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All the blood drained from my face. He was leaving. He couldn’t go. I threw myself off the stool, and stumbled towards the door as fast as I could but he was faster. And when I got to the door, he had vanished. I wrenched open the door, ready to run, but I tripped on the short step to the pavement, and landed on the sidewalk, my hands and knees on the concrete, stinging. I cried out his name, no longer caring, sure that I’d lost him and my one chance to make it right.

Then a shadow fell across my hands spread out on the pavement. I looked up, and there he was, in front of me, a half-smile on his full mouth, but a serious expression in his eyes. I looked up at him, and he looked down at me for a moment, before he stretched out his hand to me and I took it. He pulled me up. Then he walked me backwards into the bar with one hand under my arm holding me up and the other flat against my shoulder. We went right into the middle of the room, and Tristan dropped his hands, so he was no longer touching me, but blocking my exit. He looked even taller than usual. I half expected him to give me an order. But his face was cold, observing me. Maybe he thought I had been running away. The two of us were standing there, face to face, silent. I wanted him to touch me. Smile at me and tell me it was all right. But I couldn’t move or speak before his vast silence.

His voice, when it came, was the same pleasing rumble. But he wasn’t talking to me. “Hello Steve. How are you?”

“Tristan, my man. Long time no see. How goes it? A drink?” Both of them were acting perfectly normal. I was sure my knee was still bleeding from the fall. Had they not noticed what had just happened? Or that we were still facing off, inches apart?

Tristan said nothing else. And I was still staring at him. He looked like he was thinking. I couldn’t think. He was beautiful. And then he did it. He closed the distance between us with a swift motion, and put his arms around me and held me tightly to him.

“Yeah, Steve, a beer. In a minute. Have some business here with…”

Frank interrupted him. “With our Lily? You know her?” Then to me—“This is him?” He turned to Steve. “That’s him.” He stood up and tapped Tristan on the shoulder. Tristan turned his head slightly, still holding me. Frank’s words came out in a jumble, a kind of drunken threat. “I’m looking after her. I found her and I’m the one who brought her here.” Frank stopped and looked him up and down, looked at his arms still around me. He continued, a little softer. “She was crying, buddy, you know, in my cab. Lucky it was me. Treat her right, or you’re gonna lose her. And just so you know, I think she loves you, not the other guy. Just so you know. Sorry, Lily, but somebody had to tell him.”

Tristan removed one of his arms from behind my back and reached over and shook Frank’s hand in one of those dude clutching handshakes. “I understand, my friend. Thank you for looking after her.” He turned back to me and whispered in my hair. “She’s a bit feisty, this one.”

I wanted to laugh, but I could barely breathe. The music started up again. Perfect. What was it with Steve and the love songs? A romantic under the trucker hat.

Tristan was talking into my hair again. “You scared me, Lily. But I was proud of you. You did the right thing, you know. I was an idiot. I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” I mumbled into his chest.

“I thought you wanted him. That life. What you’d worked for.”

“No.”

Tristan hugged me tighter. “You’re not what I expected, you know?”

“No.”

“You find it hard to trust anyone.”

“Yes…no…”

He interrupted me. “Do you trust me?”

I was silent.

Tristan stopped and put a hand on each one of my shoulders, and moved back, an arm’s length away, intent. “I’m going to ask again. Do you trust me?”

I let out a long sigh. It was the sort of question there was only a one word answer for. “Yes.”

Then he moved us, his arm circling swiftly around me, away from everyone. He made me look at him, my face in his hands as he sat us down on the window ledge. His voice was a low murmur. “Then if I tell you something important, you’ll believe me?”

I just looked at him. I felt like I was falling into his eyes, as though there was a long tunnel. And through him, there was the rest of the universe. The silent part, where explanation was unnecessary, where everything did make sense, where it was all wordless, the way it was meant to be. Then his mouth was on mine, and his lips were soft and his nose pressed into my cheek, and all I knew was the taste and feel of him.

I sensed, rather than heard him, say “I need you” in me, against my mouth. Then he said it again, a little louder, and I felt his voice rumble through me. He pulled away from me, and gave me another one of his searching looks. “I think we belong together, not apart. Ok?”

And all the desire that I’d been trying to hide, all the need and pain I’d been trying to fight against was right there. I touched my lips to his and he was kissing me. He clasped me tighter to him, and I knew he could feel it, that maybe it had been the same for him, that he’d been fighting the same things in the same way.

He cradled his long arms around me and I could feel his hands, each fingertip insistent against my skin. I rested my head on his shoulder. Tristan started talking to me, quietly, so only I could hear him. “I want to do all the stupid things, you know? Except they won’t be stupid. They’ll be the way they’re supposed to be.” He sat up a little and choosing carefully, unclasped one of the chains around his neck. Moving my hair to one side, he placed it around my neck and reclosed the clasp. He placed a small kiss on the chain and my neck and moved my hair back in place. I started to speak, but he quickly placed one of his long fingers softly against my lips and shook his head. “Not everything needs to be said, love.” He smiled. “Look at me, really look at me. Is it what you want? Do you believe me?”

I looked at him, his deep eyes holding me. And I did. Want him, more than I could admit, trust him, more than I’d ever let myself before. For once, there was no second guessing. There was just him, and his dark eyes, and his severe look, his sweet smell, and his happy smile and the feeling that it was right, that it was all meant to be. I came closer to him, practically sitting in his lap, and for an answer, kissed his mouth, very softly, and rested my head against his chest. I was suddenly exhausted. But it didn’t matter. He was there, and he had found me.

Epilogue

Was I actually going to do this? Go on tour? Go public with Tristan?

Tristan had smoothed out my little outburst in the restaurant. He also handled the ego slap I’d delivered to Dave when he realized that I’d chosen Tristan over him. It had taken some delicate negotiations, which included a photographer coming along on tour, an opening slot on a couple of dates for the newly solo singer from what I would always think of as “Tits from Oz,” and an exclusive download, but in the end they had both gotten what they wanted. Which for Tristan, even though I could scarcely believe it, was me, on tour, with him, and writing the article, job intact.

What had Tristan said to me? Something like, “don’t ever believe the people who said they never did anything for money or power or position, when they are in positions with money and power.” He had laughed at the interview I had read to him where a famous artist had claimed she had never given an inch and had remained true to her art. “Yes—she’s right about that, trying to stay true to your vision of art,” he had said, arm around me as we were tucked up in bed, me reading the papers online, as he was going through a new paperback biography of Beethoven. “But the rest of the sanctimonious shit. ‘I was never tempted, I’m not interested in money, only what’s right.’ Yeah, right. Everyone’s tempted. That’s the whole point. And she made her name doing what was the wrong thing. Simplistic crap. She’s not sleeping on a park bench now, is she?”

It was a Sunday morning, early. He had climbed out of bed after saying that, and his long torso pale, muscular, smooth, curving down to his strong legs, was still a shocking nakedness that made my mind go blank. But then he threw on a robe, and came over to give me a kiss. “I’m going to make some of that matcha green tea we bought the other day,” he said, “do you want some?” And he added, as he went towards the kitchen, “we live in a world of negotiation. You just have to remember what you really wanted in the first place.” He smiled, his serious face suddenly lit up with amusement. “That’s how I got you.”

And that was how I had gotten here. About to go on a very public tour, trying to mix work and pleasure, and on the verge of giving up all my privacy, to spend six weeks on a bus. With him. Wouldn’t that kill it all? Could I stand that much scrutiny? All my personality flaws now on tour! And if I were honest with myself, I was scared. Scared of what came next. Tristan had told me he wanted me to come live with him after the tour. “Well, during the tour we will be living together. Although you will have your very own bunk. So why not? Come on, Lily. Stop fighting me. I want you.”

Yes, but. Could I do it? The things I wanted the most scared me the most. That was the problem, always had been. And here was the universe, conspiring to give me what I wanted. But a bunk? On a bus? Moving in with him? Having to be scrutinized by the band? The wanna-be groupies? The other journalists? Suppose he decided to go off and do coke again on some girl’s warm and willing freshly waxed thighs, and there I’d be. No Dave to call. No, that safety net was very done. Alice didn’t really care, never had. Sarah—but London was a long way to run, to hide in the attic guest room. Running away. It had been my favorite pastime. But it really wasn’t an option anymore.

Then I remembered the vulnerability in his face. The traces of all the doubts, all the struggles. The mistakes. And I wanted tell him it was ok. Tell him that I’d fucked up too. That not everyone sucked, was mean and thoughtless and selfish and grasping. Maybe we could be each other’s reason to carry on.

And this…feeling. It was more than that. It was like a knowing, one that I couldn’t explain, and couldn’t tell anyone about, and couldn’t even understand myself. It wasn’t want, and it wasn’t desire. That would be like saying I wanted blood in my body. It was like we had connected, somewhere, and it couldn’t be broken. It existed in a place beyond all that.

I dialed Trevor, wanting a bit of reassurance. And hung up before he answered. What the hell was I doing? This was between Tristan and me. No one else. When the phone buzzed, I dropped it in shock. I picked it up gingerly, as though it were about to go off, and looked at the text.

Why are both of you calling me and hanging up? Call each other. Shouldn’t you be on tour by now?      

Trevor. Of course. So why was Tristan calling him?

A moment later, the phone buzzed again.

Meet me. Don’t say no. The usual place. 20 minutes. I’m getting in the car now.      

I got up very slowly, and looked at myself in the mirror. Whoever came back to this room, would never be the same. I’d linked myself to the future, and now it was here. I ran my hands through my hair, and calmly sprayed myself with perfume. The suitcase was packed and waiting by the front door. It was though I’d already left; I was already standing on that curb, I’d done it a million times before, and here it had come around again, and I knew every step on the way.

The air outside was cold, but I barely felt anything. I patted myself to check I was actually dressed, and wearing my jacket. One foot in front of the other. And then there I was. On the same windy corner, watching the taxis go by, listening to the branches sweep past each other and tangle and separate. The lights changed and changed back. I stood there. People walked past, words floated towards me and off again. More cars went past. Buses. Strollers. People hurrying by. And I leaned on the lamppost, as though to anchor myself to something. And then the car pulled up, slowly, like always. And stopped. And the door swung open.

And I stood there, still and cold next to the street light. Waiting.

A leather covered leg emerged from the car, followed slowly by the other, as his boots met together on the pavement. Then his long body emerged, a pale hand on the door to support himself as he rose out of the darkness of the interior. And there he was, towering over me, his smile slightly amused, his eyes shining.

“So we’re going to do this out here, are we?” he whispered, his arms already beginning to circle me.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Yeah, I guess so,” I murmured, letting him draw me against his chest, listening to his breathing, wrapped in the smell of his skin.

“Are you sure?” he said into my hair. “I’m a pain in the ass.”

“That’s why we get on.”

“We do though, don’t we?” He lifted my face up to look at him. Again, that strange feeling came over me when I met his eyes. “Oh, yes, we do. That’s…”