Chapter 7: Studio Ghosts and Digital Ties
The studio was a pristine, hermetic world where time dissolved into the pulse of a click track. For three days, Matthew lived inside the sterile glow of his monitors, surgically separating Danielle’s vocal takes, carving space for a synth pad that felt like regret given sound. He worked until his eyes burned, until the phantom scent of cedarwood and old books was overwhelmed by the ozone tang of overheating electronics. He was building a wall, sound by sound, to block out a laugh he could still hear in the silence between notes.
The buzzer from the gate was a jagged interruption. He flinched, his hand slipping on a fader. On the security screen, Evan’s face was pixelated, a paper bag in his hand. Matthew sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and hit the release.
He heard the heavy studio door open, then the familiar clatter of Evan dropping keys on the side table. “Brought the only antidote to creative despair,” Evan announced, his voice cutting through the muted orchestral swell in the speakers. “Katsu curry from that place you pretend not to love.”
Matthew didn’t turn around. “I’m in the middle of a harmonic stack.”
“You’re in the middle of a depressive episode. Food now. Musicology later.” Evan walked up behind his chair, peering at the sprawling Pro Tools session. “Christ, Matt. How many layers of vocal are on this? It sounds like a goddamn orphanage.”
A reluctant smile touched Matthew’s lips. “It’s texture.”
“It’s clutter. Solo the lead for a second.”
They fell into the old, easy rhythm of collaboration. Evan, for all his jealousy, had an impeccable ear for narrative space. He pointed at a waveform. “There. That little crack in her voice on ‘lonely.’ That’s the hook. Everything else is just dressing. Build the whole bridge around that one breath.”
He was right. Matthew made the adjustments, muting, boosting, and suddenly the song opened up, aching and clear. For an hour, the only sounds were the music, the click of the mouse, and their shorthand murmurs. The tension from Chicago began to seep out of the room, replaced by the familiar comfort of shared purpose.
Evan collapsed into the leather armchair Robert favored, stretching his long legs. He opened the containers, releasing the rich, spicy scent of curry. “So,” he said, handing Matthew a fork. “How’s the ethnomusicologist who almost stole our weekend?”
Matthew kept his eyes on his screen. “Don’t.”
“What? I’m just asking after a mutual acquaintance. He was sweet. In a ‘would catalog your record collection while you sleep’ kind of way.”
“It was a weekend, Evan. It’s over. It was just sex.” The lie was automatic, polished.
“Right. Meaningless sex. That’s why you’ve been jumping like a spooked cat every time your phone vibrates for the past seventy-two hours.” Evan took a deliberate bite. “He’s texting you, isn’t he?”
Matthew’s phone buzzed on the console, screen lighting up. He saw the preview: a link from Jack, accompanied by a single line: This Croatian folk trio uses a scale that made me think of your synth line in ‘Aurora.’
His chest tightened. He flipped the phone over. “It’s nothing.”
“Mmhmm.” Evan watched him, a knowing glint in his green eyes. “Look, I’m not the morality police. You and Robert have your… arrangement. I just don’t want you to get confused. Robert is a fucking force of nature. That kid in Chicago is a footnote. A very smart, very cute footnote, but a footnote nonetheless. Don’t trade a hurricane for a paragraph.”
Matthew pushed the curry around its container. The warmth of the food, the re-established camaraderie with Evan, it all felt like slipping back into a worn, comfortable coat. This was his life. This studio, this city, this history. “I’m not trading anything. I’m going to London next week.”
Evan’s expression softened, almost into pity. “Good. That’s good. Get laid by your actual boyfriend. Recalibrate.”
After Evan left, the studio felt larger, emptier. Matthew finished the mix, rendered the file, and sent it off with a terse email. The silence rushed back in. He picked up his phone.
He opened Jack’s message, clicked the link. It was a YouTube video of three elderly women singing in piercing, dissonant harmony. It was haunting, beautiful, and utterly specific. Jack had heard a fragment of his professional work and connected it to this obscure, authentic thing. It wasn’t flattery. It was a conversation.
Matthew stared at the reply box. His thumbs hovered. He typed This is incredible, then deleted it. Too effusive. He typed Thanks for sending, then deleted it. Too cold. He settled on: Those harmonies are wild. Thanks. How’s the chapter going? He hit send before he could rethink it.
The reply came almost instantly, a photo of a handwritten notebook page, dense with notations and crossed-out lines. Beneath it: It’s going. Hit a wall. This helped. Attached was another link, a driving, rhythmic piece by some West African guitar legend Matthew had never heard of. He listened, and for two minutes, he wasn’t in his studio. He was in Jack’s quiet apartment, sunlight on hardwood floors, surrounded by the physical evidence of a mind constantly making connections.
That night, in the dark of his silent house in the Hills, the memory wasn’t an abstraction. It was a physical ambush. The cool sheets against his back became the rumpled bedding in Hyde Park. The weight of the comforter transformed into the solid, warm pressure of Jack’s body holding him down.
He let his hand slide beneath the waistband of his boxers. His own touch felt perfunctory, impatient. He closed his eyes and it was Jack’s hand, calloused from guitar strings, wrapped around him, the stroke firm and sure. He remembered the ragged sound of Jack’s breathing in his ear, the filthy, whispered words that hadn’t felt degrading, but worshipful. You take it so fucking good. You feel like mine.
Matthew’s breath hitched. He pumped his fist, the fantasy crystallizing. He saw Jack above him, those intelligent eyes dark with lust, his glasses slightly askew. He felt the brutal, perfect stretch of being filled, the slap of skin on skin that was both punishment and absolution. He recalled the moment Jack came, the raw, broken sound he’d made, the way his body had convulsed as he emptied himself inside Matthew.
The orgasm ripped through him, sharp and guilty, a white-hot flare in the darkness. Pleasure immediately curdled into shame. He lay there, sticky and spent, the fantasy dissolving to reveal the cold facts of his bedroom. Robert’s spare toothbrush was in the en suite. Robert’s vintage leather jacket hung in the closet. He had just come to the thought of another man, a man whose texts were waiting on his phone, a man who asked about his work in a language that felt more intimate than sex.
He cleaned himself up, a grim routine. He opened his laptop and pulled up his calendar, focusing on the bolded block for his flight to Heathrow. He rehearsed the reunion in his mind. He would walk into Robert’s noisy, cluttered loft in Shoreditch. Robert would have that reckless grin, his sandy hair a mess. They wouldn’t talk about Chicago, or open relationships, or obscure folk music. They would fuck, hard and fast, against the nearest wall. Robert’s kisses were demanding, his hands possessive. The familiar rasp of his voice, the taste of whiskey and cigarettes, the chaotic energy that felt like life itself—it would reset everything. It had to.
He closed the laptop. The screen went black, reflecting his own hollow expression. Outside, the endless hum of Los Angeles was a poor substitute for silence. He reached for his phone one last time. No new messages. He typed a message to Robert: Can’t wait to see you. Tell me what you want me to do to you when I get there.
He sent it, a deliberate act of arson aimed at his own confusion. The reply came a minute later, just five words that should have set his blood on fire: I want you to forget everything.
Matthew put the phone down. He stared at the ceiling until the first gray light of dawn bleached the darkness from the room. The mix was done. The texts were sent. The flight was booked. The wall of sound was complete, but somewhere, in a crack like a breath on the word “lonely,” everything was already falling apart.
Heathrow’s Arrivals hall was a cathedral of noise and fatigue, a stream of dazed faces under harsh lighting. Matthew scanned the crowd, his carry-on bag heavy on his shoulder. Then he saw him, leaning against a pillar, a slash of black denim and tousled sandy hair. Robert’s face broke into a wide, unrestrained grin the moment their eyes met, a grin that erased the eleven-hour flight and the three thousand miles.
“Matty,” Robert called, his rasp cutting through the ambient din.
Matthew walked toward him, the weight lifting. Robert pulled him into a hard embrace, his familiar scent of clove cigarettes and cheap airport coffee enveloping him. Robert’s mouth found his, right there in the middle of the terminal, a warm, possessive kiss that tasted like home and defiance. “Missed you, you bastard,” Robert murmured against his lips.
“Missed you more.”
Robert grabbed his bag, slinging it over his own shoulder. “Liar. You’ve been busy making hits and ignoring my texts.” He slung an arm around Matthew’s neck, steering him toward the exit. “Car’s this way. I’ve only got it for an hour before the extortionate charges start.”
The sleek black Audi was a rental, an uncharacteristic choice for Robert, who usually favored beat-up motorcycles. “Playing the part of the respectable rockstar?” Matthew asked, sliding into the passenger seat.
“Playing the part of a boyfriend who didn’t want his notoriously fussy partner having a coronary in the back of a minicab,” Robert said, gunning the engine. The car purred onto the M4, the rainy London night a blur of reflected taillights. “So. Tell me everything I missed. The real stuff. Not the work bollocks.”
They talked. They talked about Evan’s latest directing drama, about the HAIM mix, about Robert’s frustrating sessions with his band’s new, overly-percussive drummer. The conversation was a familiar, comfortable tennis match, flavored with inside jokes and punctuated by Robert’s hand finding Matthew’s knee, squeezing. It was easy. It was exactly what Matthew had craved.
“Did you?” Robert asked suddenly, his eyes on the road, his tone deceptively light. “When you were away. Did you take me up on my… proposal?”
The air in the car thickened. Matthew watched the windscreen wipers beat a steady rhythm. “Once.”
Robert was silent for a full minute. “Good,” he finally said, the word crisp. “Was it? Good?”
“It was confusing.” It was the most honest thing Matthew had said in weeks.
Robert nodded, his jaw tight. Then he glanced over, the rakish smile returning. “Well. Let’s un-confuse you, shall we?”
The Shoreditch loft was a glorious, chaotic museum of Robert’s life: guitars leaned against exposed brick, stacks of vinyl teetered on the floor, a half-written lyric sheet was scrawled on the back of a pizza box on the kitchen island. The door clicked shut behind them, sealing them in the dim, cluttered space. Before Matthew could drop his bag, Robert’s hands were on him.
He spun Matthew around, pulling him close, and kissed him deeply, a kiss that was all tongue and want and years of history. “Fuck, I’ve missed the feel of you,” Robert growled, his voice thick. Then, with a grunt of effort, he bent and scooped Matthew clean off his feet, throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
Matthew let out a shocked burst of laughter, the world inverting. “You idiot, you’ll throw your back out!”
“Worth it,” Robert said, marching them toward the bedroom, his hand firmly planted on Matthew’s ass. He shouldered the bedroom door open and unceremoniously dumped Matthew onto the unmade bed. Matthew bounced, laughing, looking up at Robert who stood at the foot of the bed, eyes dark with intent.
Matthew leaned up on his elbows, then crawled forward. He reached for the buttons of Robert’s shirt, his fingers working steadily. He pushed the soft, worn fabric off Robert’s shoulders, exposing the familiar landscape of pale skin, the old tattoo, the light dusting of hair. He pressed his mouth to Robert’s stomach, kissing a trail upwards over his sternum, feeling the quickening heartbeat, until he found Robert’s lips again.
They undressed each other with a practiced, hungry synergy, articles of clothing falling to the floor. Robert pushed him back onto the pillows, his body a welcome weight. He kissed Matthew’s throat, his collarbone, taking his time in a way that felt like a deliberate reclamation. He knew where Matthew liked to be touched, the spot behind his ear that made him shiver, the rhythm he needed.
Robert reached for the lube in the bedside drawer, slicking his fingers. He pressed one, then two inside Matthew, his movements slow, thorough, exquisitely patient. “This is what you need, yeah?” Robert whispered, his breath hot against Matthew’s ear. “This. Just this.”
“Yes,” Matthew gasped, arching into the touch, his body opening for the man who knew its every secret.
Robert positioned himself, nudging at Matthew’s entrance. He pushed in with one smooth, deep roll of his hips, sheathing himself completely. A low, shared moan vibrated between them. Robert began to move, a steady, rocking pace that was less about frenzy and more about profound reconnection. Each thrust was a reaffirmation, a physical promise. Matthew wrapped his legs around Robert’s back, pulling him closer, meeting every movement.
“Look at me,” Robert commanded, his voice ragged.
Matthew opened his eyes. Robert’s face was above him, stripped of all its rockstar bravado, raw with feeling. This was the man he’d fallen for. This was the history. Robert’s pace intensified, his thrusts becoming harder, more urgent, driving the breath from Matthew’s lungs. Matthew’s own cock was trapped, weeping, between their sweating stomachs. The friction was perfect, the coil of pleasure tightening at the base of his spine.
“I’m close, Matty,” Robert warned, his rhythm fracturing.
“Come on,” Matthew urged, clutching at his back. “Do it. Let go.”
With a choked-off groan, Robert obeyed, his body locking as he spilled deep inside. The feel of it, the intimate pulse, triggered Matthew’s own climax, a wave that crashed over him silently, drenching their stomachs. Robert collapsed atop him, his weight a solid, comforting anchor.
They lay tangled, breathing in the dark. Robert eventually pulled out and fetched a damp cloth, cleaning them both with a tenderness that belied their earlier intensity. He returned to bed, pulling Matthew against him. Matthew rested his head on Robert’s bare chest, listening to the slowing heartbeat. His fingers idly traced the links of Robert’s silver chain necklace.
“The drummer suggested we add a keytar,” Robert said, his chest rumbling with laughter. “A keytar, Matty. I nearly smacked him.”
Matthew smiled, nuzzling into his skin. “You should have. It’s your civic duty.”
Robert looked down at him, his fingers stroking through Matthew’s hair. “You’re really here,” he said, the words soft, almost wondering.
“I’m really here.”
They talked and laughed, their legs entwined under the duvet, sharing lazy kisses that tasted of salt and sleep. The world, with its complications and its quiet, thoughtful texts from Chicago, receded. This was his axis. This was the magnetic, chaotic center he’d built his life around for five years. He was back where he belonged.
He closed his eyes, pressing a kiss to Robert’s chest. He willed the thought of Jack—the memory of his hands, the sound of his laugh over a folk record, the serene certainty in his eyes—to dissolve like smoke in this familiar London dark. It was over. This was everything.
For seven days, it truly was.
The loft became a warm cave against the London drizzle, a world defined by the smell of sex and stale coffee, Robert’s laughter echoing off the brick, and the deep, soul-aching familiarity of their bodies fitting together. Matthew let his phone battery die, left his laptop untouched in his bag. He lived entirely in the tactile present: the scratch of Robert’s stubble against his thigh, the vibration of a bassline from the club below seeping through the floorboards, the taste of brown ale and Robert’s mouth. They fucked in the shower until the steam vanished, water cooling their heated skin. Robert bent him over the kitchen island, fucking into him with a possessive, rhythmic intensity, his hands splayed on Matthew’s back as Matthew gasped, gripping the edge of the counter, lost in a pure, thoughtless physicality.
Jack’s texts became soft, distant chimes in another universe. A photo of the Chicago lakefront at dawn. A question about an obscure mixing technique. Matthew’s responses were museum pieces—careful, brief, and dead. Looks cold. Or, Use a multiband compressor. They were administrative, a quiet murder of what had sparked between them.
On Thursday morning, wrapped in a quiet haze, Matthew traced the lines of Robert’s sleeping face with his gaze. “What if I stayed?” he whispered into the quiet room.
Robert’s eyes fluttered open. “You are staying. ‘Til Tuesday.”
“No. I mean… what if I paused things? Took a proper break from the studio. Just lived here. For a while.”
Robert was silent for a long moment, studying him. Then a brilliant, surprised smile broke across his face. He pulled Matthew close, kissing his forehead, his cheek. “Yeah? You’d do that?”
“I think I need to,” Matthew said, the words feeling like a surrender to a deeper truth.
“I love that idea,” Robert murmured, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction. “Fucking love it.” He rolled on top of Matthew, kissing him deeply, his body already stirring with renewed interest. “See? This is what happens when we’re in the same postcode. Everything gets simple.”
Matthew wrapped his arms around him, accepting the weight, the kiss, the narrative. He buried his face in Robert’s neck. Maybe it is me, he thought. Maybe I’m the one who needs to change, to bend, to want less of a cage and more of this endless, thrilling sky.
Saturday night hummed with a specific, nostalgic magic. The pub in Camden was a sweatbox of sticky floors and pounded piano keys, exactly as Robert loved it. The band was a raucous folk-punk trio, all furious fiddles and shouted choruses. Robert shoved a pint into Matthew’s hand, his eyes alight with the same feral joy Matthew remembered from five years ago, when everything was discovery and no promise had yet been broken. He leaned in, his lips brushing Matthew’s ear. “Remember that summer we spent just like this? You, me, and a different sticky floor every night?”
Matthew nodded, a genuine smile touching his lips. “I remember you puking in a plant outside the Dublin Castle.”
“Artistic passion,” Robert corrected, grinning.
The door to the pub swung open, letting in a blast of cold, diesel-scented air and a knot of laughing men. Robert, mid-sip of his beer, froze. The glass halted an inch from his lips. His eyes, fixed on the door, widened with a flash of pure, animal alarm. It was there and then gone, smoothed into a rigid neutrality.
Matthew followed his gaze. A slim man with dark, messy hair was shrugging off his coat. Peter from the label’s marketing team. Matthew had met him at a release party years ago, a polite, efficient presence. Now, his face was flushed with drink, his movements loose and uncoordinated.
Peter’s scanning gaze found their table. It locked on. His expression, a blurry smile, collapsed into something wounded and sharp. He said something to his friends and began weaving through the crowd toward them.
“Rob?” Matthew said.
“Fuck,” Robert breathed, the word barely audible under the music.
Peter reached their small table. He ignored Matthew completely, leaning both hands on the sticky wood, putting his face close to Robert’s. His voice was a slurred, venomous whisper meant to carry. “He's here, then? This is why you’ve been ignoring my texts for a fucking fortnight?”
“Peter,” Robert said, his voice low and tight. “Go home. You’re pissed. Sleep it off.”
Peter’s bloodshot eyes finally slid to Matthew. They held no professional courtesy, only a raw, drunken hatred. “He’s pretty. I’ll give you that. Looks a bit like me, doesn’t he? Or do I look like him?” He laughed, a hollow, ugly sound. “You should find a man who can keep his dick in his pants, mate. He’ll probably be back in my bed before your plane’s wheels are up.”
Time slowed. The raucous music became a distorted, underwater roar. Matthew watched as Peter’s friends, faces etched with embarrassment, finally reached them. They mumbled apologies, pulling at Peter’s arms. “Come on, Pete, let’s go—”
Peter allowed himself to be dragged backward, his eyes never leaving Robert’s. “You’re a coward,” he spat, before disappearing into the crowd.
The silence at their table was absolute, a vacuum. Matthew could feel the pulse in his own throat. He looked at Robert, who was staring fixedly at a watermark on the table, his jaw working.
“Matthew, I can explain,” Robert said, finally looking up. His eyes were desperate.
Matthew stood up. The motion was calm, automatic. His body was moving while his mind was a blank, white screen. He turned and walked toward the exit.
He heard the scrape of Robert’s chair, the muttered “shit,” the quick footsteps behind him. He pushed out into the biting London night, the cold air a slap. Robert caught his arm just outside on the pavement.
“Matthew, wait.”
Matthew stopped, turning to face him. He pulled his arm free. “Was that your idea of ‘no strings’?” His voice was terrifyingly flat. “Because that looked like a lot of strings. That looked like a whole fucking puppet.”
“It’s not what you think,” Robert rushed, his hands up in a placating gesture. “He doesn’t mean anything. He’s just some guy from work, he’s obsessed, he’s—”
“He knew when my flight was.”
The sentence hung in the air between them, conclusive. Robert’s excuses died. His shoulders slumped. He ran a hand through his hair, looking at the wet pavement. The confession, when it came, was stripped bare. “It’s been going on for about a year. On and off. It started… before I asked you to open things up.”
A year. The number detonated in Matthew’s chest. A year of lies, of Robert’s voice on the phone, of his own lonely nights in LA, of his guilt over a single weekend. A year of this Peter.
“But you have to believe me, my heart is yours. It’s only ever been yours,” Robert pleaded, his voice cracking. “This… it’s just physical. It’s a symptom. It’s because we’re never in the same fucking place! If you were here, if we lived together like you said, this would stop. It would never happen. I promise you. I’ll end it with him. Tonight. Right now.”
Matthew listened to the frantic rhythm of Robert’s promises. They were the same notes, transposed into a new, devastating key. He felt a profound shutdown, a systems failure. The fight, the anger, the hurt—it all receded, replaced by a cold, vast fatigue. He felt foolish. A profound, embarrassing fool for the depth of his love, for the architecture of longing he’d built. And he felt a secondary, sharper foolishness for the guilt he’d carried about Jack, a pristine, honest thing he’d tried to tarnish with Robert’s tarnished currency.
He pulled his phone from his pocket. The screen lit up his pale face in the dark. There, stacked below Robert’s name, were the last messages from Jack.
Hope London is giving you what you need.
Listen to this when you have a quiet moment. It made me think of you.
Simple. Hopeful. Clean.
He looked from the glowing screen to Robert’s agonized face, then back at the phone. He powered it off. The light died.
The silence that followed was total. It wasn't a pause for argument or explanation. It was the sound of a chapter ending. Robert opened his mouth, then closed it. He had run out of words. Matthew stood in the damp London air, the man he loved five feet away, and knew, with a certainty that felt like dying, that there was nowhere left for either of them to go.
“Okay,” Matthew said. The word meant nothing and everything.
He didn’t move. Robert didn’t move. They just stood there, two ghosts on a Camden pavement, trapped in the ruins of the story they’d told each other for five years.