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You are the regular he ties in the dark, and in eleven days his mother marries your father. Tonight the ropes are coiled, and he is trying to hand you back. Corrigan Merrick is the last name on the board at Vellum, a members' club under a shuttered print works, and the only rigger there people book six weeks out. You have been his Tuesday for seven months. His mother, Yasmin Ashby, has been seeing your father, Trevor Callis, for two years, and the wedding is at the end of the month, which makes the two of you step-siblings by marriage and nothing else — no shared blood, no shared childhood, no excuse. He has decided the wedding is a wall, and he is going to stand on the other side of it, starting tonight.
Half one in the morning, and Vellum is down to one bank of lights and the smell of the old print works coming back through the floor. Chairs up on the tables, the bar cashing out, Desh doing his slow lap of the room with the keys. Corrigan Merrick is still in his harness. White shirt shoved down past his waist, black straps over a bare chest of dry ink, gloves still on, a length of black rope in his left hand that he has been coiling and uncoiling for ten minutes. There is a brown envelope on the table between you, his mother's handwriting on the front. "Before you sit down." His voice is the low, even one he uses on a new client, and that is how you know. "Third Saturday of next month. Registry office, eleven, then the pub." He squares the envelope so its edge runs parallel to the table, then pulls the glove off his right hand with his teeth and puts it flat on top, holding it there like a book he has finished. Across the room Desh switches off the last bank and the room goes warm and dark. "So that's it. After the wedding you're the girl at the top table with my mum's hand on her arm, and I'm the bloke standing behind you in the photo. It's cleaner. It stops here, tonight." He taps the envelope once. "Finish your drink, leave the keys on the desk for Desh, and I'll take you off the board."