Cherry Beats

by Vicki James

  “God damn you, Presley West!” I eventually cried, throwing myself back onto the mattress and slamming my arms down in fury.

  His laughter was soon hovering over me as he leaned down to gift me with a kiss. “You can’t outrun me. Stop trying. You have three minutes, baby. Better get some clothes on for the ride.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Relax,” Presley whispered as we made our way out to the lifts, walking past two different security guards this time. His fingers tightened around mine. “I’ve got you.”

  Those three words whispered with sincerity made my stomach flip. Looking up, I smiled at him and watched as he took a good look at me. Running a finger over the side of my hair, he brought his knuckles down across my cheek.

  “I like you with your hair tied up like this.”

  I reached up to press down on the messy bun I’d thrown together before I ran my fingers over my fringe. “Really? I don’t look like I’ve got ‘just fucked’ hair?”

  “That’s why I like it.”

  A warm blush rose to my cheeks, and the two of us stepped inside the lift, closing ourselves off to the world. As soon as the doors were sealed shut, Presley cupped my cheek and leaned down to kiss me. It was soft and tender, and I found myself rising on my toes of my Docs to get closer. When the doors opened, we were still kissing, and the sudden screech had the two of us pulling apart quickly and looking up in surprise

  “Oh my God! It’s Presley West!” a young girl with braided red hair screamed as she held onto her mother’s hand—the mother I instantly recognised as the movie star Harriet Cole—the woman who had played one of my all-time favourite parts in the movie Silver on Black.

  “Holy cow, it’s Harriet Cole,” I whispered, my mouth falling open, and my eyes widening in surprise.

  Presley squeezed my hand and turned his attention their way. “Hey, Harriet.”

  She flushed red—everyone did around Presley—and she pushed her perfectly blonde, curled hair behind her ear before she gave him a smile that really could be seen next to the definition of beautiful. She was other-worldly. “Hello, again, Presley.”

  “Hey, Tilly.” He patted the little girl’s head as he walked out of the lift, dragging me with him. I scurried on nervous feet to keep up with his stride, glancing back over my shoulder to stare at Harriet goddamn Cole again.

  “Presley West knows my name, Mummy. He knows my name,” little Tilly cried, tugging on her mum’s arm.

  “He sure does, sweetheart,” Harriet replied warmly.

  Presley was already leaving, and he was taking me with him, completely unaware of the way little Tilly looked at him in awe while the famous actress looked at him like she wanted to eat him alive.

  “I’m a big fan!” I found myself calling out to Harriet like the absolute fucking idiot I was. I flashed her an enthusiastic wave with my free hand before I turned back to Presley and squealed in his ear. “Did you see that? That was…”

  He glanced down at me, his face unmoving. “I know.”

  “She’s incredible.”

  “Relax, Cherry.”

  “No way. Did you ever see her in the role of Megan Maloney in the film Silver on Black? The way she played the role of the single mum in an abusive relationship in 1950s America, only to be saved when she fell in love with the local paperboy ten years her junior was something I will never, ever forget. That film wrecked me, Presley. It was a love like no other love I’d ever seen. She made something so tragic and taboo seem like something so beautiful and pure, and…” I gasped. “Holy shit! I just met Harriet Cole.”

  “She was okay, I suppose.”

  “Are you insane? How are you not freaking out right now?”

  “Should I be?” He led me down a corridor, pushing through two fairly heavy doors while I just stared at him, dumbfounded.

  “Yes, you absolutely should be. Show some respect. She’s a genius.”

  “She’s an actress. That doesn’t make her a genius. It makes her a good performer. An artist.”

  “And artists can’t be geniuses?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged, leading me to a final exit where he pushed down on a silver bar, which opened up the door and brought us to a line of waiting black cars. Presley looked at me, his shoulders sagging. “But those people are only fucking humans, too. Same blood in their veins as us. Same shit going on in their head. Same breath in their lungs. She did her job, and she did it well. Doesn’t make her any better than you.”

  I blinked up at him, pushing a strand of hair out of my eye as it blew across my face. “How can you be so casual about all this?”

  “Seen one actress, seen ‘em all.”

  He didn’t have to say the words out loud to me—there was just something about the way he was reacting that made the little pieces of a puzzle fall together in my mind.

  “Wait…” I pulled back.

  He side-eyed me, his jaw ticking.

  “Did you…?” My free hand slapped my mouth, pushing the cry back in and allowing me to swallow it down. My eyes were wide, popping with surprise.

  Presley rubbed his lips together, and he turned away from me, tugging on the hand that was still entwined with his. I tugged back and forced him to look at me.

  Letting the hand over my mouth slide down, I rested it on my chest and whispered my next question so only he could hear me. “Did you sleep with her?”

  “Cherry…”

  “Did you sleep with Harriet? Is that why she looked at you like that? Is that how you knew her daughter’s name? Is that…? Oh, God.” I couldn’t finish. I felt sick.

  Presley turned to face me, cupping my neck with his free hand. “Let’s not do this. Not today. For twenty-four shitty little hours that will never be enough, let’s both of us pretend that it’s just you and me without the world watching on. That’s all I want.”

  “Please,” I whispered. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

  “I don’t? Because it seems like you don’t need much of a reason to run out of that door.”

  The pleading in my eyes said everything I had to say in response. It may not have made sense to him, but I wanted to know—needed to know.

  “Fine. I slept with her,” he eventually said.

  My stomach turned, bile rising in my chest to burn at my throat, leaving me speechless.

  “I slept with a lot of them. There’ll be more to come. It’s been a crazy fucking few years, okay? The guy I am when I’m with you is the guy I want to be. Unfortunately, that’s not the guy who’s been riding in a tour bus, taking off in private jets, or kicking it with people who like to snort cocaine for breakfast. I can’t take any of it back, but I’m standing here right now hoping you’re not going to ask me to. I wouldn’t want to take it back. This is life, Cherry. I’ve been living. This is part of the journey. You do shit, it doesn’t always work out, so you wake up the next day and you try something else. You make new moves. You meet new people. You don’t sit and wallow in what’s been and gone and everything you’ve done wrong. You just wake the fuck up, and you see where the day takes you again, hoping it eventually leads to something you’ve actually wanted all along…”

  I wanted to be free like him, to try new things. I wanted to walk around with my head held high, not saying sorry for things I’d never done wrong or always thinking of other people. I wanted to figure out who I was behind the mask I hadn’t even known I’d been wearing until he came along. I wanted all the things I knew Presley could deliver.

  “Please,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to mine. “Please, let me just have one day with you without you overthinking every single second of it.”

  “This is so weird, Presley.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “If it makes you feel any better, she was shit. Had nothing on you.”

  A burst of laughter escaped me as I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Idiot.”

  “Come the fuck on, guys. Fuck in the car if you have to. We’re going to be late as shit!” Rhett Ryan c
ried out, making us both turn his way to see he had his upper body hanging out of the window of one of the cars up front. “Get moving, Elvis.”

  Presley grinned and flipped Rhett the bird, and just like that, the thoughts of what had happened with Presley while I’d been away were pushed down into the back corners of my mind. For today, I had a band to follow around.

  A band who were at the top of their game, making waves, history, and epic music.

  “This is Benny Dean from River FM and, listeners, you will never believe it, but the rumours are, indeed, true. The members of Youth Gone Wild are sitting in front of me, and I can confirm that eighty percent of this band are as good looking as the media has us believing. Sorry, Coops.”

  The band members laughed quietly, each of them sitting around the circular radio station table with their headphones in place and microphones in front of them.

  I was in the next room, standing behind a glass window, watching on in absolute awe and wonder. Julia was by my side, her thumb in between her teeth as she studied every move they made and word they spoke.

  Rhett was obviously the leading member on all fronts of the band. He was the performer—the guy who loved the sound of his own voice and every single minute of his time in the spotlight. He was a good-looking guy, and if Presley hadn’t been sitting to the right of him, all eyes would have been on Rhett without a shadow of a doubt. Unfortunately for Rhett, Presley shone without even trying. His blonde hair hung over his face as he rested his arms on his knees and leaned forward, letting the other guys do most of the talking. However, Benny Dean, the presenter, clearly wanted some of Presley’s time. Even when a question had been answered by Rhett, Big D, Hawk or Coops, Benny would always add in a line similar to, “And you, Presley? What are your thoughts on performing at this year’s charity concert, TriFest?”

  Presley would look up at his bandmates and simply shrug. “Yeah, man. What the other guys said. I’m down for anything as long as I get to play the music.”

  I hadn’t realised I was smiling so much until Julia nudged me gently with her elbow.

  “Grin any bigger and you’ll crack your foundation.”

  “I’m not wearing any,” I replied quietly, keeping my eyes on my man. My man. Apparently, I was claiming him now. “Didn’t exactly have time to get pretty when you gave us the five-minute warning.”

  “Sorry about that, but if I don’t threaten Presley, he tends not to listen.”

  I turned my head to look at her, not saying a word in response.

  She pursed her lips and looked around the group of men on the other side of the glass. “He’s the one who has the ability to make or break this band. You know that, right?”

  “I thought they were pretty much made already.”

  “After three years?” She turned to me; her brow raised. “Come on, Tessa. Everyone knows three years at the top doesn’t make any band legendary. Presley wants his music to matter in fifty years, not just today. They need at least five years to make their name stick. Ten to be great at what they do. Twenty years to be classed as legends. They’re still starting out, even if they have had major success in that time. It’s all fleeting. It could all disappear tomorrow. Just like that.” She clicked her fingers before she pressed her thumb against her bottom lip.

  I looked back at Presley. “Why do you think it’s him who can make or break them?”

  “Aside from the fact that he’s the real musician here? He’s that guy. Every band has one. The one the men want to be, and the women want to be with.”

  “What about Rhett?”

  “He tries too damn hard to be that guy. Not that we don’t love him for it, obviously, but Presley has the X factor. It’s not something that can be rehearsed or copied. It’s just in him. It’s who he is. This brooding, silent type who sees more than he lets on, and who doesn’t take crap from anybody.”

  I felt my own smile rise as I watched him, and right on cue, he looked up through the glass and offered me a smug little smirk of his own.

  “He’s never brought another girl to anything like this with him before,” she told me, her voice almost silent like the thought shouldn’t have been spoken.

  “I’m not here to be a problem.”

  Julia glanced at me again. “I know a wannabe when I see one, and you aren’t it. The fact that you’re standing here dressed in that outfit, with that hairstyle, wearing no makeup tells me everything I need to know.”

  I looked down at my clothes. Same black jeans as I’d arrived at the hotel in. Same cherry-coloured Docs. Same T-shirt, only with a black and red chequered shirt over the top, left open and tied in a knot at the waist.

  “Don’t doubt yourself. It’s cute,” she said genuinely. When I looked back up at her, she was smiling right at me. “I’m glad he’s latched onto someone normal.”

  “You mean someone unlike Harriet Cole?”

  “You have nothing to worry about with her. That didn’t last more than half a night. Presley talks to me. Probably more than he talks to the guys.”

  I was desperate to ask what he’d said about me along the way, or if he’d said anything at all, but I figured if he had, she’d share that information if and when she was ever good and ready to.

  “He never asked to look the way he looks, you know. It’s almost like it’s a curse to him some days.” She narrowed her eyes and turned her attention back to Presley. “I’ve never known anyone like him.”

  “He’s pretty special,” I said with a soft sigh, letting my heart begin to race a little harder as I stared at him, full of lust and that other four-letter word I was trying so hard to keep to myself.

  “Now we’ve just got to get him out of his own head a little bit more.”

  Julia turned to face me fully, her arms folding over her chest, even though her face was light and somewhat understanding. She rubbed her bright red lips together before she popped them and tilted her head to the side.

  “He’s a deep thinker, Tessa. I’m sure you know that about him already. But that leads to him being a big drinker, too, and if he lets that take control, he’s going to mess things up for everyone.” She took a step closer to me, her eyes narrowing slightly, and her voice dropping to a whisper. “I can see how he looks at you. How he holds you in his hands when he kisses you. The very fact that you’re standing right here must mean something. Whether it’s just another phase of his, I don’t know, but all I have to do is look in your eyes to know you’re not like the others. You don’t want to be seen with Presley, do you? You want him to yourself behind closed doors.”

  “I don’t—”

  “And that’s okay,” she interrupted, not letting me speak. “But if you do get him to yourself, try and make him see that the drink isn’t the answer to all his problems.”

  “He has problems?”

  “Don’t all rock stars? It’s why they turn to the music. The noise takes them away. The energy, the pulse, the beats, and the fact that they can shout, scream, and hit things and then get praised for it. You can’t write the lyrics if you don’t know what it means to feel every word you write about.”

  She wasn’t the first person to allude to the fact that Presley had problems I wasn’t aware of, which just went to show how little I actually knew him, even though he felt so ingrained in my soul some days, I was sure his name was tattooed on my heart.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I have a feeling you’re not going away anytime soon.”

  The DJ started laughing, and the band members soon followed his lead, making me blink and look back in their direction. Each one was high on life, but it was Presley I was focused on, and when I saw him wink at me, I couldn’t help but smile in return.

  “I hope not,” I said to Julia quietly. “Not this time.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  After the radio interview, we were heading to another hotel across London, where they were meeting a bunch of media people to give some press interviews. Riding in the car wit
h the blacked-out windows, watching the people in the vehicles beside us trying to get a good look inside… it was all so… crazy.

  Presley’s knee was bouncing, the two of us on the back seat, his face solemn and lost as he peered out of his window, looking tired again. In all the time he’d been away from me, I’d assumed he had been loving this life. It was every musician’s dream. It was what every acne-riddled teenager would think about when banging on their new drum kit or plucking the strings of an old guitar in their parents’ garage. I’d seen his face a thousand times, never once thinking he might need a friend.

  That he might need me.

  I’d been the one to walk away from him, and then I’d turned him into the villain in my mind to make it easier on myself somehow. Realising I’d been so selfish suddenly hit me in the gut and left an acidic feeling floating through me.

  Regret. It tasted like shit.

  I had so much to make right.

  “Hey,” I said, interrupting both our thoughts by sliding my fingers over his hand resting in the space between us. He turned to look at me, his face unmoving. “Hi.” I smiled.

  His head fell about against the seat, eyes locked on mine. “Hey.”

  “You look tired.” Presley stared at me, the striking blue hypnotising me. “You doing okay?”

  “Better now you’re here.”

  I studied his handsome face, from the perfect eyebrows, the strength of his jaw, the chiselled cheekbones, to the valley of his top lip that I wanted to rest my finger in.

  “Do you want to know something?” I asked, turning to face him fully so we were only a few inches apart, resting my head on the seat the same way he had done. “Bryan Adams’ first music contract was handed over in 1978, and it was worth one dollar to him.”

  Presley’s nostrils flared, his lip twitching.

  “They didn’t want him to make any money—like they didn’t actually believe in him or some crazy shit. But they had to make it legal. In order to do that, the contract had to have some monetary value placed on it. They literally stuck a dollar on it, and that was it. Bryan was officially a signed artist.”