He continued, “I’m glad you called. I might be a bit late.”
His voice was in stereo.
“Something unexpected came up. I’ll explain when I see you.”
Again, stereo.
Her eye stayed glued to Nick’s back. “Did you hear me?”
A word finally dropped from her mouth. “Brock?”
Again. Stereo: “Yes?”
Immediately, she said, into the phone, “Nick?”
Automatically, he answered, into the phone, “Yes?”
Silence. Deafening silence.
Then she shouted, finally, across the courtyard, “What the fuck?”
Chapter Twelve
“The Reckoning”
NICK SPUN AROUND.
They stared at each other.
They lowered their phones. Or, more accurately, their phones lowered themselves.
Nick was the first to speak. What he said was, “Holy mother of shite.”
Sewanee had a whole dump truck of things to say, but the hydraulics were broken.
So Nick said, again, “Holy mother of shite!”
Then he grinned. He grinned and then he threw back his head and he hooted. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and laughed. He grabbed his head and spun around and did a little jig.
Then he moved toward her, his eyes twinkling like Christmas morning. Like the gift of his dreams lay unwrapped at his feet.
She stepped back.
Way back.
He froze.
She looked at him from the corner of her eye, a dog guarding a bone.
Nick’s smile faded slightly. “What?”
“What?” she said, incredulously. “What?!” she said, more incredulously. “Who are you?”
Sewanee watched him attempt to banish the smile, to give the circumstance the sobriety she needed. It only made him look like he’d licked a sour ball. “I’m me. Nick!” He couldn’t do it. The smile came back with a vengeance. And a laugh for good measure. “Don’t you see how incredible–”
Her finger shot up. “Wait. Stop. Questions.”
His arms went out. “I’m all yours.”
Sewanee took a breath. “June French’s nephew?”
“Yes!”
“And?”
He nodded. Once. “Yes. I am also Brock McNight.” He said it in Brock’s voice.
“What.”
He said it again, and again in Brock’s voice. “I am also Brock Mc–”
“No, no, no, no, no, no don’t do that.”
“All right.” His arms lifted, reaching toward her. “And you’re Sewanee Chester. And Sarah Westholme.” It wasn’t a question. “Fantastic. Nice to meet both of you.” He gestured at the bench, stiffly, like his arm didn’t belong to him. “Shall we sit?”
She didn’t move.
“Or we could stand. Standing is good.” He watched her, waiting for a signal.
She sat.
Nick placed himself carefully at the other end. He pointed at the large space between them. “Now there’s room for all four of us.” At her silence, he said, “Right, too soon.”
“Could have been ‘a wee bit’ more honest, too?” she said, tightly.
He shook his head lightly. “Yes, let’s clear everything up. One: I don’t work for a venture capital firm. That’s my dad, my biological dad, he does that.”
“And the accent?”
“Well.” He spoke the next words with a stronger burr. “I do tend to thicken it up a bit when I’m looking to meet someone. Women do love a good accent, you know.”
She dropped her head into her hands. “Oh my God.”
He dropped the excessive lilt. “Sorry, just being honest.”
She inhaled sharply. “Okay. Okay.” She breathed. “I know why I lied.” She looked at him. “Why did you?”
He spread his arms wide, as if to show her he held no weapons. “I’m not you. I don’t have a career under my own name. I’m just a pseudonym. A ghost. So, when–if–I say what I do for a living? People–women–they want to know what I’ve recorded and what do I tell them? Out myself as a vocal porn star?”
Sewanee kept trying to clear a path through the mounds of mental clutter. “So the Brock McNight voice is–”
“Fake. It’s entirely put on.” He sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Give me the short version.”
“When the band fell apart, I started narrating. One of June’s friends gave me a shot–”
“The band’s real?”