Текст книги "Six of Hearts"
Автор книги: L. H. Cosway
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Twelve
The spotlight travels from Jessie on the stage, down the centre of the audience, to the back of the room. Every single person’s gaze follows the light until it lands on Jay, standing casually at the back of the audience, holding Ellen and Portia, his two white doves.
He waves to the audience, and then the spotlight goes out completely, plunging us all into darkness again. A second later it comes back on, this time shining on the far right-hand corner of the stage, where Jay is now standing, sans doves. Okay, how on earth did he get there so quickly? It seriously can’t be possible.
My mind is boggled.
The song has ended now, and the crowd is cheering louder than ever. When it quietens down, Jay looks to his wrists, where the broken handcuffs still hang.
“You know what,” he says, looking to the audience, “these are beginning to chafe a little. Anybody got the key?”
“You swallowed it,” somebody shouts at him from the back.
Jay scratches his head and looks confused. “Oh, yeah, I did, didn’t I? Shit, that was a bad move. Hey, are you all sure none of you have it?” His eyes land on me, and I jump a little. Up until this moment, I’d felt invisible from my place amid the crowd, but Jay’s gaze alone makes me feel illuminated.
“Hey, you in the purple,” he calls to me with a knowing smile. “Have you got a key?”
I shake my head no, already planning to give him an earful later for singling me out, when I hear something jingle. I reach up to the side of my face, all of a sudden aware of a heavy object pulling on my earlobe. My hand comes to the object, and I feel it. Oh, fuck me. This can’t be the key for the handcuffs. He swallowed it, or at least that’s what it looked like. It’s not possible for it to have gotten on my ear. It just isn’t.
The spotlight lands on me, along with every pair of eyes in the place, as I feel the key hanging from an earring hook on my ear. Jay makes his way off the stage and comes toward me. I lift the key up for everyone to see, and they all start clapping. Jay stands in front of me, holding his cuffed wrists out as he bends down and asks, “You wouldn’t mind doing the honours, would you?”
His breath whispers over my skin and I swallow hard, starting with his left wrist and unlocking the cuff. It falls free as I go to undo the other one. Jay comes closer and gives me a quick, light peck on the cheek, whispering, “Thanks, Watson.” His mischievous grin is still in place.
“You told me not to wear earrings. You planned this,” I whisper in reply.
“Did I?” he asks before turning and hopping back up onto the stage.
I glance at Michelle, and she’s wearing a delighted smile.
“Okay,” says Jay as he walks to centre stage. “I guess you all read some stuff about me in the press lately.”
“Fuck The Daily Post!” some drunken man shouts from the bar.
Jay chuckles. “Yeah, fuck ’em.”
“You can fuck me any time, Jay!” a very enthusiastic woman yells.
That’s the thing about heckling, even the positive kind. Once one person does it, they all start.
Jay looks over to where the woman is sitting with her friends. He doesn’t say anything, just smiles and gives her a flirty wink. On the inside I’m like, That’s my flirty wink. Jealousy rears its ugly head, but I stuff it away. I imagine half the people in here want to make Jay the same offer that woman did. My jealousy would be futile.
Jay continues, clearing his throat, “But in all seriousness, I want to thank each and every one of you for not believing the lies, having faith in me, and coming here tonight.”
There are shouts of encouragement and clapping. Jay waits for it to trickle out before going on, “So, I should probably move onto the next part of the show. As Mr Jerry Burke, who has the good grace to write me truly delightful ten-page ranting emails every week would say, ‘I’m gonna use my godlike super mind-reading skills to mess with your heads a little.’”
Laughter rings out, and I wonder if Jerry Burke is a real person. If he is, it sounds like Jay attracts his fair amount of crazies.
“Okay, I need three volunteers, and my nice assistant Jessie here is going to pick them for me.” Jessie walks out from the side of the stage and heads for the audience. She walks along the rows and selects two women and a man. After she leads them up onto the stage, Jay greets each of them before handing them a white sheet of card, an envelope, and a Sharpie pen. He tells one of the women to write down the name of her favourite band, the other woman to write down the title of her favourite book, and the man to write the title of his favourite painting.
“Once you’ve written them down, I want you to put the cards inside the envelopes and seal them up,” says Jay, going over to the corner of the stage and returning with a small metal lock box. It’s got a narrow slit opening on the top, and each of the volunteers slides their envelopes in. Jay carries the box right to the edge of the stage and sets it down.
“I’m going to leave this here where you all can see it. For the duration of the show, nobody’s going to be able to touch it, so there’s no way I can find out what’s been written. However, I promise you that by the end of the night I’ll have figured out what’s inside those envelopes. Deal?” he says, offering his hand and shaking with all three of them in turn.
They go back to their seats, and Jay carries on with more tricks. The first involves getting a man up onto the stage and hypnotising him into believing he’s gained the superpower of invisibility and can do whatever he wants with no consequences. He heads straight for the bar, helping himself to free drinks and some money out of the cash register.
After Jay has woken him up from the hypnosis and thanked him, the man returns to his seat. I think he must remember what he did because he looks a little sheepish. Jay walks to one side of the stage and calls on one of the women who’d volunteered with the envelopes earlier. Her names is Rhona.
“Hey, Rhona,” says Jay. “I’m feeling kind of generous right now and I want to give you a little gift. Would you take a look in your purse for me? See if there’s anything in there that wasn’t before?”
Rhona looks excited and nervous all at once as she rummages through her red leather handbag. A moment later she pulls out a small brown envelope. “Shall I open it?” she asks shyly.
“Be my guest,” says Jay, coming to sit at the edge of the stage, resting his chin casually on his hand. “Show us all what’s inside.”
I crane my neck to see as she holds up what looks like a pair of tickets. “It’s concert tickets for Kings of Leon,” she exclaims.
“Is that the same band you wrote down on the card and put in this box?” he asks, pointing to the box in question.
“Yes,” she answers happily. “Amazing! Wow, thank you.”
Jay stands. “My pleasure. Okay, that’s one down, two to go. You know what, it’s way too fucking hot in here. I think I’ll take this off.” He proceeds to remove the vest he’s wearing, and the place practically erupts with whistles and catcalls. Some of them come from Michelle sitting right beside me. I eye her and she mouths what?, unable to keep the smile off her face.
God. Nobody looks better than Jay without a shirt on. He’s turned with his back to the audience, and at first I think it’s just more tattoos, but it’s not. There, painted onto his skin, is an exact replica of The Scream by Edvard Munch. Applause mixes with the catcalls.
“What is it?” Jay asks playfully. “Is there something on my back?”
The man who’d volunteered stands up. “You’ve got my favourite painting drawn on you, the one I wrote down on the card.” His jaw is slack, like he can’t believe it.
“That’s two down now,” says Jay, looking to the final volunteer where she’s sitting in the second row, a woman named Becky. “I’m coming for you next, Becky, so watch this space.”
She giggles, and Jay hops over to the other side of the stage, preparing his next piece.
I know it’s the obvious question, but how the hell does he do it? He’d have to have that painting drawn on him in advance of the show, which means he needed to know the answer before any of the volunteers were ever asked the question. Either he somehow planted the idea in the man’s head to write down that painting, or he really does have godlike super minding-reading skills, as Jerry Burke, the nutty fan claims.
As it turns out, guessing the favourite book of the last volunteer is the big finish. Jay went off stage for a moment, and now he walks back on, scratching his head. I’ve come to learn that this is how he pretends to be confused, when really everything is going exactly the way he wants it. I guess other people don’t know this because they haven’t spent as much time studying him as I have, which I’m sure he’d find disconcerting if he knew.
“Crap, Becky,” Jay says. “I still haven’t gotten you yet, have I?”
Becky shakes her head. She looks a little disappointed. Perhaps she was hoping she’d get a gift just like Rhona and her concert tickets. Jay pulls a small book out of his back pocket and lifts it up. “It’s not The Catcher in the Rye, is it?”
Becky’s brow furrows. “Um, no, that’s not what I wrote down.”
Jay throws the book aside and bites his lip. “Lord of the Rings?”
The place is quiet, and Becky shakes her head again, lifting her glass and taking a sip of her drink.
“Hey, it looks like there’s something in your glass, Becky. Can you see that?” He points.
Becky squints at her glass before fishing out an ice cube. She’s sitting in the row directly behind me, and it looks like something’s been frozen inside the ice.
“Oh, my God,” Becky breathes.
“Crack her open for me, would you, Becks?” says Jay confidently.
Jerry Burke was right about one thing – Jay is godlike, and that god would be Loki, the trickster. Becky cracks the ice, discovering the thing inside is a folded piece of paper.
She unfolds it and gasps, “It’s the first page from Neverwhere. My favourite book!”
Applause fills the venue, and Jay comes down off the stage, going to thank Becky for taking part. He takes her hand in his and brings it to his lips for a kiss. She blushes. He’s such a charmer. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was beginning to think he might have a thing for me, but now I see that’s just the way he is with women.
Flirty.
He gets back on the stage, walks off, and walks back on, taking a bow. The clapping continues, and when he rises, he smiles wide before his body starts to shimmer and disappear. What the hell? Was that a projection? Then the real Jay walks out from backstage, taking the same bow the projection Jay just took. The cheering deafens me as I rise with everyone else to give him a standing ovation.
This might just be the best show I’ve ever seen.
The house lights come on, and people begin to gather their things, slowly exiting the venue or going to get one last drink from the bar.
“That was flipping amazing,” says Michelle. “My brain is hurting trying to figure out all those tricks. I think I just need to give up. The man is a genius.”
I rub at my arms, trying to get rid of the goose bumps, and they aren’t from the cold. Jay exudes charisma and sex appeal when he’s on the stage. It sort of leaves you feeling empty when the show is over.
“Yeah, he definitely thinks in a different way to the rest of us,” I say just as Jessie turns up.
“Hey. Did you enjoy the show?” she asks, all out of breath.
“Of course! I’ve never seen anything like it,” I exclaim as she links one arm through mine and the other through Michelle’s.
“Come with me, ladies. We’re having a small after-party backstage, and you’re both invited.”
Thirteen
Leading us past the staff doors behind the bar, Jessie brings us down a short corridor and into a VIP room with red walls, black velvet chairs, and glass tables. Jay is standing on the opposite side of the room, signing autographs for a bunch of Goth teenagers. The only other people are two men and an older woman who are sitting at a table having drinks and chatting animatedly. They’re dressed in black like Jessie, so I’m thinking they’re more members of Jay’s stage crew.
“Oh, come on, just tell us how you two did the change when Jay put on that scary mask,” Michelle urges, trying to get Jessie to reveal some secrets.
“You know what?” Jessie chuckles. “The fucker actually had me sign a contract for confidentiality, so I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to, babe.”
Michelle pouts, and Jessie asks her if she wants a drink. My friend tells her yes with a little too much of a flirtatious tone for my liking. Michelle is a great friend, but she’ll flirt with anyone who gives her compliments, male or female. I just hope Jessie is wise enough to see that.
I catch Jay’s eye just as he signs his last autograph and a bouncer comes to escort the teenagers from the room. He’s still topless and sweaty from the show as he strides over to me.
“I shouldn’t be speaking to you,” I say, poking him in the chest with my finger. It’s not an excuse to touch his bare, sweaty skin, I promise.
He chuckles, giving me an indulgent look. “Why not?”
“Because you made me a part of your act and never gave me any warning! You know I don’t like the attention.”
Now he wears a cynical, amused expression. “You loved it.”
“I did not,” I say firmly, folding my arms.
He steps closer now, looming over me, and he smells incredible. I hate that he smells incredible. His voice dips low when he takes my chin and lifts it so that I have to look him in the eye. “You fucking loved it.”
I pull away quickly. “Whatever. I’m going to get a drink.”
“Help yourself,” he says, following me as I locate a bottle of wine on a table full of drinks and start to pour. When I sit down at the table with everyone else, Jay slides in beside me, a whiskey in his hand. He still hasn’t gone to clean up or put a shirt on. Is he trying to kill me?
Jessie introduces me and Michelle to everyone else. They include Ger, the sound and light guy; Ricky, the stage coordinator; and Sharon, props and wardrobe. I feel Jay scoot a little closer as the conversation drifts around me.
I talk to Sharon for a while, interested in how she got into the whole wardrobe business. I’m actually a little jealous of her, to be honest. She has my dream job. Although Jay doesn’t have too many complicated outfit changes, so perhaps it would be my dream job if he decided to wear something a little more flamboyant. Let’s just say, if John Barrowman’s stylist up and quit, I would sell my left kidney to get the gig.
“You still pissed with me, Watson?” he asks after a while.
I roll my eyes and give him a smile as I slur, “No. I suppose I can find it in my heart to forgive you.”
“Are you drunk?”
Holding up my thumb and forefinger, I answer, “Just a little bit.”
He chuckles. “I’d better keep my eye on you, then, huh?”
I don’t answer. Can’t. There’s quiet between us before I break it. “I just don’t get how you can do all that stuff. I mean, how did you make the fire rise from your hands?”
Jay tilts head to me. “I’d like to hear your theory.”
I rub at my chin. “My guess would be that you had tubing somewhere on your body containing lighter fluid, and then flint somewhere else that helped you light it. But the flames were so big, so it had to be more powerful than that.”
His eyes crinkle at the sides as he smiles at me. “You know what my secret is?” he whispers and I perk up, eager for him to actually reveal something.
“I have an obsessive fixation with obscure science. Most people only care about the final result. They don’t think about the way things work. They don’t consider how their laptop manages to perform its tasks or how their fridge keeps their food cold – they just want a functioning computer and fresh food. That’s how I get ahead. I think about what I want to do…for example, make fire rise from the palms of my hands…and I work my way backward. Or sometimes I’ll be reading and come across an interesting fact, and I’ll come up with a way to make it work to my advantage.”
“I don’t think it’s as simple as you’re making out. Most people wouldn’t be able to do what you do, even if they did think backward. I know I couldn’t.”
“Well, I couldn’t design and make a dress that fits perfectly, so we’re even,” he says, clinking his glass with mine.
I cross my arms, happy with his compliment. Not many people know about my dressmaking, mainly because it’s such a solitary occupation, so it’s nice to get some props for my efforts. I imagine if my mum was still alive, she’d be proud that I’d continued on the skill she gave to me.
“So, tell me more. I want to know some obscure facts.”
“Well,” says Jay, lifting my hand and turning it over. He starts to run his finger along the veins on the inside of my arm, and I have to cover up a tremble. “If I said you were 60,000 miles long, I’d technically be telling the truth, because there are 60,000 miles of blood vessels inside your body.”
I scrunch up my mouth. “Really? Don’t tell me that. Now I feel squeamish. That’s a lot of veins.”
His eyes travel to my mouth, and he lifts his thumb to smooth out my lips. “You exchange more germs when you shake a person’s hand than when you kiss them,” he murmurs.
“Oh,” I whisper, having one of those crazy moments again when I think he might kiss me. Like always, though, he doesn’t. He seems to welcome the distraction when Jessie suggests that we all play a game of strip poker.
“Ha! No way am I playing that with you two,” I say, pointing between her and Jay. “I’ve seen you both shuffle a deck of cards, and it’s frightening how fast you are.”
“That’s right,” Jessie replies, grinning in Michelle’s direction. “I’ve got lightning fingers.”
Because I’m drunk, I imagine little lightning bolts shooting out of her hands, and it makes me chuckle to myself. I stop quickly, though, not wanting to come across like a creepy “laugh at my own private jokes” creeper.
Jay nudges me with his shoulder. “When have you seen me shuffle a deck?”
“In those videos I watched of you, remember?”
He seems pleased with that answer. “Be honest – you watch them every night before you go to sleep, don’t you?”
“I do not! I only watched them that one time.”
“Liar. You love watching me do my tricks. They’re like your own little version of porn. I bet you have a fucking great time watching my videos…in bed.”
I push him now, hard. “You’re trying to embarrass me, and it’s not going to work.”
“It’s already working.” He laughs, and I narrow my gaze at him. Quickly, I move and go to sit by Michelle, deciding I’ve had enough of the torture of interacting with Jay for one night.
The tiny after-party progresses, and soon I’ve lost count of how many drinks I’ve had. There’s loud music on, and I’m dancing with Michelle in the middle of the room. We’re doing a waltz to a song that was created for booty popping. My drunken brain is pleased by the irony. Our heels have long since been discarded as we prance around, barefoot. Michelle leads, dipping me down so low that my head collides with the floor. She pulls me back up quickly, laughing and apologising as I rub at my skull. I’m too drunk to feel the pain, though, which is a plus.
“Shit, sorry!” she exclaims past furious giggles.
“That’s it, sir!” I shout loudly in pretend outrage. “I no longer wish to be your dance partner.”
“Oh, no, but the cotillion is coming up next,” she replies, putting on a distraught face.
“You fool, you can’t dance a cotillion with just two people. Are you mad?”
I’d like to point out that we’re both currently putting on fake English accents, like we’re in a Jane Austen novel.
“You two are really fucking weird, do you know that?” Jessie says, holding a beer in her hand. Jay has been sitting in the same spot for most of the night, nursing the same drink and watching us with a smile. I can’t tell if he’s amused or just laughing at us, though. At least he finally decided to go and put a shirt on. The other members of his stage crew have gone home, so it’s just the four of us left.
“I think it’s time to call it a night,” he says, standing and collecting my things for me. “Jessie, you and Michelle get cabs, okay? You’re too drunk to drive. I’ll take care of Matilda.”
“Matilda would just love for you to take care of her, Jay,” Michelle says, trying to sound sexy in her drunken state but just sounding like she’s got a bad cough. I scowl at her, and she almost chokes on her laughter.
Ignoring her, Jay helps me into my coat and slides my handbag onto my shoulder. Then he grabs my shoes and goes down on one knee to help me into them, his warm touch on my foot making me think of the phrase “hot and bothered.” Yeah, that’s what he makes me. I wriggle all the while, giggling drunkenly and making his job more difficult.
He finally gets me out the door and into his car, which is parked at the back of the venue. Ushering me into the passenger seat, he straps on my seatbelt, and I’m vaguely aware of his knuckles brushing over my cleavage, but I’m not sober enough to enjoy it.
Damn you, wine!
I’m drunker than I’ve been in quite some time. I think the last time I was this shit-faced was during my eighteenth birthday celebrations, where I spent half the night face down on Michelle’s couch, unable to remember how I’d gotten there. Actually, no, I do remember. It was a bottle of cheap vodka from Aldi that got me there.
When we arrive at the house, Jay helps me out of the car, his arm around my waist as he walks us to the front door. He uses his key to let us in, and I walk to the stairs, holding onto the banister as I take my shoes off and fling them away.
“Stupid painful spikey things,” I yammer on, my head fuzzy.
Jay laughs softly as I put my unsteady foot on the first step. “Hey, let me help you, drunky,” he says, coming and wrapping his arm around my waist. It feels good, so I rest my head on his shoulder. He must realise that it’s going to take too long to get me to put one foot in front of the other, so he simply scoops me up like a bride on her wedding night and carries me.
“Wheee!” I squeal, then squeeze his bicep as we ascend. “You’re so strong, Inspector Holmes.”
“You sound impressed.”
“Well, you’re very…impressive.”
“Oh, yeah? How so?”
I shake my head and squeeze my eyes shut. “Ugh, just…everything.”
We reach my room, and he pushes open the door with his elbow, still not putting me down until we get to my bed. Then he lowers me onto the mattress. Somewhere along the way, my arms managed to wrap themselves around his neck, and they aren’t letting go. Instead I practically pull him down onto the bed with me, laughing hysterically when he lands on top of me.
“Ha! You fell,” I say loudly.
His hand covers my mouth as his chest moves up and down with suppressed laughter. “Be quieter, darlin’. You’ll wake your dad.”
I don’t have a response. In fact, my head is clearing quite rapidly with his hand still on my mouth. My eyes are glued to his fingers on my lips, and he must notice because he moves it then. My breathing becomes laboured at our closeness and the fact that we’re on my bed. He notices this, too, bringing his hands to my arms and trying to remove them from his neck. I remember his words from earlier, how he’d spoken about germs and shaking hands and kissing. I want to exchange some kissing germs right now. Really and truly, the germs wouldn’t bother me at all.
“You’ve got to let go, Matilda,” he says gently.
“I don’t want you to go,” I whisper.
He’s smiling and shaking his head. “You’ve had too much wine. Get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Just as he’s about to leave, I pounce, grabbing him and hesitantly pressing my lips to his. Fireworks, electricity, and explosive tingles fire through my system at the contact. His lips feel warm and soft and perfect against mine, and that’s when I realise how rigid his body has become. He lets out a sound that’s halfway between a groan and a growl before moving away. His mouth goes to my forehead, where he presses a soft, momentary kiss, and then he’s gone.
As though my body is just as eager to escape the humiliation as my brain is, I fall asleep almost immediately.
