I glance at Brian and wonder if he sees what I see.  I want him to look back at me, give me some kind of sign, but he doesn't.  He's watching Freddie with that same mix of admiration and annoyance he always favors him with.  Brian doesn't have an easily readable face.  Neither do I.  It's a gift, really.  No one ever knows what we're thinking, unless we come right out and say it.  Difference is, I never say it.

Freddie is holding court here in our manager's house, campaigning again for his little jazz-type song.  "...So I made it a little longer and I think it flows better now."  He plays it for us.  Though I like jazz as much as anyone, I don't know where this fits on a rock album.  Granted, this version is much improved, but it's lacking somewhere.

Brian huffs.  "But it's lounge jazz, Fred."

"And...?"

"I mean, it's one thing for us to do the vaudeville stuff, the "Leroy Brown" thing, "Good Company", that's different.  This is... I don't know, it's just not the same."

Freddie sneers, "Oh, right, sorry.  Only jazz with electric guitars and a genuine George Formby ukulele banjo is worth the trouble.  I completely forgot."

"No, I'm just saying, it's still a little too bare.  There's no rock aspect.  It doesn't, um, it doesn't kick."

"So now we're putting ourselves in boxes, eh, Brian?"

"I don't like it, either," Roger chimes in.

"Freddie, we're not jazz artists.  We're rockers.  Variety's good, but it has to be good variety."

Freddie arches his eyebrow.  "My, my, that's very clever.  Did you think that up yourself?"

Brian is losing it.  "Look, Fred, I don't know what's gotten stuck so far up your ass lately that you're being such a twat, but do us all a favor and pull it the f--- out."

He may not know, but I do.  Too well I remember how I was restringing my bass toward the start of yesterday.  I'd done it a million times before, but this new string proved especially troublesome.  It kept slipping.  Finally I'd wound it around the knob, and I tightened it to the proper pitch.

"Come on, come on," I was muttering to myself, gently turning the key, the string pulling ever more taut.  But I pulled too taut too fast, and the string snapped.  Freddie was charging in at the very same time.

"Bollocks!" I had said aloud.  "So close!"

"The story of my life," he muttered.

"Huh?" I said.  And the floodgates opened and I resigned myself to my forever status as a sounding board- except now I'm that for two people and not just one.

And I thought Freddie was in a foul mood yesterday.  He was practically drifting away on clouds of happiness compared to now.  Anything any of us has said to him today has either been ignored or met with sheer hostility.  And Roger isn't helping.  He's grinning from ear to ear.  Because he knows exactly what's wrong with Freddie, as do we all.  He's simply the only one who's rubbing his nose in it.

Freddie looks Roger's way.  "What's got you so tickled pink?"

"Nothing, man," he says.  "Just thinking of all the things I can do with one hundred pounds."

Freddie's eyes narrow.  "Really!  I haven't seen any success on your end."

Roger shrugs.  "Just means I need to up my game.  What's your excuse?  You're living with her!"

Ouch.  Freddie's fuming.  I watch his hands clench into fists.  There's a lone, empty wine glass sitting on the table.  He moves his arm.  Now it's smashed in a million tiny pieces by his feet. 

"That just cost us the price of an album," John Reid protests.

"I think you can afford that," Freddie replies.

"Wait, wait, wait."  Brian blinks, as though he's just now waking up.  "Is this about that f---ing girl?"

"Girl?" Reid frowns at Freddie, almost like he's been betrayed or something.  "What girl?"

Freddie shrugs.  "Long story, my dear."

I resist the urge to shake my head.  Brian is so out of the loop, only because he's chosen to be.  Freddie and Roger trade glances.  For Brian, this is the last straw for a very tense day.

"You guys are beyond belief!" Brian exclaims, and throws down his papers.  "I'm not sitting here to listen to you two row about some chick.  See you tomorrow."  He makes good on this threat (though a weak one; it is after all nearly half-past eight at night) by marching out of the house.

Maybe it's time I do the same.  I haven't seen Veronica or Robert all day.  I start moving around, collecting dishes.  But I'm listening.

"I bet she likes them blond," Roger muses aloud, clearly just to gig Freddie.  "I bet she likes her boys golden."

Freddie rolls his eyes, suddenly composed.  "Perhaps- but she also likes them fabulously handsome.  So we're tied, one and one."

"Sticks and stones.  Deep down, she wants me.  I'll just have to help her realize that."

"Yeah, okay," Freddie snorts.  He gets up and pushes in his chair.

Then Roger turns tempter once again.  "I'll wager one thousand pounds I can get to her even before tomorrow night ends."

Freddie groans.  "Ugh, Roger, give it a rest, would you?"

"Why?  Scared that I will?"

"Who's scared?  You can have her and have her, for all I care.  I just happen to know she'd never have you."

"Wishful thinking."

"Tell you what," Freddie says.  "I'll bring her around tomorrow.  We'll see for ourselves."

"Won't she be in the way, just sitting there?" Reid asks.  I wonder why he doesn't mind any of the other people Freddie brings round every now and then.

"Leave that to me.  I'll find a good reason for her to come.  She'll need one.  Always does."  Freddie scoffs to himself.

"Great.  Should be fun.  But my offer still stands, Freddie.  One thousand pounds."  Roger yawns like a hyena, and makes for the exit.  "Thanks for dinner, Reid."

John Reid nods at him, then to me he says, "Don't worry about the plates, I've got that.  Go home."

I take his words and run with them.  I think Freddie might stay a little longer at Reid's, as per usual.  But I've not walked five feet from the front door when it opens again and out comes the very bloke, still none too cheery.  He scans the sidewalk for his car, and swears as it hits him, he forgot to have the driver stick around- perhaps because he was thinking too hard on her.

I know how he is about public transportation.  So I call to him, "Need a ride, Freddie?"

Freddie turns, mulls the idea, then nods.  "If you're offering.  Thanks."

So we head down the sidewalk a way toward my car.  Discreetly I study his sulking face.  After a moment, I venture, "You all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he says evasively.

Though I'm closer to Freddie than the others, it's not lost on me I'm risking that friendship. "Brian may have a point, you know."

"How?" he barks, temper rising. 

'Uh... the song.  It needs something.  It's good, it just-"

"That's not what you were going to say."

"What's wrong, Freddie?  Is it her?"

Freddie opens his mouth but hesitates, clears his throat.  "Let me show you what I have to deal with," he says.  "Do like me.  Right?"  He starts prancing along the sidewalk, saying, "So you're walking down the street, minding your own."

I watch on the corner as he glides past the borough houses, bouncing along on the balls of his feet. 

He looks back in exasperation.  "Well, don't just stand there!  Move, John!  Walk with me!  Like this!"

Walk like him, he says.  For that, I'd need a built-in pogo stick- and loads of self-esteem.  But I try.  I hold my arms out at my sides, my wrists limp, my hips awkwardly swinging.

Freddie looks back at me and frowns.  "What the f--- are you doing?"

"I'm doing what you asked me to!"

"I didn't-"

"You said walk like you, so I'm walking like you!"

Freddie stops, looks down at himself.  His mouth twitches, then he glances at me.  It's too dark to tell if he's blushing.  But I snort a little laugh anyway.

"Never mind, never mind," he says.  "I'm terribly out of sorts lately.  Tell you in a minute.  Where's your car?"

We clamber into my sensible sedan (the Dadmobile, Freddie just has to brand it, the old bugger) and speed toward his flat.

"What I was trying to say, before you had to go and make it all ridiculous," Freddie continues finally, "is, picture yourself in my place.  Walking along, minding your own business, lovely day, things like that when suddenly, you round the corner and there's this girl standing there not three feet away.  Just a beautiful girl, smiling, teasing you with her eyes.  And of course you put out your hand to her- and what happens?"

I pull to a stop.  "I dunno.  She takes your hand?"

Freddie shakes his head.  "You reach out- and touch glass.  It's the shop window.  And she's not for sale at any price."

I sit quietly.  I dare not assume what he's trying to say, and let him spell it out.

He sighs.  "I'm quite the windbag with you of late, I know.  But I can't talk about Eve with anyone else.  And what with you having the Relic and all, you're more or less in on it."

I shake my head.  "It must be awful for you."

He nods.  "I feel like I've totally blown it with her.  Roger may actually have a better chance at this rate."

"I dunno.  I'm no good at these things."

Freddie rolls his eyes.  "Oh, John.  You're so afraid to step on my toes."

I squint.  "What?"

"Talk to me, man!  For once, don't worry about what I think and f---ing step on my toes."

I pause, shoot him a wary look.  "You won't be angry?"

"I make no promises."

I huff.  "Then I'm not saying a word."

"Fine, fine!  Say whatever.  I promise I'll take it like a man."

This isn't my area.  I don't like involving myself in other people's sex lives, or love lives, or what have you.  But Freddie is once more asking for my help- worse still, my advice.  I don't know when I'll have this privilege again.

"I don't know what's gone down between you and Eve," I say carefully, "but regardless, maybe you should back off trying to- um, force yourself upon her.  Maybe she just needs to breathe."

"My God, John.  You act like we're an item on the rocks.  We haven't even left the harbor."

"Maybe it's too early.  Some girls take longer."

He rubs his eyes.  "It's been so long since I've had to.  Do this stuff, I mean.  Most times, they just, you know, run up at you, forcing their hotel keys into your hand while they're screaming their phone numbers."

"There you are.  Talk to her.  Get to know her, first, before you start trying to get into her knickers."  Over one hundred pounds, I scoff to myself.  God, Freddie, at least bet something a little higher next time.

"Then again, who's to say she's past it," Freddie murmurs to himself.  "She, doesn't seem a very, um..." He trails off, silently filling in the blanks.

By this point, we are pulling in front of Freddie's flat.  Somebody's certainly home.  The lights in the windows are all on, and I can hear faint guitar music floating in the humid breeze.  I don't answer him, because there's no way I can.  He has to work this out on his own.  It's not something one can just solder back together, like that silly device.

"How's the Relic coming along, by the way?" Freddie asks, opening the car door.

"Not too bad," I say.  "I think I may have it all pieced together by tomorrow."

"Excellent.  Thanks for the ride, John.  We'll see you tomorrow."

"We?"

"Eve is coming to the studio too."

And after all that maudlin jabberjaw about blowing it with her!  "Since when?"

"Really, John.  Have you no faith in me?"  He flashes me a dazzling smile- the first one I've seen today.

I have no idea now whether he's been toying with me the past few minutes or really taking in anything I said.  I honestly don't know what to do with him except take him as he is.  So I wave goodbye and let him skip up the steps. 

I don't live too far away from Freddie's flat, so I head straight for home and arrive in under ten minutes.  I make plans to catch up on the day with Veronica and then get right back to tinkering with Eve's Relic.

Robert's there to greet me in the arms of his mum.  When I walk into my flat, I kiss the top of his head and my wife's lips just a bit above.  He's ferociously gnawing some little piece of plastic he's found, which he keeps sucking on no matter how many times Veronica pushes his hands down from his curious mouth.

I'm more anxious than I realized to finish the Relic.  So very quickly my wife and I recap the day's goings-on and she leaves me to it.  I rush to my desk, inspect the pile of electronic parts, more coherent now since the day Freddie had brought them over. 

And I'm missing a piece.

My heart flutters.  I dive under my desk, run my hands along the floor.  I peer back behind it, under the furniture.  Under the loose, random papers I carelessly left there yesterday.  I can't find it.

And then, my heart sinks.  I dare not look.  It couldn't be.  But I still turn and look at my son.  My little son, who's still sucking on a tiny plastic square with a golden rectangle in its center, now resplendent in baby teeth marks.

I swallow.  Oh, no.