Page 114 of Only After We Met
I caught a bit of secondhand smoke and coughed. “London. You?”
“Me too,” he smiled. “So you’re Rhys’s best friend? Or so he told me. How’d you meet?” He took another drag of his cigarette, not letting me go.
“Long story.”
“I love long stories!” Emily shouted.
“Yeah, okay…well… I’d just broken up with my boyfriend, and I wanted to do something crazy, so I caught a plane to Paris. And I was trying to get a ticket for the subway, and… Rhys just appeared.”
“So then what happened?” I noticed Emily wasn’t wearing underwear when she crossed her legs in that tight fuchsia miniskirt.
“Mmm… We spent the whole night walking around Paris…”
“Who’d have ever guessed Rhys was so romantic?”
Alec laughed and everyone else went along.
“That’s not what I meant. We just became friends.”
“You look tense.” Alec massaged my right shoulder. “What do you want to drink? Bean, go find a server. I don’t know what the deal is, but we haven’t seen him over here for ten minutes,” he growled, looking at the empty glasses on the table.
“Look, Rhys just started,” Gina said.
I could feel a thumping in my chest, and I stood up and walked toward the railing with a smile on my face as I looked at the booth across from me. He was inside wearing his headphones, staring down at his mixing table, as the first notes blasted, slow, subtle, rising.
It was magical. Addictive. Absorbing. The way he moved his hands, the way he concentrated on what he was doing, isolated from the rest of the world, even if he was surrounded by hundreds of dancing people. I don’t know why, but as I watched him, I wanted to cry. From emotion. But also from something else…
Something deep, without a name…
“Fascinating, right?”
I flinched as I heard Emily’s voice next to me. I nodded, distracted, and accepted a drink from her, taking a sip. It was a little strong.
“He’s good,” I said.
“He’s better than good. This is just the beginning.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to be big. Trust me. Soon he’ll be swimming in cash, he’ll be at all the big festivals, and people will stop him in the street to ask for his autograph.”
I was about to ask aloud the question that was swimmingthrough my mind, but in the end, I kept it to myself.What doesbigmean?How could someone describe their goals and dreams with words like that? My eyes were fixed on Rhys, on how absent he seemed, or lost in himself, as the colored lights flashed around him.
Not that I didn’t want somethingbigfor him… But I couldn’t stop thinking about all thelittlethings that might be lost on the way. The things that shaped a person’s life. Things that glimmered less, but were full of smiles and love, emotions that added color to everyday life…
I don’t know how long I stood there entranced by him, trying to soak him in. When he was done, I was still standing there, my hair on end, a knot in my throat. I turned and saw Alec cutting lines of cocaine with the edge of his credit card on the table.
He looked up at me with a devilish grin.
“Save you one, babe?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” I sat down.
Uncomfortable. Nervous. Feeling out of place after my feelings had carried me away when I’d seen Rhys in the booth. Emily bent over one of the lines, holding a tiny tube, and inhaled.
Alec looked back at me when she was done. “You sure? It’s good stuff.”
Rhys appeared in the doorway before I could say no again. He looked first at me, then at the table, then narrowed his eyes.