Page 62 of Knot Just A Fan

“I’ve marked you, angel,” I say. I guess this is my pet-name for her now. In my head I always pictured her as a siren, an angelic one. Swimming in the sea, disappearing over the horizon, out of reach.

But she came back for me.

“He can’t turn away from that. He has to accept it, or leave the pack.”

“But I know you,” she says. “Better than you realize. And I know you won’t let him leave. And you won’t abandon them, either.”

“There’s a way,” I say, aware my voice hits an uncertain note. I place my hands on her shoulders as we kneel and I look her in the eye. “I would leave this pack for you. This band. But I would rather we all protected you and served youtogether. You deserve that. If something ever happens to me, you would need to have my bandmates, my brothers-in-arms, to protect you. We need to be a family.”

We need each other. And I needthem.

“Stalemate,” she says softly, her eyes looking as though they’re reading something between mine. She sighs heavily, then looks away.

I grab a handkerchief from my rucksack and clean up some of the mess we’ve made, put my sunglasses back on, then I stand.

To a round of fuckingapplause.

The tiki torches’ flames dance in the gentle sea breeze I somehow forgot was right there. Despite hearing the crowd’s hoots and hollers and singing and laughter and voices over the music throughout my time with Briella, it’s like leaving one realm for another.

I pull on my stage persona and wave off the applause. I raise a hand in the air and gyrate a bit to the music, pulling my headphones on with my other hand. I lean over the board, figuring out where the hell I am in my playlist. A beach ball flies up into the booth and a crowd of people wave and laugh. Then a knock comes on the door.

Briella’s eyes fly open. I wave her to hang out behind the door in case its someone who shouldn’t see her, though I don’t know who that would be.

“Here, mate, these were delivered by a cute girl with braids.” The guard doesn’t seem to care that Briella’s not doing the best job hiding and her foot’s peeking out around the door where she’s crouched. He hands me two glasses of fizzing Champagne.

“Cheers, mate.”

He closes the door and Briella takes one proffered glass. We both lean over the side. Cami’s down there, waving up at us with a huge grin. Then she gestures behind her to the back of the sand.

“Come down when you’re ready! I’ll be in the same spot, lady!” Cami shouts.

I can’t help but wonder, given what Briella said earlier, if Cami meansIn a puddle of post-sex slick, but with Ash.I stifle a snicker. I hope it’s true. Ash needs to get laid. He needs a funny, whip-smart woman at his side, someone to be his equal, but whip him into line, too. And Cami honestly, from what I know of her, couldn’t be any more perfect for that role.

But I turn back to the woman at my side looking out over the creamsicle pinks and purples devouring the last of the lit sky. The vibey mid-tempo track that floats around us, flooding the sands and giving the evening a sense of perfect chill, reminds me that not everything is about Arcadia Echo, or art rock. Making astatement, about politics, government, censorship, climate change, humanity’s downfall, or otherwise devastating interplay between humans.

Sometimes, music is meant to make you feel the beauty of the moment you’re in, and nothing more.

Maybe Echo’s days are numbered. If they are—if we broke apart after the tour, or, God forbid, ended tour early, would I cope?

I would. But it’s not what I want. I want this family to work.

Briella takes a sip of the bubbly and wraps her arms around me. “There is no way to tell you how much, how long, I wantedto be able to do this. I was afraid of so much. Your relationship. Your position.Myposition. The Guild.” She takes another sip and leans her head against me. I hold her to my side as we stare out toward the water. “But mostly, admitting to you how I felt, thinking you were way, way out of my league.”

“Are youkidding? I saw you and thought, that girl is life. And that’s all I thought about that night. That, and what you would feel like wrapped around my cock.”

“You’re so blunt now.” She cackles. “Honestly, Iloveit.”

“I have nothing to hide from you. Not ever again.” It’s true. But then her eyes fall to her hand on the railing.

“What about Ronan?”

I know she doesn’t mean what we’ve already discussed. “I can’t hide from him, either. I’ll tell them I marked you. I’ll tell him he has to accept?—”

“No. They don’thave to doanything,” Briella says. She drains her drink and looks out over the crowd, a constant pool of movement below us almost like the sea itself, and us alone on a bobbing vessel in the water. Looking for land in sight.

“Enzo will be delighted,” I remark after a moment. She grins, then goes solemn again.

“Ash said Ronan’s in Cornwall right now anyhow.”

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