“You live together?”
“No, no but he’s got a key. I was out with him last night. We had a row. I stormed off and left him in the restaurant and jumped in a taxi and came here.”
“So, I have Cam to thank for you falling into my arms last night?” he asked with a smirk.
I supposed he did. “If that’s the way you want to look at it, then yeah, you do.”
“G, where you and him are concerned, I don’t want to look at it at all. But ya know, we’ve been apart, and it’s been four years, I get it.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I hate the idea, but I get it.”
He reached out, brought my hand to his lips, and kissed first the back of my hand, then turned it over and kissed my palm. He then licked and kissed the inside of my wrist. He let go and stood up from his stool, taking his plate and cutlery over to the dishwasher. I knew Sean, I knew him inside out, and I knew exactly where he was going now, even before he said, “I need the bog. You make your calls then come and join me in the shower.”
I smiled and shook my head. “In one end and out the other, some things never change, do they, babe?”
He grinned a cheeky grin at me and shrugged. “What can I say, G? It’s the way I’m made.”
I watched him as he walked out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, he was back and standing between my legs as I was still sitting on the stool. He tucked my hair behind my ears, and my belly and my eyelids both fluttered at his touch. “When you speak to Cam, be gentle with him.” He looked over my face and gave a slight nod. “I know first-hand, how fuckin’ awful it is to lose you.” He tilted his head, kissed me gently on the lips, and left without another, heading for the bathroom.
I sat for a moment longer and looked over at the phone. My mind was in a complete whirl. For some reason, thoughts of my mum’s tumble drier came into my head. When we all lived at home, it always seemed to be full of socks. Lots and lots of socks of different sizes and different colours, all going around and around, and that’s exactly how my head felt right then. Every one of those socks represented a thought, and each of those thoughts was scrambling for attention in my brain. I had no idea where to start. I swallowed down the last of my tea and picked up the phone. I called my flat first to see if Cam would pick up, but there was no answer. I let it go to answerphone and called out for Cam to pick up if he was there, but still no answer. I called his flat, but there was no answer there either, so I left a short message on his machine. I knew he wouldn’t be at either of the first two places. I was just delaying the inevitable, it was one o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and there was only one place he’d be. That was the office at the wine bar. He picked up on the second ring.
“Speak.”
Charming.
He’s so not in a good mood. “Cam?”
“Kitten? Fuck! Where the fuck are you? Don’t you ever do something like that to me again, you fuckin’ hear me? I’ve been worried sick. Where are you?”
“I’m sorry, I’m fine. I should’ve called you last night. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“Where are you? I’ll come and get you.”
“No, no, it’s fine, I don’t need collecting.”
“You okay? I missed you. I stayed at yours last night. I needed to be able to smell you. I fuckin’ hated sleeping and waking up in your bed alone.”
My heart gave a little stutter. Now that the hard, protective brick wall was down, it seemed my heart was affected by more than just Sean. This little revelation seemed to rush over me like a tidal wave.
What did it mean?
If I had let him, would Cam have had the ability to make my heart do strange things?
“Georgia, you still there?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m still here. Look, Cam, we need to talk, but not on the phone. I need to see you.”
“Well, I just said I’d come and get you, but I only have an hour. I have a flight to catch out of City Airport at four thirty, and I won’t be back until Monday.”
“Well, I’ll just wait and see you Monday then.”
Monday’s good, it gives me a bit of breathing space at least.
“I’d really like to see you now, Kitten. Monday’s a long way off, and I want to show you how sorry I am for being such a prick last night.”
“I can’t, Cam. You don’t have to keep apologising. You shouldn’t have behaved like a prick, and I shouldn’t have stormed off like a diva. Go catch your flight and give me a call on Monday once you’re home.”
He was quiet for a minute, and I felt like a total bitch. I would’ve actually liked to have seen him. I assumed he was flying off to somewhere overseas, and it made me feel a little pang of jealousy. He hadn’t mentioned this trip to me all week, and he hadn’t said anything about it last night when I told him to come to Ashley’s party. And then I started to feel a little pissed off. We’d argued over Ashley’s party when he knew full well he wouldn’t be able to come anyway.
“If I could get out of it, George, I would, but something’s come up with some business I have going on in Amsterdam, and I need to fly over and sort it out. I only found out myself a couple of hours ago that I was going.”
“It’s okay,” I lied. “You go and sort out your business. I’ll talk to you on Monday.”
“I miss you, Kitten. Have a good weekend.”
“You too, Cam. Bye.”
“George, I… Nothing, I’ll see you Monday.”
I ended the call and wondered why, once again, I wanted to cry?
I walked quietly into the bathroom and watched Sean in the shower. He was standing with his back to the water. It was hitting the top of his head and bouncing off his shoulders, his face was tilted up to the ceiling, his eyes were closed, and he was singing. I shuddered and closed my eyes as the desire I felt at the sound of his raspy voice unfurled between my legs, making my muscles tighten and my heart speed up while I listened to him sing. I’d never heard the song before, but as I listened to the words, I thought I knew what it was.
I tried, I really tried, but it was only ever you.
All these years, all the tears, it’s still only ever you.
What we did, the things we said, they’re still always on my mind.
There’s no one else, there never was, it’s still only ever you.
The sweetest smile, the bluest eyes, the taste of you on my tongue.
You’re in my heart, you’re in my head, right where you belong.
All the others, they never mattered, they don’t come close to you.
Wish you were here, wrapped in my arms, my heart aches just at the thought of you.
All the others, they never mattered, none of them come close to you.
The things they write, it’s all bullshit and lies.
Because it’s still only ever you.
You’re the only one that can make me complete, but I let you down, I fucked it up.
Our lives were planned, and with one stupid act, I blew it all away.
My lies were white, my heart was black.
I got just what I deserved when you never came back.
But still…
You’re in my heart, you’re in my head, right where you belong.
I want you here right by my side, I want you real, a distant memory just ain’t the same.
There’s nothing left, my life’s gone to shit, and I’ve only got myself to blame.
I get on stage, I sing my songs, but all I want, all I need, is to have you back, where you belong.
With me… With me… Always… With me.
I opened the shower door and stepped in beside him. He opened his eyes and looked at me. The water was bouncing off his shoulders and his broad chest, and I physically swayed with the emotion of it all.
He pushed my hair off my face and sang in a whisper, “Where you belong, with me, with me, always, with me.” His mouth came down hard on mine. He spun me around, pushed me against the hard tiled wall of the shower, and slid up and inside me all in one move. I wrapped my legs
around him as he held onto my bum cheeks and pressed me between the wall and his hips. Still kissing me hard on the lips, he broke away and pushed my hair off my face.
“Fuck, I love you, Georgia Rae, and I’m gonna spend the rest of my life proving it.”
We had bed sex after we had shower sex, so then I had to have another quick shower, which I insisted on taking alone so that the cycle didn’t start again. We stripped and remade the bed then jumped into Sean’s white Range Rover and went to my flat. He called Len from there and thanked him for letting us stay and arranged for us all to go out. Apparently, it’d been a while since the boys were all in the country at the same time, so they wanted to catch up. That was what last night was supposed to have been about, and it was, till I fell through the front door.
After calling Len, Sean called Marley to see if he would like to join us for dinner, which he did. You’d think that being the world famous, jet-setters that they now were, we would be heading to some swanky restaurant in the West End or the city. But no, this was Sean and my brothers, and all they wanted to do was to head into Upminster to their favourite Indian, which was the very same one I went to most Saturday nights.
Thankfully, there was no evidence of Cam having been at my place. My bed had been made and there were none of his clothes hanging about. I threw on a pair of jeans with a smart blouse and a pair of heels, put my hair up in a messy bun, and put on some makeup. When I was finished, we drove into the Docklands area of East London. The whole place was like a massive building site and had redevelopment work going on everywhere. We pulled up to what looked like a huge warehouse on the edge of the water. It was a three story building, built from old stock bricks. Sean took my hand as we headed towards a set of wooden and glass doors. He tapped a code into the machine, and we walked into a lobby area where there was a concierge, come security guard, sitting behind a desk in a small office with an opening in the wall from where the front doors could be monitored. He was an older man, maybe in his sixties, but very tall and muscular, and he stood from where he was watching telly when we walked in.
“All right, Ronnie, how’s things?”
“All good here, Maca. All good. Marley’s home, I ain’t seen him go out nowhere t’day.” He smiled and nodded his head towards me as he spoke in his gruff cockney accent.
“This is my girlfriend Georgia, Ron. I’m gonna sort her out with keys and the key code, just in case you see her coming in and out and wonder who she is.”
My belly did a little twirl, and my heart swelled when I heard him call me his girlfriend… There was a time when I took the term for granted but I was gonna try to not keep going back there. What’s done is done…
Ronnie stepped out from his little room and came over and shook my hand. “Nice to meet ya, Georgia, ‘bout time he settled down wiv a decent bird. Still, he ain’t as bad as Marley. I don’t know where he gets the energy from, two and three at a time, I’ve seen him take…” He trailed off, and I figured Sean was glaring at him from beside me.
“Nice to meet you too, Ronnie,” I smiled as I spoke, “I’ll be having a word with my brother about his loose morals. Don’t you worry about that!”
He looked from me to Sean with a frown.
Sean pulled me into him by my waist. “Georgia is Marley’s little sister, Ron. You just dropped him right in the shit.” We turned and headed for the lifts as Ron mumbled something I didn’t quite catch. The lift was the original old-fashioned metal box with a caged door that he had to pull across and close by hand. Sean informed me that there was also an old-fashioned wrought iron spiral staircase if we didn’t want to take the lift.
The apartment was fantastic, It was nothing like I expected two, twenty-two-year-old rock stars to live in. It was all exposed brickwork and timber. I noticed the sofas were exact replicas of the old Chesterfield from the summerhouse. Marley was lying on one of them when we walked in, playing some kind of a game with a controller. It looked like a werewolf running riot in ancient Greece, and I didn’t think Marley was doing too well, because he threw the controller down and sat up as we came in.
“Big brother Marley, how are we? You got any dirty birds stashed up here that I need to kick out?”
“What the fuck are you talking about, little sister Georgia?” he asked, as he stood and stretched before pulling me in for a cuddle and kissing the top of my head.
Sean headed off in search of clean clothes and shouted, “I just introduced G to Ronnie. He told her about the amount of birds you bring back here before I had a chance to tell him she was your sister.”
“Nice one, Ron,” Marley mumbled, sitting back down on the sofa.
“Anyway, cheeky fucker, who said the birds I bring back here are dirty?” Marl’s shouted loud enough for Sean to hear.
“Err, actually, you did. Don’t you remember, you threw one out a few weeks back coz you said she had a smelly twat,” Sean shouted as he headed back into the open plan room.
My mouth dropped open. He was wearing black jeans and a white V neck T-shirt. He also had on a black suede jacket and was wearing wooden rosary beads and a cross around his neck. He looked every bit the world-famous rock star he was, and I suddenly felt inadequate as I looked at his perfection.
He smirked as he walked towards me, and wiggling his eyebrows, he asked, “Wanna see my bedroom?”
I stood and rolled my eyes at him as he pulled me in for a kiss. “Not if you want to leave here any time this century.”
He kissed me on the mouth and squeezed my arse cheeks. “Suits me, I’m only going where you go for the rest of my life anyway.”
“Oh, please, I’m gonna spew. Is this how it’s gonna be again? You two all over each other like it used to be?”
“Fuck off, Marls. We’ve got four years to catch up on. You’re just jealous coz you can’t keep a bird.”
“No, Maca, I don’t want a bird. Look at the fuckin’ mess you’ve been the past four years, writing shitty love songs and crying in ya beer every time you had more than two drinks.”
I bit on my bottom lip as I tried to contain the smile that this news induced. Well, good, I’m glad he suffered. It made me feel a little better about what I’d been through.
Sean raised his eyebrows at me. “What you laughing at?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head and grinned.
* * *
We finally made it back into Essex and were seated in the Indian restaurant by eight o’clock. I didn’t know when the table was reserved, but it was, and it was right at the back, tucked around a corner. Despite this, the boys still ended up signing autographs for half the night. We laughed, joked, and talked in the way that we always had, five lifelong friends catching up.
There were no rock stars amongst us, it was just my two big brothers, my best friend, and my boyfriend, until we headed outside to our cars and all hell broke loose. Somebody had obviously called the press. I walked out of the restaurant first, looking behind me as I chatted to Marley. I was first knocked in one direction and then in the other while cameras flashed in my face. There was chaos all around me. I was asked my name, my relationship with the band, and if was I going home for a threesome with Marley and Sean. I was momentarily stunned and totally disoriented by the noise and the flashing lights.
I heard Sean roar at them all to fuck off from somewhere behind me. Then Marley tucked me under his arm and walked me to Sean’s car. As we rushed towards it, it bleeped and was unlocked by someone who I assumed was Sean behind us. Marley pushed me into the passenger seat and then went back to help Sean out because he was now being mobbed by pap’s, reporters, and a bunch of screaming girls. I jumped when I heard a loud crack as a camera lens was pushed up against the window of the door. I locked it quickly and just tried to keep my head down and ignore the questions. Sean made it to the car, but then couldn’t get in because I had locked it. He scrambled for his keys, jumped in, and locked the door behind him.
I knew as soon as I looked at him that he was angry. “Fucking he
ll! You okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?” He looked me over.
“I’m fine, it just freaked me out. Shit, they’re aggressive.”
“Tell me about it, and they’re getting fucking worse. You sure you’re all right? I’ll knock them the fuck out next time. Some of them are pigs.”
The commotion was still going on all around us, cameras were flashing, and people were banging on the windows, asking for autographs. He started the car and moved slowly forward.
“Move you stupid fuckers!” he shouted and punched the hooter on the steering wheel. “I swear these people have a death wish.”
I don’t know why, but I got the giggles, and by the time we escaped the “stupid fuckers”, we were both laughing at absolutely nothing.
“Where’s Marley?” I asked when I realised he was missing.
“Gone with Len, he’s gonna stay at their place tonight.”
My belly went over as I wondered what that meant for us.
He looked from the road to me and then back again. “I wanted to take you to mine, but them wankers know where we live. They’ll probably be there waiting for us.”
I kept staring ahead and he reached across and took my hand. “Would it be okay if we stayed at yours? They’d never know to look there.”
“Of course, it’s not as flash as yours, and I don’t have a Ronnie at the front door though.”
He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed it. “As long as you’re there, G. I don’t give a fuck if it has even got a front door.”
I laughed at that. “Ah, now, that I do have. In fact, I have two. My dad’s boys did the refurbishment. It’s something that he insisted on, and I’m sure if he thought he could get away with it, he would also have got me a Ronnie.”
He threw his head back and laughed, and the sound made me smile. We drove back to my flat without being followed and spent the rest of the night making love in my bed, which smelled of Cam. I felt cheap, nasty, slutty, but most of all, I felt guilty. I fell asleep in Sean’s arms, dreaming about lights flashing and being pulled in different directions by two tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed men.
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