Page 29 of In This Together

At 6.30a.m., having had less than four hours’ sleep, Andrea had decided not to rouse Hannah from her child-free slumber and had completed her presentation to the board of Stellar herself. At 9.30a.m., armed with a double-shot, full-fat mocha latte, she had stood before the all-male board of directors and told them her ideas for growing and strengthening Stellar division of XM Music Group.

Now, armed with a large bottle of sparkling water, having demolished the Jarlsberg bagel Hannah had picked up for her on the way into the office, she could admit she was failing to work through her hangover and failing to impress her colleagues.

She was gently pacing the floor of her office, her high-heels tip-tapping, one hand on her hip, which was covered by a grey pencil skirt, the other fiddling with the double collar of her blouse. Clouds hovered in a low line over the backdrop view of Manhattan, the tips of One World Trade Center and 432 Park Avenue poking out above. Her office felt as grey as she did.

‘Knock, knock.’ She turned to see Hunter in her favourite of his suits – light grey with a dazzlingly white shirt beneath and his top three buttons undone.

‘You know, you can’t just say “knock knock” and enter. It’s a call for a response, like the Beale Street blues.’

Hunter’s lips curved. ‘Smart as well as beautiful, that’s my girl.’

Andrea felt her eyes widen as she shot a look at the office door, relieved to see Hunter had closed it behind him.

‘I wasn’t your girl last night.’ She knew it was a bitter and childish response but that was something close to how she was feeling.

Hunter gave her a look that felt as patronising as his words and she thought, in this moment, it would be easier to end their affair than she had been fearing.

He crossed the room toward her and she took a step back toward the window. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he said. ‘I know last night must have been… less than ideal.’

She scoffed. Less than ideal? Understatement of the millennium.

‘I want to make it up to you.’

Shaking her head, she moved behind her desk. ‘It’s the middle of the day and, frankly Hunter, I’m not in the mood.’

With his hands resting casually in his pockets like he couldn’t give a damn about how she was feeling, he made for her office door. ‘I meant later. I’ll come to your place tonight. We’ll talk and I’ll show you how much you mean to me.’

As he closed the door behind him, Andrea took a steadying deep breath.How much I mean to him?Hunter never spoke to her about feelings. Neither of them ever spoke about feelings. Was this a turning point? Maybe seeing her next to his wife had triggered something in him. Made him realise what he could have with Andrea. But didshewant it?

She watched him walk along the corridor out of sight, then typed her password into her computer and got back to procrastinating. What she really needed to do was think of an idea she could present to the board to show her true value – whilst pretending she wasn’t screwing the ultimate boss. Instead, she typed ‘Seth Young singer/songwriter’ into her search engine.

There wasn’t an abundance of hits but enough to fill the first page of searches – she recommended to her artists (even the newer ones) that at least the first five pages of search results must be about them and they should do whatever it took to make that happen.

The first hit was a link to Seth’s own website – well, at least he had one of those. Second, already, was a YouTube video from last night’s performance at the Presley John concert. The third, a blog article titled ‘Who is Seth Young?’ The fourth,Seth Young: Spotify.

She clicked the YouTube hit and replayed what she could admit to herself was a very special stage debut – on arealstage – last night.

His voice was ruggedly remarkable – a quality she hoped he wouldn’t lose. His lyrics were… Well, she was watching with a lump in her throat, which told its own story. And the way he held himself on stage – in front of the mic, the casual movement of his arm as he strummed his guitar, the confident way his fingers plucked the strings – it was all effortless and… sexy.

She found herself simultaneously charged by what he offered and immensely proud of her younger sister for recognising his talent. On her screen, the crowd roared as Randy Jonson shouted his brother’s name into the arena. She cleared her tight throat when the video ended.

The next video that rolled on YouTube was titled ‘The Singing Soldier’. On screen was a man dressed in the khaki-coloured casuals of a US serviceman. He was sitting on what looked like a crate in the middle of a group of similarly dressed men wearing Santa hats and holding bottles of beer. The cameraman stood behind the group and the poor quality of the video suggested he was using an old cell phone.

The ground around them was sand. Military vehicles were parked in the distance. A compound wall surrounded them.

Even in his uniform, despite the shades covering his eyes and the Santa hat covering his hair, the way the man held his guitar and rocked to the beat of his own strum, he was unmistakably Seth Young.

And he started to sing, a song she had never heard:

We see kids playing in the streets

No socks or shoes on their feet

They live in hope of better days

When the men they should look up to

When they correct their ways

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