Page 10 of Love You Like That (Excess All Areas 4)

He reached over her head and tugged them wide. “A graveyard?” The space was small and rectangular and enclosed by a wall. Ivy crept up the stone, and the graves were a mishmash of oblong stone boxes and traditional style headstones. There was no church, and in some cases, the modern buildings surrounding it came close to the wall.

“Yes. A very old and special one. It was named after a famous church…hang on…” Zoe opened her phone again. “Sancta Maria Maggiore ad Nives, Saint Mary of the Snows. The church was lost in the fifteen hundreds or something like that.”

“What language is that?” Alex said. “Sui princeps qui fates…”

Zoe glanced down at the gravestone he was looking at. “Doesn’t princeps mean chief or something like that? If I had to guess, I’d say Latin. It sounds like a suitably old church-ish language, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. Look at this one. Says he was the fourth son. Like, why is it relevant?”

Zoe peered at the headstone. “It was a tradition thing, right. First borns were the ones who inherited the titles and got all the money. All the rest were just supposed to marry well and take secondary titles. I suppose it also indirectly says how fertile Dad was. Like, he was the fourth of seven, good job with your super sperm, Dad.”

Alex choked out a laugh. “Yeah.”

They wandered around a little longer. “I’d like to think that when I die, there’s a legacy left behind,” Zoe said. “Not a physical memorial to me in a specific time and place that future generations will feel an obligation to prune and put flowers on once a year. I wouldn’t want to become someone else’s obligation.”

“I’ve never thought about cemeteries like that before. But I see your point. Like, I wonder if the descendants of any of these people come and visit. Or if they even know this is where their ancestors are buried. Shit, I’m not even sure I know where my grandad ended up. Cremated I think, but I have no clue where the ashes are.”

Zoe looked up at him, her hazel eyes flecked with gold. “Does it matter, though? It’s the good you did in life, not the location of your bones you’ll be remembered for. It’s what you built, who you inspired, the moments you gave people. Shit, performing felt like that. Recordings of music do that too. Giving moments.” She looked away toward the gate. “We should go.”

He could sense the shift in her mood, as if the curtains had been suddenly shut on a sunny day. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have his career ripped out from beneath him, but Zoe had just given him a glimpse.

“You want to talk about it?” he offered. “We could walk some more.”

“No. Let’s go find Chaya and Ben and get warm somewhere.”

Alex messaged Ben, and once he had the location, he plotted the most direct route. One that got them somewhere warm. “You okay?” he signed as they approached the pub, an old grey stone building.

“I’m fine,” Zoe said.

Alex hated the word fine. Worst fucking word in the dictionary because it never actually meant fine.

And whenever he heard it, he wanted to soothe the hurt.

When his mum told him she was fine. When Luke had been crumbling beneath addiction and told him he was fine. The number of times Jase had said he was fine when he’d been fighting his demons had driven him to distraction. None of them had been fine.

Noone was fine, and it bugged the crap out of him.

Hell, he’d been told it was one of his flaws. Nan said it was an overabundance of empathy.

Not everyone needed soothing.

Not everyone needed loving.

And certainly not by him.

The following evening, Alex stood next to the stage watching the opening act, and for all the chaos and noise and people around him, inside he felt stiller than a statue. Everything felt quiet, and for a moment he thought about all the days and nights he’d served other people coffee as they went about their lives, went about conquering their dreams. He’d watch entitled twats at the coffee table talk about how they were going to fudge where their start-up was at to get over a million in funding. He’d seen a couple break up, a woman cheat, and a guy pass a total stranger his phone number on a piece of paper.

He’d seen the woman smile as she’d watched him walk away.

Every shift, there was some kid from uni on the roster, working as hard as they could to pay fees and keep a roof over their head. And he’d seen other uni kids mock them.

He’d often thought a coffee shop was a microcosm of balance. The good with the bad. The starts and the ends. All carried out over a drink made from beans from halfway around the world.

And now it was his time.

Alex stepped back away from the stage and grinned at his cousin. “We made it, Jase.”

Jase bounced on his toes as he often did before a gig. Hyping himself up to step out onto the stage and own it. “Fucking surreal. Remember the day about four years ago. The van broke down, and we had to leave it on the side of the street. Caught a cab to the venue, a pub in Ashton, and when we got there, there were exactly seventeen people in there. Wasted more money on the cab than we made.”

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