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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rav stands outside a nondescript building on the Lower East Side, checking his phone to make sure he hasn’t made a mistake. He doesn’t know what he expected a recording studio to look like, but it isn’t this. There’s no signage, nothing at all to indicate what’s going on behind that seedy brick facade.

There’s an intercom panel on the wall, a single button with a DIY embossed label. FARLIGHT STUDIOS . Definitely the right place. Rav presses the button and a bored voice says, “Yeah?”

“Er, Rav Trivedi? I’m here to see—”

The door buzzes, admitting him into a short corridor. There’s an office on the left; a uniformed security guard hunches over a desk, watching the Yankees and eating a messy deli sandwich. Erika Strauss sits by the door, laptop balanced on her knees, while a sofa at the back is occupied by a slight woman scrolling absently on her phone. Rav spots a sidearm on her; one of the other CPOs, presumably.

He greets Erika with a nod. “I take it you’re still on Jack’s detail?”

“For now. Mo is hoping to be discharged later today.” She looks him over. “You carrying?”

He touches his shoulder holster. “I’ve come straight from work. Is it an issue?”

“On the contrary. The more pros we have around Jack, the better. Just do me a favor and watch your back. Miller’s a lot more dangerous than we realized.” Rav eyes her laptop screen; it’s covered in photos of Miller, most of them from security cameras. “For the MSG guys,” she explains. “I’m making sure their facial recognition software has him from as many angles as possible.” Glaring at her screen, she growls, “I’m gonna get this fucker if it’s the last thing I do.”

“By which you mean turn him over to the proper authorities, of course.” He’s trying to make light, but it falls flat. Strauss gives him a serious look.

“My number one priority is protecting my client. If all that stands between Jack and a bullet is me, I won’t hesitate to put Miller down.” She arches an eyebrow, as if to say, What about you, Detective?

Does she know about the skate park? How he let Miller slip through his fingers? Rav clears his throat uncomfortably. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Her eyes fall back to her screen. “You can head on in, he’s expecting you.”

There’s a door at the end of the corridor; walking through, Rav finds himself in a room that looks like someone’s flat. A kid with elaborate sleeve tattoos perches on the edge of a sofa, playing Halo on a massive wall-mounted TV. The whole place smells of weed.

“Hey, man,” the kid says without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Rav.” Jack walks in and embraces him—one of those bro hugs with an extra bit of backslapping. Rav half expects to receive some sort of bewildering fist-bump hand-clasping gesture and is considerably relieved when this does not occur. Jack is wearing a knit hat, torn jeans, and a faded Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt, Converse trainers that look like they’ve been salvaged from a telephone wire. Until this moment, Rav has always believed there’s no such thing as being overdressed, but he realizes now that he was wrong. He can’t recall ever feeling so out of place, so very uncool . “Let me show you around,” Jack says.

He leads Rav down a corridor with vintage guitars mounted on the walls. There’s a smaller break room on the right, and a voice hails them. “Hey, Vale, aren’t you gonna introduce us?”

Jack shoots Rav an apologetic glance and veers into the break room. The band’s drummer, Sarah Creed, is perched on the kitchen counter. She’s dyed her hair again—it’s a different color in every photo Rav’s seen of her—bright pink with white-blond tips, cut short at the back and long and raggedy at the front. Sarah was upstate during the Vanderford thing, so Rav interviewed her remotely. This is the first time they’ve met in person, and she gives him the full once-over. He’s wearing his second most killer outfit, a slim-cut claret suit and crisp white shirt with the collar unbuttoned. Fresh haircut, fresh shave—the kind with a straight razor. His socks have raspberries on them. “Fancy, isn’t he?” she says, as if he’s not standing right there. “Not buying clothes like that on a cop’s salary. Oh, wait, I forgot. Trust fund kid, right? Born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

“In my arse, actually,” Rav returns mildly. “Had to have it surgically removed. Couldn’t walk for days.”

She grins. “Not sure they got all of it, there, Bridgerton.”

Rav fully expected some hazing from Jack’s bandmates. It’s nothing he can’t handle.

Jack, on the other hand, is already looking for a parachute. “Can I get you something to drink? There’s beer in the fridge, or sparkling water…”

“He doesn’t look like a beer guy to me,” Sarah opines.

“Accurate,” Rav says. “I’m not much into flavored water, either. The cherry tastes like cough syrup, and the lemon-lime is like drinking a gas station restroom.”

Sarah’s laugh is high-pitched and braying, but endearing nonetheless. “It’s so true!”

Jack pulls a face and puts the can of lemon-lime he’d just grabbed back in the fridge. “Come on, I’ll show you where we’re set up.”

“What’s the hurry?” Sarah says. “We’re just getting acquainted here. What’s your zodiac, Bridgerton?”

“Cancer.”

“Myers–Briggs?”

“ENTJ.”

She looks him over again, assessing. “Slytherin or Ravenclaw?”

Rav rolls his eyes. “House Lannister.”

“Oh my god, you totally are. Okay, lightning round. Connery or Craig?”

“Connery.”

“Chunky or smooth?”

“Smooth.”

“Stones or Beatles?”

“This is obviously a trap.”

“Okay, we’re done here.” Jack grabs Rav’s arm and drags him out of the break room. “Sorry. Sarah’s great, but she likes to take the piss, as Ryan would say. It can rub people the wrong way, but you handled it well.”

Rav tries not to look pleased. “Establishing rapport is my detective superpower.”

“Yeah, that tracks. You had me eating out of your hand from day one.”

“Is that so?”

Jack snorts softly. “Like you don’t know. I was spilling my guts to you five seconds after we met. I felt safe with you even when you were investigating me for murder. If that’s not a superpower, I don’t know what is.”

Their eyes meet, and for a second they just stand there on freeze-frame, the air between them thrumming with electricity.

Jack clears his throat and starts back down the hall. “Is that because you were a psych major?”

“I think it’s mostly intuitive. I’m pretty good at reading people.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll be interested to hear your take on this one.” He ushers Rav into the control room, a cramped space dominated by a massive console of dials, knobs, switches, and sliders, plus a trio of computer screens. Behind this electronic behemoth sits an emo kid with black and purple hair, a lip piercing, and heavy purple eye makeup. He looks about eighteen. “Who do we have here?” he says, violet-tinted contacts trailing over Rav.

“This is the friend I was telling you about. Rav, this is Kid Kyle, our mixing engineer for this project. He’s the wunderkind on everyone’s lips right now. A certified genius.”

“Certified and certifiable,” Kid Kyle intones in a singsong voice, spinning his chair in a lazy three-sixty. There’s something a little unsettling about him, like a dummy without the ventriloquist. “Ready to go?”

“We’re re-recording the drum track and some of the vocals on ‘Immortal,’” Jack explains.

“The drums are angry,” Kid Kyle says, “but they should be sad. The beat of a broken heart, you know?”

Rav nods sagely.

“Kyle’s incredibly intuitive,” Jack says. “I can’t wait to hear what it sounds like after he’s worked his magic.” His eyes are glued to Rav’s, bright with enthusiasm.

“It’s fascinating,” Rav murmurs, and he means it, but what he’s really caught up in at that moment is Jack’s passion, and his obvious desire for Rav to share it.

The kid’s violet-tinted eyes shift from Jack to Rav and back. “Oh, shit. This energy is amazing . Take it in there with you. Right now, while you’re feeling it!”

Jack turns toward the booth—and without consciously deciding to, without thinking at all, Rav tugs him close and kisses him. Jack is surprised, but he kisses Rav back.

“ Yessss ,” the kid says.

Which is a little weird, but Rav can go with it.

Jack heads into the booth and puts on a set of headphones. He paces around the mic for a second, eyes closed, and then he says, “Ready.”

Kid Kyle punches a button, and “Immortal” comes on, filling the control room with sound. He offers Rav Molly, which Rav politely declines, and then Jack starts singing.

“ Do you remember that night / Sleeping under the stars / You asked me which of them was ours…”

Rav knows this one well. It’s not a love song, exactly; it’s about legacy, about leaving your mark on the world through love and loss and all the things that make us human. But in that moment, watching Jack through the glass in the control room, it feels like a love song, and Rav can almost believe Jack is singing to him.

“ Deep underground / Where the bones make no sound / That’s where it lies / Love never dies. ”

Kid Kyle drapes himself over the back of his chair in Molly-induced bliss. “Dude, I am so hard right now.”

O-kay. Vibe over.

It’s done in a single take, and when Jack walks out of the booth, he’s high on it. He stirs restlessly on his feet as he listens to the playback, nodding excitedly. “Yeah, man, that’s it. That’s exactly it.”

The kid is already engrossed in his work, headphones on, clicking away with his mouse. They leave him to it. “That was amazing,” Rav says as they walk out of the control room.

“Thanks for helping me get into the right headspace.”

“Sorry for jumping you like that. I got caught up in the moment.”

“No, you’re good. You read me right.” His eyes meet Rav’s, and there’s a challenge in them. “How about now? What’s your read?”

A surge of doubt spikes Rav’s pulse, but he put his cards on the table the moment he kissed Jack in the control room. All that’s left now is to play it out. “Right now…” He leans in close, lips grazing Jack’s ear. “I’m getting that you want me to push you into the nearest broom closet and do terrible things to you.”

Downy hairs rise on the back of Jack’s neck. “You are good at this. Too bad there’s no broom closets around here.” He turns away, a teasing smile on his lips.

They find Sarah more or less where they left her, reclining with her Doc Martens propped on the table. “Your turn,” Jack tells her.

She blows an enormous purple bubble and snaps it, and for a second the whole room smells like fake grape. “That was quick.” Her glance slides to Rav, and she smirks. “Must’ve been inspired.”

“Kyle is a genius,” Jack says.

“Kyle is weird as fuck.”

Jack shrugs. “Not mutually exclusive.”

Sarah blows another bubble and snaps it. “Right,” she says, swinging her boots off the table. “Sad drums coming up.”

As soon as she’s gone, Jack backs Rav into the counter, and they spend the next ten minutes making out to the muffled pounding of drums and the lingering smell of weed and grape bubble gum. At some point, the Halo kid comes in, grabs a beer, and leaves. Rav and Jack don’t miss a beat. They only come apart when Jack’s wandering hand accidentally bumps Rav’s gun. “Sorry!” He snatches it back. “Kind of feels like I just brushed your dick,” he says with an awkward smile.

“I would be fine with that,” Rav murmurs, gaze drifting over Jack’s features. He feels lightheaded, overwhelmed by the beautiful improbability of them finding their way back here. He’s never wanted to get anyone naked so badly in his life. “Can I steal you away?”

Jack gives a frustrated little growl. “I wish. But we’ve got a few hours of work left, and I need to get some sleep tonight. We’ve got sound check at one, and then the show, and somewhere in between I need to find time to give an interview.”

Rav sighs. “The universe keeps cock-blocking us.”

“Do you think so?” Jack’s eyes are earnest. “I feel like the waves keep tossing us back into each other. Like the universe won’t take no for an answer.”

God, what do you even say to that? Rav kisses him, hard. It is a wave, and he’s the adrenaline junkie trying to surf it, even though he knows it’s only going to spike him headfirst into the beach. So fine, fuck it, bring it on. If there was ever a shore worth breaking yourself on, this is it.

“You’re coming to the show tomorrow, right?” Jack asks. “Come find me backstage, after.”

“I will.”

The tattooed kid is still playing Halo when Rav passes him on the way out. “Later, man,” he says without looking up.

Rav makes a peace sign and drifts out into the night with a big, dumb smile on his face.