August—Los Angeles
Maeva scans her paintings as the man in the hipster sweater yammers to her about brushstroke articulation. The walls around her are a deep matte black, twisting and winding like a maze around her illuminated canvases. The lights are smoky, mysterious, playing around the colors and the shapes in the paint. Her eyes circle back to the one at the east side of the room—deep blue, painted in churning starbursts and shimmering with bits of gold. The tag underneath it reads Poison Storm by Maeva Leroux, on loan from Corin Olivier. She nibbles the inside of her lip as the memory of his kiss fills her mouth. Glimpses of that painting—between kisses in her studio, and then hanging over his paper-strewn piano.
"...and the way you display the emotions so clearly in the brushstrokes," the hipster man is out of breath, "it's amazing."
Maeva almost laughs out loud. Her, expressing emotion in her paintings.
Instead she smiles, "I know, thank you."
She shifts her hair over her bare shoulder and laughs around the rim of her champagne glass.
"So what's your technique for that?"
"I don't particularly have one, it just spills out of me."
Maeva frowns at the piece above them, something she had painted after scraping her knee, and then cocks her head at the hipster man, "so what emotions do you see in this one?"
His entire face brightens as he looks at the red and ivory canvas in front of him, "I see love, in the way it arches and curves so softly."
Now she cannot keep quiet—her lips part and a little laugh pops out. He turns his bright face back to hers.
"What? Am I wrong?"
"Of course not," Maeva shakes her head, "we only view art through the lens of our own psyche. Here, come with me."
He follows like an excited puppy as her heels click along the glossy marble floors, through the labyrinth of the gallery to the very back, where a soft, whipped looking pink and red painting is lit with dainty lights like falling stars.
"And what about this one?"
"I think it looks blissful, and light. Like one of those rare moments where everything is perfect and all the problems inside you have just evaporated."
Maeva looks at him with both of her brows raised. Not in the pointed way she would if he had said something stupid, but softly, because she finds herself impressed. He doesn't notice though, stuck on the canvas in front of him.
"This is a much lighter piece than your usual," he says, "what were you doing when you came up with it?"
A frown taps a crease into her forehead, "I was—"
She is cut off by the familiar hammer of platforms. Saria is sprinting up behind her, a cell phone buried in her curls. Maeva and the hipster man turn as Saria comes screeching to a halt.
"You have an urgent call," Saria gasps.
"From who?"
"Um, that...who has the blue eyes—oh, Corin, the singer."
Maeva's arched brow sinks into a frown as she snatches the phone and plugs her free ear, "this had better be glorious, why the fuck are you—"
"Maeva..." Corin whispers on the other line.
Her name trembles in the back of his throat, and there is an immediate click of dread in her mind.
"Where are you?"
Saria and the guy in the sweater are watching curiously, but she ignores them, her brain whirring. Corin takes a deep breath. His voice doesn't change.
"L.A."
"Corin, if I get the slightest feeling that you're stalking me—"
"You're here too? I didn't...we have a show tonight. And tomorrow, and..."
He sucks in a coarse breath, and then another, and then another. She can see him in her mind's eye, curled in a corner, hyperventilating, and clutching his head as whatever it is that drowns him unfolds inside.
She closes her eyes and works the panicked fingers free of her chest, "listen to me. You cancel your show tonight."
"No—"
"You cancel your show tonight," she repeats, "tell them Alex overdosed or Quentin has alcohol poisoning for all I care. What venue are you at?"
"The Glass House."
"You had better not be on stage when I get there," she snaps, lifting the phone from her ear.
The last thing she hears is him telling her not to bother when she shuts the phone. Saria is at the ready when Maeva looks at her.
"I need a different top, different shoes, and my car. You have five minutes. After I'm gone, tell the gallery owners I had to leave and field the rest of my sales—I trust you know how to do that now?"
"Yes, yes," Saria turns and clicks away, murmuring under her breath, "world renowned, award winning artist. Full price or go fuck yourself."
Maeva watches her go and kicks back the last of her champagne. She swallows it slowly, washing all the stress in her body down with the bubbles. Finally she sighs, and the guy in the sweater shifts his weight. She smiles at him and walks away before he can say anything else.
It takes her another two minutes to get back to the entrance, where her car is idling beside Saria. She is folding a soft cropped shirt on top of a pair of Converse. Maeva thanks her and sends her back into the gallery before getting behind the wheel and driving.
The venue is across downtown from the gallery, a ten minute drive with clear roads, a thirty minute drive with the inevitable traffic. Every time she is stopped, Maeva bites her lip and looks at her phone in the cup holder. She worries that he might hurt himself by the time she gets there, but she doesn't call, just hopes.
The Glass House is more than alive with the crowd screaming at the empty stage. Eurydice, Eurydice, Eurydice they wail, or Corin, or Alex, or Quentin, Nathaniel, Cameron. Maeva brushes by the front entrances and the tour buses and finds her way to the back.
"Band members only," the guard folds his arms.
"Maeva Leroux?" She shows him her license and he leads her backstage.
It is crowded with groupies and roadies and equipment, stinking of alcohol, weed—and if she is not mistaken—cocaine. No heroin though. That lightens something in her chest as she follows the bouncer through the crowd. There is no end in sight to the bodies. More than a few people recognize her, but the bouncer waves them off at the first light of socialization that crosses their faces.
They finally break free into another room. This one is quiet, even more amps and speakers and microphones, spare guitars and cymbals in cases; a pile of water bottles, beers, and syrupy juices stacked at the edge of the stage entrance. The bouncer stands by the door as Maeva ventures further into the dim room, teetering in her heels around cords and laid down mic stands. She finds Corin burrowed between two speakers. His arms are wrapped around his knees and his head is knocked back on the wall behind him. He is not hyperventilating anymore though. His hands are trembling as he takes deep breaths.
"Wrists. Now," she kneels in front of him.
He turns his storming blue eyes on her and turns his hands over. She scours the dragons inked into his skin, where they fade over the veins in his wrist and twist up his forearms. His tendons are pulled tight, but when she touches his skin it is dry and undisturbed.
"Good, no hospital visit," she makes a put upon sigh that secretly reeks of relief, and sits more comfortably in front of him, "are you alright?"
"I feel better, after I cancelled the show," he closes his eyes, "I'm not thinking about how I could kill myself anymore."
"Then what are you thinking about?"
"It's more a feeling. This sick, dark, slimy feeling. It makes my body heavy, but hollow at the same...I don't know."
"Did something bring it on?" She follows the familiar string of questions, "what were you thinking about when it started?"
"No specific moment. I was just thinking about our shows here, the next cities and states and our songs. It started small this afternoon, I thought I'd be able to shake it off. But the more I tried, the bigger it got. And here I am."
He looks at her with an ocean of pain in his eyes. She has no idea why he hurts, something in her doubts he does either. But she certainly knows what accelerates it.
"You already cancelled your show, go do something relaxing tonight. Read a book, get a hotel room and binge watch something, whatever. Just get away from all of this," she motions to the venue.
He bites his lower lip as he considers. When he slides it free of his teeth, it is rosy. She glances at it before meeting his gaze.
"Would you go for a drive with me?" He says softly, prepared for her to tell him to piss off.
She looks at him for a long time. His hard features and soft lips and burnt gold collarbones. Wonders if this will end the same way it did the last time. Something inside her flutters at that thought. A much rarer, empathetic thread chastises her for thinking that way when he very well could have been dead tonight.
She sets her keys on his knee, "just let me change first; we can take my car."
"Alright," he catches her thumb as she stands, "thank you Maeva."
"Don't bother with that."
She ignores the way her fingers brush the lace ribbon tied around his wrist. Five months and it is still there.
"Are you alright to drive, or should I?" She ducks behind a speaker to get out of her shirt.
"I'll be fine. I feel a lot better after talking about it."
"You always seem to. Wonder why that is?"
"Cleans me out I suppose. Makes everything real and malleable if someone else hears it."
"You are such an extrovert. Thank god," Maeva sighs as she pulls her bra over her head and tosses it aside.
"What?"
"I've been dying to get out of that bra for hours."
She slips into her extra shirt, and after a moment of thought, closes two more of the buttons. Neither of them needs the temptation.
When she comes out from behind the speaker, she finds Corin has neatly folded her shirt and her bra. Something about that wiggles intimately through her stomach. She shakes her head and picks them up.
He arches a brow at her leather leggings and soft cropped henley, "you look ready to go clubbing."
"All of my other pants are at my hotel, I'm lucky I had a shirt or shoes," she slips into her converse, "I'm parked out front, which hell should we try?"
He looks between the party room and the stage, "neither, come on."
They slink out a side door into the parking lot. Corin stops at the corner of the building to scout the parking lot. Maeva looks over his shoulder. There is a growing puddle of concert goers outside the door.
"Which car?"
"The Audi on the far side," she whispers, finding the glint of its headlights in the shadows.
Corin sighs, "shit, alright. We're going to walk slowly and hope they don't notice. Ready?"
He turns his bright eyes over his shoulder. The pain deep inside them is layered over with a glimmer of fun. That stark contrast only makes the worry at the back of her head grow. But she nods, and they stroll out into the lot. She takes a deep breath and tries to release her tension. It is short lived, because the moment they cross from the shadows into the light, she can feel the eyes training on them. Someone shouts, another points, and then the dreaded sound of moving feet. Corin looks at her with panicked eyes. His hand snatches her after him, and they sprint across the concrete to the car.
She leaps into the passenger seat, eyes flicking between him, rushing to turn the car on, and the fans, closing in with rabid expressions. Her hand goes to his shoulder before she can think about it, squeezing her panic into his tense muscles. The engine roars to life, and he screeches out onto the road.
Only when they have left the venue far behind, does she peels her fingers from his shoulder. There is a long silence. And then Corin is laughing. He tilts his head back against the headrest and laughs his ass off. It is a glorious, shimmering sound, like golden bubbles. Maeva watches him, and thinks about painting it.
"God that felt so good. I'm horrible, but I feel so much better," he pushes his hair back and smiles at her.
She smiles a little bit back, "good."
She doesn't let herself stop worrying. The gorgeous laughter and his sparkling eyes make it tempting. But she keeps him hyperventilating on the phone close to the front of her mind. Keeps the vague memory of him giggling and hyperactive even closer. The moods are never far enough away, and on a night like this, he could be gone at any moment.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, I'm fine," she leans on the window, "I worry about how quickly your mood has shifted. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Completely sure," he says, "this is exactly what I needed—to escape for a while. Thank you for lending me your car. I like it."
"Don't thank me," she watches the city buzz by, "not for this."
Corin looks after her like he doesn't know what she means, but no question comes. He just looks at the road and maneuvers out of the traffic-packed city as quickly as he can. The speedometer jacks up the second they reach an open road, chasing their headlights and the glitter of the ocean under the moon. He doesn't talk, and Maeva doesn't push, content to let him work his head out with the pedals and the wheel. His right hand is wrapped around the shifter, habits from driving a stick most of the time. Maeva remembers laying her hand over his, tracing those perfect black lines on his skin as they had chased a different ocean, on a different continent, the sun gleaming on his easy grin. The ribbon around his left wrist flutters. She leans out the window and lets the wind catch her hair.
The dash clock ticks, the half-moon shifts, and Corin drives faster, faster. So fast Maeva can no longer tell the difference between the water and the horizon, a two lane or single lane road. She looks at him through her eyelashes. His jaw is popping and he grips the steering wheel with paled knuckles, the shifter the same. She knows the look in his eyes—trying to clean out his thoughts, failing, growing darker and lonelier and closer to the edge, so much closer.
Her eyes fall to his hand. She hesitates, considering the potential consequences of an intimate touch. It takes thirty seconds to decide what is more important.
Corin startles as she wraps her hand around his.
"Take a break," is all she says.
He takes a deep breath and relaxes his hands on the wheel. Maeva holds his hand on her lap.
"Are you still going to therapy?"
He shakes his head, "not for most of the last year. I was referred to a new psychiatrist after my regular one retired, and I hated him. He kept telling me my problem was drinking and being on tour all the time and the sort of music I wrote. He re-diagnosed me with three different disorders and put me on all this medication...I was literally on my ass, which only made me worse, which meant more medication. So I left after about three months. And I was doing really well until tonight."
"Are you taking any medication?" She looks at their hands. Silvered porcelain on gold washed wood.
"My regular doctor and I did some experimenting and found a low dose anticonvulsant that works really well for me," He shrugs, "we tried some more intensive things, but if I take anything more than half doses, I'm going to relapse."
She pulls back a shudder, remembering what that looks like. She looks out the window and toys with his thumb.
"Can you still not take painkillers?"
"I can actually take a half dose of Tylenol now. I try to only take it for big things though, if I hurt myself on stage or something."
"Really?" She says, "that's a big improvement, you should be proud of yourself."
"Oh, I was. Nate thought I was going to write a ballad. Alex though, he threw a party on our bus, he was ecstatic."
Maeva looks back out the window, words held behind her teeth for a long moment. Finally, she gives his knuckles a squeeze.
"I'm proud of you."
His eyes meet hers with shimmer of disbelief. And then he very carefully brings her hand to his lips.
"Thank you. That means a lot from you."
She just gives him a small smile, not trusting herself to say anything. Silence falls comfortably between them as Corin hits the gas and returns to untangling his head. Maeva wrestles away springtime memories of his lips on her hand, just as they had been, in a recording booth instead of a car.
She returns the image to the box just as the car sails into a little boardwalk town. Corin slows to the appropriate speed limit, making the world visible again. There is a beachfront hotel, a strip mall of stores and restaurants, and on the corner, a dimly lit bar with a flickering blue sign in the window.
Corin hits the brakes as he reads it, "they have karaoke," his grin is like Christmas.
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A/N: Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts--please comment!
Song Credits: None