Page 48 of The Omega Verse

“This is one sweet pad, sugar,” Silva purrs, looking around admiringly. “Your bro had amazing taste.”

I blink up at him, strangely comforted by the easy way he talks about Steven. I know I haven’t started to work through my feelings about this house – or our relationship, in general – but I don’t want to stop talking about him. I want to know everything I can – that hasn’t changed, except to become even stronger as I watch the guys take in their surroundings.

“I can’t believe he still has this old thing,” Kobi says, rubbing a big hand over the rocking chair where I had my meltdown.

“It was from our first flat in London,” Jett says, giving the worn chair a surprisingly affectionate look. “He bought it off the back of a truck and then got some old guy in Camden Town to reupholster it. I bet there’s still peanut brittle in the cracks.”

I slip out from under Silva’s arm and gravitate towards Jett like a moth to a flame. “You lived together in London? What was that like?”

He frowns and I wonder if I’m pushing too hard. I’m not the only one hurting here. Steven was Jett’s best friend, his ride or die, and I saw the tears on his cheeks last night. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

But Jett just shrugs. “Maybe we start with a tour of this place and if I see something with a story, I’ll tell you what I know.”

It’s better than I hoped, but I’m even more surprised when Jett takes my hand, nudging Silva aside when he swoops in to claim me. “Back off, Sterling. You’re a greedy motherfucker, you know that?”

“I’m a sugar addict,” he says with a wicked grin in my direction. “But I can be a good boy and share if I have to.”

I smile back at him, loving his easy affection. But it’s River who comes up on my other side and slips his arm through mine. This has to be extra hard for him, and I drop my head on his shoulder, wishing I could erase the shadows in his eyes. “Is this weird for you? This should really be your place, since you guys were mated.”

But River just strokes his fingers through my hair. “I have a place we bought together in New York. It’s in my name since we weren’t public, but it’s like this. Full of memories. Little pieces of his life he cared about.” His hand drifts down to cup my cheek for a moment, his gaze soft and searching. “I hope you’ll come and spend some time there.”

“I’d love to.” Maybe a pipedream, since I don’t even own a passport, but I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to see the world through Steven’s eyes. To retrace his steps, and experience every place that was special to him. But I tuck the thought away, determined to enjoy the here and now. “If you see something you think was important to him, can you tell me about it?”

“I’d love to,” River echoes my own words, and so that’s what we do, wandering through this beautiful house that my brother fashioned out of my childhood dream. There are actually four levels, with a basement, more bedrooms on the second floor, and a reading room built under the pointed roof. I guess it’s an attic, but it’s the most gorgeous one I’ve ever seen, with bookshelves built into the walls, an elegant daybed draped in another expensive sheepskin throw, and a carved writing desk positioned under a picture window.

I wander over and take in the funky black reading glasses, a pair of stainless-steel stress balls, and a coffee cup from the Rock en Seine music festival. It’s probably the only messy space in the house, with thick pieces of writing paper spread over the surface, and a line of calligraphy pens resting on the blotter.

“Are these songs?” I ask, touching the corner of a page so I don’t smudge the ink.

River and Jett both look at it curiously. “I didn’t know he was writing again,” Jett replies, his voice gruff. He picks up a page with a few lines of Steven’s elegant writing scrawled across the middle, then turns to look at River, a deep groove between his brows. “Did he show you any of this?”

River grips the back of the chair, his eyes enormous as he takes in the scattered pages. “He never wrote anything in front of me.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask why, but I swallow it back. The guys are staring at the desk with a mixture of reverence and hurt, and I step away, letting them have a moment together. I didn’t know Steven was a songwriter; all the liner notes credit Jett, or Barker, the guy Cory replaced, so this is probably a really big shock to them. And when Jett slings an arm around River’s shoulder, pulling him tight, it feels like I’m connected to them by my heartstrings.

“You’re not going to believe what’s in the basement,” Silva says from the doorway, breaking the tension. I take another long look around the room, then we traipse back downstairs until we reach a thick, leather-padded door. It’s at the very bottom of a concrete stairwell, and I look at Silva curiously.

“Got to admit, at first I thought this might be his kink closet.” He pushes the door wide and we step into a huge room filled with all sorts of instruments and equipment. “A recording studio, complete with the sweetest tubs I’ve ever seen.” He gestures at a drumkit up on a small dais, but there’s also a sleek black piano, a row of guitars on racks, and a bunch of microphones and music stands scattered about. Looking around, it feels as if a band has just popped outside for a smoko, and will be back any second to pick up where they left off.

I turn to look at Jett, who’s staring at the row of guitars. “Did he ever record anything here?”

He walks over to pick up a shiny red guitar, his long fingers absently plucking at the strings. “Not that I know. But then, I didn’t know this place existed until last night.”

“Hey, darlin’,” Kobi says, his hand warm on my arm. “Come look at this.”

He leads me over to the far wall and I realise there’s another room attached through a glass window. A control booth, maybe? I know next to nothing about making music, but Kobi stops me in front of a mural painted under the window. It takes me a moment to realise it’s a young girl perched on the handlebars of a BMX bike. Her cheeks are pink, her hair flying, her heels kicked up as they zoom down a steep hill. And over her shoulder, pedalling furiously, is a boy with dark spiky hair and a mouth too big for his face.

“Tell me that’s you, sugar,” Silva says with a grin almost as wide as my brother’s. “You’re as cute as a button.”

“Well, it’s the Ghost Rider, for sure. He painted those flames on the bars to make it go faster.”

“Explains the name,” Kobi says, pointing inside the control booth window at a sign on the wall: Ghost Rider Studios.

I swallow a sudden lump in my throat. “But why? I don’t get it. Everything in here looks untouched. Why would he do all this and not tell you?”

“Maybe we should take a break,” Tom says behind me, and I realise I’ve leaned back into his warm bulk. I want to look up into his face to see if that steely glint is still in his eyes, but I can’t tear my gaze from the mural. “There’s a lot here to take in. How about we go upstairs and have something to eat?”

I glance at River, who looks as dazed as I feel. He’s too thin, the points of his collarbones too sharp where my brother’s jumper sags off his neck. I need to fix that, and thank God, that’s something I know how to do. “Yeah, we need to eat. We can probably have those blueberry pancakes for brunch now.”

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