Raze (Riven 3)

My gut tightened. He was beautiful. I wondered if I’d see his picture on a newsstand someday or hear his voice on the radio.

I tore my eyes away and focused on my to-do list: clean the faucet in the bathroom; patch the hole in the screen in the bedroom window; buy paper towels; find another breakfast idea to up my protein intake; start flossing after every meal instead of twice a day.

Then the items on my list that were less concrete. My sponsee Morgan was having a rough time. Their mother was dying and their siblings expected very specific things from them. The stress of the situation, compounded by their complicated relationship with their mother, had them in a vulnerable mindset. I was worried about them, and everything they’d said at today’s meeting had made me want to pick up the phone and decimate their sisters. Tell them that it was awful they were losing their mother, and maybe they should ease the hell off their sibling if they didn’t want to lose them too.

But it was nearly impossible to explain to people who hadn’t been there. To describe the way the solid ground beneath your feet could narrow to a trembling tightrope stretching across a gulf in the space of an hour, and how it could expand just as quickly back to what felt like ground.

The ground wasn’t the ground. The mind was the ground, and it was all we had. It was capricious and contingent. It was everything until it was nothing.

“Um, hey?”

I was crouched down rearranging the shelf beneath the bar, when I looked up to see a smiling cloud. Then I stood to my full height and the man wearing it tipped his chin up, eyes widening slightly in his flushed face.

I was used to the varied reactions to my size. Tall, broad, and heavily muscled as I was, people tended toward intimidation, aggression, or competition.

“Hi,” he said, now that he had my attention. “Can I get two G&Ts?”

“ID?”

He slid it across the bar. Felix Rainey. Siblings, then.

I made his drinks slower than I needed to, trying to find the right words. When I put them on the bar, I kept my hand on the glasses.

“Want to tell you something that I’m aware will sound like I’m a creep. I hope you can hear the content of what I’m saying anyway.”

I winced internally as the guy—Felix—narrowed his eyes.

“Okay?” he said skeptically.

“Last week when you sang Riven, you were good. I…I mentioned it to Theo Decker. Who used to sing for them,” I added, in case he was just a casual fan. His eyes got huge, then narrowed again.

“You know Theo Decker.” His voice was flat with skepticism.

I nodded.

“Riven’s looking to book a new lead singer for their upcoming tour. They hired someone who didn’t work out. Theo mentioned you to the band and they’re interested in auditioning you.”

I thought that went fairly well.

“They’re interested in what now? Are you— Is this a prank?”

Felix was looking at me like he couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be angry or impressed.

I’d known this wasn’t going to come off well.

“One sec,” I muttered, grabbing for my phone. “Stay put for one sec, okay?”

He nodded once, frowning.

I called Theo, hoping he was around and would answer. When he did, I launched right in.

“Decker, I got the guy here at the bar. He doesn’t believe I know you, obviously.”

“Omigosh,” Theo said. “Uh…lemme talk to him?”

I held my phone out to Felix.

“Theo Decker,” I explained, and I thought Felix was going to throw the gin and tonics in my face and then leave. But curiosity must’ve gotten to him, and he took the phone.

“Um. Hello?”

I watched as his suspicious, put-upon look became curious, then he rolled his eyes.

“Adrian, is that you, you fucker?”

Well then.

“?’Cuz if you’re starting this shit again I swear I’m gonna show up in your room in the middle of the night and this time it’s not just gonna be jelly you’re picking out of your hair.”

His disgusted expression froze, then he went completely still and pressed his fingers against his ear to block out the din of the bar. He looked up at me slowly, eyes huge, and his mouth fell open.

“Holy shit,” he said into the phone. Then he covered it with his hand and said to me, “This is Theo Decker.”

I nodded once and cleaned the bar top carefully, forcing myself not to listen. By the time they were done talking, it was probably the cleanest spot in the city.

“Theo?” I asked when I got the phone back.

“Dude, thank you!” Theo said. “I’m gonna meet up with him and bring Coco with me. She’ll decide if they should bring him in for a real audition. Can we meet at the bar? I got the sense Felix didn’t really want to meet somewhere private, given that he apparently thought I was someone pranking him until I sang.”