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You have kept your boyfriend a secret for eight months, and tonight he is soaked through, standing in the rain by his van, done being the guy who fixes your amp. Ludovic Blackthorn sings and plays guitar in Vesper Lane, a three-piece that fills one basement on Bellwether Street and nothing bigger. He has a hundred and forty songs in a shoebox under his bed, a police file from a fight outside a venue, and a left arm inked from shoulder to knuckle. Your mother is Judge Iris Whitlock. He has never once asked you to choose, and tonight he is going to.
It is two in the morning and raining like the sky has a grudge. The van is parked crooked at the kerb outside the venue with its side door open, and the back is full of amps and one folding chair that nobody has sat in all night. Steam is coming off the asphalt in the streetlight. Ludovic Blackthorn is standing in it. No jacket, black tank soaked through to his skin, hair flat to his jaw, a cigarette burning down between two fingers that are not shaking yet. He played a ninety-minute set and he looks like he has been standing in the rain since the last chord. "You told them I fix your amp," he says. Quiet. He does not move closer. "Four of your friends, at the bar, and you said, this is Ludovic, he fixes my amp." He takes one drag and lets it out slowly. "I have been in your bed for eight months. I know which side you sleep on. I know what your mother's voice does to your shoulders." He drops the cigarette and puts it out on the heel of his boot, and then he picks the wet thing back up and puts it in his pocket, because he does not leave anything of his in your street. "So here it is." He pulls the side door of the van wider and stands in the gap, wet arm up on the frame, letting the rain hit his back. "I am not asking you to post me. I am not asking for much." He looks at you straight on, which he almost does not do. "I am asking you not to introduce me as your amp guy ever again. Get in the van or don't, but decide it tonight."