Pandora arrived on a Thursday evening at the end of April, her suitcase rattling over the cobblestones, her grin infectious as she launched straight into everything he’d missed. Their father’s latest shameless affair—his secretary, of course. Narcissa’s rushed engagement to some French aristocrat’s son, because apparently marrying well was more important than marrying someone you actually liked. Their mother’s ongoing war against anything remotely enjoyable—against carbs, empty calories, and now, her latest crusade: Pandora’s university applications. She was determined to get at least one child into Cambridge or Oxford after failing spectacularly with Evan.
Evan shot her a sly look. “Could apply for Edinburgh.”
Her laugh rang out, light and easy, echoing off the stone buildings.
“I’ll consider it if you buy me McDonald’s tonight.”
“Deal.”
Inside, the hall was dusky under the fading light, but the open-plan living room and kitchen were still bright. Evan watched Pandora take it in, trying to see it through her eyes. Light spilled in from the wall of windows fitted into the slanted roof above—his favourite part of the flat, the reason he’d bought it. He liked being able to see the sky, rain or shine, day or night. Liked having as much of the outside inside as he could manage.
The far wall was taken up by a huge bookshelf. A record player and stacks of vinyl sat on a side table alongside cameras—lots of cameras, lined up neatly on a shelf, hung from hooks. Photos covered every available wall space. Small unframed candids of Evan, Reg, and some of Barty’s work friends were stuck haphazardly to the fridge, the cupboards, the back of the door. Larger glossy prints—portraits, studio shots, street photography, events, the odd landscape—framed and hung wherever blank space remained.
At first glance, it was all Barty—the photos, the philosophy and mythology books, the piles of messy notes sitting on the coffee table, the cat tree in the corner. His brand of chaos, stamped into every surface.
But Evan was there too. His Pinarello Dogma mounted on the hall wall like art—because as far as Evan was concerned, it was art—no one who knew Barty would ever mistake the bike for his. The only exercise Barty regularly committed to was the nine-forty-five Sainsbury’s wine dash: a desperate sprint to beat Scotland’s half-hearted attempt at tackling alcoholism. Because sure, prohibiting alcohol sales after ten p.m. was definitely going to fix the country’s rise in alcoholism. Evan was fairly certain it was the students who suffered for it more than the alcoholics, who presumably had the foresight to make it to the shop in time. And speaking of alcohol—a bottle of good Scotch sat tucked neatly in the drinks cabinet, side by side with Barty’s cocktail spirits and shakers. Barty was a cocktail man. Wine too, red preferably. Evan preferred beer, or whisky, and didn’t see the point in anything that required a shaker.
There was a mug on the counter with fuck off written on it in looping cursive. A present from Barty. Evan would never admit it was his favourite, but it was. He was on the bookshelf too—Hobbes’s Leviathan wedged between Barty’s battered copies of Metamorphoses and The Aeneid. And above the record player, a framed Sex Pistols poster. Most people assumed it was Barty’s. Of course they did. But Barty only looked the part—anyone who actually knew him knew that left to his own devices, he’d take glossy synth-heavy eighties pop over snarling guitars any day of the week.
No, the poster was Evan’s. As were the plants—perched on windowsills and atop bookshelves, trailing from macramé holders that Barty had once said made the place look like a bohemian drug den. But Evan liked them because he liked the greenery. As much as possible. He’d bring the whole outside in if he could.
Evan wondered if his sister could see him in the space as clearly as he could. The proof that this was his home, where he belonged.
Plato meowed expectantly, winding around Pandora’s ankles like she was the second coming.
“You’ve got a cat,” she exclaimed, delighted.
“He doesn’t.” Barty emerged from his room, hair spiked up in every direction. “The traitorous wee bastard is mine. And dinnae you listen tae a word he says—I assure you, he’s much better fed than he’d have you believe.”
Pandora turned, and the moment she laid eyes on Barty her expression shifted. Her gaze swept from the tattoos covering his forearms, to the ripped jeans, then back up to his face.
“Hi,” she said, a little too breathlessly.
Evan bit back a grin as he clocked the faint pink creeping up her cheeks. He couldn’t exactly blame her. They were made of the same genes, after all—it seemed hair and eye colour weren’t the only things they had in common.
“You must be Pandora,” Barty said, grinning. “Nice to finally meet the better Rosier.”
“Fuck you,” said Evan.
Pandora giggled, and Evan rolled his eyes. “Come on, Panda. I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”
The weekend slipped through Evan’s fingers, gone before he had time to grasp it properly. Before he could hold onto it and make it last. Pandora’s presence had cracked through the gloom, forcing light into the spaces he hadn’t realised had gone so dark. She was a force—all laughter and easy affection, filling the flat with something warm, something good. Something from before.
But it wasn’t just Pandora. It was Barty too.
Evan hadn’t realised how much he’d missed him. Not the Barty of the last several months—the restless, self-destructive version—but his Barty. His best friend. The one who made Edinburgh feel electric, made it feel like home. The one who dragged Evan into trouble just for the hell of it. The one who could talk him into or out of anything with that sharp, wicked grin.
Over the weekend, Evan caught glimpses of him.
Flickers. Shining moments where Barty forgot to be miserable, where he leaned too far into the role of host—mixing drinks, telling stories, spinning the kind of effortless charm that had always come so easily to him. He made Pandora laugh. He performed for her—flipping a cocktail shaker in the air with a wink that had her going pink, draping himself across the sofa and reciting Burns with a twinkle in his eye. He was on, in a way Evan hadn’t seen in months.
And it gutted him.
Because he knew exactly what Barty was doing, and who it was really for. It wasn’t for Pandora. Not really. It was for Evan. Because Barty knew how much Pandora meant to him—how badly Evan needed her to see that a life outside the one they’d been born into was possible. He knew Evan needed this weekend to be good.
It was good. But it was also fucking painful. Because even in the brightest moments, Evan saw through it. He saw the exhaustion at the edges, the way Barty’s mask slipped when he thought no one was looking. He caught him in quiet moments—late at night once Pandora had gone to bed, fingers curled tight around his glass, gaze distant, his dark eyes sad. By the time Pandora’s train pulled away from Waverley on Sunday evening, Evan felt hollowed out, like something had been carved out of him. He stood on the platform until the train was nothing but a dot in the distance, hands shoved deep in his pockets, the wind biting at his skin.
Then, finally, he turned and started the walk home. He already knew the flat was going to feel emptier than before. And fuck, if he wasn’t dreading it. Wasn’t exhausted. Tired of Barty being miserable. Tired of being the one holding him together, tired of having to hide that he was miserable too.
The Marauders’ second album dropped the following week.
Evan had known it was coming, obviously—James had been banging on about it for bloody months, had even sent over a demo of one of the tracks. But nothing prepared him for hearing the whole fucking thing. The first song hit like a gut punch. The second was somehow worse. By the fourth, he was swearing under his breath. He listened to the whole damn thing, pacing the length of his room like a caged animal, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Then he stalked into the living room and hurled his headphones at Barty.
“Listen,” Evan said. “Now.”
Barty blinked, confused, but didn’t argue. He slipped the headphones on, expression unreadable as the music kicked in. A few minutes passed before he pulled them off again, shrugging.
“Aye, it’s good. Might be a pure twat, but the lad can sing, I’ll give him that.”
Evan rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. “Forget James. You stupid fuck.”
Barty scowled at Evan’s tone but did as he was told, pressing the headphones back to his ears. Evan waited, arms crossed, eyes locked on Barty’s face, watching his expression shift—from irritated, to confused, to something else entirely. He could practically see the minute Barty’s heart cracked open. Pain, tangled up with something quieter, something dangerously close to hope. Barty swallowed hard, gaze flicking up to meet Evan’s as he pulled the headphones off.
“The whole bloody album is about you,” said Evan.
“Why the fuck wid they make an album about me?”
“They didn’t, you fucking imbecile.”
Understanding dawned on Barty’s face. “Could’ve been written afore we split.”
Evan let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Right. And I suppose it’s just a coincidence that every song sounds like a fucking open wound?”
Barty said nothing. Just stared back at him, dark eyes wide.
“Listen to the fucking album, Barty,” said Evan, before turning on his heel and walking back into his room.
The album did well. Really well. Stupidly well. Within weeks, two songs had climbed the charts, slotting right between Beyoncé and Charli XCX like they belonged there. Evan was standing in Tesco towards the end of May—the shit one at the top of Broughton Street—trying to remember if they had cheese at home, when James’s voice came over the supermarket speakers. Evan snorted, pulling out his phone with the intention of texting him something mocking, something about having finally made it.
And then it hit him. Really hit him that the voice crackling over the speaker, sandwiched between a wall of meal deals and energy drinks, was the same voice he’d gotten used to hearing on the other end of the phone. James-who-was-the-lead-singer-of-The-Marauders and James-who-was-his-friend slammed into each other with full force, and the effect was—oddly disconcerting. Evan frowned and slipped his phone back into his pocket, unsettled by the way the thought lingered, sharp-edged and strange. And then, uninvited, New Year surfaced. The memory of kissing James—something he hadn’t thought about since it happened—sudden and oddly uncomfortable, like pressing a bruise he’d forgotten was there. He didn’t text James. Not that day, not the next either. And when James called, a few days later, for some reason, the feeling was still there—sharp and unexpected. Evan’s pulse kicked up in a way he didn’t particularly like. He shoved it down and answered. James’s voice came through warm and easy, completely oblivious to the unease curling in Evan’s gut.
“You would not believe the travesty of a morning I’ve had. Right off the bat, girl at Pret gives me the wrong drink. I didn’t realise until I was already out of the shop. My flat white? Not a flat white. Oat milk matcha, absolutely foul. Seriously, who wakes up and thinks, today I want to start my day with a drink that tastes like grass mixed with porridge?”
“The horror,” said Evan. And then frowned. It was still there—that feeling, subtle but insistent. Like the tickle at the back of your throat before a cold sets in, the dull ache behind your temples before the flu properly kicks in.
He got up, took the phone into the kitchen. Stared at the kettle while it boiled, trying to pin down whatever the hell this feeling was. James was still talking in the background—something about being shat on by a bird, an awkward encounter with a fan. Ridiculous, all of it. So why was Evan still feeling so—not nervous, exactly, but something.
Unsettled?
It was just James.
James—who, underneath the unattainable rockstar image, was the biggest simp Evan had ever met. James, who couldn’t make a single fucking decision without agonising over how it might affect everyone else. James—who always wanted to please everyone, who, despite the fact that there was a literal Twitter account dedicated to his abs, was in reality painfully self-conscious about the most stupid shit imaginable, and spent way too much time worrying about what his hair looked like in pictures online. James, who had built his entire career on an image of being the very thing he wasn’t—cool.
“And—” James was still talking. “—to top it all off, Finsbury Park is shut down. Apparently there’s a bomb threat or something, because terrorists don’t have better things to do on a Saturday morning. Anyway, Piccadilly and Victoria are both buggered. I end up having to get a cab. Would you believe the guy charged me fifty quid just to get to Mayfair? It’s like ten bloody minutes.”
“It’s at least fifteen, twenty with traffic,” said Evan, dumping a teabag into his mug. “And it’s not like you can’t claim it back on expenses.”
There was a groan. Evan startled as a bleary-eyed Barty stuck his head up from the couch where, from the looks of it, he’d been fast asleep.
“Dae us a cuppa, wull you, Rosie?”
Evan nodded and got out a second mug.
James, sounding grumpy: “Well, yeah—but it’s the principle of the thing.”
“Fuck off, you’re loaded. It makes literally no difference to you. Why were you going to Mayfair anyway?”
“Meeting with Minnie.” Ah—the manager. Evan had heard plenty about her. He rolled his eyes, pouring milk into his tea and adding sugar to Barty’s.
“Didn’t go well?”
“No, it was fine. She’s thrilled with the response to the album.” A pause on the other end of the line. Then a sigh.
Evan deposited Barty’s mug on the coffee table in front of him.
“But?”
Another pause.
“How do you know there’s a but?”
“Isn’t there?” asked Evan.
A beat.
“Well… yeah.”
“Well, get to the fucking point, then,” Evan said, collecting his tea and heading back towards his room.
James exhaled, long and heavy. “Minnie wants us to go on tour.”
Something in his tone made Evan pause. James sounded—unhappy.
“And that’s bad?”
“She wants us to do Europe this time, not just the UK.”
“Right.”
“Two months at least.”
Something was off. Going on tour should be a good thing. And yet James sounded like he was bracing for impact, which meant there was something else. Evan didn’t have to think too hard about what. If James was hesitating, it had to do with Reg. It usually did.
“You’re worried about being on tour with Reg?”
Another sigh, deeper this time. “A bit. But it’s not just that.”
“We’re sort of all right now,” James continued, sounding like he was choosing his words carefully. “It’s a bit awkward, but we got through recording the album well enough. It’s not being on tour with him that worries me.” Then, quieter—“It’s him I’m worried about. Don’t think he’s doing too well. Haven’t spent much time with him outside the studio—couldn’t, it wasn’t a good idea for either of us. But from what Sirius says, I think finishing the album is what’s been holding him together. And now that it’s done, now that he’s got nothing keeping him focused—he’s crumbling.”
A pause. Then James continued, voice tight. “Pete’s not doing great either. It just feels like bad timing. Like maybe I should tell Minnie no, that we’re not ready. Sirius will be gutted, but he’ll get over it.”
Evan took a slow sip of his tea. “What about you?”
“What do you mean?” Genuine confusion in James’s voice, like he actually didn’t understand the question.
Evan sighed. “What do you want? If you weren’t thinking about them—what would you do?”
Evan could practically hear James turning the question over, like he actually had to think about it: like he hadn’t before—which, knowing him, he probably hadn’t. James Potter—chronic people pleaser, too busy worrying about everyone else to consider what he wanted.
When the answer finally came, it was quiet but certain: “I want to do it.”
Evan had thought as much. Had known it, really, from the first minute he’d seen James on stage—the way he came alive, the way he fed off the crowd, the way it was so plainly where he belonged. What he lived for.
“Then fuck everyone else.”
A small, incredulous laugh.
Evan pushed forward. “If they don’t want to, fine. But don’t tie yourself in knots over it. You want this. Stop worrying about everyone else. They’re all fucking adults.”
“I just—I don’t want to push Pete or Reg if they’re not in the right headspace. It’s a lot, being on the road. All that pressure, the expectations. If I force them into it and it goes badly, that’s on me.”
Evan scoffed. “Oh, fuck off.”
A silence. He thought he could hear James smile. “Might need you to expand on what that particular fuck off means.”
“You’re not dragging them into a fucking war zone. You’re asking them to go on tour with their own fucking band. If they don’t want to do it, that’s their call, not yours. But you shouldn’t be the one deciding for them.”
“And if they say no?”
Evan shrugged, even though James couldn’t see him. “Then you deal with it. Find a way to make it work. But don’t not do it just because you’re afraid of making them uncomfortable.”
“I hate it when you make sense. It’s really annoying and hard to ignore.”
“Then stop calling, fuckwit.”
“But then who would bless me with the sheer poetry of hearing ‘fuck’ used as a noun, a verb, and an adjective all in the same conversation?”
Evan snorted. “I’ll do you one better. Here it is in a single sentence. Fuck off, you fucking annoying fuck.”
James’s laughter came through the phone—warm, rich. And there it was again. That feeling. A prickle at the base of Evan’s spine, and this time he knew it for what it was. A warning. One coming straight from somewhere he didn’t particularly want to examine. Somewhere dangerously warm and mushy.
A warning that said:
Be careful. Danger up ahead.
Fuck.