Page 31 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

family reckoning

Seren

The front door of the Rogers family home feels heavier than usual.

Maybe it’s trying to keep me from making a terrible mistake.

I stand in the marble-floored entrance hall, listening to the familiar sounds of family chaos drifting from the dining room—crystal glasses clinking, Hailey’s theatrical laugh, the low rumble of Dad’s voice holding court.

I’m jet-lagged from LA and want to sleep for a hundred years.

Part of me wants to turn around and flee back downstairs to the basement, or back to my safe little shop where no one expects me to be anything other than surly and antisocial.

But Mrs. Martin spotted me through the window, and backing out now would hurt her feelings more than anyone else’s.

Christ, when did I become someone who shows up to family dinners?

“There she is! My little superstar!” Dad’s voice booms across the dining room the moment I appear in the doorway, and I want the expensive parquet flooring to open up and swallow me whole.

He’s practically bouncing on his feet, arms spread wide—a long-lost daughter returning from war instead of the reluctant offspring he ambushed at an awards ceremony three weeks ago.

The same man who got so drunk he could barely stand. Who humiliated me in front of eight hundred people. Who turned my breakdown into his moment.

“Dad, please,” I mutter, but he’s already swept me into one of his theatrical hugs, the kind that’s designed more for observers than recipients.

I should pull away. Should remind him that we haven’t actually resolved anything, that his drunken performance at the awards is still sitting between us. But there’s something so genuinely delighted about his enthusiasm that I can’t quite bring myself to ruin it.

This is the problem with Dad—just when you’re ready to write him off completely, he does something that reminds you why you loved him in the first place.

“Played your tracks for everyone at the studio.” His chest puffs out as he speaks. “Had grown men crying, treasure. Grown men!”

Of course you did. Because everything I do becomes about you somehow. Even when you’re proud of me, it’s about how it reflects on you.

Kimba appears at my elbow, dressed in a cream silk blouse and tailored trousers, her blonde hair swept into a perfect chignon. “Darling! You look wonderful. Doesn’t she look wonderful, everyone?”

I’m wearing jeans and a jumper that’s seen better decades, but Kimba’s treating me as if I’ve just stepped off a red carpet. There’s something both touching and mildly deranged about her enthusiasm.

Felix lounges in his usual chair, all elegant limbs and calculated nonchalance, raising his wine glass in what might be a salute or might be mild sarcasm. With Felix, it’s impossible to tell.

“Sister mine. Heard you’ve been causing quite the stir. ”

“It’s hardly a stir. It’s just a few songs.” I settle into the chair Mrs. Martin has pointedly pulled out for me.

“Just a few songs?” Dad’s eyebrows disappear into his silver hairline. “Seren, that voice! That raw honesty! Where did you get that from?”

I give him a look that could melt steel. Really? Where do I get my musical ability from? What a complete bloody mystery.

Hailey sits across from me, perfect pout in place, arms crossed in a way that makes her look sulking despite being twenty-two. “It’s not that she’s actually famous,” she announces to the room, her tone suggesting she’s delivering crushing news. “It’s just indie music.”

There it is. Classic Hailey—supportive for exactly thirty seconds before the claws come out.

“Actually, Hails,” Felix says, setting down his wine with deliberate precision, “indie credibility is worth more than reality TV fame.”

The silence that follows could be carved with a knife. Hailey’s mouth falls open, clearly not used to Felix taking anyone’s side but hers in family politics.

“Those songs are properly good, Ser,” Felix continues, his voice carrying that particular brand of grudging respect that from him feels winning the lottery. “Actually artistic.”

I blink at him, genuinely shocked. Felix has shown exactly zero interest in my music for my entire life, probably because it wasn’t commercially viable enough to warrant his attention.

“Well,” Hailey says, recovering with the speed that comes from years of being a professional attention-seeker, “I suppose we’re all talented. It’s genetic.”

“Right. That’s definitely how genetics works,” I mutter.

Kimba bustles around the table, playing hostess with the kind of manic energy that suggests she’s been sampling the cooking wine. “I always said she had it,” she announces to the room, as if we’re all suffering from collective amnesia. “No one can say I didn’t say she had it.”

This is categorically untrue. Kimba has never shown the slightest interest in my musical abilities, unless you count that one time she suggested I try out for The X Factor because “it would be good exposure for the family.”

But there’s something almost endearing about her revisionist history, the way she’s retroactively claiming credit for supporting me. She reaches over to smooth down my hair with maternal efficiency, and I find myself not pulling away for once.

The gesture catches me off guard. When did Kimba start feeling... not a mother, but something closer to it?

“I told Damon years ago that girl has something special,” she continues, warming to her theme.

Dad nods along as if this conversation actually happened, both of them rewriting family history in real time.

I should be annoyed, but I’m too exhausted to fight it.

Let them have their version of events. At least in their story, I was always destined for something better than alphabetising vinyl in Camden.

Mrs. Martin appears in the doorway with a roast that smells of childhood and safety, her face glowing with pride that feels entirely genuine. She’s the only person in this room whose approval I’ve ever truly craved, and seeing her beam at me makes something warm unfurl in my chest.

“Right then,” Dad says, carving the beef with theatrical flourish, “what’s next for our rising star? Album deal? Tour? Please tell me you’re not going to be one of those artists who disappears for five years between releases.”

“I’m taking it slowly,” I accept a plate piled high with Mrs. Martin’s perfect Yorkshire puddings. “Mark’s helping me figure out what I actually want to say before I say it to the world. ”

“Smart,” Felix nods approvingly. “The industry’s full of people who rush into things and regret it later.”

There’s something pointed about the way he says it, his gaze flicking to Dad, who pretends not to notice. The Revelry’s early career was exactly the kind of rushed, chaotic mess that Felix is warning against.

The conversation flows around me—family gossip, industry talk, the usual Rogers family performance of being more interesting than we actually are. For once, I’m not the outsider looking in. I’m part of it, contributing, belonging.

It’s almost nice. Almost normal.

That should have been my first warning.

“Just as well things didn’t pan out with that bloke from the boyband,” Dad says, cutting through my thoughts with the casual precision of someone dropping a bomb into polite conversation. “Would have ruined your artistic credibility completely.”

The words hit the air. Everyone freezes—Kimba with her wine glass halfway to her lips, Felix with his fork suspended over his plate, even Mrs. Martin pausing in the doorway.

Oh, you absolute bastard.

I look at him across the table, this man who gave me life and music and abandonment issues in equal measure, and feel something click into place. Something that’s been building for weeks, maybe years.

“Dad,” I say, my voice deadly calm, “you ‘are’ the bloke from a boyband.”

The silence stretches for exactly three seconds before Kimba explodes into laughter—not her usual polite tinkle, but a proper belly laugh that echoes off the expensive walls and probably disturbs the neighbours three houses down.

“Oh my god,” Hailey breathes, her eyes wide with shock and what might be admiration. “She actually said it.”

Felix chokes on his wine, trying desperately not to laugh whilst Dad’s face cycles through several interesting colours. But instead of the explosion I’m expecting, he throws back his head and roars with laughter.

“Touché, treasure,” he raises his glass in salute. “Though I prefer ‘band’ to ‘boyband.’”

The relief that floods through me is almost overwhelming. I’ve been holding that comeback in for approximately twenty-five years, and it felt even better than I’d imagined.

Kimba reaches over and kisses my cheek, her lips warm and sticky with gloss. “I love you, baby,” she says, and the words hang in the air.

I love you. When was the last time someone in this family said that to me? When was the last time anyone said it and meant it?

I look around the table—at Dad, still chuckling over being called out; at Kimba, wiping tears of laughter from her perfectly made-up eyes; at Felix, raising his glass in genuine respect; even at Hailey, who’s stopped pouting long enough to look almost fond.

This is my family. They’re mental, dysfunctional, prone to dramatic outbursts and revisionist history. They’ve hurt me, disappointed me, left me feeling outside my own life.

But they love me.

It’s not perfect love, not the kind you see in movies or read about in books. It’s complicated and conditional and wrapped up in ego and performance. But it’s love nonetheless, and for the first time in years, I feel I belong somewhere.

Mrs. Martin catches my eye from the doorway and nods, as if she’s been waiting for this moment as long as I have. The woman who raised me, who taught me that families are built as much as born, finally seeing the acceptance she’s always wanted me to find.

The warmth spreads through my chest, unfamiliar and precious. This might not be normal, but it’s mine.

The doorbell chooses that exact moment to start buzzing with the kind of obnoxious persistence that suggests whoever’s pressing it has no intention of giving up.

“Who the hell uses the front door?” Dad grumbles, but he doesn’t move to answer it.

“Probably paparazzi,” Hailey brightens at the prospect. “Careful not to get papped, you’re famous now!”

“I’m hardly Beyoncé, Hails,” I roll my eyes.

But I push back from the table anyway, the warm bubble of family acceptance still wrapped around me. Maybe it is photographers, or maybe it’s a delivery driver, or maybe it’s one of Dad’s music industry cronies dropping by unannounced.

The marble entrance hall feels cooler than the dining room, the family warmth fading with each step toward the front door. Through the frosted glass, I can see a dark shape standing on the doorstep, but the details are too blurred to make out.

The buzzing continues, insistent and somehow desperate.

I unlock the door and pull it open, expecting to see a camera flash or a man in a delivery uniform.

Instead, I find Harrison Carter standing in the pouring rain.

He’s soaked through, his hair plastered to his head, expensive clothes turned into a sodden mess. He looks nothing the polished pop star I’ve seen in magazines, nothing the confident performer who commanded a stage in front of thousands. He looks young and desperate and utterly vulnerable.

My heart stops. Actually stops.

For a moment, we just stare at each other across the threshold. The rain drums against the pavement behind him, and I can hear my family’s laughter drifting from the dining room.

“Seren,” he says, and my name in his mouth sounds like a prayer and an apology all at once.