The Backup

Caution: The following details may be considered spoilerish. Click on a label to reveal its content.

Length: Novel (45K+ words)

Heat Wave: 4 - On-screen and mildly explicit love scenes

Erotic Frequency: 2 - Not many

Genre: contemporary, drama, fantasy, magical realism, suspense / thriller, urban fantasy / paranormal

Gender: cisgender

Orientation: bisexual / pansexual, gay

Pairing: male/male

Age: 20s, centuries old / immortal

Ending:

Tone: dark, intense, literary

Themes: abuse, angst, depression, enemies to lovers, family, hurt / comfort, illness / injury, mental illness, mysticism, power imbalance, racism, self-discovery / self-reflection

Kinks: 69ing, barebacking, biting, hate-sex/angry sex, rough sex

Era: contemporary

Settings: America, bar / club, California, Canada, Chicago, city, Los Angeles, Manhattan, Montreal, New Orleans, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle

Careers: manager / agent / handler, musician, rock star, unemployed

Species: god / deity

SET 1

May 13, 2011

Departmental commencement is a robes-and-hoods occasion, and it’s far too hot for the honor. Hertz Hall is air-conditioned, at least, but it’s also packed, and I’m sitting too close to the front and the middle to catch more than the faintest artificial breeze, filtered through five hundred people or so, none of whom are here to see me.

“And one last round of applause for the UC Berkeley Music Department Class of 2011!” the chair commands, and of course he’s obeyed. I’m not immune. “Now, for the graduate program, beginning with those who have completed their master’s.”

The eight master’s recipients are packed in on the left side of my row, and filter out into the aisle. They aren’t giving us our bona fides today, or even tomorrow at the main ceremony. Photo ops and pageantry, that’s compulsory, but the real document comes in the mail in three weeks. I find it amazing that people still do the calligraphy by hand.

Tomorrow will be hours of sitting in the sun with only a ridiculous tam hat for protection, waiting for thousands of undergrads to receive their fake degrees; today means something, to me and the people I’ve toiled beside for the past seven years. Knowing Uncle Paul, he probably thinks tomorrow is the more important ceremony. Then again, he’d texted, Will contact you on Friday when I arrive, which is today, and there’s been no word since, so it looks like he won’t make either. That’s the most recent message in my queue. I’ve been checking for the last fifteen minutes. It’s bad enough that I’ve got my phone in my lap during my own PhD acceptance. I shouldn’t check it every five seconds like I’m waiting for water to boil.

The applause never quite dies down, only swells and diminishes for the clearer sound of the chair reading a name, a field, honors or no honors. They’re almost through calling the master’s. There’s a chance that Paul hasn’t texted me because he’s expecting me to be polite and not answer. He might be here.

“And it also is our privilege to honor four new PhDs,” the chair says, and that’s my cue. First in line: the alphabet has always been on my side. I hold on to my phone but hide my fist in the billowing sleeve since I can’t reach my pocket through the robes, sidle into the aisle, and file down to the stage. “Please welcome, Doctor of Musicology, Anthony Brooks.”

The acoustics of the concert hall are built to send sound out from the stage, not up to it, but applause is always an exception. It starts just before I make it to the short flight of stairs up to the stage and ascend. Despite the handshaking and the genuinely proud smiles, it feels like a rehearsal.

My phone buzzes at center stage. Thank goodness it’s in my left sleeve, and Professor Taruskin is shaking my right.

I wait until I’ve made it through the receiving line and the next name has been called to look out at the audience. It’s always easy to spot Paul in a crowd like this, where almost everyone else is white or light-skinned. By extension, it’s easy to spot when he’s not here, and doesn’t take me long to ascertain it. He’s not.

In the relative obscurity of my seat, I check my phone again.

Work emergency, it says. I won’t make it out tomorrow either. But you have my congratulations and my respect. Call Sunday.

Well, at least I have other people to applaud for.

***

The Rock Band version of Mozart’s “Rondo alla turca” cuts out all the repeats that the song usually has in concert performances. It’s as jarring to hear as it is to play. Julia’s managing to approximate it on the controller, but then, she isn’t a pianist. Thank god no one’s passed me the guitar yet. I suck.

“Stop brooding, you’re making me look like a bad host!” Elise Morgenstern whirls by and sits on the arm of the couch, wrestling with a corkscrew and a bottle of red wine. Her hair—a color that I’m embarrassed to know is fuchsia as opposed to just pink—clashes with the gold trim on her master’s robes, which she’s still wearing, even though everyone else at the party has taken them off. “Everything okay?”

I take the hint and tilt over my empty glass, just in time for Elise to wrangle the cork out and Julia to finish the most difficult section of the song. The applause, canned and live, stacks up with the hiss of the cork. That’s vaguely interesting.

Elise pours, first into my glass, then someone else’s, then her own, and laughs. “Are you waiting on your turn? I can check if anyone else is ahead of you.”

Everyone else, it seems. But she means Rock Band, not my life. “I’m not drunk enough.”

“Ha-ha, I know I’d be getting drunk too if I was really done.” Elise reaches over awkwardly, sets the bottle down on the coffee table, and clinks her glass against mine on the way back. “Rondo alla turca” is almost done. Julia’s score isn’t embarrassing, “Congrats!”

I don’t toast, just nod the glass, then drink. This bottle is better than the last. It’s an acceptable compromise between brought-by-way-of-thanks beer and are-you-sure-I-can-drink-this tequila. Grad students can’t be choosers—then again, I’m not a grad student anymore.

Paul would chastise me for having expensive taste. Paul isn’t here. And the wine is free.

“Did any of your family make it out in the end?” Elise asks. Wow. I’m not sure how her timing can be this incisively bad, this consistently. She always seems to know the wrong question to ask. It’s as annoying as it is impressive, but what can I say, it’s grown on me.

“No,” I say. “I heard from Paul on the way over. Work emergency.”

“What about your— Oh. Ha. Sorry. Brings back memories.” She laughs uncomfortably into her glass. One of the first things Elise ever found out about me was that my parents have been dead since I was ten. It made the Welcome, New Graduate Students Luncheon two years ago weird for all concerned.

She laughs about it. I don’t. Par for the course, that. “Mine asked after you, that’s all. They wanted to say thanks for helping me with the whole Boardwalk Empire thing.”

It’s tactless to say You could have thanked Paul for that if he were here, and I’m not drunk enough to be tactless any more than I’m drunk enough to play Rock Band, so I hold my tongue. It’s an effort. Maybe if the Ivory Tower wasn’t leaning, I’d have something other than that to feel accomplished about.

“Any word yet from New Mexico?”

“They rejected me this morning,” I sigh.

Elise winces. “That sucks. But least you still have Indiana and the others to hear back from. Simon hasn’t heard back either, so. Yeah. Don’t give up!” Before I can answer, not that I’m certain what else to say, Elise jumps to her feet. “That reminds me! I promised to show Chuck and Simon something, just give me a sec,” and she scuttles away from the couch to take the Rock Band controller. “Sorry everyone! Just trying to make a point, this’ll only take five minutes.”

Being alone at a party with thoughts of my lack of economic prospects isn’t my preferred means of celebration—Well. No shit. I finish my glass of wine in time to deposit it on the nearest countertop, and apologize to a few people on my way into the hall. Elise’s apartment is nicer than mine, but then again, she’s living outside the city with two other people paying rent. The nearest bedroom is closed, and there’s a group of master’s students in front of the bathroom pretending not to wait for it, but oddly enough the door to the study is open, and the foamcore soundproofing looks more tempting than it should. It would be quiet in there. I wouldn’t have to answer any further questions about where I’m going, or how I can scrape together enough money to stay. I could just spend the rest of the party on the piano and be done with it.

Well, if the door’s open, the room’s open, and Simon and Elise have given me explicit permission in the past, so that’s implicit permission in the present as far as pianos go. The study is arranged with the computer station on one side and the upright piano on the other with a window and writing desk on the far wall. The near wall is covered in mattress pad soundproofing, with an unplugged external computer mic and a keyboard setup disassembled on a shelf. I shut the door just in time to cut off the rush of laughter at whatever’s on YouTube, and once I do the soundproofing turns out to be fairly, if not completely, effective. Relative silence. Finally. Silence itself would be better, but doesn’t exist, not really. John Cage proved that.

I sit down at the piano, careful not to disturb any of Simon’s drafts, and play.

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor belongs on an organ, not a piano. It loses most of its ominous majesty without that requisite screech and sustain. But maybe after having spent most of the morning in Hertz with the pipe organ in view, or maybe since I feel as comically isolated as a villain in a tower—and this piece has been used, or parodied, in every vampire movie ever—that’s the first piece that comes to mind and what I settle into playing, whether the instrument is right or not.

It’s a hard piece, hard even for me, but Bach is predictable: pattern, math, a perfectly constructed, seamless flow from one tonality to the next. I can’t exactly abandon myself in it—it’s too difficult—but good luck getting me to think about anything but what my fingers are doing. The prelude ends, segues into a fugue, and my hands follow the old jumps and crosses and skips, three separate voices winding through ten fingers. It really should be on an organ. It’s harder than it has to be. But it’s necessary, absorbing to play.

So the sound of the door swinging open, unknocked, might as well be a gunshot.

“Whoops,” Julia says. “Sorry.”

I’d stopped as soon as she opened the door, but I don’t start again. “It’s fine.”

She smiles, leans on the jamb. “I heard the Bach, figured it was you. Do you mind if I stick around?”

“All right.” There should be a chair for her somewhere, so I don’t move from the bench. Julia leaves the door open—whatever was on YouTube is still occupying everyone’s attention, so there’s no music, just chatter and laughter and one canned voice cutting through the rest—and pulls over the desk chair. Julia is in the habit of wearing impractically high heels even to teach in, and tonight’s no exception, so they pitter on the studio floor, and I wait until she has sat down to turn back to the keyboard and start playing again. From the beginning of the fugue, since it’s hard to pick up from the middle.

She recognizes the piece, laughs. “You should set up the synthesizer instead. It’s got an organ tone.”

“It would be rude.”

“Maybe, but they wouldn’t mind.”

I shrug, as much as playing a fugue this brisk allows. Once the left hand takes over, I—Huh, the door’s still ajar. And a half-dozen undergrads whose names I don’t know are either waiting for the bathroom or listening in. Probably both. I could blame them when I miss the next trill, but it’s my mistake at the end of the day. I keep going.

“Are you staying here or going home?” Julia asks, swiveling on the computer chair.

“Here” means in San Francisco. I wish I didn’t have to say this, again and again. It gets easier, and easier hurts because hey, failure. “As long as I can,” I answer. “I’ve got enough saved up that I can handle rent for the summer. I’d rather find a job by July though.” Thinking about this is entirely counter to the reason I came in here, but there’s no point in telling Julia that if she can’t already tell.

I do love this part of the fugue: right when it winds to a climax, all the threads coming together to one powerful chord. It feels right to play.

Outside, everyone else laughs at whatever’s on-screen. Maybe not everyone else, if those undergrads are still listening to me. Elise’s voice cuts through the rest, tells them they have to wait, there’s something in the sidebar that she needs to see right now, and fuck, pounding out notes isn’t sufficient distraction after all. I can stop soon, even if the next resolution isn’t in the right key.

And just as soon as I stop, the television speakers overclock and grate, and I have to wonder if that’s supposed to be music at all.

Whatever it is, it’s loud enough that if I were playing it in my own apartment, the super would call the cops. There’s a guitar under there, winding and discordant, and a bass, drums, a keyboard, coarse vocals so distressed it’s impossible to make out the words, and everything is dampened by cheering and pounding feet and the sense that this happened somewhere else and no smartphone can preserve it. I barely remember to cover the keyboard when I get up. I ought to see what I’m hearing.

There’s no point in trying to identify who’s playing: even blown up on a television screen the video quality and resolution are crap, and besides, the camera isn’t focused on the band. It’s on the riot in the crowd: mostly naked, some bloody and bruised, but still dancing, and making the mistake of trying to pull the cops into the mosh pit.

For one terrifying moment, I have to wonder if I’d do the same thing if I were there.

No. Never.

“The hell, Elise,” someone says. Me, it turns out, since she’s looking.

“It’s just Nik, sorry!” She fumbles with the controller, but whatever she does doesn’t pause the video. Everyone in front of me is short enough that I’ve got a clear view of the screen, of the focus on the camera choking in and out until it’s not on the riot anymore. The lead singer, a skeletal man with black hair, is on the lip of the stage, still singing like there’s nothing wrong.

The singer licks his chops. No, not like nothing’s wrong. Like everything’s right.

The video pauses, the screen minimizes, Elise apologizes again and flails and starts going on about a paper topic for next year and how this video ties into it and isn’t it great that ethnomusicology means people like Nik exist.

I think some of that song’s lyrics make sense. They’re only hitting me now. Insidious. “Once you get in there,” or something like that. There’s a tune to it too. Maybe. I could—

“Quit it with the papers,” Simon says. “I’ve still got revisions to do on my diss.”

Elise sticks her tongue out, but laughs. “I’m serious, though. It would be awesome to do a paper on Nik. There’s not much work on the rocker persona—”

“Outside of Hollywood,” Chuck says.

“—and Nik’s so cool. I mean, he’s Dionysus.”

That statement effectively shuts up about half the room, and the half that doesn’t shut up is talking about the latest Giants game.

“Dionysus,” I say, at the same time as at least one other person. That’s weirdly harmonic. Dionysus, in two parts.

Elise grins. “Yeah. I mean, literally. God of Drunk and Disorderly. And his music holds up to it too.”

Oh for fuck’s sake. “Have they run out of marketing tools?”

Julia laughs. “Well, David Bowie already took the alien idea.”

“And only Lady Gaga can be Lady Gaga,” Simon adds.

“Seriously, guys,” Elise says, fiddling with the controller. “But yeah. He keeps Dionysus up 24-7 and markets the concerts as bacchanalia, makes everything over-twenty-one only, the works.”

Chuck scoffs. “Is that legal?”

Years of trailing behind Uncle Paul confirm that, so I answer, “Yes, if you have the right representation.”

That gets a few laughs, and Elise flashes me a smile. “Anyway, I think he might be a diss chapter if I can fit him in.”

We’ve all heard some variation of this phrase out of Elise before, so it means jack-shit at this point. Simon’s the first to get a dig in at her though. “Isn’t your dissertation on Battlestar Galactica?”

She tosses the controller at him, and he catches it reflexively.

“No, I condensed that to a conference paper. I still don’t know what my diss is going to be.” It’s a surprisingly mature answer for Elise. Maybe the MA thesis put her a little more on track. Good. “Besides, comps first.”

“No shit,” Chuck says, and Julia says “Good luck!” and Simon throws me the controller and says “Hey, Anthony, as long as you’re going to play I think I’ve got Toccata on easy mode.”

“No way,” I say, and that’s the end of that discussion. There are other things to argue about, and maybe not dwelling on my lack of a future will make it bearable.

Or maybe playing Rock Band will remind me how much I suck at it.

And life.

And until Simon clicks into Rock Band, that grinning skeletal face is on the television screen, mocking me from half a world away. “Nik,” Elise called him. Dionysus.

I glare right back.

November 6, 2011

Everything I couldn’t part with is at the mercy of the postal system, probably somewhere in Nebraska, on its way to New York City. Baggage fees being what they are, it was cheaper to ship via media mail than to take more than could fit beneath the seat, and as long as I’m throwing myself on my uncle’s mercy, I might as well throw the rest on his doorstep.

And right now, I’ve thrown myself into Uncle Paul’s waiting room at Pantheon Talent. It’s been refurnished since I was last here, and the sound system is invasive enough that it must be new. In addition to worrying about my luggage, I’ve been flirting with the idea of putting in my earbuds for the last half hour. Which also means I’ve been waiting on Paul for the last half hour.

Not blocking out his office soundtrack is an act of politeness that Paul will probably never remark on. But it’s better not to give him any excuses, all things considered.

Paul’s receptionist taps her heels to the beat of whatever song this is. She must be musical if she can keep it steady on the off-counts for this long. Since I’m still being too polite to put my earbuds in, I notate the song in my head. This particular song’s hook is catchy as hell, but there’s only just enough flow in the rap to make it interesting. And even on the hook the singer milks that syncopation for all it’s worth, but only enough that it might be unintentional. I could do better, maybe. Or at least assemble a song that’s not as haphazard. But I’ve never thought of myself as a composer, not even an arranger, and changing careers takes time I don’t have.

“Anthony,” Paul says, tripled semiquavers against the beat.

“Uncle.” I nod, get up from the bench. It must look more like a casting session or an interview than a family coming together the way Paul leads me into the office, not even a handshake, let alone a hug. And especially since my mother is—was—white, Paul and I have never looked as alike as people seem to think we should, so if the receptionist assumed anything, it’s almost certainly wrong.

Paul looks good for his age. His suit’s definitely more expensive than the last one I saw him in, and he wears it like he wants the world to know.

“Thanks for having me,” I say.

Paul nods, opens his office door. “How was your flight?”

“Flights. I couldn’t get a direct so I transferred at LAX.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it out there to watch you walk.”

“It’s another color on the hood.” I can let it go no matter how much it offended me at the time. Six months of water have passed under that particular bridge. “But I guess you can call me a doctor of music now.”

“No more pesky undergrads calling you ‘Professor’?”

“No more pesky undergrads calling me anything, and you know it.” Now that the door is shut, and the Top 40 has been reduced to posters on the wall and files on the desk, I should be calmer. Should be, anyway. I’m not calm, and it better not show more than it already does. “You said you had a job for me.”

“I just hope you’re desperate enough to take it.”

“Which is less demeaning: cleaning toilets or sitting around doing nothing with three degrees?”

Paul pauses to laugh, just once, before he settles into his desk chair. “Last year you’d have said they were one and the same.”

“Last year I wasn’t sixty-eight thousand dollars in debt.”

“Yes, you were. You just didn’t have to pay it until you got out.”

Is he trying to piss me off? If he is, I can’t let it work. I’ve come this far to be professional and polite.

“So I’m out,” I say, and shut my eyes, stop my fingers from tapping on the arm of his chair. It’s the meter of the rap from the waiting room. It’s Bach’s Invention in A minor. “And I’m here because you said you had something that isn’t cleaning toilets.”

“I do,” Paul says, “and it does. The trouble with this industry is that some artists are full-time jobs. You have the time for one. I don’t.”

“Managing?”

“Handling,” he corrects. “He has a manager. But he needs someone day-to-day to make sure he keeps his bookings.”

“Is this like I used to do?” Paul dragged me on the road with his clients for years, and while I’ve never worked anywhere in the music industry without him, any summer I haven’t been taking courses I’ve shadowed the bands. He started actually paying me for it when I was seventeen.

“No. This is the real deal. You’ll move in with him, take care of his correspondence and his records. You know these creative types, some of them don’t know a bank statement from a takeout menu.”

“So he needs a butler.”

“More than he needs a musicologist,” Paul says, and at least he doesn’t make an outright jibe of it. “And he’s interesting from a musicological perspective, anyway. You might find an article in him.”

“I’m not an ethnomusicologist.” Shit, there goes that veneer of calm. Honestly, I never thought I’d have to correct my own family on that front, the way I’ve had to do every time the registrars forward me to the wrong office, ask if I’m familiar with the work of Dr. Akin Euba or whoever else.

“I know,” Paul says. “But I still think you’ll get some work done with Nik.”

“Nick who?”

“Just Nik, and just with the K. You’ve heard of him, I hope.”

Oh. Nik.

Teeth. The graduation party. The cops in the mosh pit. Dionysus.

“That Nik.”

“You’ve heard of him. Good.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised that he can’t tell a bank statement from a takeout menu.” And I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m drumming the arm of the chair again. Stop. Now. “But I am. And I’m surprised he’s one of yours. I thought no company would want to be held liable.”

“No company does,” Paul says. “I took him on privately, long before I started working here. Before he was Nik, even.”

“Before he was Nik? So he’s repackaged the act? Or don’t tell me you buy into his Dionysus bullshit.”

“I don’t have to buy into it. All I have to do is give you five of the fifteen percent commission I take off all of his profits.”

I shake my head no, since I have nothing to lose. “I want all fifteen.”

“Ten it is,” Paul says. “Ten, for however long you can handle him.” There’s a contract on the desk, and Paul turns it around to face me without lifting it. The scrape of the paper on the glass is like a bowed bell, almost ominous, and I reach for it. “Take as much time as you need to read the fine print.”

I lean forward in my seat, look the contract over. It’s all official, but the header’s wrong. “Funny, this isn’t a company contract.”

“I told you, this isn’t through Pantheon. His contract with me is private. You won’t be on the books here and you won’t have to account for it in your taxes. I’ll take care of it. It’s my pay. I’m just transferring it to you.”

“But I’m working for him. His name should be here.”

Without a word, Paul stretches across the desk, waves my hand away from the top page, and turns to the last. There, at the very bottom, is one handwritten line, in an angular and nearly illegible hybrid of print and cursive:

Congratulations. You’re next. I’m game. — Nik

“Oh, come on.” I push back in the chair, far enough that if there were a wall behind me I’d probably hit my head against it. “He can’t be fucked to use his own fucking name on a contract.”

Paul raps on the table. Just once. I’ve known that signal since I was a kid: shut up and pay attention. “You don’t talk to me like that outside of a recording booth, and I don’t see you on either side of the glass, so watch your damn mouth.”

“What am I, twelve?”

“No, you’re twenty-eight, and you’re still an ungrateful brat.”

“It’s a legitimate fucking concern.”

“You know what’s a legitimate concern? How you’re going to live when you can’t slam your school for handouts. Fact is, you’ve been getting something-for-nothing for the last seven years, and guess what? Something-for-nothing only works in academia and welfare, and you’re not qualified for either.”

For however many seconds I take to register those words, I don’t even hear the clock in the corner ticking. I should stop gaping. He actually said that.

“Now, you can bite the damn bullet and sign, because I’m sticking my neck out for you,” Paul says, in the same tone he used when I used to pretend I didn’t know the rules, “or you can wait outside my apartment until all your books arrive and then figure out what you’re doing with them.”

The and with yourself goes unsaid, but it’s clear as a bell.

I swipe a pen out of the box on Paul’s desk, and take the time I need to read the fine print. The clock ticks, the office soundtrack plays.

I sign, right there under Nik’s insulting scrawl.

***

Being Dionysus pays: Nik’s apartment in the East Village, on Seventh between First and A, takes up an entire floor of its building. There’s no doorman, and the buzzer is predictably out of date, but after some wrangling with the keys I figure out which opens the front door, which opens the inner, and which triggers the elevator. Two more key tests get me Nik’s mail slot, full to bursting, including two outdated package notifications and last month’s Rolling Stone. None of the mail is addressed to Nik. He’s Tenant 8F, Current Resident, or c/o Paul Brooks.

I need my hands free and there’s room in my carry-on, so I stuff all the mail in there for now and key up the elevator to the eighth floor. The elevator door opens to another door, which takes the last key, and I brace myself for the inevitable reek of rock star.

Well, consider me surprised. It doesn’t stink. In fact, it smells no worse than any other apartment I’ve lived in, except maybe Paul’s first bachelor pad in Harlem. It hasn’t been recently cleaned, but there’s nothing worse than cigarette smoke pervading the air. And it isn’t nearly as sloppy as I expected either, at least not in the foyer; not neat by any definition, and books are piled in the corners instead of on the shelves, but it’s not a coked-out garret or a sty. The hardwood floor is tracked with boot rubber and pinprick spatters of the red-orange paint from the walls, but it’s not filthy, and the mirrors and masks on the wall are only slightly askew.

Masks.

A lot of masks. The front hall and the media room it opens to are lined with them: hollow-eyed and, frankly, more unsettling than any stench or wreck would be. Venetian masks and Commedia masks with shapeless eyes and curved noses, Greek stage masks with gaping amplified mouths, lacquered Noh masks and feathered French masks and sub-Saharan dance masks with fans of hair. There are over fifty on this wall alone, and if they curve around that corner, there might be more than a hundred.

I set my bag down on the arm of the couch. The nearest mask at my eye level—a gold-plated one, almost featureless except for minute nostrils like a plaster cast—I’m not sure I can place where or when it’s supposed to be from, but fuck if it isn’t creepy. Maybe there’s a label on the other side. The surface is smooth to the touch, too heavy to be plastic—

“Like him?” someone asks in my ear, soft and close enough to create an echo in my skull.

So much for first impressions: it’s a good thing I already put the bag down, because I would have dropped it on Nik’s foot when I backed into him, and then he might not be laughing. It’s a laugh without meter, and my spine tenses all the way up to the base of my skull. The mask settles back into place on its nail in the wall, skittering.

“Hi,” Nik says. He claps a hand on my upper arm, turns me around. “You’re Paul’s kid.”

“Nephew,” I correct.

“Blood enough,” Nik agrees with a shrug.

There’s only so much he can look like his concert videos, the way that a piece of music can sound like its score. All of his basic framework holds true: he’s tall and attenuated, that Mediterranean mix that may or may not be white, and the hand tightening on my jacket is long-fingered and guitarist-nailed, both sets painted gray. But he’s taller than I, which I hadn’t expected, and his razor-cut hair isn’t black like in the video Elise showed us at the party. It’s in loose staggered chunks of red and gold now, colors that would match the paint on the walls if he mixed them.

And he still has a smile that can slice through 360p on an iPhone screen.

“Make yourself at home,” Nik says. He moves his hand from my arm to the small of my back, and I’d have shoved him off if he hadn’t shoved me off first. “Are you expecting a tour?”

Not if it involves looking at more of these masks. “Are you giving one?”

Nik laughs, that same meterless laugh, and opens his arms. In the fluorescent light, his eyes look more gold than light brown. “You are where you are. You’ll know which room’s which. What’s mine is yours unless you try to auction it off. That’s about it.”

If I hadn’t already had the clearest possible example of Nik’s unprofessionalism, I’d probably hit him for this one, or at least call him out. I don’t. I’ve already bounced one check at the bullshit bank: another overdraft fee might wreck my credit.

“Sure.” I try not to be sarcastic. I’m not sure it works. “I’ll just leave things where they are.” I take his pile of mail out of my carry-on, hold it up pointedly for one beat, and set it down on the couch. The paper rustles, a pitchless glissando. “Yours.”

“Good,” Nik says, grin widening across his jaw. “You can answer it after I buy you dinner.”

“What?”

“You do eat, don’t you? As long as I’m your meal ticket, I’ll buy you a meal.”

***

We still haven’t found a restaurant. It’s been an hour. Nik’s looked at about twenty different menus at twenty different storefronts on the way. We’re going to walk clean into FDR Drive if he doesn’t choose soon, so I drop a few this looks all rights and how about heres, which results in vaguely affirmative responses and distracted maybes from Nik.

Is this a test? I thought I gave those up when I got the doctorate.

Whatever. I bite the figurative bullet outside an Italian restaurant on Avenue B. “We’re eating here.”

Nik just grins ferally and says, “Sure.”

Ordering, equally surprisingly, isn’t as much of a chore: Nik doesn’t even look at the menu, lets the waiter rattle off the specials and says sounds good after the entrée sold with the most enthusiasm. I order lasagna. I’ve never seen a restaurant fuck lasagna up.

“Anything to drink?” the waiter asks.

I’m about to say no, but Nik’s already tapping his fingernail on the wine list. He pronounces the name of the wine in appreciable Italian, and clarifies, bottle, not glass.

“What if I didn’t want to drink?” I ask once the waiter’s gone with the menus and there’s nothing but an expanse of table, olive oil without bread, and the restaurant’s soundtrack of alternating pseudoclassical and questionably Mediterranean solo guitar.

“More for me,” Nik shrugs.

“Fair enough.”

“But you do want to drink.”

After everything else that’s gone on today? I’ll give him that. “Yes.”

“Good.” Nik stretches

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