Page 61 of The Sound Between Us

13

bad ideas

Seren

It’s laughable. Actually, genuinely absurd. LA? With him?

I stare at my dad’s text. It might combust if I so much as blink at it wrong. Think about it x—as if the little kiss at the end makes it anything other than what it is: a trap. In organic leather shoes and good lighting.

I’m in the shop pretending to alphabetise the vinyls, which is rich, really, because I’ve been holding the same sleeve for twenty minutes and couldn’t tell you what band it was if you offered me eternal peace and a Xanax. The place smells of dust and old cardboard and the kind of wood polish that only ever masks the scent of decay. Sunlight filters through the grimy front windows, trying to stage a soft-focus intervention. But it’s not romantic today; it’s oppressive. I feel claustrophobic in my own favourite hiding place.

“You need to go.” Flick’s perched behind the counter. A Grecian statue with a superiority complex, dunking a digestive into her tea. The mug clinks against the wood, ceramic and oak making that rhythmic, passive-aggressive percussion only best friends can really perfect.

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I’d rather self-immolate.”

She raises an eyebrow, her expression a mix of you’re exhausting and I love you anyway. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m being realistic.”

Flick dunks again, harder this time—bits of biscuit swirling on the surface. The wreckage of a sunken ship. “You work in a dusty record shop owned by a man who hasn’t updated the till since Thatcher and wears socks to bed. Maybe a bit of California sun wouldn’t be the death of you.”

The aforementioned till makes a sad wheeze beside her. It knows we’re talking about it. Through the window, the Camden sky hangs low and grey, the kind that makes everything feel apocalyptic even when it’s not. Somewhere below, the Tube rumbles—proof there’s still movement in the world even if I’ve stopped participating.

“You just want me to go so you don’t have to make me ten lattes a day.”

She doesn’t even try to deny it. “Do you know how much oat milk costs? You’re single-handedly bankrupting me.”

“I pay for my coffee.”

“You pay cost price. And you sit there looking tragic while I foam milk. It’s bad for business.”

That’s when the bell above the door gives its usual mortifying clang—not so much a chime as a declaration—and in sweeps Uncle Vinny. A time traveller from a 1970s cocaine party. Three-piece tweed; sunglasses indoors. Loafers that cost more than my therapy sessions and smell of Italian leather and unapologetic mistakes.

He saunters in, because of course he does, and suddenly the air in the shop feels thicker.

“Alright, my little misanthrope.” He sweeps me into a scratchy one-armed hug that smells of expensive tobacco, mint, and very specific regrets. The cologne is the same one he’s worn forever; woodsy, cinematic. Makes me feel twelve and devastated.

“You look as though you’ve been chewing on your own resentment.”

“Did he send you?” Against his shoulder.

Vinny raises his hands, the very picture of innocence—if innocence wore vintage Rolexes and had stories it legally couldn’t tell. “I was just in the neighbourhood.”

“You live in Brighton.”

“And yet—here I am.” He plucks Pet Sounds from the rack and studies it. A lost relic, even though he’s got an original pressing mounted on his wall as a war trophy.

“Hi, Vinny.” Flick hops down from her stool with a thud of Doc Martens on old wood.

“Flick-a-dee!” He beams, kissing her cheek with such theatrical flourish I feel embarrassed by association. “Still terrifying?”

“Always.”

I retreat behind the counter. A trench in emotional warfare. Vinny leans against the Bowie display, which creaks in protest because it wasn’t built to support egos that large.