Page 64 of Saving Ian Pope

The song ended on a whisper, and I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Someone sniffled behind me.

When Ian opened his eyes, his gaze met mine through the glass. He covered his face with his hands, and his shoulders shook. I had to go to him. Running my arm across my nose, I clawed at the door handle to the booth and yanked it open.

Ian’s head jerked up, and he rushed to me and wrapped his arms around me. We clung to each other, while Dennis sat in the corner, his hand pressed against the strings of his guitar, his head bowed.

Ronnie’s voice over the speaker in the booth finally cut through the tension. “That’s our version, and if the record company doesn’t release it as the lead single, they can fuck right off.”

***

After the session, we’d walked to an Indian restaurant a few blocks from the studio and sat across from each other, sipping mango lassi. I ripped off a piece of naan. “I take it the original version of ‘Lost and Found’ didn’t sound like the one you just recorded.”

“Not even close.” He reached across the table and stroked my cheek with the back of his hand. “You should’ve been in the studio with me for every song.”

I threw up my hands. “It wasn’t me. That was all you, baby.”

“Inspired by you—like everything I do.”

I didn’t deserve him. I didn’t deserve any of it. “You know what I think it was?”

“Huh.”

“I think telling me about your relapse sort of brought it all home to you again. You ushered those feelings to the surface and tapped into them when you sang the song.”

“Very interesting, Fraulein.” He raised his hands and drummed his fingers together. He’d become a student of my deflection methods.

“Are you channeling Sigmund Freud? You know, there’s a Freud Museum in Hampstead where he lived the last year of his life after he left Vienna.”

“Spare me.” He jabbed his fork into a piece of lamb and pointed it at me. “You know what my therapist says about you?”

I pressed a napkin to my face. “You told your therapist about me?”

“Of course. Tell me you’ve never been in therapy without telling me you’ve never been in therapy.”

I had my reasons for avoiding therapy, but now I wanted in on my second-hand analysis. Hunching forward, I asked, “What did he say about me?”

“I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

“Now you really have to tell me. Don’t say he ordered you to leave me.” I took a gulp of water. If the therapist had any common sense at all, that’s exactly what he’d tell Ian.

“If he had, I’d fire him.” Ian fussed around his plate, obviously regretting he’d ever mentioned his therapist, but when he glanced at my face, he realized I’d become a dog with a bone. He sighed. “He said you use sex as a way to form a deep bond with me without actually letting me in, emotionally.”

Damn, that therapist was good. “That’s just ridiculous. He can’t remote analyze me.” I peered at Ian’s face in the flickering light from the candle on the table. “Do you think he’s right? You don’t think we’re emotionally close.”

He stretched out his hand and toyed with my fingers. “I feel like you’re a piece of me. That without you, I’m not whole. Does that sound like a clichéd song lyric?” He shrugged. “It’s true, and I would call that emotionally close. Do I think you use sex sometimes to avoid topics you don’t want to discuss? Yeah, but, um, I’m not complaining about the sex.”

“Well, that’s a relief. At least he didn’t tell you to dump me.”

“Never gonna happen.”

Turned out, Ian’s flat was not within walking distance of the restaurant, so we took a taxi to a high-rise building on the south side of the Thames, west of the Tower Bridge. We stepped into a swanky lobby after Ian entered a code at the front door. When we got into the elevator, he entered another code as he pushed the button for the 32ndfloor.

Although the elevator ride offered a smooth ascent, I braced my hand against the mirrored wall of the car. “How often do you stay here?”

“Not too often. When I work late or if there are events to attend in the city.”

The elevator doors whisked open onto a floor that I could already tell just housed Ian’s flat. Hadn’t he told me this place wasn’t very big? He lied. He opened the door for me, and when I stepped across the threshold, a chill dripped down my spine. The amazing view of the river drew me to the window, and I zigzagged around modern furniture pieces to get there. “Nice view. Horrible décor. I’m pretty sure the designer who furnished your house didn’t do this place.”

“I bought it furnished.” He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t like it?”

---