The Fall of the Fainthearts

Chapter Twenty-Four: It's Just Business

Florence: When Axel came back and told me it was over, we agreed we would do everything we could to forget about her and get back to celebrating what mattered. He assured me she wouldn't be coming back, and if she did try to wriggle her way back in, there'd be a restraining order filed. That's when I started to relax.

Axel: We couldn't let Figgy ruin another night. I'd spent too much of my life worrying over her and tonight wasn't about her. It was about us. And she wasn't a part of 'us', no matter how badly she wanted to be.

Jade started to go round, offering people drinks, trying to lift the mood again. I felt bad - she'd gone through the trouble of mixing a non-alcoholic punch for me, but I just wasn't in the mood to do much of anything else but sit on the sun loungers and watch other people have fun.

Bentley: They all said that Figgy left after her fight with Axel, but I could've sworn I saw her by the pop-up bar with Jade when she was mixing the drinks. She wasn't there for long, and I didn't see her again after that, but I definitely wasn't high enough to be seeing shit.

Tim Faintheart: When I saw Axel alone on the loungers, I decided it might be a good time to have that heart to heart with him about Faintheart Records. I excused myself from Isabelle and the others and approached him.

Axel: My dad was probably the last person I wanted comforting me after my altercation with Figgy. I remember trying so hard not to give away that I didn't want him there. I'd only just patched things up and the last thing I wanted was to push him away again, but I couldn't help that I just wanted to be by myself for a while.

I must have given him a very pained smile when I tried to look inviting, because he looked confused at my expression.

Tim Faintheart: It was quite plain and obvious that he wanted to be alone. But if I didn't speak to him then, I reasoned that I might not get the chance again before he went away on tour. I couldn't risk not hanging the offer in the air for him to think about while I had distance on my side.

Axel: He asked, "Mind if I sit?" I wanted to say yes, but I knew that wasn't the right answer. So I said "Go ahead." instead. He started to make small talk. I braced myself for whatever was about to come.

Tim Faintheart: I didn't go straight in with the pitch, thats not good business. I could see that he wasn't comfortable and I had to build up the trust between us first, or he was bound to just shut down the idea altogether.

Axel: He asked me how long Figgy had been back in my life. Honestly, at this point it felt like she'd never been away from me in the first place. It didn't feel like I'd ever had a break from her, she'd been watching me over her shoulder for so long. I had to think about it.

Tim Faintheart: He took a long time to answer. I figured he was calculating his response. His walls were still up with me, he wasn't going to let me in that easily. After a while, he gave me a very open-ended "Feels like forever."

It wasn't working, so I steered the conversation away to a more common ground. I started to tell him about a band I had in the studio at the moment, you'll know them as the 'Dreamcatchers' now.

Axel: He was complimenting me. He was saying how much work his band had to do, and how we were already miles away from them. It made me uneasy - I knew something was going on. My dad never paid me a compliment, I'd bet that I could count on one hand the amount of nice things he's ever said about me, and that's not even to my face.

Tim Faintheart: I'd beaten around the bush for far too long at that point and it wasn't in my nature. So, I went in for the kill.

Axel: And there it was. There was what all of this had been building up to. He asked me to come back to Faintheart Records.

Tim Faintheart: He didn't say a thing. Not one word.

Axel: He went on. He explained that he didn't even necessarily need London Revival, he just wanted me back. That we could be a force in the music industry, father and son, producer and prodigy. The pit in my stomach Figgy had left grew bigger. I wanted to explode.

The nerve that he had to ask me to come back after he'd rejected me so harshly at the first hurdle. He told me how shit my music was and how I was never going to go get anyway, and the second I was making good money from it, he pounced.

It all started to make sense to me. I always wondered why mum got in touch in the first place. It wasn't because they missed their son, it was because they were missing out on the money he was bringing home. They couldn't stand the idea that they'd let me go from Faintheart Records and they wanted me back on home soil. I was the competition.

Tim Faintheart: It just didn't make sense for a Faintheart to be signed to another record label. It looked bad on the business and it created too many questions for both of us. He knew deep down that it was the right thing to do but he wouldn't let his dad be right for once.

Axel: There was no way I was staying. I couldn't sit around and listen to such shit any longer and I was already so worked up over Figgy I felt like I was going to rip my hair out and scream. My life was a complete fuck up and it was all because of them. I just wanted to start fresh and leave everything behind me but I couldn't get away from them. I'd tried for so long.

I felt like a hamster running around a wheel, desperately trying to get to somewhere - anywhere else - but no matter how fast I ran, the wheel was bolted in place. The same steps on the wheel went round and round and nothing ever changed. I was running for nothing. It was about time I gave up. I would never get away from the life I lived before. It was time I accepted that.

Just before I lost my head, a crash in the pool caught my attention and I was back in the room.