Page 3 of Erik

Yet she draws the line

‘Cause she wants me on my knees

The crowd went insane when the singer knelt and buried his face in the fan’s belly.

Hadley elbowed me in the ribs. “Told you. He’s got the attention span of a goldfish.”

Realizing I was just another eager fan in the front row sent my heart plummeting into a void, leaving a gaping hole in my chest.

Although Hadley and I enjoyed the rest of the concert, a bitter taste remained in my mouth. It lingered while we sat on the arena floor waiting for people in the general admission area to snake out of it. Bitterness continued to burn my throat as we ambled through the parking lot. We reached the remote area where Hadley had left his convertible BMW, but before we got to the car, the door of a Winnebago burst open to my right.

I jumped back a couple of feet to make room for a cackling, teetering blonde to descend the metal steps without landing on top of me. At her heels Mr. Crawford came down himself, followed by the redhead who had danced with him on stage. Her bright pink lipstick stained the fly of Erik’s pants, and he hadn’t closed the zipper all the way up.

Hadley’s hands cupped my shoulders. “You dodged a bullet right there. You’re welcome.”

At that moment, Erik’s gaze found mine. I spied sorrow too deep before he dropped his eyelids, shrouding his feelings from the world.

Recognizing the defense mechanism, I squeezed Hadley’s forearm. “You’ve no idea.”

The kind of pain I glimpsed in Erik’s expression was rare. One must know it to identify it. Erik and I hid gut-wrenching wounds, except I was learning to deal with mine while he was drowning because of his.

My eyes brimmed with tears of frustration, and I clenched my hands into fists, at the idea that he was wasting precious time instead of getting help to heal.

As the trio stumbled past me, Erik fell behind, and murmured into my ear, “Angel, some sinners aren’t worth saving.”

2

Erik

Present Day

With a heavy sigh, I step into the kitchen, open the double doors of the refrigerator, and bend at the waist to search for bottles of beer. After rummaging through various containers, I find the brown bottles hidden behind two such containers with a variety of green leaves I wouldn’t be able to name if my life depended on it.

“You know I’m not an alcoholic, recovering or otherwise, right?” I twist my head over my right shoulder, challenging the cook who stands behind me.

From her position at the kitchen island, Mrs. Gemma Giry keeps arranging bowls of snacks on a silver tray, not a glance my way. Her gray hair, coiled into a tight bun, always reminds me of strict headmasters of boarding schools. Except for her eternal sunny disposition.

After a couple of beats, and without lifting her eyes from the task at hand, she retorts in a soft tone, “Better safe than sorry, sir.”

The pang in my stomach at hearing a seventy-year-old lady address me like that hasn’t dwindled in the past five years since she started at this job. It burns me right now because I haven’t made my peace with it. With the fact that an obscene amount of money in one’s bank account will provide social status, and create a facade of respect, to those who don’t deserve it.

I shrug the depressing thoughts off as I lift two paper boxes with six bottles in each and push the refrigerator doors close with my left shoulder.

“Shall we?” Mrs. Giry swirls to face me, sporting a wide grin, holding the tray at waist level.

“You’ve outdone yourself.” I point my chin at her hands.

She’s covered the polished surface of the tray with a piece of crispy white damask cut to measure. Among the blue bowls, she’s added a small crystal vase containing a handful of purple bellflowers, she’s probably picked at the backyard. Each porcelain bowl contains a different type of snack: cured cheddar, roasted peanuts, heady blue cheese, mini pretzels, tiny crackers, and glazed pecans.

“Thank you.” I add.

She gives me a half shrug and tilts her head toward the door. “Your friends must be impatient.”

“You can say that again,” I mutter under my breath, as I follow her lead out of the kitchen.

We carry our bulky load through a long corridor until we reach the last door on the right, which I left open when I came upstairs for the beer. We negotiate the stone steps that lead to the basement, where the other members of Muse of Darkness, as well as the band manager, await.

The sprawling room extends over most of the area of the house upstairs. I designed and commissioned it to be my very own lair. I furnished it with state-of-the-art musical equipment: a digital keyboard mounted on the wooden frame of a centuries-old upright piano for composing music; multiple acoustic and electric guitars for playing around; a French, nineteenth-century bureau desk for writing lyrics, and a couple of mixing tables for when something is worth recording.

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