His reaction is instant. The rumble of a moan bursts out of him, stifled by my kiss, reverberating in his chest and in mine like it’s alive between us. His empty cup drops to the floor, and both his hands are running up my back, pulling me in, fingertips pressing through my shirt like he thinks I’d ever try to get away.

  I never would. Not for all the world.

  His lips open for me and he’s mine. I claim him, every inch of his mouth, his tongue meeting mine with a desperation like it’s the first and last and only kiss either of us will ever have. And now the music sounds incredible. Now the lights beyond my closed eyelids shine for us. Me and August. Now the band plays for us. Now all the world, this one and all the others flinging around in the empty violence of space and time, exist just for us. Everything exists in the infinite impossibility of space for this one moment.

  The sound of the crowd fades to nothing. The music fades. It’s just me and August, and the…

  Wait…

  August and I break the kiss at the exact same moment with the same horrifying realisation.

  The music really has stopped.

  The crowd noise really has died because every person in our vicinity is completely frozen. A thousand statues, arms in the air, or mouths open to sing, or about to take a sip of a teetering drink, locked in place.

  It’s eerie.

  Terrifying.

  Then the sharp shock of the mic crackles across the uncanny space, assaulting us with Jon’s, “What the fuck, man, did you just kiss your cousin?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  GOOD AUGUST

  RUNAWAY

  What the fuck?

  What the actual fuck?

  Everything has stopped in time, all except me and August and the band, and he’s still got his hand on my hip, but the other drops from my cheek as he takes the scene in.

  Statues all around us, a thousand people still in the dim lights of Koko. “What’s happening?” I whisper. Because August will know. He knows all the things.

  But he doesn’t answer, only lifts his worried eyes back to mine for a fraction of a second before a massive bang cracks the room apart. A gunshot! There’s a flash of sparks from one of the amps. I hit the floor, August’s arms around me, pushing me down.

  Hot, claustrophobic, he shoves me through the line of people in front of us, crushed plastic cups skidding this way and that, making an enormous noise in the empty theatre. I can hear the band, Richie yelling at Jon to move, Jon yelling my name, Shashi and Amber in the background.

  August isn’t slowing, blind panic pumping confusing adrenaline through my every nerve. It’s so dark down here. How can he know where he’s going?

  But maybe he doesn’t know, because when we hit the barrier in front of the stage, he pauses, turning to me with his finger over his lips, like he needs to remind me to keep quiet when there’s a gunman on the loose. More than one gunman?

  Slowly, he stretches up, looking for them. I do the same, peering towards the balconies, keeping as low as I can, looking over the shoulders of those unmoving in front of us.

  A flash catches my eye from the balcony, light reflecting off… sunglasses? I barely have a second to take the shooter in before the barrel of his long gun shifts, pointing directly at my head. The air turns thick, an impenetrable wall holding me in place, pressing in on all sides. A shot rings out, there’s a bruising snap on my shoulder, and I’m falling, tripping over a hundred feet and legs, the crunch and crackle of litter all around.

  August’s hands come around me, cradling my head as we fall. He lands on top of me, his leg and body flinching in a way I know it hurt him to catch me, but he doesn’t make a sound. He scrambles on top of me, scanning the surrounding dark.

  “August!” A sound crashes on the other side of the barrier. Jon’s hands are on the metal grate. “Get up. Come on!”

  We scramble to our feet, and five of the frozen people in our near vicinity go tumbling backwards when August stumbles. I vaguely catch it—Jon’s hands on him, shoving him away from me. But Jon’s got a hold of my wrists, pulling me. “Hurry. He’s on the stairs. He’s coming!”

  The reassuring press of August’s hands pushes me on, and we’re climbing together, over the barrier, falling together. Jon’s wrenching me up, leading me around the side of the stage.

  “August!” I call back.

  “Run,” he hisses. I can’t see him, can barely process a thing, but knowing he’s behind me gives me the wherewithal to move one foot in front of the other, around the stage, up the stairs, and through a door Richie’s holding ajar for us. He widens it just enough for us to squeeze through, then slams and locks it, sending us into pitch black.

  He’s off down the hall, his footsteps clapping against the narrow black walls. Jon’s gripping my hand so hard it hurts, yanking me after him, but I pull up, searching for August in the dark.

  “Are you insane?” Jon hisses. “We’re going to die.”

  “I’m here,” says August. Somehow his hand slips across my stomach, and relief takes me so hard I feel it prickle behind my eyes.

  A loud crack fills the small space, shooting a hole through the door, the bullet so close to my ear I hear it whizz past.

  “Fuck!” Jon cries out. He drops my hand and runs, which is only fair. I bolt after him, grabbing August’s hand as we go, running blindly down the hall, on and on, up the endless path until finally the green glow of an exit sign comes into view.

  Jon’s there first, smashing through the door. Frigid air hits us, mingled with the smell of diesel. The van’s door is wide open, pulled up to the exit, and we all tumble in, falling onto the floor. Amber slams it behind us as Tico smashes a foot down on the accelerator. I’m thrown into a messy sandwich between Jon and August, unable to extricate myself as we slip around one corner, then another, and straight into Camden traffic.

  “What the hell was that?” Amber shouts, down on the floor to help untangle us from our man sandwich.

  “I don’t know, man,” Jon rasps out, shoving August in the chest as he climbs back onto a seat. “I guess this is what happens when you’re the best Bon Jovi cover band in the world.”

  Oh my god.

  August didn’t resist or react to Jon’s physical assaults, but now a loud scoff fills the van, and Jon flings his gaze over at him.

  “Oh, you’ve got a better idea? Think it was August’s ‘stalker?’”

  “I am not fighting you over who has the better stalker,” I snap at him, even if it’s clearly me. Mine doesn’t try to kill me, at any rate.

  “We’ve never had a stalker,” Richie says, turning Jon’s eyes to pure flame. “And whatever the fuck that was… Did you see the people?”

  “Yeah, what was that?” Shashi interjects. “The audience was completely frozen.”

  “Should we go back?” Amber asks. “What do we do? Is he shooting all those people?”

  “Police.” Richie’s whipped his phone out, turning away as much as he can in the cramped, hastily driven van to try to hear them.

  “It was me he was after,” Jon insists, typically. “Why else would he be there?”

  “I don’t know, a terrorist attack?” August snipes. “Not unheard of in London.”

  “Then why did he follow me?” asks Jon.

  And he has a point, stopped-clock style. A point that drags my eyes up to August’s, which are veering from angry at Jon to worried on me.

  “Do you know what happened?” I ask him. I don’t just mean the shooter, and I know he knows that by the way he flinches away from me.

  “No.” The word’s small, and for the first time since yesterday, I feel the tingling reminder of how I didn’t entirely trust him at the start. But one day of maths and talking astronomy, one kiss, and it’s all been thrown out the window.

  That same old shame taps at my shoulders. My all-or-nothing way with relationships. My jumping in two feet first. I don’t even know him. Even though he’s me.

  What am I doing with this guy from another universe who’s me?

  “Or maybe…” he says, words soft, “I might.”

  “I know what happened,” Jon says, leaning forward. “You kissed my boyfriend.”

  “He’s not your boyfriend,” August snaps, his shoulder pressing into mine as he, too, leans forward.

  Jon’s tone strikes at August. “I can’t believe you’d betray me like that.”

  “I betrayed you?” August half laughs in disbelief.

  “You knew I was trying to get him back. You pulled that in the middle of my song!”

  “August doesn’t want you!”

  “August doesn’t know what he wants!” Jon shouts. “He’s confused, and you took advantage of him when it was me he was thinking about.”

  August throws back, “He wasn’t thinking about you, I guarantee it.”

  But Jon’s words are in my head.

  August kissed me. He kissed me, and it was fucking incredible.

  But that’s exactly when everything stopped. It’s when all the world ground to a halt. And we fell into a time loop when he held my hand today. And we fell into a time slip when I grabbed him yesterday. And now all I can think about is him telling me I shouldn’t touch him, that it would make things worse.

  The way he wouldn’t kiss me for so long…

  “Did we do that?” My words are thick with horror, revulsion at the thought that not only could I have caused that, but that he would let me do it. If he knew.

  “Police are on their way,” Richie reports. He slips his phone into his pocket, then reaches forward in one smooth motion to grab a bottle of bourbon that’s sliding around the floor. He cracks it open, takes a sip, and the whole time, August isn’t saying a fucking word.

  “Do we need to go back?” Amber asks. “To be witnesses or something?”

  “I’m not driving back to an active shooter,” Jon responds. He rips the bottle out of Richie’s hand. “Not that it would make much difference. I’m already dead. On the inside.”

  He flings his head back to take a drink, and August mutters, “Jesus Christ.”

  The liquid drips down Jon’s chin as he pulls the bottle away. “You think you know? You think you understand? Fucking kissing cousin. You can get the fuck out of my van. Tico! Pull over!”

  The van veers to the left, and a volley of horns scream at us when we lurch to a stop on a double yellow line.

  “What are you doing?” I shout.

  “He can get the fuck out!” Jon yells, standing now. “You’re disgusting, August. You’re disgusting!” This now directed at me, the first time he’s let himself take aim at me since the kiss. “Your fucking cousin? Of all the people, man.”

  “He’s not… Ah, fuck. Look…” This shouldn’t bother me so much. What does it matter if Jon thinks I kissed my cousin? But fuck!

  “I love you.” Jon slides between my legs, digging two fists into my shirt, my arm smacking back into August when I reel away from him. “I love you. And even if you make me sick, I still fucking love you.”

  So romantic…

  August settles deeper into his seat, dropping a leg onto Jon’s vacated spot opposite. “Shame it wasn’t you he kissed, then.”

  A vacuum of air pulls my stomach tight, both at the casual admission of what just happened and the jealous callousness of the comment.

  “Motherfucker!” Jon yells. His face snaps back to mine, and he declares, “It’s me or him. Tell me it’s me, and I’ll forget you kissed your cousin. I’ll forget all about it, and we’ll move on.”

  “Jon… Listen, things are…” I just didn’t see myself breaking his heart right now, in front of all his friends. Equally, something catches at my words before I can say, ‘Sorry, I choose August.’ Because does August choose me? Does he even want me? Was that just some dumb, tipsy moment, fuelled by jealousy and a good song?

  “He certainly doesn’t choose you,” August quips, like a complete shit, and I still admire his confidence, even as Jon leaps up from the floor, grabs his shirt instead of mine, and wrenches him towards the van door.

  “Stop it!” Richie shouts, moving himself between the door and the two men I’m inexplicably tangled with.

  “You can’t throw him out in Camden,” mutters Shashi, ever the voice of reason. “At least drive on a little bit, away from the gunman.”

  “You can’t throw him out at all,” I shout, shoving Jon off, back into Richie, where he stares at me, open-mouthed. “He’s my… He’s…” My heart’s beating so fast. What I’d give for one word from August, one statement to let me know this is something—something material that I can fall back on when I’m throwing one of my oldest friends away over him.

  When nothing comes, I latch onto the coward’s way out. “Who bought you this van? You think you can just throw my cousin out on the road like yesterday’s garbage? You can fucking not. Tico, drive the car!”

  “Don’t drive the fucking car,” Jon yells, and the van stays resolutely still. “I told you, it’s him or me. You put him out, or I’m going back to Koko.”

  There’s a communal groan, but I’m the only one to say, “Don’t be so fucking stupid, Jon.”

  “You are all I live for,” he cries, and I really think he believes it right now. He’s so caught up in himself, in his drama, that he’s forgotten every night he left me at home to go and fuck some groupie. Every time he said I was holding him back because I wanted him to make us public, and not pretend I was just some roadie tagging along for the ride because he wanted someone else for the evening. “You’re every breath I take, August.” And my heart sinks as we dip into his usual butchering of Bon Jovi lyrics. “You’re my wine, and my water, and…”

  “Jon, let it go,” I sigh out. “Just sit down.”

  “I can’t ever sit down again!”

  But August does, a tired flop into the seat with his hand rubbing over his brow, a gesture which is touching on how I’m beginning to feel.

  “If I can’t have you, I’m going back to Koko. I’m going back there, and I’m getting myself shot! Right here!” Jon slams a hand down on his chest. “You wouldn’t leave me for your cousin. Of all the people in the world, your cousin?”

  The look Richie shoots at Amber and Shashi drives home the general abhorrence of my actions.

  “He’s not…” is my very best defence. And we all know it’s an intolerably weak one.

  “Your cousin!” Jon reiterates. “Do you know that’s illegal most places?”

  “Is it?” August goads him. “Like where? Not London, I’m sure.”

  “Like…” Jon splutters to a stop. “Anywhere civilised! It’s disgusting!”

  “We don’t think so,” August prods, and right about now, I want to slap him. I know he likes getting under Jon’s skin, and I’ll admit, some part of me finds that incredibly attractive, and quite funny, but not like this. Not with everyone else in the van shrinking from me, looking at me like I really am kissing my cousin, whatever shred of respect any of them had left for me after everything Jon’s done dwindling away like so many streetlights in the distance.

  “It’s sick, man,” Jon declares. But he lunges forward, slipping his hand like a snake around my waist. “Let me help you. I’ll take you away from him. I don’t know what he’s done to you, what your family situation was like⁠—”

  “Oh Jesus. It’s not like that, Jon.”

  “He’s a predator. A sicko. And I won’t let him touch you ever⁠—”

  “He’s me!” I cry, shoving him off, stepping back so violently I almost fall. “He’s me, alright? He’s me and I’m him and look at us!” I fling my hand back and forth between us, August’s lips tight and tilted to one side, his dark eyes on me. Was I not supposed to say that? He never explicitly said I wasn’t supposed to say that.

  “What the fuck are you on about?” shouts Jon. “He’s not your soulmate. I’m your soulmate! It’s me! Your other half—you and me!”

  “No, Jon. Not like that.” I slam my head into my hand, frustration rising with every second. “He’s me. Look at him. He’s an exact match for me.”

  “I knew it!” Shashi exclaims, and for the first time since she met August, her wariness drops, and she rushes forward from the back of the van to sit opposite him.

  “What do you mean you knew?” August asks, perfectly shocked at her reaction.

  “It’s so obvious,” she declares. “Cousins don’t look like this. Twins don’t look like this. It’s everything. Even the freckles are a perfect match.”

  Jon must take Shashi’s words more seriously than mine, because he slips down into the seat next to her and stares hard at August, then me, then August. “No. That one has glasses.”

  A cackle rips out of August, so I drop onto the seat next to him, letting my hand fall on his knee to quiet him. His eyes shift down to it, Jon’s eyes shift down to it, then I scrunch it into a ball and put it back on my own knee.

  “He’s me, alright? A lot of weird shit has been going on lately, and I tried to tell you on the phone, and you wouldn’t listen.”

  “So…” Jon stares at the pair of us. “You kissed yourself?”

  “Is that better or worse?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Well, I don’t know! But he’s not my cousin!”

  “How the hell did this happen? What’s even going on?”

  “It’s…” Where to even start? “It’s complicated. Too complicated. I don’t even know what to tell you. Just that… it’s been a really hard time, alright?”

  The van moves up the street, lights and cars flashing by while he stares hard, making up his mind. Then, eventually… “I’m sorry.” The first words that aren’t a drama swirling around Jon are spoken quietly, and the first genuine apology he’s given me in months rips away the tension between us.

  “It’s alright.”

  I’m guessing it’s the calm moment between us that finally prompts August to speak in a way not directly intentioned to piss Jon off. “I came to August for help. And back there, those people…” He breaks off, looking at me with a hesitance I’m unaccustomed to in him.