When the Lights Come On (Barflies Book 4)

by Katia Rose

  “Yeah, it would be, if it goes through.”

  All the tension has come swooping back in, like a cloud of insects choking the air between us. I can feel her shutting herself off like she’s done so many times, and I don’t know how to pull her back. We walk for a minute in silence before I can’t take it anymore.

  “Paige, what’s wrong?”

  She balls the fist of her good arm up in the sleeve of her shirt and stops again. We’re close enough to Avenue Mont-Royal now that I can hear the din of cars and foot traffic as people crowd into all the bars for after-work drinks.

  “I’m just being stupid,” she says. She stands all tensed up for a few seconds before something in her breaks. Her shoulders slump, and her voice softens. “It’s like I keep waiting for this to go wrong, for something to happen that will prove I was right for believing all those things I believed for years. I mean, if you left, I—”

  “Paige.” I step closer. “Paige, I’m not leaving.”

  The words come out firm and certain, before I even think about what I’m saying.

  About what that means.

  She shakes her head. “But that’s the thing. I don’t want to be that girl who’s all like, ‘Oh, don’t leave me’ and takes over your life. I’m not that girl, and if you’ve got to go do your thing, then—”

  “You aren’t that girl. That’s not how I see you at all.”

  Regret zings through me as I realize just how stupid I was to mention Nautilus at all. She’s already pushing herself way out of her comfort zone by being here tonight, and I just threw a potential deal in LA at her with no warning.

  “Look, the LA thing, I...I don’t even think I want it.”

  It’s the first time I’ve said that out loud. I pause as the words ring in my ears.

  “I don’t know what I want about anything,” I admit. “Just today, Jacob basically said he thinks of me as a son and wants me to continue the studio legacy, and you know what? I can see it. I can see it so clear, and it feels good, but there’s this part of me that’s just like...if I choose that, am I going to live my whole life not knowing? Am I going to fuck myself over with regret and just—”

  “Hey.” Paige wraps her hand around my upper arm just as I start shaking. “It’s okay. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you had to tell me all that. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  I place my hand over hers as cars continue to pass by on the darkening street lined with low-rise apartment buildings. I can smell a hint of fall in the air when the cool night breeze shakes the spindly trees growing in the planters along the sidewalk.

  “I wanted to tell you.” I squeeze her fingers. “I needed to. Sometimes it’s like you’re the only person I can tell.”

  She nods, and when I look at her, I see everything we’ve shared, every moment that’s joined us together even through all the years apart. It scares the shit out of me to admit it so soon, but I see a future there too.

  “You’re gonna be okay,” she says. “You’ve got a better handle on things than you give yourself credit for, you know.”

  I lift the corner of my mouth. “I could say the same about you.”

  We stare for a moment longer, hands still joined, and then she cracks a smile.

  “God, we’re such messes tonight. Your friends are going to be so freaked out.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. “They’ll just have to take what they get.”

  We let our hands drop and start walking again, still laughing as we finally step onto Avenue Mont-Royal. I can see Taverne Toulouse’s typewriter font sign jutting out from the building up ahead.

  “Hey.” My heart kicks up when Paige’s knuckles brush mine for a second. I glance at her, and she grins. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad I’ve got you.”

  You’ve always had me.

  I don’t say it, but it’s true. Whatever else has happened, that’s always been true.

  Sixteen

  Paige

  DIGGING: Searching through existing pieces of music to select a section to sample in a track

  “I go away for two weeks, and I miss all this.” Ingrid sets her beer down and leans back in her bar stool. “I still can’t get over the fact that you got hit by a car, never mind all the rest.”

  Ingrid texted to invite me to a show when she got back to Montreal. She demanded to get the full story in person when I told her I was too injured to stand in a rowdy crowd. We’ve been spending Thursday afternoon day-drinking in Taverne Toulouse—or rather, Ingrid has been nursing a beer for the past hour, and I’ve been sipping on water since that’s all my pain meds allow. It made drinks with Youssef’s friends pretty uneventful the other night, but ‘uneventful’ was actually nice.

  Pleasant, even. Normal. Once I got over the fear of being the weird freak who’d never been introduced to a guy’s friends before, it felt so totally normal to be out with him, which is crazy considering I didn’t think I’d ever see him again just a matter of weeks ago.

  “You know you could have called me,” Ingrid says, turning serious as she leans over to grip the back of my stool. “If you needed someone to look after you, you could have called.”

  Her offer makes me feel the way I did when Zach told me the same thing: like there’s this knot in my chest taking up too much space.

  It’s ridiculous. It’s like the accident knocked my heart around and made it swell up even worse than my hand. I nod at Ingrid and reach for my water, slamming back what’s left in the glass and wishing for the burn of something stronger.

  As if she’s been summoned by my thoughts, DeeDee sashays over from wiping a table across the room and steps behind the huge three-sided bar.

  “You’re really going hard on the water, Paige.” She winks. “Another one, ma belle? Or would you like a Coke this time? Ginger ale? Or I could make you a mocktail, on the house! It would give me something to do. It’s so dead in here.”

  We’ve been pretty much the only customers since we arrived just after three this afternoon. The alt-rock playlist pumping through the speakers echoes in the empty room, and all the tables are gleaming from DeeDee’s efforts to pass the time by polishing them.

  “Sure. Hit me.”

  I’m not about to pass up one of DeeDee’s creations; she’s as legendary behind the bar as she is with hair dye.

  “So.” Ingrid starts picking at the label on her beer bottle. “Are you and this guy, like, together now?”

  I don’t know what we are. We’ve seen each other almost every day since the revelation about the letters. He’ll stop by the apartment with bagels or coffee or whatever his reason to be ‘in the neighbourhood’ is. I’ve even gone over to his place again on the pretense of discussing my shows some more, and now that my arm has healed enough for me to handle public establishments again, we’ve taken walks to the park and gone out to get food together.

  I keep waiting for the moment this will all catch up with me, when the impact of my life doing a complete one-eighty will hit me with a brutal case of whiplash.

  There has to be some sort of consequence for all this. There has to be a catch.

  So far, though, it’s been literal walks in the park. The more we talk and get to know each other again, the more I feel like I’m closing the gap between the past and the present, like I’m sewing them together until all that’s left between us is a seam where there used to be a jagged tear.

  I don’t know if that makes us ‘together.’ When it comes to the physical, we haven’t done more than some intense make out sessions. If it weren’t for my sling and splint, I doubt we’d have had the patience to wait, but the waiting is actually kind of nice. Every day, it all feels a little more real, and kissing him gets better and better the more the reality of him seeps into my life.

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “I guess we’re like, taking it slow? He’s in Toronto for the next couple days, playing that big show I had booked there. They got him first class train tickets when they found out he was offering to rep
lace me.”

  “Damn.” Ingrid sucks in a breath. “They bought his train tickets?”

  “I guess they were so stoked to get someone as famous as Youssef that they didn’t want to risk him backing out.”

  Ingrid smacks her beer onto its coaster. “I’ve been playing with Code Ventura for years. When’s it going to be time for us to get first class train tickets? You do not want to know what it’s like to tour in a van with three guys.”

  I laugh and hang my head in sympathy as she shakes her fist in the air.

  “You didn’t want to go with him?” she asks after we’ve calmed down.

  “He asked me to,” I admit, “but I have another doctor check-up and my first physio session, and...I don’t know. I just thought it would make me feel shitty to watch someone else play my show, you know? Even if it’s him.”

  Ingrid nods. “I get that. It would be torture to watch someone cover my bass parts for me.”

  “I’m going with him to Ottawa soon, though. That’s where his sister’s wedding is.”

  That’s also part of the reason I turned down Toronto. Despite how great things have been going, I’m still freaked out about the wedding. I could stomach it when I thought I’d just be there as part of a deal, but there’s way more to it now. Being someone’s possible, maybe, actual date to a wedding is way outside the realm of Things Paige Does—especially when it will be in front of Youssef’s entire family.

  I feel like I’m playing a game of chance, like I’ve been handed a limited number of lucky cards and I’ve got to play them just right to make it out of this weird limbo into whatever’s next for us. I didn’t want to waste any cards on a trip to Toronto when I’ll need as many as I can get to survive this wedding. Youssef told me I don’t have to go anymore, but this isn’t a deal between him and me now. It’s a deal between me and myself. If I play my hand right, I’ll win something I can trust.

  I desperately want to trust him. I keep hearing my mom’s voice in my head whenever he talks about things like record deals or flying to LA:

  You can’t trust anyone, Paige, especially not in this industry. Don’t forget that.

  It’s stupid. We’ve talked about it some more, and he doesn’t even think he wants to go to LA. Even if he did have to leave, it wouldn’t be about me. I’m acting like a clingy girlfriend, and we’re not even actually dating. I hate it, and I just want it to stop.

  “Did you say you’re going to a wedding?”

  DeeDee slides a tall glass over to me and then props her elbows on the bar and rests her chin on her hands while she waits for my answer.

  “Uh, yeah. Also, wow. This is really something.”

  I was wondering what was taking her so long with the mocktail. She’s normally inhumanly fast at serving drinks, but she seems to have gone all-out with this one. It’s some kind of blended concoction made of perfectly portioned orange and pink layers. The glass is rimmed with sugar, and there are little skewers of fruit set up in an artsy arrangement on top, along with a tiny pink umbrella.

  “Wait!” Ingrid shouts before I can take a sip. “I need a picture of this.”

  I feel like I’m betraying my innermost nature by drinking something with a pink umbrella in it, but the first sip has my eyes rolling back.

  “Oh my god. So good.”

  I go back for a second and third sip while DeeDee laughs and tosses her pink hair over her shoulder. “Ben, I know. I’m kind of a big deal.”

  I slide the glass over to Ingrid and insist she try it.

  “So, Paige,” DeeDee says once my mouth is free, “who is getting married?”

  “My...friend’s sister.”

  Both DeeDee and Ingrid burst out laughing at how not subtle that was.

  “Well I’m sure you want to look nice for your friend. You should let me dye your hair again! What colour is your dress?”

  “Uh...”

  She narrows her eyes. “Do you have a dress? Or like, something that isn’t a hoodie?”

  I stay silent, and the two of them laugh again.

  “I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”

  “Hein, attends!” DeeDee claps her hands together a couple times as her face lights up with that signature ‘DeeDee has an idea that is going to get us all into trouble’ expression. “I will ask to leave early, and we will all go dress shopping for Paige!”

  Now it’s me and Ingrid laughing.

  “Have you seen us?” Ingrid gestures between my baggy sweatshirt and her typical rock star ensemble of ripped skinny jeans and a leather jacket. “I think we’d burst into flames if we walked into a dress shop. Those are a thing, right? Dress shops? Is that where people get dresses?”

  DeeDee just waves off the protests. “Tant pis. We are going. I will go ask Monroe, and then we just have to wait for the late shift people to get here.”

  She heads off to the back, and Ingrid turns to me.

  “So, I guess we’re going dress shopping.”

  I nod. That’s kind of how it works with DeeDee. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

  By the time we head out a half hour later, DeeDee has already come up with a detailed plan for the rest of our day.

  “So, we will go up to Boulevard Saint-Laurent,” she recaps as we step out onto the sunny sidewalk, “and we will get bagels along the way, because damn, I am hungry. Then we will walk around and see what we find, and after, we will bring some things home so Paige can try them on without ripping her arm off in the little store change rooms.”

  DeeDee added that part after I announced that changing in public was not an option. Changing without assistance is still barely an option for me.

  We make our bagel stop at the famous Saint-Viateur and head up Avenue Mont-Royal to one of Montreal’s most famous streets: Boulevard Saint-Laurent. At night, it gets packed with partygoers and bar staff trying to hustle people into the dozens of pubs and clubs. During the day, little boutiques and cafes draw in crowds of tourists and locals out for a walk.

  We pass by a side street where a piano has been set out for public use. The city puts a few of them around this part of Montreal every summer, and I’m surprised they’ve left this one out so late. An old man in a velvet hat is playing some Beethoven. I recognize the piece right away.

  It’s the one my sister used to play in auditions.

  My feet stop me against my will. DeeDee and Ingrid continue a few feet down the sidewalk before they realize I’m not with them. I see them come to stand beside me out of the corner of my eye, but I can’t look away from the piano.

  It’s like I can see her sitting on the bench, practicing on the upright piano we kept in the living room while I waited for my turn to play. Those were the moments when our house felt most like a home. My mom would sit there watching us, smiling for once, and my dad would come stand by her instead of hiding away in the kitchen or the basement like he did whenever she and I were fighting.

  We didn’t fight much when I was little. Back then, I kind of liked when she got Isabella and I all dressed up and let us try a bit of makeup. Back then, we both wanted to be just like her. I’d sneak into Isabella’s room after we were supposed to be asleep, and we’d stay up late talking about being singers on TV like our mom was in Vietnam.

  Everything changed when we got older.

  Ingrid walks up to give the man some money when he gets to the end of the song, but he just smiles and shakes his head before shuffling his sheet music.

  “Paige?” she says when her and DeeDee are ready to get moving again.

  I blink a few times, clearing the memories away. They’ve been coming up more and more now that I have Youssef around all the time.

  “I’m coming.”

  We walk another block, and DeeDee points to a store across the street with three mannequins in sparkly black dresses in the windows.

  “Oooh, let’s start there!” she shouts before charging over the crosswalk.

  Ingrid chuckles. “At least they have stuff in black.”

 
I shudder. “But it sparkles.”

  Ingrid pretends to gag, and I join in as we follow after DeeDee.

  I feel even more out of place once we’re inside. There’s only one other customer in the whole store, and it’s so small you can’t hide behind any racks to stay away from the salespeople—which is my first instinct when one of them comes up to us.

  “Bonjour, mesdames! Est-ce qu’on cherche pour quelque chose en particulier aujourd’hui?”

  Ingrid and I shuffle around like idiots while DeeDee starts chatting away in French so fast it’s hard for me to follow. The saleswoman leads us past a few clothing displays, pointing to things and making comments about the fabric or quality.

  I doubt I’d understand any better if she was talking in English.

  “Oooh, Paige!” DeeDee lunges for something off the nearest rack and waves me over. “What about this?”

  I get a little hopeful when I see the dress she’s clutching is a soft charcoal colour. The fabric is some sort of floaty, drapey stuff that I could actually see myself wearing.

  Then she pulls it all the way off the rack, and I get a look at the front.

  “Um, no.”

  The whole torso of the dress is taken up by a giant bow.

  “But it’s cute!” DeeDee lifts the corner of the bow. “It’s all big and saggy, kind of like your hoodies.”

  Ingrid bursts out laughing. “Are we trying to find her a dress that’s saggy? I don’t know much about it, but that doesn’t sound like a good goal.”

  DeeDee frowns. “Okay, fine. Let’s keep looking.”

  The saleswoman is still standing there like she’s not sure what to do with us.

  “English is better?” she asks.

  DeeDee thanks her in French and let’s her know we’re okay to keep looking on our own, gesturing at Ingrid and I as she says we’ll probably be a while.

  “I don’t think there’s anything in this store I would wear,” I say in a low voice once the saleswoman is back at the cash register.