by James, Vicki
* * *
It wasn’t bad.
It was utterly shit.
After the first night with Ma, and a trip to my stepfather’s allotment to show him I was indeed back, I became fucking bored. Sleep was the only thing to do around here, so I caught up as much as I could, but I missed the sound of life all around me. I missed the music. I missed the boys, who were no doubt back home, fitting right back into their old lives like they belonged there. I missed Dicky and his shitty, scowling face. I missed the crew. I missed the women. I missed…
“Julia,” I sighed to myself as I laid on the top of my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I’d taped a poster there when I was fourteen years old. It was of some blonde-haired, blue-eyed, bosom beauty. Her nipples and fake titties had been many a fantasy of mine growing up. Now, she looked dated. She looked like someone I wouldn’t even consider fucking, given the amount I had willing to crawl into bed with me. She’d once been the dream. Now she looked like a Candy kind of nightmare.
I wasn’t sure how that made me feel.
If there was a thing as getting too high on life, maybe I’d gone there. Maybe now, everything else just looked too beige and boring.
Except the things I couldn’t have.
“Julia,” I growled again, groaning as I rolled over onto my front and pressed my face into the pillow. A string of expletives fell free, and the pillow caught them, muffling the noise and my cries of frustration until I threw myself back onto my back, reached inside my pocket for my phone and pulled it out to study it.
“Just call her,” I said to myself. “Once you hear her voice, you’ll get over it.”
It took another ten minutes of those shitty pep talks for me to swing my feet off the bed, drop them to the floor, and hit call over Julia’s name.
I put it on speaker and waited it out.
There was no way she was going to answer. No way she was going to—
“Rhett?” Her raspy voice said my name like she was whispering it in my ear.
“Fuck.”
“Sorry?”
I frowned, closing my eyes. “I meant to say hey. I didn’t expect you to pick up.”
“Oh.”
Oh. The simplest word to exist. The easiest response to give someone. Yet she made it sound like she’d just offered to drop to her knees in front of me and spend a week pressing her lips to my balls. I definitely should have scratched that itch and gotten it out of my system.
“Let me start again. Hey, Jules,” I eventually said.
“Hey.”
“You doing okay?” I took her off speaker, pressed the phone to my ear, and I laid back down to look up at the woman with the fake tits.
“I’m fine, Rhett. What can I do for you?”
Just like that, she was back to being my publicist. She was back to working for the band. She was in business mode, no doubt dressed in her sexy little blazers and tight cotton T-shirts.
“You can start by telling me what the hell happened back in America.”
“I told you what happened.”
“With your sister? Yeah, I know about that, and like I said that night, I’m really fucking sorry, Jules… but that’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” I paused, giving her a chance to respond. When she didn’t, I pushed my free hand through my hair and groaned. “You left.”
“I had to.”
“No, you didn’t. I don’t want things to be weird between us just because you threw yourself at me.”
“Threw myself?”
I smirked at the memory of her lips pressing against mine. I imagined her now, pushing her short hair back from her forehead, that mouth of hers pursing with incredulousness. “Lucky for you, I’m a good catcher.”
“If you’ve just phoned to gloat—”
“I’ve phoned because I can’t stop thinking about you.”
My hand froze in my hair, my eyes widening as I stared up at Tits McGee above me, unable to believe the words that had fallen free from my lips.
“What did you say?” Jules whispered.
“I…” Fuck. How was I going to get out of this?
Sometimes the only way out is through.
“I said I can’t stop thinking about you, Jules, and it’s driving me crazy here.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I mean it.”
“Well, don’t. Don’t mean it. I’m your publicist, Rhett. We’re business.”
“What if I want to make us about more than that?”
“Is this a game to you?” I heard the slight quiver in her voice. “Am I a challenge now? You’ve had your fill of those willing, so you’ve decided to chase what’s off-limits?”
“I seem to remember you being pretty willing back in my hotel room.”
“I was mourning. Grieving. I was a complete and utter fucking mess. I still am, okay? And in typical Rhett Ryan fashion, you decide to take my distress, my mistakes, and my idiocy, and use them against me for your crappy little amusement.”
“Wait, Jules, that’s not what I want to do. I didn’t mean—”
“Are you really surprised that I chose to leave you all before the final show? I knew this is what you would do. I just knew it!” It sounded like she stamped her foot in frustration, but I couldn’t imagine it. That wasn’t like the cool, composed Julia Speed any of us were familiar with. I closed my eyes and pictured her in front of me. I remembered her face moments before she walked out of my room. I remembered the desperation in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m a foolish, selfish idiot, and I haven’t phoned to make you uncomfortable. I just needed to hear your voice. I needed to know that you were okay.”
More silence. It unnerved me. It made me desperate to know what she was thinking, who she was with, and what I could do to make this right.
“I’m not lying, Jules. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m sorry.”
“You’re never sorry.”
“Exactly. That makes you special.”
I heard her heels clicking as she paced back and forth, and her breathing picked up, those sweet little waves of breathlessness washing over the speaker as she decided what to say next.
“Where are you?” I asked her quietly.
“I’m at home.”
“Out of interest, where is home?”
“Three years together, and you still don’t know shit about me.”
“Sometimes we don’t pay attention to what’s in front of us until it’s too late.”
“You need to stop paying attention. You need to go back to how things were when you only ever noticed me when you needed me.”
“Is that how you see me?”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Answer me, Jules.”
I heard her swallow. “Yeah. That’s how I see you. You’re selfish, arrogant, and desperate for attention. For reasons unbeknown to me, I adore you for who you are and what you do, but quite frankly, I don’t have the time or the energy to feed your ego today. I’ve really got to go, Rhett. See you next week in the rehearsal studio.”
With that, she hung up, leaving me to stare at the poster above my bed and drop the phone to the floor with a thud.
I’d never wanted her more.
Chapter Twelve
I perched on the end of my bed, an old guitar in hand. With my earphones in, I hit play on my Spotify. Bill Wither’s Ain’t No Sunshine drifted into my soul like the best quality drug, and I closed my eyes to let myself sink into the magic of his voice.
I was no Coops, Hawk, or Big D on the guitar, but I could play, so I strummed along with the music, singing quietly when the lyrics kicked in.
There was power to owning a voice you enjoyed yourself. You knew you’d only ever need your own company to make it through life. I lifted my chin, releasing the words along with Bill in the only way I knew how: giving it every single thing I had. I imagined I was back on stage. I pretended like the crowd were beneath me, cheering for my voice alone,
the euphoria rolling over me like an old friend.
The track slipped into a version of Hallelujah by James Cherry. It had been my warmup song every night of our tour. I’d locked myself away in the dressing room before we were due to run on stage, and I’d knocked this beauty out of the park. It pissed me off no end when artists covered this record badly, and James Cherry was the only version I approved of. It was my back to Earth tune. My free therapy.
When the song tailed out, and I opened my eyes, I heard a soft whimper followed by a delicate sniff. I spun around to see Ma leaning against the doorframe, wiping a small tear away.
“Jeez,” I sighed. “Not again.”
“You know I love it when you sing that song.”
Propping my guitar up against the bed, I stood tall and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah, but do you have to cry every time?”
“I just don’t understand where that voice of yours came from.”
A fleeting thought of my biological father flashed through my mind, but I quickly pushed it away and focused on the woman in front of me—the parent who’d stuck around. I had no idea if she knew of my real dad’s fate or not. She hadn’t given me too much history or many details, other than his name, and that he’d never been around, which was a blessing, not a curse. I hadn’t really wanted to press her, either. Parents and secrets went hand in hand, but as a fully grown adult—at least in body—could I blame them? As their kids, we think we have a right to know our parents every thought and past. I hoped like hell that any kids I had in the future wouldn’t find out about half of the sordid crap I’d put myself through.
“Maybe I was the milkman’s?” I joked.
Ma pushed off the doorframe and rolled her eyes. “Please. Give me some credit. The postman was far better looking.” She winked, and I huffed out a laugh in response. Ma walked closer until she was in front of me, brushing invisible crumbs or fluff off my T-shirt just so she had a reason to touch her son and be close to him. It was a small thing she always did, and I loved her too much to deny her.
“Ollie’s downstairs. Says he wants to take you to The Speckled Hen for a pint.”
“Nice one.”
“Are you going to go?”
“Out with my oldest friend? Sure as shi—” Ma looked up at me sternly, that one look saying enough, even if I did smirk in response. “I sure as hell am going for a pint, is what I meant.”
Ma patted my chest twice. “Just… be careful.”
“Has Cookham had a rise in gun and knife crime since I’ve been gone?”
“And don’t be sarcastic.” She playfully slapped my arm and turned her back on me. “You’re home now, son. You don’t get to be cocky here.”
She was heading back down the stairs when I heard the voice of my best friend calling up to me, “Get down here, Bieber!”
“Dickhead,” I muttered, shaking my head, and reaching for my denim jacket on my way out of my room.
Ollie Lucas had been one of my only real friends during high school. Every time someone had taken a boot to my stomach, Ollie had been there to defend me as best he could—which hadn’t been all that well, considering he’d been as weak as me back then. While other friends drifted away to more popular circles, Ollie and I had become a pack of two. Apparently, we’d been easy targets for the rugby playing, physically fit, hard bastards back then. We’d been too focused on our ripped jeans, shitty hairstyles, and what new track Green Day were releasing to care about being strong or fighting back.
Hard times make good poets, and I lived for the words I now sang.
I bounced down the stairs to see Ollie standing there in an outfit that looked like his mother had bought it straight from the house husband’s department of Debenhams. Blue jeans, a white oxford shirt, and tan coloured shoes. I stopped on the bottom step and looked down at him and his cheesy smile. At just under six-feet tall, Ollie had blonde hair that had grown into a style of curtains that suited rich kids from London.
“Yikes.” I cringed. “Who got their claws into you and made you forty?”
He glanced down at his clothes with a small chuckle. “What you saying?”
“You went and grew up on me.”
“We can’t all stay seventeen forever, mate. Some of us had to go out and get a real job.”
“What the hell for?”
“Security. I have bills to pay. A roof to keep over my head. A fiancé to keep happy.”
“Fiancé?” I cried, my eyes popping.
“I didn’t tell you?” He smirked, narrowing an eye.
“Who is she?”
“Ebony Mitchell.”
“Ebony fucking Mitchell?” That time I shouted. Ebony had been the hottie of our high school back in the day. She didn’t look at anyone who didn’t dance like Zac Efron or wasn’t ripped like The Rock. She’d been the black beauty of Cookham, with her flawless skin, bright white teeth, and eyes that could give you a stiffy with a single glance. Known as the best dancer in Southern England, everyone in our village had been certain she’d end up on the stage in the West End. Apparently, that hadn’t happened. It turned out I was to be the star of this village, and that pissed a few of the locals off. They wanted to be known for quiet, upper-class ballet, and I threw it all to shit by blasting out my hard and heavy rock.
“The one and only.” Ollie shrugged, looking mighty pleased with himself.
I hopped down off the last step and slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Well done, mate. Well done. Punching above your weight has got to be exhausting.”
“Says the man who once screwed JJ Jones.”
“Twice.” I winked.
“You lucky son of a…”
“There’s a lot of swearing out there, boys!” Ma called, making Ollie cringe.
“Wanna get out of here?” I asked him.
“Sure. You need a bodyguard or anything?”
“Don’t be a sarcastic bastard all your life, Ol.”
“Just bringing you back down to Earth, mate. It’s got to feel weird after all that time flying high.”
I sighed and nodded gently. “Something like that.”
* * *
Life hadn’t changed around Cookham. After two hours of idle talk with Ollie, I was fucking bored. I loved the guy, but I had no interest in how much his council tax set him back or the fact that Ebony had been nagging him to go vegan for three months now. We’d snuck away into a dark corner of the pub after the owners had recognised who I was and ushered me to the side. A few of the locals had stopped by the table to congratulate me on Youth Gone Wild’s success, but the majority either didn’t care or hated me for it. Who was I to make a life for myself, apparently? A couple of regulars kept turning around on their stools at the bar, and they’d eye me with suspicion—like I was about to drop a needle full of heroin somewhere and taint this rainbow village with indecent acts and filthy deeds.
The alcohol wasn’t keeping me interested, not even when I switched to whiskey while Ollie stayed on his third warm beer. He was pacing himself. Something to do with it being a school night or some shit.
He hadn’t been to school for ten years.
“So, that’s my life.” He swallowed his drink, pressing his lips together and dropping his half empty glass to the table. “Which you’d know more about if you’d bothered to stay in touch. Should I even ask about yours?”
I turned my smile upside down and shrugged. “Not much to tell.”
Ollie raised a brow.
“What?” I barely laughed.
“You’re living the dream, and you’re telling me there’s nothing to tell?”
“Okay, so there’s plenty I could say, but is there any point?”
“What do you mean?”
Flaring my nostrils, I took a slow glance around the quaint country pub. “Well, it isn’t Cookham, is it? And I don’t want to make you feel shit about your life by telling you how I’ve been places you’ve never been and seen things you can’t even imagine are real.”
“You’re
talking about JJ’s arse, aren’t you?”
I laughed properly that time. “No, Ol. I’m talking about the world. It’s not like this place, that’s all.”
“Then, tell me what it is like. I’m best mates with one of the biggest rock stars in the world, and I know jack shit about it,” he whispered, leaning in even closer. “The only things I do know are what Ebony tells me ENews! is saying about you. And who knows if that’s true.”
“ENews! aren’t the worst, to be fair.”
“What have I got to do to get some scandal out of you? Suck your dick like those groupies do?”
“Dude.” I curled my lip and scowled. “Don’t ever let those words fall out of your mouth again.”
He laughed quietly. “I’m just saying. You’re being a selfish bastard.”
“Believe it or not, that’s not the first time I’ve heard that about myself.”
“Give me something. Anything. Tell me about the women who have at least left an impression on your cold little heart.”
Julia’s face and bright, cheeky smile flashed to the forefront of my mind before any of the other beautiful women I’d slept with did. I was starting to believe it was a case of wanting what I couldn’t have, and after over three years with the band, that feeling was no longer welcome.
I brought my drink to my lips and eyed Ollie. “Nope.”
“Lying arsehole,” he whispered.
Draining my glass was easy—too easy. I could have sunk twenty of them, and I’d still want more. I tossed it on the table and spun it around between my finger and thumb. “It’s become too easy, Ol.”
“What has?”
I looked up at him sharply. “Getting laid.”
“Oh, what a problem to have. I feel so sorry for you.”
“You get bored of caviar if you have it every day.”
“Then, slum it with a hot dog.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I need something a little more mature.”
“Anyone in mind?”
I rubbed my lips together and thought of Julia again. Chasing her would sate the thirst I suddenly felt, but it could ruin everything between the two of us for the rest of forever. The guys of Youth Gone Wild would kill me. Dicky would find a way to make me pay. And Julia could potentially lose her job.