Chapter 10

　　She put the second bud into her ear and listened through the track twice as he careened through the traffic, dodging lanes into spaces that she would never have attempted in his haste to get to the recording studio on time. She took an ear bud out. “Only the one song?” She asked.

　　“There are four, but the first one is the main one,” he replied. “If you are confident that you have got that one, keep going.”

　　“Mmm,” she left the one earbud in and started the track again, waiting until the point where the backing vocals came in, and joined them, her voice filling the cab of the car and blocking out the horns and traffic around them. It was, she thought, like being back in university, practising a song together on their way to a gig or wedding they had been hired to play for.

　　“You are better than Cordelia,” he said with satisfaction when the song finished.

　　“She is very accessible though as a singer and has a good repertoire for weddings,” Emily stated numbly, her mind immediately tracking back to why they had hired Cordelia and skipping over every unpleasant thing in between. She might be a better singer than Cordelia, but she, Emily, was not enough for Owen. “I love you, but I don’t think I am in love with you,” he had told her.

　　“Yeah, but she is a flake,” he was angry that Cordelia had cancelled. “But it is for the best,” he added in an offhanded way. “I always write with your voice in mind, anyway.”

　　“You do?” She was touched. Don’t, Emily, she pleaded with her heart.

　　He flicked her a look under his eyelashes, and then became distracted by the traffic as it began to queue up again ahead of them. “Shit, where is it? Ah, there.” He switched lanes, flipping the car behind him the middle finger as they blasted their horn. Emily looked up with interest as they pulled off the road and into a carpark.

　　The recording studio was a big square of a building formed of industrial cinder block bricks painted in black and grey, with an emblem on the side in neon colours that looked like an alien language to her. They had parked to the rear, where a ramp led up to a double door. There was a red light over the door, currently off.

　　“There are the guys,” Owen exclaimed, excitedly, as he pulled on the park brake and turned off the car. “I will go say hello if you want to run through the other tracks quickly. We are actually early,” he laughed, a little manically, on edge from nerves. “It is a miracle.”

　　She sat in the car going through the tracks and the music, whilst he greeted the band members, and signed in at the door to the studio. They began to unload the van, making treks to and from with a flat-trayed trolley, collecting drums, guitars, amps, and keyboard. Every time she glanced up - they were making another trip.

　　Owen signalled for her to join him during the last trip, and she removed the earpieces, and slung her laptop bag over her shoulder as she left the car, hearing it beep locked behind her as Owen activated the key.

　　“This is Em,” he said to the men as they walked towards the double doors. There were only the four of them, including Owen, which made her wonder what all the extra people who had been coming and going from the house next door were there for. Owen draped his arm over her shoulders as she came to stand behind him, the action both habitual and proprietary.

　　“Hi,” she said, uncertainly. She thought she recognized some of them from the times she had snooped through her front window, but her focus had always been on Owen and if there was a woman with him, and not the other people around him, so the recognition was vague.

　　They looked like normal men in their mid-to-late twenties about to go to the pub, she thought. A little more dishevelled, perhaps. Their hair was overgrown in the same manner as Owen’s had been getting over the last few months, and their faces just slightly rough with stubble in the way men seemed to prefer, but which had always given her a rash when Owen had let his grow that way.

　　Their clothing was almost studied casual, the cuffs of jeans and sleeves rolled back, shirts over t-shirts, and everything untucked, as if they had just crawled out of bed and thrown on what was lying around in order to answer the door. It was, she thought, very much how Owen dressed now, a style she had decided to call Contrived Casual.

　　Was this how rockers dressed? She had imaged more leather. Like the jacket that Owen seemed to prefer over all else now, though he had left it in the car today, out of deference for the warmer weather.

　　“Hi,” the men seemed just as unsure about her as she was about them. She wondered what stories Owen and Cordelia had been telling, to make them look so dubious about her. The jealous ex, being difficult about everything, she thought with resignation. Considering everything that had happened, the way that Owen had ended their engagement and then slept with their wedding singer, she rather thought she had been very reasonable about everything. If she had been more like Megan, she would understand their trepidation.

　　“Thanks for like… helping us out today,” one of them, a little bolder than his companions, offered. He talked with his hands, shoving them back into his pockets in a self-conscious effort to contain the movement. A tall, thin man, with dirty-blonde hair that looked like it spent a lot of time in salt-water pulled back in a messy ponytail at the nape of his neck, and shoulders too wide for his narrow body, he reminded her of an adolescent boy who had just had his growth spurt and was yet to grow accustomed to his long limbs.

　　“Sure,” she said, trying for casual, but not succeeding. She was, she realised, incredibly nervous about meeting these people that were responsible for ending her engagement to Owen and held such important roles in his life now. Roles that she had once filled for Owen, and a life she was now only peripherally involved in.

　　“This is Two Way Street. Jeremy, the bass player, James the drummer,” Owen offered introductions, squeezing her shoulder encouragingly, “and Seb, the keyboardist.”

　　Seb was a pretty brunette man with stunning hazel eyes fringed with eyelashes she only achieved with magnetic falsies, the sort of almost androgynous good looks that underwear companies seemed to prefer for their models, and Sebastian was high-school footballer handsome, square jawed, clean shaven, with a grin enhanced by good orthodontics.

　　If nothing else, she thought, the band had the right aesthetics to get the young girl’s hearts pounding. A man for every taste, she smothered her smile, and then realised that Owen was was part of the package and would be featuring in as many girls’ orgasmic dreams as the other three men.

　　“Jeremy, James, and Seb,” she repeated. “I am probably not going to remember,” she apologised in advance.

　　“It is fine,” Owen assured her. “I will remind you. Shall we?” He indicated into the building with a jerk of his head.

　　The double doors led into a wide hallway, the carpet dark and the walls bare brick painted black, and decorated with framed posters of bands, presumably ones that had recorded there. Signatures and other graffiti covered the posters and walls alike, signatures and band names that “were here in xx/xx” seemed to dominate, she observed. She did not recognise any of the bands on the posters or signatures on the walls as she followed the men down the hall, into a small room.

　　It was a bland room, with the same dark carpet on the floor as the hallway. The walls were painted black as well – perhaps they had saved by buying paint in bulk, she thought sarcastically, recognising the dark tone as an attempt to be “on trend” and “edgy” - and mounted with panels of soundproofing foam. She could see the drumkit and other instruments had been set up, and a man in a black t-shirt with the emblem from the side of the building bright between his shoulder blades was arranging microphones.

　　“We are ready to test the mics,” he said, straightening. “If you wanted to run through a track whilst we wait for your manager?”

　　“Yeah, thanks,” Owen said. The men moved in eagerly, positioning themselves with their instruments. Their faces and movements held a combination of nerves and excitement, and they exchanged bright grins and pulled faces as they fidgeted with straps and strings.

　　“Here,” the man in the brand t-shirt paused by Em with a smile. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his facial hair was about a week advanced of the men in Owen’s band. She wondered if stubble was a uniform for men of the music industry. “I can take your things for you, and put them on the couch in the control room?”

　　“Thank you.” She set Owen’s ring tone to silent – he had not changed his pin code – and placed it inside her laptop bag with her own, before surrendering the bag to the man, keeping only the notepad, in case she needed to refer to the still unfamiliar lyrics.

　　“Here, Em,” Owen led her over to a microphone, his hands on her hips, his handling of her with familiarity at odds with their relationship as it was. He was also, she thought, handling her a lot more than he would normally, almost making a point of it. Was he… Marking his territory in front of his bandmates? That was a ridiculous thought, she dismissed it. “This will be you. Don’t look so worried. This is just a bit of fun to warm up, and make sure everything is right. Just, do you, and it will be fine.”

　　“Do I need headphones?”

　　“Not for this one,” he assured her. “Later, when we do single takes, yes.”

　　“I have no idea what that means,” she muttered, but positioned herself in front of the microphone, ignoring her racing heart and the craving for his body against hers that his handling had left behind him.

　　The assistants closed the door to the room, and the band settled themselves with their instruments, filling the room with their sounds as they made sure they were happy with the tuning and positioning. The dirty-blonde that she was pretty sure was James laughed brightly at something the pretty faced Seb said. Their eyes slid to her, and she felt a chill, realizing that the comment had been about her.

　　She faced the microphone determined to impress and wipe the grins off their faces.

　　“Right?” A voice asked over the speaker. “Give it a go, then.”

　　Owen counted them in, and the band began. They were good, Emily decided. It was not a surprise – she had been hearing them playing from next door for weeks now. But it was different being in the room with them playing. There was something exhilarating and wild about the beats, the volume, the combination of instruments, and energy, that being next door had not communicated to her.

　　She joined in with the backing vocals, and saw Owen grin at her, turning slightly towards her so that they sang to each other. He nodded, pleased with the sound, with a sexy slow grin as he crooned the lyrics of a love song towards her as if he sang to her. God, she thought as lust hit her hard and right where it counted, when had she become such a puddle of hormones? But then, when had he become so devastatingly gorgeous?

　　She could understand, suddenly, why Owen was so optimistic about the band. There was a certain sex appeal to the combination of the men, to the music, to the lyrics, that caught a woman right where it counted. She wanted to pretend that Owen sang those lyrics to her, and she imagined that every woman who heard him sing them, would have the same reaction.

　　“I want the lyrics of a love song,” he had told her, and she turned a little away from him as she sang to hide the pain that crossed her face at the thought. “I love you, but I am not in love with you.”

　　When the song finished, the men laughed. It took a moment for Emily to compose herself, and their laughter and excitement washed over her whilst her ears filled with white noise. The band was going to be a success, she thought, at least to some measure. This wasn’t a passing phase in Owen’s life, it was going to become his life.

　　“That was good,” the drummer, James, exclaimed. “She can sing.”

　　“She sings opera normally,” Owen told him. Emily realised that they were talking about her, and recalled herself, smiling as she turned to join the conversation.

　　“No way,” Jeremy pulled a face.

　　“Yeah, go on,” Owen said to Emily, raising his eyebrows in encouragement.

　　“I was only ever a student,” She laughed, letting herself be caught up in their excitement. “But okay.” She sang the beginning of L’ho perduta.

　　“Shit,” James whistled in appreciation. “That is a set of lungs.”

　　The speaker activated again. “Sorry I am late, guys,” a man said. “But it was good timing, anyway, as you have warmed up. Who is the soprano?”

　　“This is Emily,” Owen said, moving over to Emily’s side and slinging his arm around her shoulder with a squeeze. “Cordelia called in sick. Emily’s been a good sport, and ditched work to come and sing for us.”

　　“I like her. I really like her. The opera is a unique aspect, and she fits your aesthetic better. Okay, shall we run through it again, this time recording?”