‘God Edie!’ Dylan groaned. ‘I gave you enough signs that I still loved you. I couldn’t keep my hands off you, all that nudging you when we were in the car and the bare-chested driving. And I was nice to you and brought you loads of presents to show you how much I loved you.’
‘OK, can we have a reconciliatory hug now?’ I mumbled and launched myself at Dylan. His arms came round me and it was only when I felt myself enveloped in Dylan’s warmth and my head was resting in the crook of his shoulder that I felt like everything was going to be all right. Dylan shifted slightly and then pulled me onto his lap, his arm round my waist and kissed my neck. I twisted around so I could wind my arm round his neck.
‘I do love you D,’ I declared.
‘I love you, Eeds,’ Dylan replied.
I leant back in Dylan’s arms and sipped my Diet Coke while he traced the tip of his finger along my shoulder. It was good, being quiet for a while, until a wedding party suddenly erupted into the bar. We’d been in Vegas, the wedding capital of the States, for twelve hours and this was my first sighting of a woman in a long, white dress. The groom was wandering from table to table, offering to buy drinks for everyone and Dylan’s arm suddenly tightened around me.
‘So you haven’t answered my question,’ he said in a strained voice.
‘What question?’ I said, turning to look at him.
Dylan reached forward and picked up the wedding licence. ‘Do you want to get married?’
Oh, that. I loved Dylan. Despite his many and obvious faults and I couldn’t imagine life without him, but getting married? That’s what grown-ups did.
‘Do you want to get married?’ I offered.
‘I asked first.’
I swivelled round so Dylan and I were eyeball to eyeball and I gently touched his lips with my finger. ‘Oh Dylan, I do love you but I don’t want to get married. I don’t even know what I want for breakfast. I’m incapable of making a decision that’s going to affect me for the rest of my life. It doesn’t mean that I’m not flattered or that I don’t love you en—’
I was going to witter on but the way that Dylan’s body relaxed under me, and the look of relief on his face said it all.
‘Hmmm,’ I said huffily. ‘I don’t know why you asked me if you were dreading me saying yes.’
‘It was a grand, dramatic gesture to show that I loved you,’ Dylan protested, arching his eyebrow and smirking.
‘Oh, I missed that smirk.’ I kissed the corner of the smirk. ‘If a grand, dramatic gesture was what you were after, you should have gone with jewellery.’
‘Yeah, someone told me that jewellery might be a good idea,’ Dylan drawled. ‘You know what else says “I love you”?’
‘I don’t know. A speedboat? A sports car?’
Dylan tipped me off his lap, stood up and slung an arm round my shoulders. ‘Why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll show you,’ he purred, nudging me with his hip.
‘Are we talking wild, passionate, crazy love or tender, girly, not before the watershed love?’ I asked as Dylan manoeuvred me through the tables.
‘Both kinds,’ Dylan promised. ‘And there’s a few other kinds of love I had in mind too.’
And as we walked out of the bar and towards the lift I heard one elderly woman, clutching a Big Gulp cup full of coins, say to her companion, ‘Why is that girl wearing pyjamas?’
And just as the lift doors were about to close and Dylan’s mouth was descending towards mine, the other woman said, ‘It’s Vegas, Barbara. People here are crazy.’
We staggered down the corridor, Dylan pressed against my back, kissing my neck passionately as I fumbled with the plastic room key, rubbing it on the computerised panel next to the door.
‘Hurry up,’ Dylan mumbled into my neck, before nibbling his way up to my ear. I shuddered and frantically moved the key up and down until I heard the door click. We fell into the room and managed to reach the bed.
This time Dylan didn’t tell me to stop taking off my clothes. This time he helped me, kissing each piece of skin as it was revealed. And then he was holding my hands as he showed me in many different ways how much he loved me. Even when I felt as if I’d lost myself completely because of the things he was doing to me, Dylan’s voice telling me how much he loved me kept me safe.
Much, much later when the mid-morning sun was glaring through the windows at us as we lay in a tangle of limbs and bed sheets, I ran my hand down Dylan’s chest, which was making a not-very-comfy pillow for my head.
‘D, are you asleep?’ I whispered.
‘Sort of,’ came the muffled reply.
‘You know, this whole getting married thing…’ I began carefully.
I felt Dylan tense slightly. ‘What about it?’ he said in a slightly nervous way.
I smiled to myself. ‘You can relax, I’m not going to march you down to the Elvis chapel,’ I teased as I heard his heartbeat return to normal. ‘But it’s a raincheck, right? You can ask me again in a few years.’
Dylan moved lazily so one of his legs wrapped around mine and his arm wound its way around my waist so I was pulled tight against him.
‘I will ask you again,’ he promised sleepily. ‘But many years from now when we’re more mature and have a regular income and I know your parents won’t send a professional hitman after me.’
Los Angeles, California
14th September
The last nine days have passed in a hazy glow that has nothing to do with LA’s appalling smog and something to do with Dylan. We’re so love-shaped that occasionally I catch myself gazing at Dylan in a particularly slavish fashion or he calls me some silly endearment like ‘poodle’, which even makes me want to start with the gagging noises.
We spent two days in that hotel room in Las Vegas, getting reacquainted and ordering emergency rations on room service. And when we emerged, blinking into the sunlight, it was only a five hour drive to Los Angeles before we could disappear into another hotel room. We’d downgraded again and decided to honour the Beverly Laurel Motor Hotel with our custom as the coffee shop was in this film called Swingers that Jesse adored and we’d had strict instructions to take photos.
When we first got to LA we still had a couple of days before we needed to take back the car so we drove to Santa Monica and walked along the beach. It was good to be on the edge of America after so long spent travelling through the middle of it. And it seemed fitting somehow to feel the sea lapping against my feet as if it was washing away all the bad things that had happened.
The one dark spot on the horizon (well there were other darker spots but they could wait till we got back to England) was returning the wreck. I loved and loathed the car. It had been our home for nearly two months and like most homes it had witnessed everything that Dylan and I had experienced from loved-up bliss to abject misery and despair. Having said that, Dylan was more worried about the thousands of miles that we’d added to the clock. ‘It’s over twenty years old,’ I pointed out as we sat in the hotel coffee shop and took pictures of each other. ‘I’m amazed it never broke down.’
Dylan glared at me. Did I mention that I loved that he’d glare at me now without worrying that I wouldn’t love him? ‘Don’t even think it! I’ve still got to drop it off in Silverlake and I don’t want the engine to suddenly fall out on the way.’
‘If you’re that worried we could just phone them from the airport and tell them where the car is,’ I suggested, catching Dylan’s shocked expression with the camera.
‘Edie!’ Dylan gasped in mock outrage. ‘What a thing to say! Mind you, it’s an idea…’
He looked at me and I raised my eyebrows at him as if to say, ‘Well, then?’
Dylan gave a deep sigh and muttered something about doing the decent thing before going to make the phone call. When he came back it was A-OK. ‘They told me to leave the car in a car park on the UCLA campus,’ he announced happily. ‘They’ve got some student who’s gonna drive it to New Mexico for them. I just have to leave the keys at the a
dmission office.’
‘They don’t care about that car at all,’ I mused.
We spent the last few days in LA braving the public transport system and doing some serious shopping. Though it seemed unbelievable we still had a bunch of money left between us, which meant we could spend money on tacky presents and going swing dancing in retro clubs like the Dresden and the Tiki-Ti. Dylan could wear his authentic Fifties bowling shirt that I bought him and I could wear one of my vast collection of cocktail dresses that I’d packed and never got the chance to wear.
We also got to sightsee. We did LA in three days starting with the famous handprints outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre and finishing in the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Sunset Boulevard where we saw one of the girls from Glee order a lapsang souchong.
But mostly LA was about wandering around hand in hand and having deep, intense conversations about nothing at all. Oh, and feeding quarters into our vibrating bed but that’s a whole other story.
The only thing left to do now is to go home.
Los Angeles – London
15th September
They say that you can never go home again but they are wrong. Because we’re on the plane and, hijacking and engine failure notwithstanding, we’ll be back in Britain in a few short hours. Dylan, rather unreasonably, has gone to sleep with his head on my shoulder and a little smile on his face, which makes him look about five.
It’s funny but when we were in the States we never talked about what was going to happen when we got back, even though we knew that there were big changes ahead. The biggest change being the 200 miles of motorway, which would separate me in London from Dylan in Manchester.
‘I wish we didn’t have to go back,’ I sniffed once we were airborne and I could relax slightly. ‘I’m scared about stuff.’
Dylan put his arm round me. ‘Be more specific about the “stuff” part.’
I plucked at the edge of my T-shirt. ‘All of it. Going to university, I mean, what if I don’t make any friends and I can’t do the work…’
Dylan took my hand and squeezed it. ‘Edie, you aced your A-levels and, besides, you’re doing French and English Lit. That’s an easy degree, everyone knows that.’
‘Hey,’ I grumbled and stuck my tongue out at him. ‘And then there’s living in a hall of residence, it’s like one tiny room and I won’t know anyone.’
‘You didn’t know anyone when you came to Manchester three years ago,’ Dylan pointed out. ‘You’ll make friends.’
‘I don’t know that I want to make friends,’ I burst out. ‘I have friends already, why am I leaving them? And why am I leaving you? What was I thinking? Dylan, what am I going to do without you?’
And then I burst into tears because Dylan was sitting next to me, holding my hand and in a day’s time he’d be gone. And he wouldn’t be ten minutes’ walk or a phone call away. He’d be somewhere that I wasn’t.
Dylan didn’t say it would be all right and, for once, he didn’t try to put a brave face on it. Instead he wiped a hand under his eye and I realised that he was near to crying too.
‘I’m going to spend all the money that I’ve got left on train tickets and running up a massive phone bill,’ he muttered. ‘But just because you’ll be in London, doesn’t mean that you won’t be with me.’
‘I guess,’ I mumbled. ‘We fit, don’t we?’
‘We do.’
15th September (later)
By the time we got off the plane, it was getting dark and we were both a bit subdued. The plan had been that we’d go to my Auntie Margaret’s house in Clapham and sleep there but when it came to it I couldn’t face the millions of questions that we’d get asked and the being banished to separate rooms. Like, we hadn’t had two months to boff each other’s brains out!
As we walked along miles of airless grey walkways towards the underground station, I had an idea.
‘Dylan, listen to me,’ I said urgently. ‘This is our last night before, y’know, real life and all that. Let’s blow out my aunt and go and stay in a hotel. We could pretend we’re still on holiday.’
Dylan glanced at me, and I tried to make my eyes go really wide so he wouldn’t be able to refuse me.
‘Don’t do the eye thing,’ he drawled. ‘One more night on holiday would be great. Let’s find a phone.’
Auntie Margaret was not best pleased and started squawking about needing a good night’s sleep before ‘you start on a course of higher education, Edith’ but eventually she gave in. Dylan and I and the many bags we seemed to have accumulated then had to negotiate getting down to the station platform without a baggage trolley and before we knew it we were at Paddington Station.
‘So where to now, batgirl?’ Dylan asked as we stood on the pavement.
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I’m thinking of the names of hotels and all I can come up with are really expensive ones like The Ritz and The Metropolitan and The Sanderson.’
Dylan didn’t seem too worried. ‘I still have money. Money I got from a dad that never gave me anything else and if I want to spend it on an exorbitant, over-priced hotel room then I will. It’ll be Lenny’s gift to us.’
‘I love you, you know that?’ I said quietly. I looked up at Dylan and ruffled his hair. ‘And I’m probably going to start crying again.’
Dylan put his arms round me. ‘Pick a hotel, any hotel,’ he chanted.
I groaned. ‘OK, The Sanderson, it’s meant to be really swank.’
Dylan was already picking up as many bags as he could and marching off to the taxi rank.
‘Are you coming then?’ he called over his shoulder.
Camden, London
16th September
That morning we woke up in a hotel room for the last time. I opened my eyes to find Dylan propping up on one elbow, watching me.
‘Hey you,’ I muttered sleepily.
‘Hey yourself. You look like a little girl when you’re asleep,’ Dylan added in a husky voice.
‘I’m not a little girl,’ I told him with a smile. ‘I’m all grown up.’
‘Oh, are you?’
‘Yeah, you want me to show you how grown-up I am?’ I purred before rolling on top of him and biting his bottom lip. Dylan growled and held my head still while he caught my lips in a hungry kiss which left both of us breathless. And then neither of us spoke for quite a while.
A couple of hours later we were finally good to go. I’d phoned Shona to discover that her and Paul were already in Camden and arranged to meet them in an Italian restaurant just off the High Street for lunch. Dylan and I jumped in a cab (we’d given up all thoughts of economising by now) and spent most of the journey attached to each other’s lips until the driver asked us if we wanted to go back to the hotel to finish what we’d started. It was a tempting thought.
When we got to the restaurant and opened the door, I nearly had a heart attack. Paul and Shona were sitting at a table along with Poppy, Atsuko, Darby, Jesse, Jack, and Grace who jumped up the minute she saw us and threw herself at me. Only Dylan careering into the back of me saved us from toppling over.
‘Oh God, I can’t believe you’re here,’ she exclaimed. ‘Your roots need doing and you’ve got a tan.’
‘It was hot,’ I said feelingly. ‘And my roots do not need doing! I’ve gone white trash, it’s the latest thing in Louisiana.’
Grace pulled me over to the table, with Dylan trailing behind laden down with bags. Everyone looked pleased to see us, but Poppy just nodded briefly in my direction and went back to intently looking at her menu. My heart sank. After everything that had happened I couldn’t believe that she was still mad at me.
But then Paul was asking me what I wanted to drink and I was rummaging in the bags for the Elvis clocks and I NY T-shirts that we’d bought as presents and the moment passed.
We’d caught up on how the tour was doing and the antics of Shona and Paul’s new cat and were lingering over coffee when Jesse banged on the table. ‘So, come on, how was the holiday?’
Dylan and I looked at each other and grinned.
‘It was OK.’
‘It was all right.’
Shona snorted. ‘You spend two months in the States and it was all right?’ she repeated in disbelief.
I stirred my coffee. ‘It’s hard to know where to start.’
Dylan took a deep breath. ‘The short version is that I found my dad and then I lost him again. Then we broke up but we got back together. Edie almost died but she got better. And we were going to get married but we couldn’t be bothered in the end.’
Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss Page 19