said.

"What do you mean, you're the straight one?" Joey asked.

"Let's just leave everything in the van and turn in for the night," Wesley said.

"Can someone explain the last five minutes of the conversation to me?" Joey asked. They ignored him.
Chapter 30

Zepp went out to celebrate his 21st in Vegas but Wesley didn't trust himself to stay sober if he went out and Joey didn't have a decent fake ID, so they stayed back at the hotel together. It was fine.

Zepp arrived the next morning with a glow stick and a smile on his face.

*

They met Uri and his long face in San Fran. Miriam was back in New York and Uri refused to talk.

There was nothing to be done about it. Wesley couldn't fix everything that was broken in Uri. It was hard enough taking care of himself. He just had to accept that things were as they were and might never get better.

Maybe Uri was changing in a direction Wesley couldn't follow, or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he'd always been that way. But Wesley had changed. They couldn't go back. Wesley just had to try really hard to make sure they could go forward together.

Uri was quiet, but he played fine.

*

Wesley wasn't sure what happened. It was confusing. But he knew by the time Uri had pushed Zepp on the floor.

"Hey, no," Wesley said. "No fighting in the hallways. We're grown men."

Zepp pushed himself up even as Uri went at him again. Wesley tried to grab Uri's arm to hold him back but Uri slipped through his fingers.

Uri shoved Zepp straight into the wall. He wasn't play fighting. Wesley could see it in the hard lines of Uri's face, that he wanted Zepp to hurt. He went straight for Zepp's shoulder, his arm, his hand.

"Stop it," Wesley ordered, and Uri promptly ignored him.

Uri was a thing of viciousness. Zepp shoved him back. Joey tried to step between them but his face connected with Uri's elbow instead. Uri moved again. A blur. Wesley grabbed Uri's arm and tried to yank him away.

"What is wrong with you?" Joey asked, and Wesley turned at the sound of Joey's voice, saw him cradling his own face.

Wesley heard something cracking.

"Are you okay, Zepp?" he asked. Please let that sound not be his arm.

"You broke my guitar!" Zepp yelled.

Wesley halfway slumped in relief. Obviously that still wasn't good. But a guitarist with a broken guitar was more fixable than a guitarist with a broken arm.

"You total arsehole!" Zepp yelled.

"Yeah, you wanna fight? I'll fight you," Uri said. Wesley was barely able to hold him back. Uri was a creature of barely contained fury, so much energy Wesley struggled to keep him in his arms.

"Please don't get in a fist fight right in the hall where people want to walk through," Joey said. He was slumping over to lean against Zepp, who was grasping at the wall and breathing heavily, the guitar having fallen to rest by his feet.

"Let go of me," Uri hissed.

Wesley finally regained enough strength to drag Uri up the hall and leave the other two to it.

*

Uri didn't stop struggling in his hotel room, even though Wesley shoved him away hard enough for him to fall over. Gave him time to close the door at least.

"Fight back," Uri said.

"I won't."

Wesley went to sit on the bed. Uri tackled him and they rolled around, wrestling, until Wesley had him pinned.

"I told you to stop."

"Hit me."

There was more wiry strength in those arms than looking could show you. Uri pushed at Wesley's shoulders, one hand then the other, until Wesley lost his grip and pushed over onto his side. That wasn't enough for Uri. Uri struggled Wesley down into the sheets until he felt like he was drowning. Then sealed his mouth with a kiss so he couldn't breathe at all. Wesley's hand beat against the sheets, trying to tap out.

When Uri drew back, Wesley gasped in breath.

"Why won't you hit me?" Uri asked.

"I'm not going to hit you just because you kissed me. Most of my friends are gay. I don't have a problem with that stuff. I don't want you to kiss me but I don't care."

Uri scoffed. He pushed his body up on one knobbly arm, like an enormous insect blocking out the light.

"It's only you who has a problem with that stuff," Wesley said. He was very tired.

"Tell me you love me," Uri said.

"I love you. You know I love you. Why do you have to hurt me? Why do you have to piss on everything I love?"

"I'm so unhappy all the time."

The fatigue was setting in. Wesley didn't know how he'd get up from the mattress at all. "Everyone's unhappy. That doesn't make it okay for you to break Zepp's stuff."

"Are you tired? We could sleep," Uri said.

Wesley let the bags under his eyes answer for him.

"Will you put your arms around me like when we were young?" Uri asked.

"You mean three years ago."

Uri slumped onto his side. Obviously expecting Wesley to follow. Wesley wrapped the covers around him then threw an arm on top of that. Uri was breathing slow and measured like he was conserving breaths. When Uri finally smoothed out into sleep, Wesley rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling.

*

He left the room before Uri woke. Zepp was already pacing the halls, muttering to himself.

"We'll fix it," Wesley said.

"Nothing is open. Or almost nothing. And it's really broken," Zepp said.

"Okay, if there's no one who can fix it we'll buy you a new one. It's a business expense. We'll get Tom to help us find a place where we can find something that will do until you have time to get something better."

Zepp stopped pacing. His arms were crossed near his face, like he was wishing he could cling on to something that wasn't there. "It won't be the same."

"I know. But it's the best we can do."

*

The man at the pawn shop was very kind. "It's not a large selection but they're all capable instruments."

"What do you think, Zepp? That one's blue. It would look cool," Wesley said.

"They all look fine. And it is blue," Zepp said. He breathed out really heavily, like he'd been locking that breath up tight for a while.

"I know they're not the one your mum gave you."

"It's not that. I'm left-handed. But I guess I can be like Jimi Hendrix and restring it. Can I, um, can I hold the blue one just to see how the weight of it feels?"

Pawn shop guy nodded and got it down from the wall. Zepp held it, looked over all its bits and swiped a hand over its glossy surface. He nodded.

"It'll do. Thank you," Zepp said.

Wesley slapped their company credit card down on the counter.
Chapter 31

He wanted to make the music sound like it was throbbing around them.

"What do you think?" he asked, playing a small section of what he'd done.

"It's okay. Strange mix of dance-y tune and slit-your-wrists-to-it lyrics," Joey said. "And I'm not sure this will play well anywhere outside of, like, the weird parts of Europe."

"What are the weird parts of Europe?" Wesley asked. "Not that it matters. This sort of thing does well in Australia, too. I know it's a small market but unlike the rest of the world they still have money."

It wasn't a very good justification, but he wanted to keep fiddling with the track until they could both make it work instead of throwing it out straight off. He knew the first step was convincing Joey it at least had some kind of money-making potential even in its relatively raw state.

"I guess this type of dance music does okay in Japan too but like, okay, there is no way we could make this land in America. I know our dance-y tracks tend to do the best, but this is not what American consumers want. And that is a big market. It's the hugest."

"It's the hugest, but they like that rap and R&B vibe in their dance, and we're extremely white. I just think we need to work with what we have, bro. It doesn't have to be this specific bit but maybe you can help me make it into a decent track."

Joey appeared to consider it for a moment. "Okay, but remember that nobody bought that Stars album you like except you so don't expect me to go easy on you if everything you come up with sounds too much like that."

*

"Wesley, I need some help with these lyrics," Joey said. "There's something not gelling."

Wesley looked at Joey's open notebook, at the scratchy lines of words. He could barely make out Joey's handwriting. Worse than a doctor, he was. "House Fire? What's it about?"

"It's metaphors. I don't want it to be obvious who it's about. That person wouldn't like knowing this."

"Start by removing the references to doing lines of coke together. We do a family friendly show."

Joey nodded and scratched things out. Wesley read a bit of it out loud to get a hang of it. He often found it easier to consider lyrics that way, after all, they were meant to be heard.

/You can be cruel to me, I don't mind  
I'm just here to set your house on fire  
Strike a match, do a line  
You can't leave your past behind  
You're blurred and blind and not quite right  
So tonight we'll set your house on fire/

"It's not quite rhyming," Wesley said. "Is it supposed to be like that?"

"Yeah, that's assonance. The vowel sounds in the last word of the line rhyme so the rest doesn't have to. I think it sounds cool and all but actually it's just easier that way."

"That's really clever."

Joey blushed.

"Maybe change 'do a line' to 'cross a line'. I feel like that would go with the whole vibe you've got going here."

"Yes, I like what you're saying. Okay, but what about how all the lines are different lengths of syllables and stuff? I'm not loving that."

"Let's sit down and work it out," Wesley said. They got to it.

*

Once they'd figured out all the lyrics the melody came to them in a flash and then they were recording bits like they were possessed.

"Okay, you repeat that 'burn it all down' line to the end, and then I sing the chorus again over the top of you. I think that will work well," Wesley said.

"I like it. Very Tears For Fears. My mom listens to that. I can get behind the 80s vibe if we do it like that," Joey said.

"I was more thinking it was like Tegan and Sara, because Zepp plays their last album a lot, but as long as it works," Wesley said.

"You are really into Canadian indie bands right now. What is with that?"

Wesley shrugged. "We're really close to Canada. I'm feeling the vibe." It was a nice vibe. Very chilled.

"Why didn't Uri come to Seattle with us? You'd think he'd be in heaven here," Joey said.

"He said he doesn't need to be here to watch us write and he can record his bits from New York." It was like it was 2011 again, with them talking to each other about their band in grainy videos over the internet. Uri had said he really liked 'the song about the arsonist' and Wesley had tried not to laugh.

"Zepp came. Where is Zepp, anyway?"

"He's got a date," Wesley said.

Wesley watched Joey squinting over a ragged notebook. "Why don't I ever get told about these things?"

"You'll have to figure that out for yourself," Wesley said, because seeing Joey react to that was hilarious. His face shifted from comically over the top insulted, to utter confusion.

Joey was silent for a bit, and then, "You know, I'm not fooled by Uri's 'I'm so cool and grunge' thing."

"I feel like we left behind that topic of conversation a minute ago, bro."

"Because he was born in 1991. You know that, right? Grunge was totally over by the time he learned to speak. He's just a poser."

"Yeah, but he's a great drummer and our very best friend."

*

It was back on tour again, soon enough. It sometimes felt like the tour had never ended, just paused briefly, and he'd never get back into his normal life.

Uri hadn't shown up at the airport but they hadn't worried. He could have been delayed in customs. He'd get to where they were staying later.

Then he hadn't shown up at the hotel in time for them to do an interview and Tom started sighing and Zepp started rolling his eyes and Joey started being extra annoying to over compensate.

Wesley couldn't get through to Uri's phone. He rang and rang and all he got was disappointed.

He tried the home number instead. It was Miriam's voice that answered.

"Hey, uh, the boys were just wondering what happened and why Uri missed his flight." Wesley turned around so he wouldn't have to see them make faces as he talked.

"I'm sorry, Wesley. Uri's been unwell. We couldn't manage to stop it before you left." Miriam's voice was soft and reasonable.

"Do you think he'll be okay for the first few shows?"

"I'm sure he will. I'll put him on the first flight possible."

"I can reimburse you so don't worry about the cost."

"Oh, no, we couldn't accept that. But don't worry. He'll be there."

"Okay," Wesley said, and hung up.

He turned around. Joey and Zepp were doing what might be termed wrestling on the couch, if by wrestling you meant wriggling a lot and slapping at each other.

"What's his excuse?" Tom asked.

Joey and Zepp stopped moving and looked up.

"He's sick. But he'll be on the soonest flight out when he's better."

"Sure. Whatever," Zepp said.
Chapter 32

2015

Uri showed up soon enough. He glared his way through the European stops and the first part of the Asian leg of the tour, and scowled and dumped himself in the front passenger seat of the van wherever they went. That meant Wesley was stuck in the back with Zepp and Joe, which was annoying given the amount of leg room.

"Close your legs so someone else can fit in the car," Wesley said. He shoved one of Joey's knees over as he got in.

Joey was clicking his fingers and slapping his knees in time to the music on the radio, totally jamming out, which might have been fine if he was in the front passenger seat but he was in the middle of the back seat and there was no room for his arms to flail about if he wanted to avoid hitting Wesley in the face.

Zepp was squashed up against the window, looking grumpy.

On the radio they started to play an interview Joey had done that morning. Tom turned it up so they could all hear it.

"The listeners want to know, what is House Fire about?" the radio DJ said.

"Sexual masochism," Joey on the radio said. "It's a metaphor."

Joey in the seat next to him was looking pretty smug.

"It's a sexy number. People are loving it. We can't stop spinning it here in the station. But I heard a rumour it's actually about a secret affair," said the voice on the radio.

Uri turned the radio off. "I'm sick of listening to people talking shit."

"I'm pretty sure I left something behind in the hotel," Zepp said. He stopped fidgeting and let his eyes get big. "My contact lenses. No wonder I'm fussy. I can't fucking see."

*

Everything was awkward when Wesley was hanging with Joey and Uri. They'd sit there trading insults and as they got increasingly mean he'd sit there huddled around his bottle of water, wishing it was a stronger drink. Zepp had stopped going with them on big nights out when Wesley had been falling over drunk all the time, and he didn't know how to ask Zepp to come along again as a buffer without it being awkward, so instead he'd lean on Tom.

"Our nights out have to be managed so I don't do anything embarrassing," he'd say, and Tom would scowl and say, "Don't you have a sponsor?" but he'd go along.

The upside was that he was getting closer to Tom, who was a cool dude. He had great jokes when he wasn't angry at things and he said some pretty deep stuff. Wesley figured that was the wisdom that came with age but Tom told him the only wisdom he'd gotten with age so far was about wearing comfortable shoes and drinking lots of water.

At least things that weren't about Uri were going well. Every time Wesley saw Joey and Zepp together they were drawn together like magnets.

"Tom, magnets are drawn together, aren't they?" Wesley asked.

Tom dragged a hand across his forehead and sighed. "Yeah? Ask Zepp. He's into that science-y shit. I can't even remember how to do long division any more."

Wesley nodded. "I'll do that."

He thought about how Zepp and Joey's eyes always seemed to be drawn together in photos, how they always started teasing each other, how their hands seemed to rise to poke at each other every time they joked together. It was like how the souvenir magnets stuck to Wesley's fridge. Just drawn to each other, like it was their nature according to science.

Wesley really hoped they'd hook up soon just to get it out of their systems.

*

Wesley got up early. Not first light of the day because the sun was rising with the brightness of summer earlier each day. It was already blazing high in the sky when he rolled out of bed and on to the floor to do his morning push ups. After that was stretches and then jogging. There was no gym in this hotel so he had to do his own routine without equipment. Running in and out of hallways and stairwells, trying to dodge other hotel guests. Like Zepp and Joey who were leaning on each other coming out of the lift, obviously getting in from a big night out. He greeted them as he went past but kept up his pace.

The absolute best hotels were the ones with a clean pool. Then he could take a dip to cool his muscles down before jogging back to his room. It was so tempting to lie down against the heat on warm days like this but he had to fight it. The more he exercised, the more alive he felt.

He almost didn't think of beer at all.

*

He'd written this song for Gloria in a rush of inspiration, 11:30 and the words just spilling from his fingertips, humming a melody into a tape recorder so it wouldn't fly away. That was two weeks ago and still the song felt only 90% there. He needed the rest of the band's help to really bring it to life but unfortunately nobody was playing along. When he mentioned it to Uri he shrank back into a corner and mumbled about how he didn't care. Two years ago he might have jammed with Zepp until it worked, and lately he liked to workshop things with Joey until they gelled together; anyway they were too busy clinging to each other like five year olds on the playground who'd just found their new best friend to pay attention to anyone else. It was really annoying.

Wesley breathed out deeply. He really wanted a drink.

Joey was leaning over Zepp's back as he played, singing right into Zepp's ear with a goofy smile, and Zepp was laughing as far as Wesley could tell. He could feel himself narrowing his eyes at them. He could feel an annoyed comment coming to his mouth. Something they'd make fun of, something to make him the daddy figure, the stick in the mud, the uncool kill-joy nerd. He couldn't stop it.

"Take this seriously, Joey," he said.

Joey turned a little away from Zepp and there it was, the face. The 'why am I stuck with this too-serious pain-in-the-arse' face.

"You usually like to play around a little when we practice," Joey said. Trying to challenge him.

"Not when I spent all night writing this song and we haven't done it once through properly yet."

More stupid arguments. More yelling. Uri was curled up like he was trying to pretend he was somewhere else. Zepp looked like his parents were splitting up all over again. Wesley stared stupidly as he argued with Joe and tried not to look like he was thinking of a cool bottle of vodka.

*

Wesley was relieved that Joey somehow got Zepp to come along to the bar. Zepp who was sensible and funny and didn't think getting completely wasted was the only way to have fun. Zepp who had shrunk into the shell of his anxiety for a moment and must now be growing out of it again. Zepp who watched Joey talk to the barmaid with a forlorn look on his face.

If that was the real reason Zepp stepped going out with the group, then it was really annoying.

Wesley was sure he wasn't any better as he watched Uri at a pool table, flirting outrageously with a strange woman. He was laughing and lining up shots, the way he used to with friends. It didn't matter. Some things can't be helped. And Wesley had his own woman to be thinking of.

At least Wesley wasn't the only one noticing it.

"You don't think it's gross what he's doing? He has a wife back home," Zepp said.

"I don't think there's any point in judging him," Wesley said. He'd judged and lectured Uri enough over the years. He was tired. Nothing would ever change that way, so why say anything at all? "Everyone does stupid stuff. Plus, they could have an arrangement or an open relationship or something. I hear people do that."

"You know they don't have that," Zepp said. It's true; he did know. "And an open relationship didn't stop my parents wanting to get divorced."

Wesley could feel his face curling up in revulsion. "Yuck! I didn't really want to know that about your parents."

"I didn't want to know that about my parents either, mate. Still, it makes you wonder how long he expects her to wait for him."

Waiting – is that what Miriam was doing? Waiting for Uri to go home, waiting for him to grow up, waiting for him to be anything like the Uri he used to be. Miriam didn't strike Wesley as the waiting type.

He didn't feel like he knew much about her, his best friend's wife. And yet, he was sure she had a life of her own she was living without reference to Uri at all. Her own friends, her own hobbies. Helping out with her brother's kids, and was she still working in the shop?

Wesley looked at his glass (water) and touched its cool wet edge.

"Nobody knows what a relationship is really like except the people in it," he said. Was he making Gloria wait for something?

"Sometimes I think even the people in a relationship don't really know what's happening in it," Zepp said.

*

After Wesley successfully badgered Zepp into revealing the state of his love life (non existent) and Joey came back from a dismal attempt at flirting with the barmaid (missing clothing and covered in booze, that Wesley couldn't stop smelling) and Uri returned from wherever he'd gone to debase himself, Wesley somehow got Joey to stop flirting with Zepp and come play darts with him and Uri. They left Zepp sitting with Tom, so he wouldn't have to be near them throwing sharp, pointy things. Wesley understood it; there was the temptation to throw those sharp, pointy things at his bros instead of the wall. There was a noticeable tension that Wesley was trying his best to unnotice. If he made enough jokes he could almost manage it. Eventually he stopped pretending to listen to them pretending not to hate each other, and got out his phone to type an email between throws.

'to: gloriaklovespuppies@email.com

from: wesley@therhinocerosconspiracy.com

Joey and Uri are driving me nuts. I don't even know what they're fighting over any more but they're making darts more tense than it should be. I wish you were here to save me, love.

Also I'm def going to tell you about Zepp's latest love troubles when I see you but I don't want to commit them to print, just in case the worst happens and the government is spying on our emails. Don't want them to know about all our intergroup romantic drama. Look forward to it!!! Also please bring my shirt with the clouds on the arms, I miss it, and you.'

After he'd missed enough turns, Joey tried to look over his shoulder to read his private business. "What are you doing?" Joey asked, even as Wesley elbowed him away.

"Shove off," Wesley said. "Haven't you got a game to get back to?"

"It's boring," Joey said. "Uri keeps winning. I don't think you've drunk enough, Uri."

Wesley watched as Uri rolled his eyes and threw another dart straight at the centre of the board.

"Go rescue Zepp from Tom, then," Wesley suggested. He looked back to where Tom and Zepp sat, ignoring each other to look at their phones. "He's probably dying to hear about how you're so bad at darts."

And then Uri would talk to Wesley and Wesley could try really hard to stop smelling the alcohol in the air.

*

Joey fell apart for no good reason after their next gig. Okay, he flubbed a line – it happens. Wesley had done it plenty. That didn't mean he needed to throw a tantrum about it and stomp off into the night.

Wesley just wished he could have a drink. Just one, so he could bubble along not getting so angry at Joey's behaviour. Instead, he had to be the grown up and stay sober while everyone else was having fun.

It was Uri that threw the next day's tantrum, responding to a bit of friendly banter by fleeing the room.

"Why is everyone in this band so moody lately?" Zepp asked, like he had a leg to stand on when it came to moodiness.

"I'm not moody," Wesley said. He just wanted to get some work done. So he said, "Hey, Joe. I've an idea for a melody. If I hum it for you, tell me what you think, yeah?"

Joey agreed and crammed in on the couch next to Zepp.

"Oi, what about me?" Zepp asked.

Wesley sent him a pointed look. "You're already holding a guitar."
Chapter 33

"I think I'm going to hook up with Zepp. He seems open to it," Joey whispered. Right in Wesley's ear, too, which was a bit gross.

"If you finally get this out of your system, are you going to stop being weird about it?"

"I've never been weird about it." But as he said this Joey was flicking his eyes towards Zepp's figure on the couch with all the stealth of something super unstealthy.

Zepp was oblivious as he sat in front of the TV shovelling his face full of crisps. Wesley was pretty sure Zepp was watching Australian football, somehow, which seemed a weird thing to go to Asia to do. He had crumbs all over his shirt, which Wesley knew he was going to frantically launder later. If that's what Joey was into, Wesley wasn't going to judge.

"He's so hot," Joey said. "I don't know why it took me this long to try it with him. I should definitely have sucked his dick before this."

"Please don't tell me details. Ever. I really mean ever."

"What? You love hearing the details of my hook ups."

"I don't want you to tell me about Zepp's dick," Wesley said. "I'm serious. If you tell me things I don't want to hear I'll revoke your friendship privileges."

"Unfair! What if it's the best dick ever? Who will I tell such important information."

"I don't care."

Zepp had finally pulled his attention from the adventures of foreign dudes running around in tiny shorts and was looking at them. Wesley tried to convey through the power of his brain that he wanted to be rescued.

"Is he saying gross things?" Zepp asked Wesley.

"Joe is always saying gross things," Wesley said.

"I could be more gross," Joey said. He was smirking like it was a threat. He better not.

"I doubt it," Uri said.

Wesley hoped that Joey didn't decide to take that as a challenge.

*

He wandered out at night to find Tom sitting on a bench by the pool, smoking. Which he hadn't expected.

"Since when do you smoke, Tom?"

Tom blew out. "I didn't for years. You've all got me so stressed I bought a pack. You can have it, if you want."

"I won't tell anyone about it."

"I don't care if you do," Tom said.

Wesley took the slightly crumpled pack from Tom's chair and put it in his shirt pocket, so he wouldn't forget it.

"I came out here to relax and text Gloria but I can chat to you instead, if you want," Wesley said.

"No, you should call her. Actually talk to her on the phone. I miss having someone at home to call. It's probably midday in London. You should just call."

Wesley felt himself nodding. "Okay. Thank you for the advice and the pack of smokes. You're a cool guy, Tom."

"At least someone thinks so."

So he called her. And then she picked up, Gloria and her sunshine voice.

She talked to him about where their dog had been trying to do his business (everywhere) and how much her colleagues were annoying her (so much). He told her how weird Joe had been lately (so weird) and how much he was looking forward to seeing her again (so much).

*

Wesley whistled as he walked back to his room. He'd had a good talk with Gloria and Uri was finally acting like a normal person again. He felt light.

He figured he'd talk to Joey on his way back and get some stuff sorted out.

He could hear a shower going, maybe in Zepp's room. The hotel had surprisingly thin walls. Wesley was just glad he wasn't staying next to anyone awful.

He knocked on Joey's door. He could hear a thump – typical, Joey tripping over his own giant ugly feet again – and even as the door was opening, Joey was saying, "Did you forget something?"

"Forget something?" Wesley asked in confusion. He'd never even been in Joey's room.

Joey looked up. He was leaning his face into the doorway like – oh, someone had been in there and he didn't have pants on.

"Are you naked?" Wesley asked.

"I thought you might be Zepp come back for something," Joey said.

"So you did hook up!"

Joey grinned. "It was great. Do you want to know how many times we did it?"

Wesley put his hands over his ears. "Bro, no. I'm not listening."

"I came all over him," Joey said, grinning, smug. The hands over Wesley's ears muffled nothing.

"Why won't you stop telling me these awful things?"

"Once is not enough," Joey said. "I have to have him again."

Wesley let his arms fall. "Be careful. He doesn't need you messing him around."

"I'm not like that," Joey protested.

"You're exactly like that. Casual means you don't bone someone twice, Joey. Or worse, keep doing it until they have feelings for you. Which you do all the time."

Joey slammed the door.

"Stay out of it," Joey said, voice flat.
Chapter 34

It was Uri who'd suggested they play a few hands of poker to reconnect in their downtime, instead of going out to do anything. Uri got the cards out of his luggage and they bet with paper clips. It had been Wesley's pack first and he was glad he'd brought it with him on the tour. He couldn't count the number of times he'd put his restless energy towards playing a game with Joe, instead of getting mardy and trying to strangle him. Now the cards were curling and splitting at the edges, touch-worn and over-loved.

"You've been quiet lately," Wesley said. He'd never had a poker face so he had to distract Uri with chatter instead and hope he'd make a mistake.

"I've been doing as you and Miriam told me to. I've been trying to stay in and not get involved in those kinds of situations any more."

"I'm happy about that, Uri. You deserve to have a healthy life."

Uri was as still as he got. "I'm trying hard to be good."

Wesley put a hand over Uri's and then their hands were folded into each other. "You weren't bad. But this is better for you."

"I know." But he didn't look happy. He never did any more.

"Ready to get completely trounced at poker?"

"That will never happen."

Somebody knocked.

"It's open," Wesley called out, expecting it to be someone on their team.

"Did you want something?" Uri said.

And then Zepp's voice. "Uh, no, just wanting to hang. Unless it's a bad time. I can just sit and be quiet."

Zepp was fidgeting like crazy. He sometimes got like that around Uri ever since the broken guitar incident. Wesley didn't want Zepp to feel awkward.

"It's fine, Zepp. Pull up a seat," Wesley said.

Zepp was still twitching like crazy but he was trying hard to look natural and comfortable, bless him.

Zepp settled for looking at his phone, while Uri shuffled the cards, black nail polish gleaming in the light with every movement. He and Wesley played a few hands in relative silence. But Wesley could hear the beeps and taps of Zepp on his phone and every breath that issued forth from each of them and the distant sounds of traffic. He couldn't focus on the game in front of him and Uri was quietly demolishing his lead.

When his phone rang, Wesley was quietly relieved.

*

When he came back to his room, Uri and Zepp looked like cats hissing at each other from across the room.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing. I just remembered something I had to do," Zepp said. He walked out of the room at his fastest speed.

Wesley turned to look at Uri. "Were you arguing?" he asked.

"I am trying to be nice," Uri said.

"It doesn't look like you're trying at all."

"What do you want from me?"

Wesley slumped into his seat and looked at the scattered cards. His hand was terrible. There was nothing he could play to win this.

"It doesn't matter. I don't really want to play any more."

*

Uri had been all gung ho about House Fire when they recorded it but all of a sudden he didn't want to play it live. Wesley didn't get it. People loved that song. It was getting real radio play and the streaming money was rolling in (not that much, mind; it wasn't going to make them rich any time soon). As far as Wesley was concerned this song was their shot at the big time. If they scored another real hit off the back of that they'd have really made it.

But Uri was refusing to add it to the set list.

"It's a good song," Joe said. He looked like he was ready for a fight.

"It is a good song, Joe, but you know..." Wesley said. He wanted to play it, he did, but he didn't want to alienate Uri any further. Uri needed delicate handling and if keeping him on board meant giving up on that song, Wesley was willing to make the sacrifice.

"And people like it," Joey said.

"If Uri is really set against it maybe we can let this one go," Wesley said.

"I won't do it. You can't make me," Uri said. His arms were crossed and his face was set.

Joe asked Uri to talk about it outside, leaving Zepp and Wes sat there on the hotel bed, equally confused.

"I don't know, either," Wesley said.

And then Uri was yelling and stomping away, so loud nobody could mistake it.

Wesley got up and rushed after him, telling him to wait. They had to talk about this. Wesley needed to know what this all was about.

He caught up to Uri at some point in the hallway, and grabbed him by the arm to stop him running away.

"Let go," Uri yelled.

"Uri, please," Wesley said. He dropped his hand from Uri's arm but he'd follow him all the way up the hall if he had to.

"Oh, it's you," Uri said, and turned around. What did that mean? He didn't sound like he was disappointed that it was Wesley that followed him out, but who even knew any more?

"Who else would it be?"

Uri shook his head. "I don't know." The edges of his mouth quirked in something like a bitter smile that dropped away immediately.

"We have to talk about this," Wesley said. "If this affects the band I need to know what's going on."

Uri looked down at his shoes then drew his head up to look at Wesley through the side of his eyes. "If it affects the band, huh?"

"You know I care about you as a person, too."

"I guess I do."

"Is it like–" Wesley started, then paused because he honestly didn't know how to end that sentence. "Sorry, Uri, I don't really get what's going on. I thought you liked that song."

"So did I. People can change their minds."

"Did Joey do something to make you hate it?"

Uri laughed. "No, he played his part beautifully. I couldn't have kept that secret better myself. He's not like us, you know, he's open and friendly, so he must have learned how to do this from me."

Wesley had never thought Joey particularly open. Good at pretending to be, so you didn't notice otherwise, but almost impossible to get him to crack enough to share anything real. Every time Joey came to Wesley with something to share he always considered it special and meaningful, because he could see how hard it was for Joey. For all of them, really. "I don't know what this secret is but you keep talking like you want me to know."

"Did I say secret? Not one of mine. I don't have any, of course."

Oh, the tease him with a show of self pity game. Wesley was a little tired of him playing that one. "Because you would never hide anything painful from someone you love unless it was only painful to yourself."

"Why did you know me so well?" Uri asked.

"That's friendship, Uri."

Uri was silent. Wesley watched him look at the ceiling and breathe out. He was like a beautiful painting, lovely and remote and inscrutable to Wesley who wasn't clever enough to get it.

"I just changed my mind," Uri said. "I change my mind about things and don't want them any more. Just let me go to my room and rest."

"Okay." What else could he say to that?

"You should talk to Gloria. Don't be like me," Uri said, as if that made sense or explained anything, and then walked away.

Wesley let him.

When Wesley got back to his room, Zepp and Joey were back to their old hijinks, making up something about a fantasy sports team or something like nothing was wrong at all. Wesley slumped onto the bed behind Zepp and let them.
Chapter 35

Wesley yawned as he read Regency Duke's Old West Bride at the airport. It was racier than he'd expected. For characters that claimed to care so much about propriety they seemed pretty quick to give it up. Frankly, this book was telling him more about his mum's reading tastes than he ever wanted to know.

For example, why were all these people having arguments in ballrooms and doing it in muddy fields?

He was glad of Zepp arriving to distract him.

"What are you reading that for? Are you reading books that aren't celebrity biographies now?" Zepp asked.

"Oh, I wanted to learn how to be more romantic for Gloria, so I nicked it from my parents, but so far all I've learned is that there's a lot of scoundrels and a lot of words I don't understand."

Like reticule. And rake – wasn't that only for gardens?

"You should read it. You would like this stuff. It's very dramatic," Wesley said. Not as dramatic as that car chase film Zepp loved so much, but still intense.

"I can't read them, you know. I can't watch the movies, either. I don't like the part where there's a big misunderstanding or betrayal and the person wanders around hurt for chapters. It makes my chest ache."

Wesley had definitely seen Zepp crying when watching Titanic even if he'd claimed at the time it was just about the boat sinking. "Do you mean a literal chest ache?"

"Yes, and then I worry some thing's going to burst out of my chest like in Aliens and it hurts even more."

"Sometimes you say things that scare me, Zepp." Wesley tended to believe he was the absolute worst at handling things; it took Zepp comparing having feelings about characters to aliens bursting out of his chest for Wesley to realise everyone else in the group was as mad as he was.

He put the book down. All he learned was that he might be a bit of a scoundrel, but not the exciting playboy type that women liked. And he'd already pleaded to get Gloria back so that wasn't something he needed to take inspiration for again. "I don't think this is going to give me proposal ideas so no more reading."

It wasn't enjoyable for him, either.

"Proposal ideas?" Zepp asked. "You're going to propose to Gloria?"

"Not yet. Probably next year or the year after." He was being sensible. He knew people who married too young almost never made it. He wanted to, though. He wanted to be hers, officially, as soon as possible. He wanted to belong to her, to be owned by her. He hadn't said anything to the lads before this but it couldn't be a surprise.

"But it's going to happen?" Zepp asked.

"We've talked about it." Idle chats in bed at night with his hands stroking up her spine and more serious chats, later, about who they would invite and where they'd have it and when they'd be ready.

"You've talked about marriage." Zepp seemed to be having trouble understanding things. For such a smart guy he could seem really stupid sometimes.

"Of course we have. I love her. She loves me. We want to be together forever. Seems pretty obvious." Maybe if he broke it down into short sentences like that Zepp would get it.

"But that's so grown up!" Oh, it was an adulthood panic. Wesley knew how to handle those.

"I am 23. That's grown up already. She and I do already live together. I don't know why you're that shocked."

"I've never had a relationship last more than four months," Zepp said. Wesley was pretty sure it had been more than four months with that guy in Australia but he wasn't going to bring that up.

"Once you start dating people you actually like instead of going for dudes you don't think like you that much, because you're terrified of feelings, it will be easy. I have faith in you." He touched Zepp on the shoulder and smiled so Zepp would know this was one bro who gave his full support.

"I'm just not ready for us all to be this grown up yet. I'm barely an adult and I'm not really that good at it."

"Don't worry, bro. You have over a year before you turn 23. You'll be cool once you get there."

*

He knew when Gloria's plane was meant to land but he also knew that didn't mean a damned thing. He stuck around the airport, phone hot in his hand, waiting for her text. In Wesley's opinion LAX was possibly the most boring airport on earth. And that was saying something.

He jumped every time his phone buzzed – with a new email, a twitter mention, a tagged photo – and the rest of the time let his mind drift off into nowhere. Until finally, the text he'd been waiting for.

And then there she was. In a pretty purple dress that made her seem ever more vibrant and alive and with lipstick that only highlighted how radiant she was. She smiled as she walked toward him with her sensible rolling suitcase, and that was it, the peace he'd been looking for.

When they finally got close enough he put all his bags down and picked her up instead.

"You smell so good," he said, face down in her neck. He burrowed beneath the waves of her hair and dropped a kiss on her skin. "Did you put that on just for me?"

She pulled back to look at him and kiss his mouth, quick and sensual.

"Which one? The perfume or the dress in that colour you like?"

"Both. You look amazing. Let's get to the hotel and see if the dress looks as good on the floor after I get you out of it."

"Or as your friend Zepp would say, how it looks folded neatly in a laundry bag with like colours."

He laughed.

*

"I've missed you," he said later, head on the pillow as the sweat cooled on their skin.

"I've missed you, too," she said.

The smile on her face was warm. God, he was so happy to be with her, with her warm against his skin. He was so glad of that. So glad he wasn't alone. So glad she told him she wanted him, too.

"Things have been chaos half the time. I think now that we're finally together they'll calm down for a moment. At least, they better. I'll drop-kick anyone who tries to make drama before you go home."

"I might line up to help you."

He laughed and pressed his smile against her shoulder, and then her breast, grabbed her hip and pulled her closer. "Tell me about your work," he said.

So she did. She told him about panicking every time she talked to the boss and the rude secretary who kept talking down to her. She talked about the friends she was making at work. It was nice just to hear her voice as she lay next to him on the pillow.

*

He took her to see his work the next day. He couldn't help wanting to show her all the things he could do, like a little kid showing their coolest friend a shiny thing for the first time. She smiled and didn't discourage him, though he knew she didn't really care that much. He appreciated it. It was just nice to hold her in his arms and smell her perfume as he fixed the balance between the sound levels of different instruments. Seriously, how tired had he been last time he worked on this song? It was a mess.

Uri, when he showed up was still quiet, disinterested. He didn't want to work, he didn't want to talk. Wesley didn't know what to do any more. This was their band from the beginning and he wasn't ready for Uri to check out. Just had to keep working and hope Uri would wake up some time soon and be wanting it, too.

This wasn't that day. He walked out without warning and didn't come back. Zepp advised Wesley to just wait him out but after half an hour of waiting he got impatient and needed to know what had gone wrong.

"I'll try calling him," Wesley said, catching Gloria's eye to make sure she followed him out.

*

They stood against the brick wall together. The phone rang and rang and rang. Wesley wasn't going to hang up, though, he was going to wait until Uri answered.

And he did, eventually.

"Hello," said Uri in a soft whisper, almost like he was asking a question.

"Uh," and Wesley cleared his throat, "the boys were just wondering where you went."

It was always so hard to talk to Uri on the phone now. So many long, loud breaths, so many strange pauses. "I went home. No, I went to his house."

"You went to Joey's, you mean." Because both he and Zepp had been staying there, so where else would he have gone? "I'm going to assume there's a reason." Wesley looked at Gloria who shrugged, because realistically she knew about as much as he did about this. Which was almost nothing.

"I wasn't feeling well. I got a lift from someone. It's fine. I'm lying down on the couch now. I can't work today. I'm very tired." Like he was at the end of a very long tunnel and tapping the message out in Morse code as he spoke.

"I can't argue with that. You lie down until you feel better, mate. We'll get back to things tomorrow."

Uri murmured something indistinct and then hung up. Wesley put his phone back in his pocket and groaned in annoyance.

"Well, he's buggered off to have a nap."

"He's not here, then?" Gloria asked.

"No. So I get the fun of breaking that to everyone."

*

When he got back to where the others were, Joey and Zepp were in the middle of their regular weird comedy routine. Zepp was laughing like Joey was the funniest person on the planet (he wasn't) and Joe was blushing and saying weird stuff. They looked half a breath away from merging into one person. Zepp's hair was all messed up when Wesley happened to know he'd gelled it into place that morning. Wesley was just glad they'd stopped whatever they'd been doing before he entered the room.

If they hadn't told him about it, their relationship was probably supposed to be some kind of secret, but who did they think they were fooling?

They hadn't noticed him returning so he had to clear his throat really loudly to catch their attention.

They looked up at once like a couple of freaky meerkats.

"Joe," Wesley said, "Uri's gone back to your place."

"Oh."

"So I guess it's time for the rest of us to pack up."

"Or," Zepp said, "and I don't think this is a radical idea, we could do the parts we don't need him for today."

Wesley could feel something shifting inside himself. Joey murmured something about disagreeing but Zepp kept talking.

"We're a business," Zepp said. He was right. Wesley said that all the time. He looked at Zepp and felt like it was his words coming out of Zepp's mouth. "And a business doesn't stop just because one of the workers packs up and goes home for the day."

Zepp kept talking, said he didn't want to waste any more time, said he wanted the work to be done.

He asked if Wesley agreed and Wesley found himself saying, "You know I do. We need to get this stuff done before we go back on the road. It's good you reminded me of what's important."

"Uri's important," Joey said, but Wesley had made a decision.

"Yes, but he's not the only important thing right now." Wesley sat down to work, Zepp beside him, Gloria behind him, and tried not to wonder what Joey was thinking about it. Or if Uri was thinking about them at all.
Chapter 36

He and Gloria got to the club a little before the guys did, and decided to wait for them outside on the footpath instead of risking everyone getting lost inside. The line wasn't especially long so Wesley wasn't worried.

"I think this will be a good night," Gloria said, nodding her head to the hints of the beat working its way through the walls.

"Yeah, I'm feeling the vibes. I'm ready to party like a sensible adult."

"Maybe they'll be playing one of your songs," she teased him.

He couldn't play it cool even imagining that. "That would be the best. I'm not going to check for that so as I don't get disappointed but if they did I would be grinning."

He put his arms around her so they could dance together on the footpath, while waiting. They swayed and turned. She let him twirl her about and her skirt was like the petals of a twirling flower in the day's last rays of light.

*

Once inside, his arm around his girl and his boys all around him, Wesley was feeling ready for a good time. Ready to find a table and chat with everyone. Uri was moody but he seemed to be trying not to kill the mood, which was about all anyone could ask of him by now. After the initial round of silly jokes Zepp decided to get a drink, so Wesley figured he'd join Zepp at the bar after talking to Gloria about it.

"I'm going to buy your drink but do you want to drink tonight? I meant, what do you want to drink tonight?" he asked.

"You don't have to. I can buy my own if it makes things too weird for you to be at the bar."

"No, Zepp's there so I can have a bit of a chat with him. That'll distract me from the smell. And he can carry it if you want wine or something."

"Are you sure? You don't have to get me wine. I could just have lemon squash. It's nice. It tastes like you're out and having a cocktail, but it's not going to get you drunk."

"You don't have to do that just because I'm not drinking."

She breathed in a way that might have been halfway to a laugh. "It's okay, sweetheart. I don't actually have to have a drink to have fun. And you know what, just get me a bottle of water, because I'll need that to dance all night long."

"Okay, we'll dance. We'll have fun." He was smiling and ready for it.

So was she. "Go buy me that bottle of water."

*

Zepp was at the bar with a row of shot glasses, looking like he was settling in for a long night. Wesley intercepted the barman to buy the water before he could talk to Zepp because already the crowd was swelling. He didn't want to have to be away from Gloria for too long. He looked back to her and she smiled and waved, so he smiled back and stood next to Zepp and asked how he was enjoying the night.

"It's only just started. I can't tell yet." Vodka shots and an open bottle of beer and he was barely starting. Zepp could really put it away. Sometimes it was hard for Wesley to believe he used to drink more than that.

"Try not to monopolise Joe too much tonight," Wesley said. He wanted to get to talk to them without them gazing into each other's eyes and ignoring him, for once. Wesley was starting to miss his little chats with Joey.

"I don't monopolise Joe. You just talk to Gloria and Uri more and then Joe and I are leftovers half the time. We have to chat to each other just because you're off in your own love universe or whatever is happening there."

So it was like that, was it? Wesley figured he'd leave Zepp to his illusions. "Whatever you say, Zepp."

The guy at the bar finally gave him his bottles of water, let him pay and let him go back to Gloria.

*

He found Gloria where he'd left her but the other two were gone. He handed her a bottle of water and opened his own.

"Where'd Joe go?"

"Um, he saw someone he wanted to dance with and said he'd be back in a moment." She winced. "I don't think he'll back in a moment."

"Ah." As always, nothing was going to plan. Wesley couldn't see Joey in the crowd but he looked back to the bar, where Zepp was still drinking alone. He hadn't expected that. "Where'd Uri go?"

"He said he'd had coffee before he came and needed the loo. I didn't ask for more details than that."

"Fair enough. I wouldn't either. If he hasn't come out in ten minutes I'll go get him, make sure he's not been eaten by the toilet monster."

"But you have to let him fight it for ten minutes first," Gloria said, with a small knowing smile, a wrinkling of the eyes and a pursing of the lips.

"Spare his manly dignity," Wesley said.

He took her in his arms and swayed with her for a moment, surrounded by people he didn't know, his band scattered all over the club like spilled pins. At least he was together with her. He still had something in the world that was truly his.

*

Three songs and he said, "I have to go look for Uri now."

"I know." She pushed Wesley's hair back from his face. "You take care of him."

"That's my job." He kissed her and moved away, left her to wait while he looked for his friend.

*

Uri really was in the men's room. Wesley spotted him straight away. Sat on the floor, falling apart.

He was just crying. Sobbing, really. He'd breathe in deep and ragged like he was going to stop and then he'd start all over again. In the brief time it took for Wesley to cross the floor, Uri went from crying into his hand to looking at his hand like he'd never seen it before, even as each fresh breath dragged new rough sobs from his body.

The other man by the sink averted his eyes like he could pretend he wasn't seeing anything.

Wesley dropped to his knees and put an arm on Uri's shoulder. "Uri, are you hearing me?"

"I can't stop, I can't stop," Uri muttered.

"It's okay. We'll get you out of here." He put an arm under Uri's bony shoulders and slipped it under his arm so he could lift Uri straight up. He could have put the other arm under his knees and carried him out. But dignity. It was easy to make a person feel small. Wesley figured Uri already felt small enough.

They moved out of the room. Uri was walking with him but Wesley was doing most of the work. He let Uri cling to his arm. It was easy to shove his way through the crowd, even with Uri's weight on his arm.

Gloria was where he left her. She started when she saw them.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Gloria," Uri cried.

"Okay, we'll go," she said and nodded at Wesley. "I think I saw the other two."

Joey and Zepp were together, looking at each other. They didn't have time for that. He clapped Joey on the shoulder because Joey was strong and could help them lift Uri into the car with a minimum of fuss. "We have to take Uri home."

Or at least, they'd take him to Joe's home, and Miriam could take him the rest of the way to hers.

"What happened?" Zepp asked. His eyes were bugging out as they darted between Uri and Wesley.

"It doesn't matter. The night is over. I found him crying in the toilets. We shouldn't have brought him here." And at that point Wesley didn't know whether he meant only that club, or on that leg of the tour.

"Do you want to come back with us?" Joe asked. It hadn't occurred to Wesley that they all go together but of course, it made sense. "I think he'd prefer it if you were with him in the car."

He looked at Gloria and could tell she was feeling the same way about the idea. "Yeah, we'll do that."

*

It was easy enough to get Uri into the car and just as easy to get him out again. Joe ran ahead and unlocked his apartment so Wesley could just run up the stairs and carry him in.

"Shouldn't we take him to hospital. We can afford it," Zepp said, behind him.

"It's not drugs," Wesley insisted.

"Are you sure it's not drugs?"

"Not unless he took something here. I didn't see him doing anything and there wasn't any time."

"Okay, it's not drugs, then," Zepp conceded.

All the drugs over the years probably hadn't helped but it wasn't the time for that.

By the time they got upstairs Uri had stopped crying. He looked tired out. Wesley went straight into the spare room and let everyone else figure out what they were going to do with themselves.

Wesley deposited Uri on the bed, while Uri breathed loud and fast and shallow, like he was trying to calm his body down and couldn't quite make it.

First Wesley took off Uri's shoes, carefully unlacing them. He pulled the covers up and tucked Uri into bed. Then he smoothed Uri's hair back and kissed his forehead, like he was soothing a crying child.

"Get some sleep," Wesley said.

Uri closed his eyes. Wesley left him to it.

*

Miriam picked up on the first ring. She always did.

"Hello, Wesley."

"Miriam. I haven't spoken to him about it but I don't think he's going to argue. I'm sending Uri home."

She paused for a breath. "Are you firing him?"

"I don't think I have the power to do that. But, maybe? Not in a bad way. Well, he's in a bad way."

"Ah, of course." As if she'd known it was coming.

"I don't think this is the life for him any more. I think he needs help that we can't give him and it would be nice if you could come get him. I hope it's not too much to ask that. I know flying here and back can't be cheap."

"We'll manage. You've always prioritised Uri's welfare. I've appreciated that."

Even if he'd given her so much else to feel grief about. "Take him home, Miriam."

"I'll be on the next flight out," she said, and disconnected. No longer would she be a remote voice on the other end of the line.

Wesley turned. Zepp was watching him. He stood with his arms wrapped around himself and that weird blank expression on his face.

"Hey, you should get some sleep." Wesley was too tired for a real talk. He felt like he'd been tired for a while.

"No, it's fine. You go to bed with your girl. I can watch over Uri."

Uri didn't really need anyone watching him. He couldn't do a whole lot of damage in his sleep. "You care about Uri now?"

Zepp swallowed, conspicuous. Wesley hadn't really meant it as a criticism but it was a little strange. "Yeah, I know. I've been a complete dickhead to him lately. Let me make up for it. I'm not going to sleep anyway."

"If you're sure?"

Zepp smiled and reassured him. Wesley hadn't expected it and he wasn't sure why. He'd always known Zepp was there for him.

Joe had been kind enough to fall asleep on his own couch so Wesley made his way to the main bedroom, where Gloria was already sleeping, on her side, on top of the covers. He pulled his shoes and his outer layer of clothes off and left them on the desk chair. He didn't want to disturb Gloria's rest so he tried to tug the blankets away from her body as gently as possible. Turned off the lights.

She mumbled a strange half-sound as he climbed in the bed, her hands moving toward him.

"Go back to sleep, darling," he said, and pulled the blankets over both of them.

*

In the morning he waited until she'd woken up before he kissed her ear and told her he was going out for a smoke.

"Okay," she mumbled.

He didn't begrudge her the lie in. Frankly, they all seemed a little wrung out so the extra rest couldn't hurt.

Outside the sun was bright enough to bring him to squinting. He lit up and finally got a hit of precious nicotine. It felt like that would keep him together for a while.

Zepp was out there near the stairwell, still hugging himself. Wesley greeted him but Zepp was quiet, only nodding or shaking his head in response to questions. Geez. He really had skipped sleep, then.

"You have to take care of yourself, Zepp. Nobody else has the energy to do it for you right now."

Zepp shook his head and refolded his arms around himself in a way that looked kind of painful, surely. "I'm not that tired. It's no big deal." He was using the quiet voice like he didn't really want to be heard.

"You have to sleep some time." No response. Another try, then. "You should talk to Joe. He'd probably appreciate some support right now."

Wesley didn't know why Zepp wasn't doing that already. He was clearly in love with the guy.

"Actually I think he would appreciate some space as he deals with one of his best friends self-destructing. I would only get in the way." Twisted his arms again so they were crossed in front of his body instead of squeezing himself to death, but hunched over like that would mean Wesley wouldn't see him.

Wesley didn't get it. "You guys are pretty close, though. At least, I thought you'd been, you know, seeing each other?" Did Zepp just not know how that worked?

Zepp looked up, then. "Why would... I mean, it's not..."

Wesley reminded him that he liked to pay attention to his people. "It's not that hard to figure out when things are happening in someone's life."

Zepp laughed in a way that made him sound like a barking seal. Wesley had never liked it when Zepp described himself as crazy but, honestly, he was looking a little crazy in that moment.

"It wasn't like that. It was just sex. And it's not going to happen any more, so," and Zepp paused to breathe in a way that shook his whole body, "I would just be a bother."

They picked a hell of a time to break up. If that's what it was. Unless Wesley had read it wrong the whole time. Had Joey just toyed with Zepp to flatter his vanity? What an idiot. Why was he always doing things like that?

Zepp was breathing weirder and had his hand on his chest like he thought he was about to have a heart attack. Or a panic attack. Wesley had watched it happen before. Not fun, for anyone.

"It's nothing," Zepp said. "Don't look at me like that."

Wesley didn't know why Zepp didn't realise that the more he said things like that, the more they worried. He might as well have said he was totally shattered.

Wesley didn't know what they'd said to each other but surely Joe could be convinced that Zepp was good for him. Anyone could see that. "You don't have to give up on what you want just because the band is a mess right now."

"He doesn't like me like that. It doesn't matter. It's fine." It obviously wasn't fine.

Wesley tried to anchor Zepp with a touch on the shoulder so he wouldn't float away on his whole sea of anxieties. He wanted Zepp to know it was okay to tell him about this stuff, feelings and relationships and disappointments.

"There's more important things than how I feel," Zepp said. "And it's my own fault. I knew he wasn't going to be in love with me. I'm not what he wants and that's okay. I was just convenient. If I feel bad I did this to myself."

Now, that, Wesley wouldn't let stand. He pulled Zepp into a hug because he looked like he needed one. Wesley felt he needed it, too. "You're allowed to be upset because you got your feelings hurt. You don't have to pretend to me that you don't feel anything. It's okay."

Wesley kind of wanted to punch something, but it was okay.

Zepp didn't say anything. But he didn't pull away, either.

*

Joey decided to have the kind of tantrum that meant he had to go off to his mum's place, which was probably for the best, though Wesley yelled at him a little before he left. He'd told Joey not to toy with Zepp's heart. On top of that, Joey was acting like he was done with the band, which was the last thing anything needed.

On the upside, Zepp made them all breakfast while they waited for Miriam to show up. He seemed a lot calmer with Joey out of the house and even went to talk with Uri, which somehow ended with him smiling. Probably the first time those two had had a civil conversation in a while. Wesley wasn't going to complain.

Wesley inspected Uri before Miriam arrived. He was washed and clean. He'd buttoned himself up nice and even done his hair in a way that let it go curly instead of frying it straight.

"What do you think?" Uri asked.

"You look nice, bro. Really nice."

"Do you think Miriam will like it?" He really did look nervous.

"Yeah, I know she will. Miriam's a great lady. She'll like that you put in the effort."

Uri smiled. "That's good."

When Miriam arrived Wesley held Uri close in friendship, kissed his curly hair and whispered, "Keep in touch."

Uri smiled at him and his eyes were as bright as they'd ever been. Wesley watched Uri's wife take Uri away in a taxi and then he turned and went back inside to Gloria and Zepp, Joey's gigantic flat screen TV, and a truly mediocre delivery curry.
Chapter 37

The first concert without Uri was fine but the interviews were disastrous. Zepp and Joe were snapping at each other, which was the last thing he needed.

And then after that it was time for Gloria to go home.

He said goodbye to Gloria at the hotel as she waited for a taxi. He kissed her mouth, her cheek, her hair, then watched her get into a cab and go away. But unlike with Uri, it was a goodbye that was not a goodbye. He knew he'd be seeing her again, soon enough, when he got home.

At that moment, going home felt like it would be forever away. He didn't know how he'd survive the rest of the tour without either Uri or Gloria by his side. But he would. He was distracted by how much he didn't want to be without them at that moment, but he'd manage.

After that, everything got very busy. There were press releases to send out, drummers to audition, promotional materials to change. He put the previous band shirts up on their website marked 'limited edition' and hoped they could flog them off cheap. Wesley dreaded having to get the lawyer in to figure out all the other stuff that was pending.

They had to go have lunch with Joey's mum, because she was their investor, and also because free food. By this point Wesley would put up with anything for a vegetable he didn't have to pay for.

Things got weird at lunch when Joey came out to his mother in a weird attempt at one-uping Zepp in an argument. Then there had to be serious emotional talks that in theory Wesley was in favour of, but that he felt kind of weren't his business. He took his salad and fled to the living room. Spent half an hour sitting in silence with Joey's step-dad.

*

It was hard to pay attention to Joey and Zepp without wanting to strangle them. Zepp might have said it wasn't a break up but they were acting like it was a break up. Veering wildly between trying to pretend things were totally normal, and sniping at each other, but always always paying more attention to each other than they were to Wesley. He wasn't sure he had the right to feel annoyed about it. This is what he'd let happen while he'd been too busy paying attention to other things. If he'd been a better bro, maybe they could have come to him about their problems instead of angrily trying to pretend they didn't exist. Then again, maybe if he'd been a more involved friend about the whole situation they'd have never gotten together in the first place.

He wasn't sure whether to feel bad about that.

Zepp threw a tantrum about the idea of sharing a room with anyone, and then again at a later stop. Joey did his best to stick his head in the sand about a stalker problem he was dealing with, no matter how much anyone tried to argue with him about it. They both left him to entertain the crowd for minutes on end at one show, when they had a stupid argument with each other instead of going on stage on time. Driving him nuts.

After the second time Zepp stomped off to sleep somewhere they weren't, Wesley forced Joey to have a sit down with him and a normal conversation for once.

Wesley rubbed his hands over his face until it started to feel like the skin would stretch until it snapped and just flop there, hanging off his face like old curtains. He sat on his hands so he could dismiss that horrifying thought.

"You have to sort this stuff out with Zepp," he said.

Joey wriggled his face about until he settled on an expression. "There's nothing to sort out. The way he's acting, it's not anything to do with me and Zepp. I think that's just him. You know, maybe he's just going through a thing or whatever."

"Sure," Wesley said, disbelieving.

"Do you think he'd like me better if I was thinner? I mean, as a friend. If he'd like me more as a friend," Joey said.

Wesley looked at him. Really looked at Joey as he fiddled with his cotton string bracelets with restless fingers. "No, as your friend he would be concerned." Wesley was reassessing everything. He'd had it all wrong. "You've had a crush on him the whole time."

"I mean, of course I have."

"You tried to give him flowers."

"I gave him a lot of flowers. I don't think he's into flowers. Whatever, we're friends, it's not a big deal."

"Why didn't I realise?" Wesley asked himself. It was really obvious in retrospect. Maybe if he hadn't believed Joey all those times back when Joey thought himself straight he would have noticed it sooner. A lot sooner. Then he wouldn't have had to be weird about them flirting that whole time.

"I don't know. Why didn't you realise?" Joey asked.

"Then why did you break up with him?" Wesley asked.

"Uh, no. It wasn't like that. We weren't dating. We were just hooking up, so I can probably convince him to do it again. I mean, I know he said he wouldn't but he'll probably change his mind." But Joey looked kind of heartbroken about it, so it was definitely a break up, whether he admitted it or not.

"Are you saying he broke up with you?" Everything in the world was shifting again. Wesley was starting to wonder if he really knew them well, at all.

"Nobody broke up with anyone. We weren't dating."

"This changes everything." Wesley started laughing and he wasn't sure why.

"You're so weird today."

*

It was fine when a hotel on the way lost their reservation and he had to spend the whole night crammed in with them, listening to them flirt, hot and cold like nobody's business. Just fine.

But then Zepp was turning 22 and Zepp and Joe were arguing and they were in a bar and everything smelled like alcohol, sunk all the way into carpets, suffused throughout the air. Wesley felt irritable already, and Zepp and Joe had only just started to argue about which kind of alcohol to order. He didn't care if they got daiquiris or low carb beer, as long as they stopped talking about it.

"I'm getting an orange juice," he said.

He breathed out, heavily. He couldn't be bothered pretending to be excited about it.

They argued even more when they sat down. Wesley suspected they were pretending to be playful so as to not deal with the stupid tension they had between them, but he didn't care. He went off to the toilets when they started on some nonsense about insurance. Only he took the wrong door and, well, outside were so many potential new friends, and when some guy said he looked lost and offered to buy him a drink, it would have been rude to turn him down. Just one drink couldn't hurt anything.

The next morning he woke up feeling like an idiot. Everything hurt. His head hurt. His throat hurt. And while what he could remember was blurry, he definitely remembered throwing up repeatedly while Zepp and Joey yelled at each other in the next room. His eyes hurt like he'd been crying all night, just to top things off.

He was curled into the covers, head wedged halfway under the pillow. He didn't really want to move. Maybe he could just lie there and feel sorry for himself forever. But no, he had a band, and for some reason the people in his band still loved him, so Zepp came in with coffee and interrupted his pity party.

Wesley could feel himself moaning and groaning, as he tried to force himself into sitting up right. "I can't drink coffee right now. Even the smell makes me feel sick."

He desperately didn't want to throw up again.

"No, that's for me. The electrolyte salts and water are for you," Zepp said.

He'd brought a whole tray into the room. Wesley watched as he set it up on the wooden thing on the end of the bed, far enough from the edge that it wouldn't tip onto Tom's carpets. Zepp was the true sensible one. He took care of everyone, hand washed everything, and always made sure to pack hand sanitiser. Right at that moment, Wesley felt very glad for his existence.

"I feel so gross," Wesley said.

"I bet you do, buddy," Zepp said.

Zepp didn't even look judge-y as Wesley pushed himself back against the pile of pillows, even though he would have every right to.

"Well, there goes a year of sobriety."

"It happens. You'll try again."

"I thought I was making so much progress and I've totally messed that up. Now everyone will be judging me again, thinking I'm weak and stupid."

"You have a chronic and very embarrassing mental illness that you're stuck with for life. Welcome to the club. It's a shitty club. Nobody wants to be in it. But you're still cool and all those great things about you still exist."

As speeches went, it was heart-warming.

Wesley thanked Zepp for being such a great bro, and they sat together taking comfort in each other's company, until Wesley was ready to call Gloria.
Chapter 38

They were set to go to an awards show, he was suited and booted, and the hair was looking magnificent.

When he looked for the boys they were hugging, and not in a just for friends way. That was definitely a halfway to merging into one person hug.

"Oh god, why is this happening? What are you doing?" He didn't know if he could take another round of the drama.

"You don't have to worry. It's totally okay now because we decided to be in a capital-R Relationship," Joey said. But then he had to look at Zepp and ask, "That is what we decided, right?" because sometimes Joe had the intelligence of a half-eaten packet of crisps.

Zepp nodded to seal the deal. Wesley decided he was just going to have to deal with it.

*

They were the absolute worst after leaving the awards show. So so gooey. Gazing into each other's eyes, making bad weird jokes and laughing hysterically at each other, constantly kissing, the works. It was a good thing he loved them because if he didn't he'd fling himself out the window instead of subjecting himself to it. Even so, when he looked at Zepp, Zepp looked happy. Maybe Joe really had figured his crap out this time. If Zepp was happy and Joe was going to try being happy with him, then Wesley could be happy for them. He waited until he could catch just Zepp's eyes and gave him a thumbs up. He could tell Zepp appreciated it.

*

They split ways at JFK. Wesley figured Zepp and Joe were probably glad for a bit of time alone together. He was looking for some time thoroughly alone.

He had an appointment later, but there was plenty of time to wander the streets first. Lucky he didn't have much baggage with him, he thought as he got into the first available taxi. Bright yellow and iconic, like something out of a film. That was New York for you, still as bright and beautiful as the first time he went there to see Uri, even if he hardly saw anything that first time.

He got out at Rockefeller Center with his laptop case slung over his neck and his duffel bag carried over his shoulder. Looked around the shops a little. Let himself be just another guy in the crowd.

Okay, maybe he took a few pictures to direct message to Gloria, even though he knew she'd been before.

He did the tourist thing. Ate at one of those gross American chain restaurants that people told him to avoid, just to know what it was like (weird, but they gave him lots of bread and can't complain about that). Bought some gimmicky stuffed toys that he knew his dog would savage in about half a minute when he got home. Walked until he found Central Park and just strolled under the trees all casual like.

And then he found himself another taxi, juggled his bags until he could read off the address on his phone, and found himself at the tattooist.

*

It looked like a nice little out of the way place. But somehow everything in New York that wasn't an H&M or a Starbucks looked like a nice little out of the way place. And it was out of Manhattan at least, which probably meant someone would say it was cooler, not that Wesley really kept up on what real New Yorkers found cool any more.

Very clean. He took his shirt off to show them where the tattoo was.

"And so you want it covered up?" the lady asked.

"Not really. Just sort of expanded, I guess, until it's just this really small bit of a really big thing. A giant tree thing. But only on the left side."

"Right, that's what you were saying on the phone."

"Sorry, I'm very English. I know that sometimes sounds like garbled nonsense to people on your side of the world."

He sighed and sat down.

"Bad break up?" she asked.

"In a way." A change in direction. A break up with an idea of who he was going to be.

"A piece as big as you want will probably hurt," she warned him.

"I don't mind."

He fell asleep.

*

He woke up to what seemed like a million alerts on his phone. Emails and texts. A terse message from Tom saying 'Car stolen. Call later.' He sorted through the mess as he made his way to Uri's door.

"Ding dong," he said to himself, as he pressed the buzzer.

And then scuffling noises, followed by, "Who is it?"

Ah, that voice. He'd missed it.

"I'm not sure who I am today, bro. You'll have to let me up to find out."

*

Miriam was wiping the table when he got up to their place, and she looked up from her work to give him a thin smile. He smiled back, and it felt gentle on his face. Uri was standing weirdly stiff in the corner so Wesley smiled and waved at him, as if they were greeting over a long distance. It got Uri to relax, to let a faint laugh puff out of his mouth.

"I was in the area," Wesley said.

"I guess you were," Uri said.

"I did some sight seeing. I bought an ugly magnet I don't need and a Top of the Rock bookmark."

"For all those books you'll be reading," Uri said, voice flat.

"I've been reading a lot of Gloria's old textbooks lately. Because I'm someone who has to care about business and economics now, it seems. I'm even the kind of person who has business cards."

"Yeah, I guess you are."

"I personally find it very impressive," Miriam said.

"Thank you, Miriam. That's very nice of you," Wesley said.

Finally, Uri moved closer and raised his arms like he might want to hug Wesley. Wesley turned toward him. He hissed at the movement. The ink on his back was so new that it was still making its presence felt.

"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Uri asked.

"New tattoo," Wesley said.

"Can I see?" Uri asked.

"If you're taking your shirt off, it won't be in my nice clean kitchen," Miriam said.

Wesley looked at her, standing prim with her hands clutching the cleaning rag in front of her body. Standing straight and tall but looking fragile in spite of that.

"I could just lift it," he said, "but I want to talk to Uri about a bunch of nonsense, so I'd like if we could do that in a different room to spare you having to listen."

He looked at Uri, whose eyes were big and hopeful, Bambi lashes wide beneath the graceful sweep of his curls, then back to Miriam who nodded once, decisively.

*

Wesley could feel the warmth of Uri's hand near his skin as he showed the design flowering over his back.

"Oh, it's right by the thing you got with me. You're not going to cover it up, are you?"

Wesley dropped his shirt and turned, ready to dispel the note of sadness in Uri's voice. "No, I'm just letting it grow into something bigger than just us. It's like the original was the foundation of something and now it's evolving. Like a Pokemon."

Uri nodded. "That makes sense."

"The guys would send their love, if they knew I was here."

"Would they?" Uri looked off into the distance, then back again.

"They would. I got some alerts about them earlier, so I think they did something that got on the internet, though I don't know how they managed that in the time since I left them. We should watch it together and laugh at them."

"Okay. I'll find it on the computer so you don't have to use your phone data."

Wesley sat on the end of the bed and waited for whatever Uri would find.

"There's a lot of results. This is really blowing up," Uri said. He followed a bunch of links, until finally he found something with a source, a video. Not the funny thing they'd expected. Instead them facing off with Paul, who'd gone crazy, and why did the band have such bad luck with tour drivers, anyway?

They let the video begin again.

The audio wasn't particularly clear and the video was shaky. But one thing was clear: Zepp and Joey were more intense about each other than Wesley had realised. As the video re-looped he watched them go from standing together on the footpath, to collapsing together and clinging to each other like the world might end if they didn't squash themselves together as tight as possible. And then the kissing, just too intense to pass off as close friendship. Wesley hoped they were going to be okay with attention on their relationship, after they'd been together for what felt like five seconds of time, because if he was watching this video on the internet he couldn't be the only one.

"They really are in love, aren't they?" Uri asked. He'd folded his legs up on the bed behind Wesley, while he was looking at the video. In his long-sleeve shirt and loose jeans, grey socks pulled up as high as they could go, he looked almost like the Uri Wesley had known before the band. Almost like they could unravel everything bad they'd done to each other and go back to being who they were meant to be.

"You should see them when they're not in front of a camera. They do all that finishing each other's sentences stuff. Well, I guess they did that before, but it's extra annoying now, because of all the smiling and kissing and cuddling and all that."

"Why did we ever try to keep them apart?"

"I'm pretty sure that was mostly you."

Uri didn't answer, only folded his hands together in his lap.

Wesley shoved himself further back on the bend. "It doesn't matter what you or me did, because they're together now. They got their happy ending. It was meant to be!"

"It looks like that."

"And I'm going to get my romantic happy ending, too! So you don't need to worry about that."

Uri's smile was in his hands and it fell away fast, but it looked genuine, in that moment. Even crinkled up the corners of his eyes. He turned just enough that those eyes could focus on Wesley.

"We did some terrible things to each other, all of us."

"That's just growing up, isn't it?" Wesley folded his legs up against his body in the way he used to when they first met.

"It's not just us we hurt."

Wesley thought of Miriam in the other room. Of Gloria and his parents in London. Of Tom looking tired on the road.

"I think at some point we have to forgive ourselves for that, just to move on with who we are."

"But how can we forgive ourselves? I can barely stand the way I treated myself."

Wesley knocked Uri with his shoulder and Uri swayed with the motion. "I once woke up in a ditch, you know."

At least Uri's eyes were laughing, even if his mouth stayed closed.

"You didn't ever worry I was in love with you?" Uri asked.

Wesley shook his head. "I always knew it was pain you were in love with."

Uri closed his eyes against the truth of it.

"I did a terrible thing," Uri said. And Wesley braced himself for half-truths, readied himself for that last bit of mystery Uri would cling to. "And I did it because I wanted to hurt you, but then it was so terrible I couldn't tell you about it. I couldn't tell you what I did out of love for you. I did this thing so it would break something forever, but even then, what I did was washed away with time."

"Well, its not like you killed someone." It probably wasn't even that bad. Wesley had him all figured out. In Uri's mind he must have been the star of a tragic melodrama, and so he warped everything that happened to fit that story of himself. That was okay. Wesley wasn't perfect at self-knowledge, either.

"You don't know what I did."

"I'll figure it out," Wesley said. He got up to turn the video off and sat back down again, the image frozen on Zepp and Joe's embrace.

"I don't know if I'm more upset at what I did wrong, or that what I did wrong didn't change anything in the end. But nothing lasts forever."

"You've been reading those old, sad books again."

"They're my favourites."

Silence fell on the room. It wrapped around and between them, thick and strong. All Wesley could hear was his own heart beating, not the sounds of Miriam cleaning, nor the beeps and bumps of the world outside.

"Let's drift apart," Wesley said.

"What?" Uri asked. He looked up, face stiff.

"I don't want our friendship to end the way things did for you and Joey or you and Zepp. I don't want a big argument. When things end, let it be because we grew apart and you started having too much going on in your life to tell me about it."

"I don't want to grow apart! You're the closest friend I've ever had. I-- I love you!" Uri protested.

Wesley nodded. "It's true, you do now. You will always have loved me once. And I'd like to always remember how we were when things in the band were good. But, Uri, we're already so different. And we're so bad for each other."

"No," Uri said. He turned partially away, grabbed one elbow with the other hand, and looked down. But he wasn't totally closed off; he was listening. Wesley could see it.

"We enable everything bad about each other. We hurt each other. You make me want to drink and I make you feel like you have to punish yourself for whatever it is you think you did wrong. And I feel like your place is here, bro, and mine is on the road, with my boys. I want us to drift apart. I want to remember you fondly, when you stop remembering to email me. Let it happen."

Uri winced. "Would it make Miriam happy?"

"Probably."

"I'm not ready yet."

"Neither am I."

*

Wesley dragged Uri in to play one last show with them. Miriam watching from the door as they all reunited, Miriam watching from the side of the stage as they played. Uri's eyes barely opened as he played, his hands finding their way by instinct and memory, following those patterns that had been written into his skin over and over for years. Wesley could feel a smile move through him at the sight.

Joe was in fine form, on stage. He sat on a stool the whole time, smirking and making people get things for him. Zepp gave him a water bottle and then Joe grabbed his hand and smiled at him, and Wesley could see in Zepp's eyes he was totally undone. And Joe looked changed by it all, too, smiling at Zepp like he was the whole world.

And even though they hadn't really cracked the American market, and Wesley suspected they never really would, when they took an encore and they all stood up and bowed, the audience screamed and screamed.

*

Uri and Miriam couldn't stay long.

"Do you think they'll make it?" Joe asked, as they both watched Uri and Miriam shuffle out the door together.

"Not a chance," Wesley said.
Chapter 39

Joe came off the phone with Tom talking about some magazine but Wesley could see Zepp was having none of it.

"Come on! They just want an interview about how we got together," Joe said.

"No," Zepp said, decisive. "Every time a celebrity gives an interview about how great their relationship is they break up. Sometimes they've split by the time the article comes out. I like what we have; I don't want to jinx it."

"Maybe those were people trying to hide relationship troubles to save their public image. Or last ditch efforts to save their relationships," Joe suggested.

"Or they were cursed," Zepp said, uncompromising.

"Okay, I'll tell them no," Joe said, but he didn't look happy about it.

Wesley leaned in closer to Zepp. "You really think that kind of thing's cursed, bro?"

Zepp nodded.

"Remind me not to talk too much about Gloria in interviews, then. I don't want to be cursed, either."

But at least the tour was almost over and he'd be seeing her soon.

"You know what, boys? I know we've got album promo but other than that, I think we should take a bit of a break once the tour's done," Wesley said.

"What," Zepp said, but it didn't sound like a question.

"You can't give up on the band now," Joe said. "We've been through this epic trial. We have to, like, continue to adventure on like conquering heroes and stuff."

"I'm not giving up on the band," Wesley said. He squinted at them in disbelief until Zepp actually started to shrink back a little. "I'm saying we take a break so we don't burn out."

"We're not going to burn out," Joe said.

"Maybe not you but I'm exhausted, bro," Wesley said. "We've put out three albums in three years. What are we trying to prove?"

"I'm not saying we're trying to prove something," Joe said.

"What about you, Zepp? Do you think you can keep up this pace forever?" Wesley asked.

Zepp rolled his head around as he thought about it then put his hands to his face and huffed out. It was Joe that put a hand to Zepp's shoulder and made his body language open up. Zepp looked at Joe with warm eyes, and then at Wesley with his serious face on.

"No, not a chance. If we never take a decent break we'll all turn into Uri and that would suck."

"What?" Joe said. "I've got plenty of energy. I can keep going forever."

"We're an indie band. We could take a break of ten years and people would accept that," Wesley reasoned.

"You're not suggesting ten years, are you?" Zepp asked.

Wesley couldn't imagine he'd last that long. Even as he was suggesting a break, he knew he'd get restless and bored within a few days of not working and start writing songs like his life depended on it.

"No way, bro. I'm just saying, I'd like it if I could spend more time with my woman. We can still tour. I just don't want to do it all the time." They could put out an album every three years like a normal band and tour in the summer, instead. And when he had kids someday he could be a house-husband instead of putting it all on Gloria.

Joey nodded. "That seems fair."

"Yeah, works for me," Zepp said. "But you'll be calling me five times a day within two weeks of this break starting. I'd put money on it, if I had any."

*

They threw a little party to commemorate the end of the tour.

"Yay, I'm so glad this is over," Tom said, monotone. He adjusted the party hat on his head and blew into a little plastic blow-horn.

"What was your best thing about 2015?" Wesley asked Joe.

Joe put a hand to his face like he was about to do some serious thinking. "Hmm, silk bomber jackets. A new pair of metallic ankle boots. No, I'm going to have to say that the best thing was getting together with Zepp."

"Because I'm standing right next to you," Zepp said.

"I might pick the shoes if you weren't here," Joe said.

"I'm going to say the renewed sense of togetherness we've achieved, lads. We've really re-committed to this band. You know, I feel like we're all in all the time now. There's no doubts," Wesley said.

"That, and I got laid a lot," Zepp said.

Joe responded with a shriek of laughter that sounded like it ought to be from a weird animal in a nature documentary.

"And I can see it again in my very near future," Zepp said.

"I don't want to know what weird stuff you do in bed," Wesley said.

"Sometimes we hold hands and talk about how much we like each other. It's pretty wild," Zepp said.

*

In all the pictures from the event, Wesley was the only one actually looking at the camera, while Zepp and Joey were just laughing at each other the whole time. It was about what he'd expected, actually.
Chapter 40

And then they went home.

He looked through the pictures on his phone, for every picture that had Uri in it. Emailed them to himself so he'd never lose them. Then deleted them from his phone.

He moved around the flat, turning down every picture of him and Uri, or Uri alone, so their faces were hidden from view. Time to move on.

*

There were more documents than Wesley had been expecting. It seemed like stacks and stacks of them. The lawyer was doing his best to explain things in a way Wesley would understand, but even so, Wesley felt like his eyes were going to start crossing over from confusion. There hadn't been this many documents when they'd set up the company in the first place. How could there be so many just because one founding member decide to leave?

Didn't seem like it should be such a big deal, to change the entire structure of the business.

But there it was in black and white in front of him: rights to name, future royalties on back catalogue, every minutiae of roles and responsibilities within the band. It had all started out as a bunch of friends trying to jam together over the internet and now it was business decisions, legal documents. He read through, eyes burning.

Signed there, and there, and there.

And that was it, it was done. Uri was out of the band.

It was over.
Chapter 41

He got down on one knee first. He realised as he did so that the floor hadn't been mopped in at least a fortnight, with both their schedules keeping them so busy. Maybe when they got older and a little more successful they could hire a cleaner. Dream big.

Gloria lifted her hands to cover her mouth. "What are you doing? What are you doing, Wesley?"

"Gloria, we've been together a long time now, and I–"

She covered her eyes. "I can't deal with this. Stand up."

His breath caught in his throat. His heart plummeted down to his knees, so roughly somewhere around the dirty floor. You couldn't hire a cleaner for your heart.

She stood up, wiped her hands on her work skirt, and turned to face the sink. While she was staring down into the drain or something he slowly stood up. She turned and her hands were shaking.

"Oh god," she said. "This is really happening."

"I'm sorry," he said. He sure felt sorry for himself.

"You should have asked me to dinner somewhere nice first! I'm still wearing my suit! How am I going to tell this story to the girls?" Her eyes were suspiciously wet.

"So that's not a no, then?" he asked.

"Of course it's not a no, you big idiot!"

"Gloria, I can hardly be blamed for finding this all a little confusing."

She started dabbing at her wet eyes with a tea towel so he gathered her up close, so that at least if she was going to cry it would be right into his shirt.

"You have to ask the question," she said.

"Gloria, will you marry me?" he asked.

She said yes. And then they were kissing, she in her fancy suit, he in a band hoodie and old jeans, damp tea towel still in her hand and all. At that moment he didn't care whether the kitchen would ever be clean again.

*

Telling her parents was about as awkward as he'd been expecting. The rest of dinner after they made their announcement was one of the quietest things in his life. Nothing but the sounds of chewing and cutlery scraping against plates, as Sanjeev stared a hole into Wesley's face.

After dinner, Sanjeev pulled him aside while 'the girls' went to wash up. Normally Wesley would object because he was chief washer-upper at home, but he could tell this wasn't about preserving the battle of the genders. They watched Cindy and Gloria dancing about the kitchen. Sometimes Gloria would stop to whisper something in her mother's ear and they'd laugh and look back at their men.

"When we first met you seemed like an old-fashioned English boy. But if you had asked permission to marry my daughter I would not have given it," Sanjeev said.

"I would never have asked. Gloria's her own woman. She can marry whoever she wants," Wesley said. But the important thing was, she was going to marry Wesley. He was really pumped about it.

"For the record, I don't like you and don't think you're good enough for my daughter."

It's not like Wesley didn't get where he was coming from. Hard to imagine any parent wanting to accept their daughter marrying an alcoholic that travels a lot.

"With all due respect, sir, you don't have to. It's not you I'm trying to marry. She's the only one I need to please."

Sanjeev looked resigned to it. That was about the best Wesley could ask for.

*

2016

In the lead up to the wedding, the boys arrived to make it a whole wedding celebration week. They kept dragging him to Zepp's place for brunches, which was usually followed by Joe lamenting that he hadn't been chosen as best man (as if that was ever going to happen), or asking random questions about it all. Wesley got halfway through complaining about the difficulty of figuring out the seating chart, when up came the question he felt he'd been waiting for someone to ask.

"Uri isn't going to be here?" Joe asked.

As soon as he did, Zepp looked up wide-eyed, too. Not trying to be subtle, either of those two.

"No, he has exams. I think he felt like he was making progress in group therapy and didn't want to do anything that would undo that, anyway," Wesley explained.

"Oh," Joe said.

"Okay," Zepp said, and went back to his crossword. "Makes sense."

Joe was still looking up so Wesley smiled at him to show him it was all okay. And it was. Wesley had sent Uri an email about the wedding but he'd never sent an actual invite. He'd known Uri wasn't going to show. Already he couldn't imagine Uri taking that part in his life any more. Maybe Joe hadn't made peace with it the way Wesley had, or maybe he was just checking that Wesley had moved on, too. But they were two people who'd loved someone else and just had to get on with things without him, now.

"Okay," Joe finally said, nodded decisively, and went back to bothering Zepp.

*

The bucks night felt chaotic with all the members of Gloria's family Wesley had only seen in photos.

"Okay, I've never met him before, but this is Brendan. Just like everyone else in their family, he's in finance," Wesley said.

Joe nodded and said, "Hi, Brendan."

But Zepp seemed less than pleased. "Why is everyone in Gloria's family so good looking? Who okayed that? That's just not fair. Leave some good looks for the rest of us."

"Hey!" Joe said.

Zepp turned to look at his boyfriend. "You know I think you're the prettiest man in the room."

"Thank you. It pleases me to hear you say that," Joe said.

Wesley turned back to look at Brendan so he wouldn't have to see them kissing again. Brendan's eyebrows seemed to get wibbly wobbly in disbelief, like he had no idea such people existed before, or possibly like he wished he didn't know.

"What do you all do?" Brendan asked, once the kissy noises had stopped.

"I'm the official cleaner for The Rhinoceros Conspiracy," Zepp said.

"And I'm his hapless personal assistant," Joe said.

"I would like to make a good impression on at least one member of Gloria's family, guys," Wesley said.

"It doesn't really bother me what happens here or what you or your friends are like," Brendan said. "Gloria's happy and I'll be back in Hong Kong as soon as the wedding's over. I can't stand English winter."

"You're not going to interrogate us about what our parents do for a living, like your olds would?" Zepp asked.

"Gloria told me Wesley's parents are retired, and I don't care about you lot," Brendan said. "I will never see you again."

He looked pretty pleased about it, honestly.

"You know, if Uri was here, he'd be all, you can't just ask people what their parents do because some people are tragic orphans, and we'd be all, nobody even asked what your dead parents do, Uri, and it would be so awkward," Joe said.

Zepp was laughing so hard he had to cover his face before Joe even finished. He buried his head into Joe's shoulder as he said, "I shouldn't laugh. That's awful. You're awful."

"It's true, though," Joe said, and shoved another complementary salted nut into his mouth.

Brendan was already back to checking his phone.

So many times in his life Wesley had imagined his bucks night. Uri would have been there, leading a toast, talking him up in that sentimental way he sometimes did. He'd be wearing a nice, plain suit, with his collar buttoned up all proper, and his hair flat the way he used to do it when he and Wesley first met. Miriam would be there, too, and a small assortment of the people Wesley loved the most. His imaginary in-laws would love him. They'd fill a small room and drink champagne.

He could never have imagined this moment, where he sat in a large restaurant drinking mineral water with orange, next to an indifferent future brother-in-law, while he and Uri were separated by more than an ocean. But it was better than he'd imagined, because it was real, and he got to wake up the next day one day closer to marrying the woman he loved.

"I'm still so sad this party doesn't have strippers," Joe said. "If I was best man, there would be strippers."

"Right, because I can't think of anything I want more than to watch bored women take their clothes off for money while you say embarrassing things. That's definitely not the exact opposite of what I enjoy," Zepp said.

"I wish Gloria was here," Wesley said.

"I love when he does that," Zepp said.

"Me, too," Joe said.

"I propose a toast to the groom-to-be," Zepp said. "The poor sucker's marrying a beautiful woman with a great personality that loves him. It's going to be a hard life for him, now."

"To our best bro and his happy ending," Joe said.

They clinked their glasses with his and then all drank as fast as they could. Mineral water with orange, but it tasted wonderful.

*

The party wore on into the night, as people slowly dispersed into groups or left. Wesley found himself sticking close to his best bros, talking about the future. He wasn't the only one who'd been thinking about what it could bring – and at an event like this, it was hardly avoidable.

"This bird and fish are going to try living together," Zepp said.

"I'm the bird," Joe said. "Because I'm an air sign."

Zepp turned to look at Joe and squeezed his waist harder as they talked. Joe, for his part, had shuffled over so close to the edge of his stool that Wesley suspected he'd fall off soon. He'd fall right into Zepp's lap though so that was probably the point.

"Then I have to be a land mammal because I'm an earth sign," Zepp said.

Gosh, Joe even had Zepp talking about star signs.

"You're my favourite land mammal," Joe said as he gazed into Zepp's eyes, "because you keep me grounded when I need it and stop me from flying off into crazy land."

And Zepp was gazing right back as he said, "And you lift me up and stop me being such a stick in the mud."

It was a bit cute, he supposed, but Wesley figured if they went on like that he'd have to leave them alone, else he'd vomit everywhere.

*

Even after he'd gone back to the house, there was still too much on Wesley's mind for him to rest.

Wesley wasn't really watching the sunrise. It was happening, he was there, but he was mostly just sitting. Two sleeps and he was getting married, but it was far enough into the day to say 'tomorrow'.

Joe had come out to sit with him and share the sunrise, which was a nice gesture.

"You're so lucky," Joe said. "You met Gloria and you just knew straight away. Most people don't get that."

"Because I said I'd marry her some day? I'm sorry to have to break this to you, Joe, but I also said that about Dana and the girl I went out with before that. It's only because Gloria stuck things out that we got here. But I am lucky," Wesley said.

"Are you really okay with Uri not being here? You were best friends for years."

The sky was still dark, but lightening at the edges. Turning a cool dark blue before it would reach up to purple and then red.

"And we're not any more."

Tomorrow he was going to look Gloria in the eye and choose the closest thing to forever you can get.

"I don't want to sound weird. But you find it so easy to leave him behind. Like, I didn't think you'd be so cool with it."

"It's what's best for everyone."

"Don't you ever wonder if things would be different if you'd done all the things he wanted? Like, if you'd still be close?" Joe asked. He sounded contemplative, not accusing, so it didn't sting like it once would have.

(Wesley remembered laughing over food, at a tiny wooden table, in a tiny kitchen.

Uri had said, "It's time for the bed."

But he looked at Wesley, then at Miriam, then back at Wesley, and the implication was clear.

He stood up. They all stood up. They walked straight into the tiny bedroom and sat in different places. Wesley didn't know what Uri and Miriam were looking at but he looked at his lap. His hands clenched together.

He was sure he wanted to. Or at least, wanted to want to. It would make sense, wouldn't it? All that longing to see Uri, all those hours he'd imagined meeting him, the way he'd rushed home every day to get online and chat without teachers confiscating his phone.

"You don't have to be so nervous," Uri said.

Wesley couldn't help it if Uri made him nervous. He looked up. Uri was next to him, smiling. Gentle and hopeful, like he'd always imagined his face would look. He wanted it to work.

He closed his eyes so Uri would kiss him. In the end, it was just a kiss. Nothing moved inside him.

He moved back. "Sorry." Stood. Looked at Uri's face, squinting confused as he looked up. Looked at Miriam's face that he couldn't read, as she sat at the pillow end of the bed, legs crossed. "Sorry, I can't."

It was a few steps back to the living area. He made his bed on the couch. The night was not quiet but not loud enough for him to turn off his thoughts. He reminded himself he was so thankful to them for letting him stay there. Hoped it wasn't an imposition. Breathed.)

"I had to not sleep with him to give him a reason to stay friends with me," Wesley said.

"That's not funny," Joe said.

Oh, all right, fine – even Wesley in his most ridiculous moments recognises that this isn't the thing that wedged between them. Uri would have found other things to resent him for. Did, in fact, many times, find something insignificant to be cruel over. It was his way. Uri's issues weren't all about Wesley; Wesley was just there, is all. Not all loves end happily.

"Miriam once asked me something about emotional affairs and I thought she meant me. But that was ridiculous. She was always willing to share him with me."

The sun was up. Wesley looked over at Joe, who was sitting looking somewhat peeved.

Wesley got up and ruffled Joe's hair on the way out, knowing that after all these years it would still annoy him. "It's all right. Everyone ended up with who they were meant to be with and doing what they were meant to do in the end."

He moved inside and went to bed.

*

They did have one last day of interviews before they were officially on break. The very last with a warm yet no-nonsense British reporter. She seemed kind of indulgent of them, letting the conversation meander around when it had to, and letting them talk all over each other after she asked the hard questions.

"You've all three had to deal with some very serious drama over the last year. How have you dealt with this upheaval?" the interviewer asked. Her mouth turned up in a gentle smile as she leaned forward over her crossed legs, arms on one knee.

"Wow, yeah, we lost Prince and David Bowie," Joe said. "Huge shocks and huge loss."

"We had dramas that weren't celebrity deaths," Wesley said.

"Right, like the UK voted to leave the EU, which I was against, by the way," Zepp said.

"Obviously, that's going to have a direct impact on our business. But, come on, boys, she was obviously asking about Uri leaving the band," Wesley said.

"Was that in the last twelve months?" Zepp asked. He looked at Joe.

"It was in July. But maybe she was talking about the stuff with us," Joe said.

"We got together in August, I think," Zepp said.

Wesley looked back at the interviewer. "I'm very sorry. You probably have to be a bit more specific, or this kind of thing happens."

The interviewer looked amused, so she probably didn't need his apology.

"And you got engaged," she said.

"I did. I got engaged. I'm really excited about it."

"And he made Zepp the best man, which I'm really sad about it because I would have put on an amazing bachelor party," Joe said.

"Shut up about that. I didn't want strippers," Wesley said.

*

The morning of, and he and Zepp were standing in a small room off the main hall and checking each other's outfits to make sure everything was done up right. Whenever he looked in the mirror Wesley was absolutely bricking it, but he just had to breathe in and out and remember everything was going to be okay, and Gloria loved him.

"What are you going to do while the band is on break?" Wesley asked.

"Well, first I have to support Joe with his new literary ambitions," Zepp answered.

"His what?"

"Oh, he's decided to write a novel. Thinks he's going to be the next Bukowski."

"Who is Bukowski?" Wesley asked, bewildered.

"Some guy. Joe thinks he's cool. Whatever, I'm not really into novels. Give me an action movie any day."

"You don't look like you really believe he can do this."

"What, write a novel? I don't know about that. I think he could write a novel. I'm just not sure he's going to write the literary master work he thinks he's going to write. I don't think he'd really enjoy it, either. But we'll see."

"And what are you going to be doing while Joey's writing the Great American Novel?"

Zepp lifted a hand, as if he were going to scratch at his neck, and then clenched his fist and dragged it down again. He let that hand tap at his trousers a bit instead. "Did you know that Brian May from Queen is also an astrophysicist?"

"What?" Wesley asked. "I mean, no, I didn't know that. I don't even know what an astrophysicist does."

"It's like space science, basically."

"That's cool," Wesley said, nodding. He still wasn't sure what that had to with Zepp, though.

"He got his PhD on a break between tours, right? Well, I, uh... That is, I thought, maybe, I don't know, I like science. I like maths. Maybe I could find some kind of learning institution that might take me in as a mature student part time. Just, you know, to get a basic degree. With maybe some distance learning, for when we go on tour again. I don't know, I just thought it might be a cool idea."

"I think that's a great idea, Zepp! You'll be amazing."

"Don't tell me I'll be amazing yet!" Zepp said. He was laughing, though. "I haven't even tried to get in anywhere yet. I could be terrible and hopeless and then where would we be?"

"No, you'll be great."

"What about you?" Zepp asked. "What have you got filling up your break, other than your honeymoon, a terrifyingly rigorous exercise regime, a side career in producing for other people..."

Wesley laughed. He'd accepted his inability to stop working or take a real break a while ago. "I finally feel like I've got this sobriety stuff under control so now I'm going to quit smoking. You know, because I am a singer and all that, and also I don't want to be smoking around any future kids I have. It's time."

"That's awesome, buddy. I'm so pleased to hear it."

Wesley thanked him.

Joe came in before things could get too soppy or congratulatory. He made straight for Zepp and said something about fixing his clothes. Joe was smoothing his hands down the front of Zepp's suit but he wasn't helping so much as caressing the material, over and over. Zepp obviously wasn't complaining. Judging by the beaming smile on his face he was more charmed than ever.

"I'm looking forward to hooking up with the best man later," Joe said, winking.

"It's not a hook up if you practically live together," Wesley said.

"Don't ruin my role play fun, " Joe said. He kissed Zepp and then left the room to leave Wesley and Zepp to their silent panicking.

"Don't worry, buddy, there's definitely no way everything about this wedding can go horribly wrong," Zepp said. "I triple checked with everyone in charge."

"You don't look all that convinced of what you're saying, bro."

Zepp turned back to the mirror and smoothed his own suit down, again and again. "I'm really nervous about having to stand up there and give a speech. I've had nightmares about it."

"Is it the one where the reception hall catches on fire?" Wesley asked.

"Great, now I have to be paranoid about that, too."

"It's okay, Zepp. You're my best friend. I trust you."

"That's a lot of responsibility," Zepp said.

Zepp put his hand out for a fist bump. Wesley obliged.

*

Wesley's pretty sure it was a beautiful ceremony. People assure him he broke down in tears. He remembers almost none of it, just the beauty of Gloria's smile under her veil and the feeling of putting the ring on her finger. Kissing her mouth in love. The moment it was finally official.

*

"Okay," Zepp said, standing up. "Speeches."

He looked at his hand, as if just realising he was still holding a glass, and then put the glass down. He looked at his hands for a moment, just breathing. And then stood up straight properly and looked at everyone in the room.

Wesley gave him a gentle slap on the elbow, as comfort, because he knew Zepp could do it.

"Okay, well, normally the best man gives a speech about every embarrassing thing the groom has ever done. And normally I love telling people every embarrassing thing Wesley has ever done. But right now I can't remember any of them."

His laugh was slightly shrill.

"Okay, public speaking, I can do this."

"You can do it, Zepp!" Gloria yelled out.

"Okay." Zepp looked like he was on the verge of nervous laughter again, but he soldiered on. "Wesley is my best friend and he is a really great person. Gloria is also a really great person. They are great together. I'm very happy that they're married. She makes him a happier person and that's really nice. Who doesn't love happiness? So, let's raise a toast to the bride and groom, who are both great, and who will be together forever. Okay, great."

Zepp drank his entire glass of fizzy orange in one gulp and then sat down again.

*

The musical play list for the reception was a bit of a mess. A bunch of sappy love songs picked out by Joe, a bit of Years and Years and MGMT for Zepp, Blame It On the Boogie for the oldies, and whatever else Wesley could find in his own music collection that was inoffensive enough to keep people on the dance floor. Wesley had made Tom change the password on his own tablet so Zepp and Joe couldn't sneak up and meddle with the play list, as they were known to do.

After they did their first dance to an Ellie Goulding track, Wesley and Gloria tried to make their rounds of the room to speak to everyone. His mum had cried through the whole ceremony, of course, and his dad nearly tripped over his cane trying to give Wesley a bone-crushing hug in congratulations. After that, Wesley couldn't find his aunts and uncles, and his sisters were already somewhere on the middle of the dance floor, so the whole idea came apart.

"I've got an idea. Let's split up to catch people and we can reconvene in the middle at the end," Wesley said.

Gloria nodded. "I'll do my side, you do yours, and we'll both end up sidetracked by your friends in the middle."

"That sounds about right."

He bumped into his friend Andy by the desert table. Andy wiped some fancy cake from his face and said, "This is much too nice. Cheryl will be wanting to talk about getting married next, just so she can have some fancy printed serviettes with our names on them." He was using one of the fancy printed serviettes Gloria had gotten done as he spoke.

"You've been with her four years, bro. When are you going to make an honest woman of her?"

Andy didn't look well pleased by his saying so, but Wesley wasn't going to have an argument about it. He was happy enough that he'd locked down his own fine woman.

Nicole and Beatrice stared at him as he walked past them. "We're watching you," one said, and the other said, "Don't mess it up."

He gulped and carried on.

For all his good intentions, he bumped into Joe before carrying on any further. Joe immediately waylaid him with a one-armed hug and wouldn't let him walk any further.

"Wesley, my brother, today has been a day of good decisions for you. First, a beautiful wedding to someone so lovely. Second, those shoes," Joe said.

Wesley looked down at his feet. Beautiful brown leather lace-up shoes with a dot-hole pattern, polished to a high sheen. He'd be paying off his credit card until after he was dead at this rate.

He looked back up at Joe, amused. "I'll cherish them forever."

"You had so many stupid moments on the way to this point," Joe said.

"Hey, remember that time you didn't realise Zepp was gay for nearly four years, even though he wore rainbows and never had any interest in hearing about naked women," Wesley said.

"Remember that time you woke up in a ditch," Joe said, in return.

Fair enough. Wesley shrugged, accepting it.

"My point is," Joe said, "that you triumphed over all that stuff and now you're this cool, grown up married guy, and when I'm old and famous and they make a movie about me, I'll make sure they put in a sub-plot about you. I would have given a great speech. I made a bunch of notes."

Wesley shoved him, gently. "Go dance with your boyfriend."

Joe moved off to grab Zepp, and they immediately started bouncing around like a couple of lunatics.

Wesley made his way over to where Gloria was talking to her mother. Slid his arm around Gloria's waist and put his nose to her hair, no matter that he could smell her hairspray almost more than her perfume. She looked like she could be a movie star in her column of a dress, and he couldn't be happier that she'd chosen him.

"Have you given up on talking to everyone already?" Gloria asked.

"We'll send them thank you cards," Wesley said. Not that he'd ever sent one before in his life. "Hello, Cindy," Wesley said, addressing Gloria's mother. "I hope you had a nice time."

Cindy smiled. "It was beautiful. I wasn't sure about you when Gloria first brought you home to meet us, but it's clear that you love my daughter very much, and who could ask for anything more."

Well, that was nicer than he'd been expecting.

"Don't worry about dad. He's just protective," Gloria said.

"I can't really blame him," Wesley said.

"He'll come around," Cindy said. "You two should go dance. It's your wedding. Leave us old folks to talk among ourselves."

So they did. A gentle sway together, in the middle of the floor, with so many people they loved around them, even as the music changed to a track Wesley was pretty sure he hadn't added to the list.

This is how it ends: they escape the party early, leaving everyone to their celebrations, as he follows her to their new life. It's enough.

THE END
About the Author

Luna Harlow is a writer from Melbourne, Australia. By day she does confidential office work, and by night she indulges her passion for writing.

If you liked this book, please consider visiting my website:

<https://lunaharlowbooks.com/>
