Chapter 19: Thomas Gives the Orders

Thomas woke at dusk with someone's elbow in his ribs and the best feeling he had ever had.

He lay still and counted it.

Warm hands on both sides, and a heartbeat under his ear that was not his own.

A lamp someone had turned low glowed on his eyelids.

Then he opened his eyes.

Lucas was already up.

He sat at the little desk by the window in a borrowed sweater.

A yellow pad lay in front of him, and a phone was against his ear.

"Yes," Lucas was saying. "I understand. No, the label doesn't speak for me. I'll wire the rent on Monday."

He listened.

"That's two days after your deadline, and I'm asking for the two days."

A pause.

"Thank you. I'll put it in writing."

He hung up and wrote a line on the pad and underlined it.

"What was that?" Thomas whispered.

Lucas turned, and the tired lines around his eyes eased when he saw him.

"The landlord. I bought us until Monday. The rest is Saturday."

"You've been up all day."

"I made a list."

"You always make a list."

"It's what I'm for," Lucas said. "Go back to sleep."

"I can't. I'm full of ideas."

Thomas slid out of the tangle of limbs and padded downstairs in his socks to find something useful to do.

The front hall was cold.

There was an envelope on the mat under the door slot, thick and black, sealed with wax.

It was addressed to him.

Not to the band, and not to the manager.

Thomas.

He stood with it in his hands for a long minute.

Then he cracked the seal.

You are the youngest of them, and you were never meant to be exiled. I was angry, and I over-reached.

Come to the court tonight, alone, and I will lift the sentence and give you back your rooms, your name and your drums.

The other two are lost to you already. You need not be. A.

Thomas read it three times.

It was a good letter, the kind that wanted him to cry.

For one bad second he thought of the rooms, which had a window onto a garden.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Joined Midnight Rockers, Then Their Vampire Lord Claimed Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.