Incapable (Love Triumphs Book 3)

by Ainslie Paton

  “So don’t be an idiot again.”

  “I’m not.” Damon was still at the kerb.

  “You’re letting the man you’re in love with walk away without you. At least he had the guts to try. You hardly gave him ten minutes.”

  She reached for the doorknob to close the door. A cab pulled up. “He doesn’t need me. He’s perfectly fine by himself.” Damon put his hand to the cab roof and stepped off the gutter. He folded his stick.

  “No, he doesn’t need you and yes he’s fine, but you’re missing the point.”

  She ignored Hamish. She watched Damon feel for the car door latch. He looked back towards the house and she flinched. He couldn’t possibly know she was watching. He couldn’t possible know she was incapable of imagining her life without him.

  She closed the door.

  She closed that chapter of her life.

  35: Surviving

  Angus poured. Damon would need more than coffee to make it through the jet lag. But it was a start. He’d kicked around London for two days, thinking Georgia might call, might get over the shock of seeing him and he could start his apology all over again.

  Plain dumb to try to see her without talking to her first, but it seemed like the right kind of cheat. If he called her she could hang up, send his number to her message bank. He should’ve called her, got a message to her months ago.

  She’d been so upset, wounded, her voice torn up, her words so harsh. He’d forced that kiss on her. God. She hadn’t wanted it at first. But he couldn’t help himself, he needed to touch her so he didn’t fall on his face, and he nearly had anyway. She’d been staying with Hamish all this time, what did he expect?

  It’d been tempting to hang out for longer, but she wasn’t going to call. He could’ve gone back to the house but that would be cruel. He’d heard her loud and clear. He could’ve phoned Hamish, but he couldn’t bear the thought of hearing victory in his voice. Georgia didn’t want him in her life. So here he was, sitting across the bar from Angus as he set up for opening, fuzzy-headed and emotionally trashed.

  “If your hangdog expression is anything to go by, you’re feeling more than jet lag? You want something stronger?”

  Tempting. He shook his head. Stronger was what he needed to be, but he wouldn’t get it from a bottle. “She didn’t want to know me.” But she’d kissed him back, like he was her missing sunlight. He needed to stop thinking about that and focus on how tight and hard her voice was, how much rage there was in the way she pushed him away.

  “That’s a shit, man.”

  He sipped. “I brought it on myself. I broke us. And the ex-husband might be all right, worked out his stuff. She’s staying with him. Not impossible they’d get back together.”

  “Shit.”

  “I get lucky with the cancer. I get to keep a voice. I get the dog.” He looked down to where Mel was lying at his feet. “I don’t get the girl. I was never going to get the girl anyway. That wasn’t how it was going to go. You convinced me to try again, you and Heather, Jamie and Taylor.” He dropped his chin to his chest and spoke to his legs. “I should’ve listened to Sam. He called it. Said I’d wrecked it.”

  “We all should’ve listened to Sam.”

  He nodded. Turns out Sam could write songs. Songs that didn’t suck and suited Taylor. Almost an entire album of them.

  “What would you give up to have Georgia back?”

  He held his cup out for a refill. “Not coffee.” Angus took the cup, poured and put it back in the saucer. “What would you give up to keep Heather?”

  “No question, the bar.”

  “You’d be giving up a huge part of yourself. Would she want that?”

  Angus bumped around behind the counter in an annoyed fashion.

  Damon pressed. “Would she want you to be less than you could be?”

  A bottle got slung in a bin with a dull clink. “Quit with the hard questions. I thought you were brain dead?”

  “I could sleep for a week, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. Heather would want you to be the best, the happiest you can be because she loves you. If that’s without the Blink, fine. Taylor kept her secret because she thought it would make Jamie act against his best interest. She didn’t want him to have to choose something he didn’t plan on because he was cornered.”

  Squeak of a towel in a glass. “How does this relate to you?”

  He sighed. He’d had a lot of time to think, but living in his head for months hadn’t produced any answers. “Fucked if I know. I screwed it all up.”

  Angus laughed.

  “All I do know is I’m grateful every day for the fact you and I can sit and talk like this and I’m not speaking through a tube in my throat.”

  “There’s that.”

  “That’s major.”

  “Singing again would be major.”

  “I don’t have the range. I don’t have my character voices. They’re gone. I’m Vox after a hard night on the grog 24/7. Fortunately the entertainment world still wants me as a grumpy cat. I might have to learn to like the creepy things after all. And if that show doesn’t last more than a season, that’s what Avocado is for.” An alternate source of income, plus an outrageously vague new hope Taylor might record Sam’s songs.

  “The speech therapist said you were fit for duty.”

  “Spoken word, yes. But I don’t think I can sing. It’s pushing my luck.” Like he’d pushed it with everything; his sight, his career, Georgia.

  Angus poured something salty in a bowl, nuts or pretzels. “Since when did you play safe with luck?”

  He laughed. “Maybe since now.” The edge of the bowl slid against the back of his hand. He put his fingers inside it.

  “Should I be worried about that? I’m dead bored with being pissed at you.”

  He crunched a nut. “I get that.”

  Angus moved the bowl away. Performance art—pissed with nuts. “No you don’t. You don’t get it at all. You think being blind comes with a flip side of guilt. You need a little more consideration and because you get it, you feel like you’re indebted. Pucker up, man, it’s the same for the rest of us. Our disabilities just aren’t so obvious.”

  A wet cloth slapped the bar top. Angus was on a roll.

  “Look at Taylor, can sing like an angel but talk about self-sabotage. She never got over being the adopted kid, feeling unlovable. She’s mothered you something fierce since she first popped you with that potato gun and you told her she’d blinded you, and she did it because she didn’t think she was good enough to be your friend, thought she had to earn it. And that’s exactly what screwed her up with Jamie. Talk about never learning.”

  The cloth slapped down again. “Look at Sam, barely finished school, dyslexic, started Royal Flush because he didn’t think anyone with any sense would employ him. Never had a music lesson in his life, taught himself to drum and now he plays piano. The class bloody clown, wait till you hear the lyrics he’s written, so damn beautiful, they’ll make you want to gag.”

  “And Jamie?”

  Angus crinkled something, screwed the top on a bottle. “Think little brother has it together, at least now. Barely bothered by his asthma these days. Remember him as a kid, all those trips to hospital. All those times we nearly lost him. But what a flipping idiot. Too stupid to tell Taylor he loved her for all those years.”

  Damon could hear the smile on Angus’s face.

  “Heather?”

  “Is one hundred percent perfect, and I don’t want to hear another word about how she was once anorexic and is obsessed about food. Obsessed, like if it’s not green it’s going to take ten years off her life; like bring pizza into the house and she thinks she’s put on a dress size by the time you open the lid.”

  Damon smiled. He heard love, pride, obsession of another kind in Angus’ voice. And he was catching on. “And you?”

  “Not about me, mate.”

  “Right, because you have no hint of a disability.”

  “You wan
t to keep drinking at this bar, right?”

  “This bar, Moon Blink, the place you opened because you and book learning have a hate-hate relationship and you didn’t get into business school, and because you were a hopeless failure you figured you might as well just pour dumb drinks for a living? You’re wondering if I want to keep drinking at this bar, the business you run so efficiently, so sensitively it’s a case study in how to print money.”

  “I had help. You for the loan. Jamie for the books. If it weren’t for Taylor, or Heather…” And now Angus was catching on. “That’s the point, right.”

  Damon chomped on a nut. It was better to say nothing.

  “You know it’s just you and me here, no kitchen staff, no cleaning crew. I could smack you around and say you walked into a wall, who wouldn’t believe me?”

  Damon gestured to the floor. “Mel is a highly trained attack dog. One false move and your life is forfeit.” He had a suspicion she was asleep.

  “You do know she’s snoring.”

  They both laughed. “You really want to hit me, don’t you?”

  “I really do. Heather won’t let me, even though she still blames you for the tattoo.”

  “Whipped.” He tossed a nut in the air tried to catch it in his mouth. It pinged off his shoulder and flew off somewhere. “I had nothing to do with it being so lame.”

  “It’s a sprig of heather, it’s not lame.

  “Mate, the tattoo artist laughed at you.”

  “Bloody hell, I want to hit you.”

  He waved his hand. “Bring the nuts back first and can we change the subject?”

  “Yeah, let’s do that. What are you doing about Georgia?”

  “Nuts.” The bowl brushed the back of his hand. “You mean other than flying for twenty-two hours to tell her I’m sorry, I had life altering surgery, wasn’t right in my head about that, and I’d give up my voice to get her back.”

  “Yeah, other than that.”

  “What are you suggesting?” He popped a pinch of nuts in his mouth.

  “How about something mega?”

  And nearly choked on them. Fantastic. Survive cancer, suffocate on a beer nut. Angus put a glass of what he hoped was water in his hand and he drank. “Oh God, just hit me, but not in the throat and stay away from the mouth.”

  “You’re telling me you’re done.”

  “Why would she trust me again?”

  Angus fussed around with glasses. “Good point. I see where you’re coming from. So the idea is to give up, because that’s the new take no chances you.”

  “Can we change the subject?”

  “So this studio, Jamie says it’ll be viable, maybe even profitable.”

  “With investment, cheaper premises, updated equipment. If I can get it staffed right.”

  “You’ve offered Georgia a job?”

  “No, I haven’t offered her a job. I offered her me and she didn’t bite. Not thinking she’d want any job that’s anywhere near me now.” Which meant the vague hope she might engineer Sam and Taylor’s album wasn’t even the threat of a flea in Mel’s coat.

  “Can’t fault your logic there either, but she wouldn’t be working for you, would she?”

  “No, for Trent in partnership with the original owners. They hired everyone else back. They’re good guys, just caught without enough operating capital. That’s Jamie speak. Sharing the premises and administration with Dalia’s theatre company was a great idea. Having Lauren around to help Dalia out with administration is a bonus. Without the big city rent overhead, they’ll do fine.”

  “Or Jamie will find you a bigger tax write-off.”

  Damon chewed a nut. “Or that.”

  “Which brings us back to singing.”

  “In no way does it do that.”

  “One night, one song. Hair of the dog.”

  “What’s with the dog references today? It wasn’t singing that gave me cancer.”

  “I know. I run a bar, it’s all about hair of the dog, particularly now we have Mel.”

  Mel gave a soft bark, she can’t have been that asleep. She buffed against Damon’s leg and he put a hand to her big flat chocolate head. They were still getting used to each other. But since Taylor moved in with Jamie it was good to have Mel in his life.

  “No.”

  “One night. Full orchestra.”

  “What do you mean full orchestra? Who are you, Simone Young?

  “Who?”

  “Famous conductor.”

  “Don’t care. I’m thinking chicks with strings, ivories, and a brass section.”

  “Brass section. Do you even know what’s in a brass section?”

  “Whatever I can scrounge up for free. I’ve always wanted to do it—the whole catastrophe. The bar is five years old. You survived cancer. Jamie and Taylor are the real deal. Sam has material to try out. Come sing, one song for one night. What does it matter if you’re terrible?”

  He might be terrible. Singing in a steamy bathroom was about as far as he’d taken things so far. “Orchestra?”

  “What we can fit up there.”

  The stage wasn’t that big, but the idea of singing with an orchestra, no matter how borrowed or ragtag was interesting; it made its way to the pleasure centre of his brain through the fog of jet lag, the dragging disappointment and the hollowness of failure. “One song.”

  “One song.”

  He shouldn’t push it. He was still healing, still needed to do his vocal exercises. Would always need to take extra care of his throat. He didn’t need the risk. He didn’t need to sing.

  “Tell me when you’ve got the brass.”

  36: Jupiter

  There was a banner stretched across the front of Moon Blink. Celebrate our 5th birthday with a full orchestra, and for one night only—The Voice—Damon Donovan returns. Dinner and drinks deal.

  So he was back. He didn’t stay in London. He didn’t fly anywhere else after she sent him away.

  She wasn’t ready to see him.

  She only wanted to see the others, apologise for not being in contact, find out if Jamie and Taylor got it together, how Heather was doing at uni. Maybe ask a few questions about Damon to see how he was.

  She didn’t think he’d be here.

  She turned back the way she’d come, she’d go home to the flat where she’d start paying her own rent now, curse the dress, curse the heels. She could’ve worn jeans. What was she thinking? She’d glammed up for God’s sake. She’d put her hair up and worn dangly earrings.

  Of course she’d hoped he was going to be there.

  But now she wasn’t ready to see him and certainly not to hear him sing. She’d stood in the house of her ex-husband and told Hamish she and Damon were finished, that she didn’t want him in her life. She’d rejected him as surely as he’d done her.

  She’d pick up takeaway and eat at the flat. She’d try this another weekend when she felt stronger. When she’d caught up with Trent, found a new job and…

  One night only?

  She’d gotten as far as the end of the street. What if he wasn’t going to be there again? What if he was about to go to LA? She looked back towards the bar, there was a crowd at the door. It’d be packed out. Good for Angus. She could slip in; find a corner to hide in. She needn’t see any of them. She’d done that once before, sat there anonymously, watched Damon, listened to him. It would be good to know how he sounded, if he could sing with his new voice.

  She could treat this like a professional assessment. It was engineering: mechanical, technical, measurable. No reason to feel threatened by it. Certainly no reason for the horrid rock and roll in her stomach.

  Oh God, she wanted to see him. Needed to. Just once more. Just to know, really know, he was all right. Cancer of the throat. It was a warm night but she still shivered. He had to have been terrified.

  She heard the music before she recrossed the street as Moon Blink’s door opened to let more people in. If the guys were on stage, she might get away with being in the cro
wd and not get caught out. If Heather was there, she could say hello, leave her best wishes and come back later when she wasn’t so ridiculously uptight. She could make a lunch date with Taylor.

  She could phone Damon and set a time to see him, when she wasn’t so strung out.

  She was never going to phone Damon.

  Because if she had his voice in her ear, no matter what he sounded like, she’d give up her sanity to keep it there.

  She crossed the road and entered the bar, trying to act like smoke, ease her way in, be transparent and insubstantial. It was even louder inside. Standing room only. Perfect. She found a corner where she could see a good portion of the stage. No sign of Damon. Maybe she’d missed him. He might’ve opened, which would mean he was at the bar, or in the green room. She couldn’t see the bar for people. She could see the band and a cast of extras, a piano, violins and a saxophone, trumpets. Jamie out front, which was unusual. He was singing John Legend’s All of Me.

  She craned her neck and looked for Taylor. Found her at the side of the stage, eyes locked on Jamie, the expression on her face characteristically fierce, except she was smiling. Jamie was singing for her. It looked like they’d worked it out. Taken a risk on each other. She knew she wasn’t leaving till she found out.

  As the song ended, Taylor moved back to centre stage. Jamie leaned in to her, but she pushed him away, laughing; turning her head, she smiled off to the side. Georgia followed her line of sight. Damon, sitting on a tall stool in the shadows. Her knees locked.

  Taylor sang the first lines of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball and Georgia flattened herself against the wall, because seeing Damon made her feel like she might shatter.

  He wore black suit pants, a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the neck and chest, the sleeves rolled up his forearms. He had his sunglasses on, all effect, all cool and suave, untouchable, at least for her, because she couldn’t trust him, couldn’t trust herself not to want to start up all over again, and then where would she be if his cancer came back, if he was bitter about his career, or something else went wrong, and he pushed her away again.

  She hadn’t known how to leave Hamish and she was never truly in love with him. She wouldn’t survive having and losing Damon again.