The Impossible Boy Read online

  The Impossible Boy

  by Anna Martin

  www.annamartin-fiction.com

  © 2020 Anna Martin

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  First edition January 2017 (Dreamspinner Press)

  Second (revised) edition January 2020

  Cover art by Garrett Leigh www.blackjazzdesign.com

  Characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any person depicted on the cover of this book is a model and is not affiliated with, nor do they endorse, this story.

  Chapter One

  There were few places in the world where Stan could blend in. He’d travelled a lot in his twenty-two years, and yet this little corner of north London seemed to be the spot for him. It felt right.

  He’d taken the Northern line to Camden Town on the recommendation of a friend and spent hours wandering around the hundreds of stalls at the market there, buying a new leather jacket and a tartan scarf from a real Scottish person and some chunky silver rings. He’d eaten in a vegan café that tempted him in with the most delicious smells. Then he’d gotten lost, taken a wrong turn, and ended up in a little pub tucked away out of sight of the main road.

  It had just started to spit with rain, so he ducked inside.

  This was his kind of pub—dark, low tables and a parquet floor that must have cost a fortune. Dim lighting, with a huge statue of the Virgin Mary behind the bar, but someone had painted an inverted pentagram on her cheek and created a tiny, perfectly fitting Mötley Crüe T-shirt for her to wear. The statue was adorned with multi-coloured Christmas lights, even though it was April. Over the bar, a hammered, blackened copper sign proclaimed the place to be ‘Buck Shot’. There wasn’t a sign over the door like most bars. Just the metal one inside.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked after Stan nimbly slid onto one of the barstools.

  He was tall and lanky, his hair a thick mop that fell across his forehead, the sides shaved close. He wore eyeliner and a smirk that made Stan’s insides feel like jelly.

  “Um….” Stan looked over the specials, which were written in chalk on a blackboard behind the bar. “Do you have a blond beer?”

  “We have a few.”

  “Your choice, then,” Stan said.

  “Sure thing.”

  When the guy turned away to pull a bottle from the fridge under the bar, Stan looked a little too hard at his backside. It was clad in very, very tight black jeans; his long, lean legs poured down into a pair of black Doc Martens. Wow.

  “Three eighty.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Three eighty,” the bartender said with a smile.

  “Oh.” Stan fumbled for his wallet out of his own jeans. He’d always thought he wore his own skinny jeans fairly tight, but he’d just been proved wrong. Since he wasn’t used to the British currency yet, Stan handed over a ten.

  The pub was fairly quiet, though there seemed to be a steady stream of people walking in and out to smoke. The smell of cigarettes followed them back inside, mingling with the earthy smell of beer and the tang of sweat.

  The cute bartender handed him the change, offered a quick smile, then turned to serve the next person. Stan sipped his beer and decided this might be his favourite place in the whole world. No one was even looking at him.

  On impulse, he shrugged out of his battered leather jacket and pulled off his scarf from around his neck. The action caused his hair to spill out down the back of his neck, the blond strands feathering out over his shoulders and down, almost to his waist.

  That made the cute bartender look. Stan didn’t mind at all.

  He finished the first pint, feeling warm and full and happy, then pulled his sketchpad out of his satchel so he could work a little while he drank the next one. There was nowhere he needed to be anytime soon. Not until Monday morning, in fact.

  “Another?”

  Stan looked up to meet the cute bartender’s warm brown eyes. He nodded mutely for a moment, then found his voice and said, “Please.”

  While the bartender poured the beer from bottle to glass, Stan debated whether or not to try to make conversation with him. It wasn’t normally his thing, and coming on too strong, or even at all, could be dangerous.

  For the most part, men didn’t like being flirted with by a man who looked more like a girl. A really hot, slightly confusing, slightly wrong girl. Stan knew what he looked like—he owned it.

  This time he had a handful of change ready. He’d been collecting it periodically through the day, and it was weighing down his pockets.

  “Can you help?” he said, fluttering his eyelashes just a tiny bit. “I don’t quite know what all the coins do yet.”

  The bartender laughed and leaned in over the dark wood bar. “Sure. These are pound coins. I need three of them….” His fingertips brushed over Stan’s palm as he sorted through the loose change, separating tens and twenties and fifty-pence pieces. He was wearing black nail polish, chipped around the edges. “Fifty, seventy, eighty. There you go.”

  “Thanks,” Stan said with a small, half smile.

  “You’re welcome, mate.” He turned and deposited the money in the till, then turned back. “I take it you’re new to these parts.”

  Stan nodded, secretly thrilled. “I just got here on Thursday, actually.”

  “Oh wow. From where?”

  “Um, Russia originally,” Stan said. He lifted the pint to his lips and took a small sip. It was good beer. The Brits definitely knew how to do microbrewing. “I’ve been living in Italy for the past year, though. And America before that.”

  “Probably why I couldn’t quite place that accent. I’m Ben, by the way.”

  “Stan.” He slipped his hand into the one Ben offered to him, finding it warm and dry, and squeezed slightly as he shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Same.”

  As more people started to file into the bar, Ben’s attention was stolen by those he was being paid to serve. Not that Stan minded all that much. He stayed perched on his stool to the side of the bar, sketching out ideas and designs while surreptitiously—he hoped—watching Ben work. By the time he finished his second pint, there was no use; he had no excuse to stay any longer, and he couldn’t risk another drink or he’d be well and truly drunk.

  He debated for long moments while swirling the last of his beer in the bottom of the glass, then impulsively tore a sheet of paper out of the pad and scrawled his name and phone number on it in looping script. After folding it twice he wrote “Ben” on the top and tucked the note under his almost-empty glass.

  Without looking up or over the bar, Stan shrugged into his scarf and jacket and tucked his sketchbook carefully back into his satchel. With gentle fingers, he pulled his long hair free again, leaving it loose down his back, and combed it away from his face.

  Before leaving, he glanced over at Ben, unable to stop himself, then lifted a hand in a wave. Ben nodded and smiled, and Stan strode out in his high-heeled boots.

  “Mate,” Tone breathed, Bristol audible in every long vowel as Ben unfolded the note, smiled, and tucked it into his back pocket. “Did she leave her number for you?”

  Ben pressed his lips together and shook his head. “No.”

  Tone gave him a confused look.

  “He left his number.”

  “You mean….What the….”

  “It was a dude, Tone.”

  A pause. “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” Ben said with a laugh, unable to hold it in any longer. “He had an Adam’s apple. And his name is Stan.”

  “I’m so confused,” Tone grumbled, reaching for the mixer gun, then squeezed the button for soda. If the pub was empty, he’d direct it into his open mouth, but the boss was around, so it went into a glass. “I’m not gay, but I’d do her—him, all night long. That has to be the hottest guy in the whole fuckin’ world.”

  Ben smiled to himself and moved to serve the next batch of people who had arrived at the bar. Secretly, he agreed with Tone.

  Being Saturday afternoon, the pub would get busy soon and stay that way for most of the night. He’d started at lunchtime and would be done by nine, giving him plenty of time to get over to band practice at Geordie’s. They didn’t often rehearse on a Saturday night—most of the people in the band preferred to go out and get rat-arsed instead. But Jez had some weed and was apparently in a sharing mood, so they’d all agreed to make an exception.

  It would be nice to have a night off.

  As expected, the crowds soon swelled in, and Ben worked steadily through the evening, his mind elsewhere.

  Stan. Jesus, that man could start wars. Like a modern-day Helen of Troy. It seemed like everything had come together when his DNA was being formed—the angels were singing and created a perfect balance of cheekbones, angled jaw, sparkling grey eyes, and long, long blond hair. Like a fucking mermaid.

  Tone might have been confused, but Ben definitely wasn’t.

  Ben had got stick from the other guys when he first started dating Alistair last year, even though it turned out to be a brief fling with the Frenchman that hadn’t lasted much past the end of the summer. His mates didn’t take the piss just because Ben was bi—they took the piss about everything. It was more to do with the fact Alistair was a poncey git who saw Ben as a bit of rough.

  Well, Alistair had had his fling an
d slummed it with the real kids in London, then flounced off back to gay Paris as soon as the rain came in October. Well, fuck him. He was nowhere near as pretty as Stan.

  When the end of his shift rolled around, Ben handed over to Mel with the customary high-five tap out and dragged Tone away from a bunch of girls who looked amused but slightly scared by his attention. Tone did that a lot. He meant well, but if the broad Bristolian accent wasn’t enough, the shaggy beard and mass of curly hair gave him something of a Stig of the Dump look that could terrify the ladies.

  “What?” Tone grumbled as they gathered up backpacks and guitar cases from the cellar. “I was in there, mate, I swear.”

  “Of course you were,” Ben said soothingly. “Gotta get to Geordie’s, though, before all the weed is gone.”

  Tone perked up at that idea and followed Ben to the Tube station with one of Ben’s guitars slung over his shoulder.

  The band had started out as a ragtag group of people who just got together to jam and do covers a few times a month. Ben had met them through Tone after he got the job at the pub and had mentioned that he played guitar. Not that well. His lack of skills didn’t matter. Apparently, it was more a chance for the group of friends to get together and smoke or get drunk.

  In the year and a half since they started playing together, things had gotten more organised, and they had taken the big first step to actually playing in public. That meant needing a set, though, and not just a bunch of covers. Writing their own music was a big step up. It had caused weeks of rows.

  There was still a dent in the side of Ben’s head where Tone had thrown a drumstick at him, called him a “fucking Kiwi bastard,” and stormed out of their rehearsal space. They had been best friends ever since.

  Nowadays there were only a few places in London where the band could get together to practice—Buck Shot had a music venue at the back, attached to the bar by a big set of double doors which opened up when a band was on. During the day, or when it wasn’t being used, the doors stayed closed, and Mel, the-manager, let them use the stage. The acoustics were weird when the room wasn’t full of people, but it was better than nothing. Plus, over half the band worked in the pub anyway, so it was easy to gather them in one place.

  If the venue space was being used or if they wanted to do stuff that was only semi-legal, they hung out at Geordie’s mum’s place, which was in Notting Hill and had a soundproofed basement. Ben had always thought Geordie—not his real name; he was just from Newcastle—lived the sort of life most people could only dream of.

  Geordie’s mum had won the lottery. Over sixty million on a normal Saturday night. It was crazy. The family had blown a load on a holiday to Magaluf, then set up in London so his mum could go and watch musicals on the West End to her heart’s content. She had two kids at Sylvia Young Theatre School and threw her remaining millions at producers, with the hopes of funding a big hit. It was only a matter of time before she struck theatre gold and doubled her money.

  For all of their nouveau-riche lifestyle, Geordie’s mum was sound and didn’t care that her only son was slumming around as a wannabe rock star. And she let the band rehearse in the basement. So Ben did his duty, flirted with her whenever he visited—mostly to annoy Geordie—and kept in her good graces.

  “Alright, Sherrie?” Ben said when she opened the door. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the cheek and a quick pat on the bum. He was one of the few people who could get away with it.

  “You are naughty, Ben,” she said with a laugh, then shooed them down to the basement, where the others were already gathered.

  “Ben’s got a girlfriend,” Tone announced as soon as they both got over the threshold and shut the door behind them. “Well, sort of.”

  “Fuck’s sake, Tone,” Ben muttered. “I don’t have a fucking girlfriend.”

  Geordie looked over, exhaled messily, and raised an eyebrow. “Coming back from the dark side, are you?”

  “Nah.” Ben held his hand out for the spliff and nodded in thanks when Geordie passed it over. “Men are so much less hassle than women.”

  “They don’t bleed, either,” Tone mused. “Unless you do ’em really hard, anyway.”

  The group groaned in almost perfect harmony, and Summer threw a guitar pick at Tone’s head. It missed by a mile.

  “You’re disgusting,” she said.

  “Tone” wasn’t short for Tony or Antony, as most people assumed. His given name was Daniel. He’d earned the nickname for his uncanny ability to lower the tone of a conversation, even when people assumed it was already at rock-bottom. They had a thing for nicknames in this band. Which was ironic, really, since they’d never really agreed on a name for the band itself; it had just settled in place after one of their now-legendary arguments. Having the Greek God of War as their moniker seemed apt.

  Summer produced a bottle of rum from her bag, waved it invitingly, and said something about ice and mixers. Four heads turned towards Geordie, who stalled for a moment, then hauled himself to his feet, grumbling about being a fuckin’ hostess.

  “Love you, Geordie,” Summer called after him.

  “So, have we got any gigs lined up?” Ben asked.

  Summer took responsibility for organising the gigs Ares played, mostly because she was the only one in the band who the clubs would deal with. Ben did it sometimes, when he had time, but between working two part-time jobs and rehearsing, he didn’t have much in the way of spare time.

  At nineteen, Summer was the youngest in the band by a few years and had been introduced to the others via her on-again, off-again relationship with Geordie. Her singing voice was good, really good, and she could strum along on a guitar, so they kept her around despite the drama. She wasn’t bad to look at either—her dark hair was shaved on one side, and the rest of it fell in thick waves down her back. Slim and tanned, with her nose and tongue pierced, as well as stretchers in her ears, Summer did not live up to her sunshiny name. She was a source of constant disappointment to her mother, who lived in Stoke Newington and drove a Prius.

  “Next month,” she said. “Got us a slot in the venue on the seventeenth and—actually, I should wait for Geordie to tell you.”

  “Fuck Geordie,” Tone said. “Tell us.”

  “She hasn’t fucked Geordie in ages,” Geordie said, taking the steps down to the basement two at a time. He had a bag of ice under one arm and a fizzed-up bottle of Coke in the other. He clutched a stack of plastic cups between his fingers.

  Summer rolled her eyes and pulled a bottle of rum from her backpack. “I got us a slot supporting Racket City. Not first support, second. But it’s at the Electric Ballroom, and it should be a really good gig. They’re gonna put our names on the posters and everything.”

  “Fuckin’ ace,” Geordie said and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Well done, gorgeous.”

  He started to pass the rum around for a celebratory drink, but mixing booze and weed gave Ben a headache, so he passed and rolled a cigarette instead.

  “Sounds good,” Ben said, then licked the paper to seal the rollie. “How long have we got?”

  “Forty-five minutes. We need to pad out the set.”

  Their current set was about twenty-five minutes, tops, and that included the cover of “Teenage Kicks” they did to kick off every gig. They used the song to raise the energy and the atmosphere, and it was appreciated almost everywhere.

  “Fuck,” Ben muttered and took another drag on his cigarette. “Better get fuckin’ started, then.”

  The magazine had arranged for a flat for Stan to live in, in a gated complex in Bow that had once, many years ago, housed a match factory. The red-bricked building in the East End of London had been split up into smaller apartments, and Stan had been offered a neat, spacious one-bedroom home that was his for a year.

  He’d only just moved in, so of his possessions were still in boxes, and all of those boxes were stacked in the living room. Stan kicked off his shoes, dumped his bags, and stared at the boxes for a long moment before turning on his heels and walking through to the kitchen. The green tea he preferred would help combat any lingering tipsiness from the two pints he’d just consumed.

  The kettle whistled merrily on the stove when the water boiled, and he carefully deposited it into a chipped white china cup and tied the teabag around the handle. While it steeped, Stan twisted his long hair back onto itself and secured the knot with a pencil lying on the countertop. Although the weather was far from warm out, the Underground in London was close and humid, and the sweat on the back of his neck made his hair sticky.