When the Lights Come On (Barflies Book 4)

by Katia Rose

  “Paige, just...I don’t know. Get a drink with me?”

  It’s a caustic question, thrown out with the bitter desperation of someone who already thinks the answer is no.

  The answer should be no. I don’t need distractions or ghosts or things to keep me up late at night, and he’s all of those combined.

  He’s also not going away, even if I ask him to. Even if he listens. It doesn’t matter whether we walk away forever right here in this club; the past six years have proved I’d have to find a way to carve him out of my brain if I really wanted him gone.

  I don’t know if that’s possible. I’d try it if it was. I’ve tried a lot of ways to forget him that all involved not being around him.

  It can’t be that crazy to think the opposite might work.

  I push the door open and look back as the sunlight streams in to fill the hallway’s shadows.

  “Okay. Let’s go get a drink.”

  Seven

  Paige

  CROSSFADER: A control in a DJ system used to transition from one audio source to another

  “What’s your poison?”

  Youssef nods to the collection of liquor bottles behind the bar. We’re in some hipster place whose theme seems to be house plants and vintage light bulbs. At 4PM on a Monday, we’re the only people in here besides the bartender and a small group of thirty-somethings holed up in the back corner having what looks like a book club discussion.

  “Vodka if we’re hitting the hard stuff.”

  Youssef chuckles, and I glare.

  “What?”

  “It’s just so weird to hear you talk about drinking. We’re grownups now, you know?”

  “We drank in high school.”

  He leans back in the bar stool next to mine and shifts a little to face me better. “I drank at like, two parties and that one time me and you split a bottle of your mom’s wine. I don’t know if we were exactly drinkers.”

  The memories hit before I can stop them. I remember the buzz from the wine that night, the way it made everything look so much softer, feel so much easier while we sat on the swings in the park. He and I were still barely more than acquaintances then, but after a glass and a half, I felt like I could break through all the unspoken moments between us and finally give a name to what happened in my chest whenever I was near him.

  Nothing happened that night, though—nothing like that. We got tipsy, and he started talking about how disappointed his parents would be if they found him drinking. He told me about his family, about his dad coming over from Egypt to be with his mom and how he was never really sure what side of his relatives he fit in with more.

  I’d never met someone from a family like mine. I’d never talked to anyone who asked themselves the same questions as me. With a Vietnamese mom and a dad who’s part white and part Puerto-Rican, I’d been asking myself questions my whole life, and people didn’t hold back from asking me questions, either.

  What are you?

  Why do you look like that way?

  Do you really think you’re Asian enough for that?

  Youssef had heard his share of questions too. He celebrated two sets of holidays just like me, but sometimes they didn’t feel like they belonged to us. He spoke three languages and I spoke five, but there were still so many times we couldn’t find words that felt right.

  So we both turned to music. We both turned to music for so much.

  By the time we left the park and dumped the empty wine bottle in a garbage bin, he already knew me better than anyone else in my life.

  “Paige?”

  “Huh?”

  I zone back into the present and find Youssef and the bartender staring at me.

  “Can I get you something?” the bartender asks. He fits right in here, with a septum piercing, horn-rimmed glasses, and what looks like the top of a mandala tattoo reaching up over the edge of his v-neck shirt.

  “Vodka soda.”

  “For sure. And you?” He looks at Youssef.

  “Rum and coke. Thanks, man.”

  It only takes him a few seconds to mix the drinks and slide them onto coasters in front of us. Youssef wraps his hand around his glass and clinks the edge to mine.

  “To the best set The Cube Room has ever witnessed.”

  I smirk in spite of myself and take my first sip, then another as the silence stretches on.

  “So,” he says, the ice in his drink clinking as he sets it back on the coaster. “How long have you been in Montreal?”

  The question sounds forced, laced with a fake casualness that seems inevitable during any attempts at small talk between us.

  “About four years now.”

  “Did you come for school?”

  I shake my head. “I did a year of graphic design school in Toronto, but I dropped out so I could gig more and started doing freelance design work. Montreal’s way cheaper, and I was playing a bunch here already, so I moved.”

  “Plus you always liked it better.”

  “Yeah.”

  I hate that he knows it. I hate that he doesn’t seem to have forgotten a single thing about me. I hate that handing back all the secrets I gave him wasn’t part of the deal when he cut me out of his life.

  Sitting here beside him is like seeing him through a strobe flight: a flash, and he’s the guy who made me feel like nothing after I trusted him with everything. Another flash, and he’s the guy who lit my life up like nothing else before or since. Another flash, and I want that again. Another flash, and I want this all to stop.

  “Why did you—”

  I almost have to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying it. I don’t even need to ask; he already gave me the answer, and the worst fucking part is that it made sense.

  He was eighteen, after all, heading off to a new city, a new school, a new life filled with new people—and new girls who weren’t sixteen year-olds with fucked up home lives they couldn’t escape. I always knew we were a ticking time bomb, that just like every other inter-grade high school drama, the countdown was on from the moment we met.

  He was always going to leave. I just didn’t think he was going to leave like that—with a letter spelling out all my worst fears in black and white. He couldn’t even say he never wanted to see me again to my face.

  “Paige.”

  It still sounds so good to hear him say my name—sweet and familiar. I could close my eyes and pretend none if it ever happened.

  But it did. It all happened a long time ago, and now you feel nothing because none of it matters anymore.

  I repeat the thought in my head, holding onto it like a mantra.

  You feel nothing.

  You feel nothing.

  You feel nothing.

  “Paige.” He says it again and sets his drink back down on the bar. “I know things are...complicated. I know we’re not who we were, and maybe you’re right that we have nothing left to say to each other, but I just...I’m just so fucking sick of asking myself ‘what if.’”

  The déjà vu is almost too much to take. This is exactly what sixteen year-old Paige stayed up night after night imagining him saying. I’d cry and picture him coming back to tell me exactly this.

  He was the last man to ever make me cry.

  You feel nothing.

  He takes a deep breath when I don’t say anything and then goes on. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been thinking about everything. What if we...made a deal?”

  I raise an eyebrow. “A deal?”

  “A...challenge, if you will, should you choose to accept it.”

  I take a sip of my drink and stare at him as I try to keep my hands from shaking.

  “Hang out with me a few more times. If you still think it’s better we say goodbye forever, I’ll respect that, and we can both walk away with certainty. I just don’t want to do that yet.”

  You feel nothing.

  You are numb.

  Nobody can break you when you’re numb, and he’s giving me the perfect chance to prove it to myse
lf. I want to stop asking ‘what if’ as bad as he does, and maybe we’ve got different outcomes in mind, but we’re searching for the same thing: certainty.

  I weigh the options. I can go on like I have been, keeping him as nothing more than a memory I keep trying and failing to forget, or I can face him here and now and show myself that the what-ifs are all empty questions.

  “Okay.”

  He pauses with his drink halfway to his mouth. “Seriously?”

  I almost laugh at how dumbstruck he looks, his mouth hanging open and Coke sloshing over the edge of his glass.

  “Challenge accepted. I’m playing a show Friday night. We can start there.”

  “I wish we could go!” DeeDee pouts as she helps Zach and I carry my gear down the stairway in our apartment building, a series of deafening creaks following us all the way to the ground floor.

  “You’ve seen me play at least ten times at Taverne Toulouse.”

  “Ben ouais, but I’m always working when you play there, and I love Shi Bar. I can’t believe we have to miss seeing you DJ there.”

  “Agreed.” Zach holds the door for the two of us as we head out onto the sidewalk. “You’re going to kill it.”

  The first hint of fall is in the air tonight. A slight breeze shakes the leaves of the few trees on our street, and for the first time since summer, I don’t look crazy for wearing a giant hoodie.

  “What time does your flight leave again?” I ask after I’ve set the case I’m holding down and pulled out my phone to check on my Uber.

  “Very soon,” Zach answers. “We should probably already be at the airport.”

  “It does not leave very soon,” DeeDee protests. “We do not need to be at the airport three hours early.”

  I look up and see DeeDee give his ass a smack. He catches her arm before she can run away and pulls her in close. She shrieks as he starts biting her ear.

  And to think I was actually starting to believe I’d miss having them in the apartment all the time. They’ll be away visiting Zach’s family for a week, which means I won’t start my days with the sight of Zach in his boxers and DeeDee in his t-shirt while they try to stick pancake batter on each other’s noses, or whatever other happy couple activity they’ve chosen for the morning.

  I look down at my phone again and open up a text from Ingrid while the two of them keep going with the PDA.

  Good luck at Shi Bar tonight! Wish I was there. You will kill it.

  It’s followed by three knife emojis. She knows the knife emoji is my favourite.

  I type out a thanks and wish her good luck at her show too. Her band left for Toronto yesterday to play a few gigs and meet with some industry people. When I invited Youssef to my show, I was thinking we’d be surrounded by human buffers after I finished playing. I forgot the three people in this city that I talk to on a regular basis are all out of commission tonight.

  A flash of headlights catches my attention, and I squint to catch the license plate of the car coming toward us.

  “That’s my ride.”

  Zach and DeeDee detach themselves from each other and help me load the car after it pulls up. I suffer through a goodbye hug from DeeDee and laugh to myself as the two of them pretend to chase the car when we pull away.

  The Uber takes me all the way down to the Old Port, the bars and patios we pass turning more and more upscale the closer we get to the water. The Old Port is the prime tourist hotspot of Montreal, which means it’s the place locals only go when they’ve got family visiting or they’re looking for a fancy night out.

  We pull up outside Shi Bar. There’s already a line forming along the sidewalk lit with neon and the glow from the ends of people’s cigarettes. I direct the driver to the door where I’m supposed to go in, and he insists on unloading the trunk for me. I tell him I’m fine after all the cases are piled on the old cobblestone street. He still puts on that fake casual air guys do before they hit you with some stupid pick-up line, but I deflect it with my best death glare.

  He says goodnight and drives away a second later.

  I adjust my hoodie and roll the bulky sleeves up before I start hauling gear in through the back door. The place is already packed, the crowd around the bar three rows deep as people sway to the lo-fi beats the guy currently at the DJ booth is spinning. It’s a chill lounge atmosphere at the moment, fitting right in with the place’s red velvet furniture and Japanese lamp decor, but it will be a full-out rager in just a few hours.

  I’ll make sure of it.

  My set is supposed to start back-to-back with the guy on now, so after being greeted by the bar’s manager, I get to work. It’s common practice to have to crawl around somebody during their set while you get ready for yours, so me and the DJ just nod once and then try to stay out of each other’s way while I crouch like a goblin beside him and start plugging cords in.

  I head to the back to grab my Ableton Push and check my phone on the way. Youssef was supposed to get here at nine-thirty with a couple friends—a welcome buffer, since mine all bailed—and I have a text from him letting me know they’re running late but getting close now.

  I glance at the blacked-out windows facing the street and feel my heart kick up.

  I thought this would be a better option than sitting in a bar together again. I thought I’d have more control over myself facing him here in my element, on a night when I’m doing what I do best. The nerves gathering into a tight bundle in my chest are making me question that decision. Suddenly the thought of his face in the crowd, watching me open myself up to my art and fill the room with my sounds, feels way more intimate than just getting another afternoon cocktail.

  I slip my phone into my pocket without answering and then open my Push’s case, sliding my hand into the mesh panel where I keep the cables I need.

  “Mierda.”

  I dig deeper, checking the panel three times even though I’m already sure it’s empty. I lift the Push up and check underneath it, but there’s nothing there except the case’s black velvet liner.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  I took all my gear out to reorganize it after the Taverne Toulouse gig. I can see the cables sitting on my desk back home like a psychic vision of doom.

  I whip my phone out again and check the time. I have thirty minutes until I go on. It’s about a twelve minute drive back to my place.

  I could just do the whole set on the CDJs like a normal DJ. It would be fine. I’m not here to be fine, though. The Ableton Push is my specialty, and given Shi Bar’s reputation for hosting up and coming DJ talent, this is one of the few crowds in the city who would actually know if I was using it or not.

  Which is why I care so much.

  Not because I want to impress Youssef.

  I locate the manager and leave him standing there stammering when I explain I have to go get something for my set and will be right back. I burst out through the back door and start pounding up the dark street, craning my neck around as I look for a cab since there’s no time to wait for an Uber.

  I haven’t taken an actual cab in years. I don’t even know where you’re supposed to find one, but I follow the lights and music coming from a main road a few streets over.

  Like some miracle from the Gods of Music, I spot a car with a glowing ‘Taxi’ sign strapped to its roof inching up the street after I’ve gone about a block. I ignore all the curious glances from the people in suits and high heels heading out of the restaurants around me as I run so fast my lungs burn. The taxi is only a few metres away now. I step off the sidewalk and sprint up the middle of the road towards it, calling out for the driver to stop as I dash across an intersection.

  The next moment happens so fast it cuts me off mid-word. One second my feet are hitting the pavement, and the next they’ve been knocked out from under me.

  I’m flying.

  The breath whooshes out of my chest, and the world shifts on its axis as I go from looking at the back of the taxi to staring up at the tops of the old brick buildings t
hat line the street.

  I can see a slice of the night sky.

  There’s a star out.

  It’s the last thing I think before my body smashes against the pavement. I hear a squeal of tires, and somebody screams.

  Then the pain hits. Everywhere. So much of it that a spike of terror shoots through me and brings up a wave of bile in the back of my throat.

  I try to breathe, and I can’t.

  I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.

  The patch of asphalt that makes up my whole line of vision blurs. Then everything goes black.

  Eight

  Youssef

  AMEN BREAK: A highly influential drum solo sampled in many pieces of music

  I sit next to the driver and try to keep up with the conversation Matt and JP are having in the back of our Uber. They were some of my first friends in the Montreal music scene back when I moved here, and their band has blown up in the past few years to become one of the biggest in Canada.

  You’d never know they were famous rock stars out to catch a show with me tonight, though. They’ve spent the whole ride having a passionate argument about whether or not Atlantis is the best Disney film.

  “Right, Youssef?” JP grabs the back of my seat and brings his face up beside mine. I agree even though I didn’t catch what he’s asking me or why, and he flops back into his seat. “Tu vois, Matt? Even Youssef thinks that movie about the bugs is stupid.”

  I start tuning them out again. In about two minutes, we’ll be pulling up in front of Shi Bar. Paige will be there.

  I still haven’t gotten over the shock of her agreeing to see me again. With the way things were going at that bar on Monday, I was bracing for yet another Game Over. She did seem to perk up more at the idea of us never having to see each other again after this than at the off-chance we end up as friends, but I’m choosing to focus on the present.