“Oh, I get it,” I said, trying to sound neutral and not hurt.
It wasn’t hard to guess what his family thought about me and our relationship, if they knew about us at all. I’d got a preview of how I rated on the Basilisk scale of importance when I first met Viola, Ferd’s snootiest friend, before she came around to accepting me as a worthwhile human being.
I might be a Hallow, which means something in magical circles, but that’s a long way from being a worthy girlfriend to grace the arm of a Chauvelin son and heir. It wouldn’t help that I was associated with the share house where Ferd now lived, the friends he had made. The friends who helped him come to terms with his lack of magic, after the accident. The friends who supported and encouraged him through his transfer to the College of the Unreal.
Yeah, his parents were going to hate me.
“I meant literally nothing by that,” he promised, burying his face in my neck. “Hebe, I’m embarrassed of them, not you. I don’t want you anywhere near those people. They would tear you up to score points off me.”
“I didn’t want you to be alone, that’s all,” I said defensively. “I’m not angling for an invite.”
“Oh, I won’t be alone,” he said casually, pulling back from me. “Vale’s coming as backup.”
Of course she was. Viola Vale wasn’t just Ferd’s friend. She was a woman of his world — the world of money and old magic and fancy board meetings and designer clothes. She knew the right fork to use. She called Ferd’s mother by her first name. Neither of them ever said it aloud, but I was pretty sure their parents had always expected them to marry each other.
Viola Vale was everything I was not.
I wasn’t jealous. I trusted Ferd. But ever since he stumbled into my life, part of me has been waiting for him to spark the “undo” charm and return to them — to his family, to his whole world, to the person he was before the accident.
When he does, that world of his won’t have room for me.
Chapter 2
Sage Says: 10 Out Of 10, Would Break Up With Again
Friday
I had this bloody song wriggling under my skin, trying to get out. I had a few lyrics, a theme, and I was maybe halfway to a chorus.
Mostly right now it was rhythm, and that meant thumping out a beat on anything that came near me — walls, beer cans, my thigh, my phone, the long drink of hotness currently stretched out and naked in my bed.
“If you compose a tune on me, I’ll claim royalties,” grunted Jules Nightshade, his face buried in my sheets. “Too early in the morning for this shit.”
“That’s what you get for banging a drummer,” I said, and laughed at myself, because no one but me was gonna to appreciate drummer puns.
It was like, 11am. But we were students and it was the beginning of our mid year holidays, so. Too early for this shit. Fair call.
“I need coffee,” Nightshade muttered.
He wasn’t wrong. I found a line of my song somewhere near his spine, and as I tapped out the repeat with my fingertips, his skin sparked against mine. Damn it. We’d downed triple espresso shots at 4am before tearing each other’s clothes off, and they were already fading from our systems.
Coffee: nature’s own anti-magic ward. The easiest way for two high-grade magic users to tamp down their powers long enough to get messy in the bedroom, without burning the house down.
My sheets dropped in temperature as Nightshade’s core of magic — ice powers, of course — began to return. If I kissed him right now, I’d be huffing steam into his mouth like a kid running outside on a winter’s morning.
Good thing I wasn’t gonna kiss him.
“So,” said Nightshade, rolling away from my tapping fingers, and offering me his frostiest glare. His blond hair looked good dishevelled, straight off a pillow. He looked like less of a pretentious dickhead than when he was in his club clothes, all gel-spikes and thousand dollar leather trousers.
Sometimes my taste in blokes embarrasses even me.
I waggled my eyebrows at him. How annoying did I have to be, to get him to voluntarily leave my bed? Maybe I was relying on the wrong technique. If I was sweet to him, would he run for the hills?
We were never gonna know. Neither of us could do ‘sweet.’
“So,” I repeated, wanting him to get on with it. I had a song to work on.
“So you’re going on tour for a week. With your band.” Nightshade said the words ‘your band’ in the same tone someone might say ‘your STD.’ Like he didn’t dance to our sound every Friday night, like he didn’t love strutting up to me when I was sweaty and exhausted after a show. Like that wasn’t a gleam of possessive want all over his face every time he dragged me away from the other pretty boys that had been giving me hopeful eyes all night.
“Threeeee dayyys,” I said, letting the words drag out on my tongue. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to Winterfest? Hipster beards and piercings as far as the eye can see. DIY trench toilets and air beds. All-vegan catering. Totally your scene.”
Jules Nightshade wouldn’t even stay in a three star hotel. I knew my audience.
He rolled out of bed now and started dressing himself in a very familiar haughty air. Oh, we’d done this dance before. “Good time for a break, don’t you think?” he said sharply. “Put a little distance between — you know. This colossal error of judgement.”
“Aww, baby,” I said, folding my arms behind my head and flexing my biceps at him. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Fourth time since April, but I wasn’t gonna point that out. Let the man have some dignity.
He hesitated over whether to pull on his own green-cocktail-stained shirt from the night before, or steal one of mine. Nightshade has been systematically stealing band shirts from me ever since the night his mate Vale made off with my prize glory, the 2014 Kraken shirt with an embarrassing misprint.
It’s cute, the way he thinks I haven’t been keeping track.
But this was a Nightshade Breakup Scene, so he buttoned his own shirt, despite the stickiness. “We don’t fit, McClaren. It’s too much effort. I’m starting to get caffeine headaches even when I don’t see you, so…”
I kicked my doona off, to give him a glimpse of what he’d be missing. Jules huffed at me, annoyed, but that didn’t stop his eyes raking down my body, all the way to my morning wood, standing well and truly to attention. “Blow me before you say goodbye,” I suggested in a low, husky voice.
“If you put that line in a song, I’m going to fucking end you,” he threatened.
I laughed at him, and he left.
On a scale of 1 to 10, it was one of our better break ups.
Hell yes, I was gonna put that line in a song.
“Road trip, road trip!” chanted Dec.
I tapped out the bridge of my almost-song against the side of the van while Juniper hauled her cello aboard, nestling it against the camping gear and as far from my drum kit as possible. “Nah, mate. It’s not a road trip if it takes less than four hours to get there. This is barely even a weekend drive.”
“I don’t see why I can’t be in the van,” Holly complained. “I never get to ride in the van.”
Her better half, the twin I would have married already if I was straight, rolled her eyes like a champ and waved her clipboard. Of course Hebes had an honest-to-pixies clipboard. No bet that she bought it new for the trip. “Sage needs to be close to his drums or he gets bratty, and I’m trying to limit the number of possible murders this weekend. Which means you and Sage don’t get trapped in an enclosed space together, under any circumstances.”
“I blame you for denying me the authentic tour bus experience,” Holly said, pointing her finger at me with all the emphasis of a wand.
“Not a bus, one show only, not a tour,” I corrected. “We’re not even stopping for lunch on the way. This is a camping holiday with a brief gig in the middle. Don’t go telling Instagram we’re on a fucken tour. It’s embarrassing.”
“Oh, we’re stop
ping for lunch,” said Hebe, her left eyeball twitching ever so elegantly. “If I don’t get to eat dirty burgers and potato cakes from a roadside cafe, there is no point to any of this.”
“I’m not travelling in that tiny little pixie car,” Holly announced loudly, pointing at Mei’s VW. “I refuse. Zip me up in Juniper’s cello case, I’m travelling authentic.”
Hebe gave her sister an unimpressed look. “Broomstick or backseat. Those are your choices.”
Hebe was playing hardball. Everyone knew that Holly was goddamned dangerous on a broom. Her magic reacted badly to altitude, and she had all the physical reflexes of a cockatoo on a sugar high.
“But shotgun,” Holly whined.
“Broomstick, or backseat.”
Fuming so hard her hair was in danger of vibrating away its pink highlights, Holly stalked to the van and snatched her broomstick from our collection. “I hate you all. I’ll be there to pick a campsite before any of you roll up.”
“I reserved our site!” said Hebe, starting to look worried. Not about the campsite, obviously. She’d had that locked down for months. But the sight of Holly holding a broomstick flashed warning signs in front of all our eyes. Our Hol was the only witch I knew who was less likely to get into a mid-air collision when she was drunk and stoned than when she was sober.
“I’ll swap whatever dinky site you picked with the first metalhead I see!” Holly said wildly.
This power struggle wasn’t about Hebe, though she was getting the worst of it as always. It was about me. Somehow, with band shit, it always came down to Holly and me, fighting for control.
“Hey,” said Dec, playing the peacemaker. “You know the last episode of The Bromancers drops this weekend?”
“We know,” said Hebe impatiently, like he had mansplained to her that brooms were made of twigs. “It’s in the plan. There are some tech problems to work around, but Mei’s on it.”
“I’m on it!” hollered Mei from the mini. “We’ll miss Dark Kelpie opening for Holy Water Hexology, but it’s worth it. The bros are so gonna bone in this episode, it’s gonna be great.”
Holly, waved her broom dramatically, so no one would miss her grand exit. I had a sudden vision of her splattered all over the highway because she was passive-aggressively flying too close to the rest of us.
“Fine,” I said abruptly. “Fuck it. You take the van.”
Everyone stared at me.
“Sage, I don’t think I can fit your drum kit in the Bug,” Mei said slowly.
“Drums in the van. Me in the Bug.” I faced down Holly who looked bizarrely shocked at getting her own way. “I’m gonna squeeze all 6 foot 2 of my big bad self into the back seat of that tiny little pixie car (no offense, Mei).”
“Fuck you, Sage.”
“And you know why I’m gonna do it, Hol? Because I’m a team player.”
Holly stared at me, and then she smiled beautifully. Her fake, perfect ‘being nice to fans’ smile, made brighter by her perfect lip gloss. “Sounds good.”
Hebe sidled up to Dec. “Um. Drive carefully,” she said in a low voice. “There will be no living with Sage if anything happens to his drums.”
“Yeah,” said Dec, rolling his eyes at her. “I love you too, Hebes. Your priorities are excellent, as always.”
I don’t bluff. By the time Mei and Hebe had finished packing everyone else into the van, I was stretched out in the back seat of the VW. Stretched out may be overselling the concept, but I was going for draped, okay?
Hebe snapped a pic. “That’s going on the Instagram.”
“I have all your snacks back here and I’m not afraid to eat them loudly right behind your ear,” I sniped back.
Mei slid into the driver’s seat. Hebe snapped on her seatbelt. “No Jules for this trip?” she asked. “I expected him to invite himself along at the last minute.”
“Uh, that’s not a thing any more. No big deal.” Damn it. Why did I say No Big Deal? That just made it seem like a big deal. I was failing so hard at casual right now.
“Brace yourself, Mei,” Hebe said calmly, as we pulled out ahead of the van, making for the highway. “I think our drummer wants to talk about boys.”
Yeah, no. Never gonna happen.
Here’s the thing about me and Hebes: we were high school sweethearts. She was the perfect girlfriend, and I would have stuck with her forever if I hadn’t had my Big Gay Crisis and thrown myself on her mercy.
We’re still friends. Best friends. Which is so much more than I thought I deserved, when I first told her the truth.
But there’s some stuff you don’t dig into with your ex, even the coolest ex ever. Jules Nightshade was top of that list — lately he was the entire list. That was getting to be a problem. Trust me to get attached to a bloke whose second best talent was breaking up with me.
Though his first best talent almost made up for that.
“So,” I said three minutes into our ‘road trip’. “You know I’m right about the album, Hebes.”
Hebe groaned and smacked herself in the forehead. “You did not wangle your way into this backseat to work on me about that bloody album title. It’s between you and Holly and Juniper, you know that.”
“My title’s the best,” I argued. “My song is the best. Holly’s only being stubborn because…”
“Because Resting Witch Face is a song about her, Sage. She knows it. We all know it. If it was a flattering song, maybe you’d have more leverage. But you wrote it when you were pissed off at her, and it shows.”
“Best song ever,” Mei said in an undertone. I caught her eye in the rear view mirror and mimed a high five.
“I don’t get a vote,” Hebe said impatiently. “I’m not —”
“Hebes, you’ve been acting as our manager for months now. We did OK without one back when Nora was in the band because she was all Organisa Von Spreadsheet. Once she left, we were a mess until you started, you know. Tidying us up.”
“But,” said Hebe, sounding genuinely confused. Hopefully it would turn out to be flattered-confused and not chuck-Sage-outta-the-car confused, but I wasn’t sure if even she knew yet how she was feeling about this.
“I’m pretty sure, as our manager, you get a say on which song title we use for the album,” I said smugly, folding my hands behind my head.
Hebe turned around, and gave me a very pointed stare. “So you and Jules Nightshade. Is this a permanent break up or yet another half-hearted, passive-aggressive bluffing attempt because one of you got cold feet about feelings?”
I accepted her change of subject, but only as a temporary truce. “Pretty sure it’s an excuse for him to get blasted and hook up with other boys while we’re away.”
Hebe blinked. “We’re only going for three days. He can’t keep it in his pants that long?”
Remember how Jules Nightshade was on the list of things not to discuss with my ex? This is why.
I gave her a cheesy grin. The sleeping around thing really didn’t bother me, but I knew it would bother her. “Maybe he didn’t trust me to keep my own jeans zipped this weekend. Either way, I’m free and I don’t have to feel guilty about it because he did the breaking up. Can we leave it?”
“Fine,” Hebe grumbled, and then added a bunch more grumbling on top of that, which I didn’t strain myself to hear properly.
“So,” said Mei in the awkward silence that followed. “I’m going to share five of my favourite theories about how this season of The Bromancers will end, and you’re going to tell me how correct and brilliant I am. Deal?”
Okay, so it wasn’t a proper road trip, and I spent nearly four hours crammed into a tiny back seat, but it wasn’t all bad. At least we stopped for dirty burgers and potato cakes along the way, so Hebe’s mood improved.
This weekend, at Mandrake Sands? It was gonna be epic. I could feel it in my bones, almost as deep as that song I hadn’t found yet. All I had to do was convince Holly that Resting Witch Face was the name of our next album, and everything would be gravy.
Chapter 3
True Bromance, Mei-Style
Friday
You Are Gazing Into the Mirror of MeMei
Who Is… currently scarfing egg and chips at a greasy spoon on the side of the highway.
Add Your Reflections Below!
So I’m roadtripping down to Mandrake Sands this weekend, for social reasons (ugh) and to support my favourite local indie band (hey, download Fake Geek Girl’s latest album here, it’s on the pay what you want system!).
You know what that means.
I’m going to be away from home when the final episode of Season 3 of The Bromancers drops.
EEEEEEEEEEE!
Don’t fear, I have Plans to circumvent the ridic ‘wi-fi free zone’ enforced by the Winterfest Volunteer Committee, and I will be watching that ep come hell, high water, or mutually assured musician destruction.
In other news, how much does it suck that some digital networks are still able to shield their shows from magical distribution? Sometimes you can ONLY get your hands on a mirror, not a phone or a tablet, and why does that mean we have to timeshift the shows we love obsess over need like oxygen?
I will accept nothing less than a near-live viewing experience, and I’m not the only one. I’m travelling with some of the hardest of hardcore Bromancers fans in my life, and we all need to see that episode the second it’s available (12 noon AEST Monday morning, cannot wait!) or someone’s gonna get murdered.
What have your favourite eps been so far this season? I’ve been loving all the extra Eli/Tate feels (though you know I’m a Cinnovate shipper at heart, haha), and the road trip from hell theme pulls a lot of threads together that the show only hinted at before.
Like, we know that the bros have a soul-bond, that their magic is linked and that they are STRONGER TOGETHER, but this is the season that made this explicit, by making the soul-bond malfunction (trapping them in the demon car, oh, the glorious fanfics you darlings have wrought from this premise, I’ve never read so many backseat blowjobs in my life). Add to that we got that whole gorgeous flashback episode which showed us the bros meeting for the first time at the frat house — yes, their magic was soul-linked even before they were friends, I win a pie — and confirmed to fans that their magical connection is DIRECTLY CONNECTED TO MOMENTS OF HIGH EMOTION, IT’S CANON NOW, THEY CAN’T TAKE THIS AWAY FROM US.
Unreal Alchemy Page 11
