A few weeks later
Aston’s POV
The boys and I were chilling in our dressing room of another Summer Festival. They were all beginning to blend together. Not that I didn’t like doing them, just that after you did a handful they all started to seem the same.
“Knock knock!” said a loud voice outside the trailer we were sitting.
“Alex!” shouted Oritse jumping up to go say hi to our X Factor friend. There was no bad blood between us, even though she’d beat us on the show.
“Hiya boys,” she said loudly.
We all stood up and gave her a hug and a kiss, and then settled back into our seats chatting. After awhile more friends from the industry started to pop into our trailer too, and we had a whole load of people hanging out with us.
Distractedly I got up from my seat to find a bottle of water and place to plug my phone in. After a few minutes I noticed that I’d been followed, “Yes?” I smirked, turning to see Alex stood behind me.
“You won’t believe who I met recently,” she said with a wicked glint in her eye.
“Oh yeah?” I asked. “Who?”
“Oh, just a friend of yours,” she said off-handedly.
“Who?” I urged.
She just shrugged her shoulders.
“Tell me!” I laughed. “JJ? He’s a moron.”
“No… A girl.”
I couldn’t think of anyone at this point. What was Alex playing at? Was she trying to hint that she thought I was in a relationship with someone? Because I wasn’t! I was well confused. “I’m so confused,” I sighed.
“Well, I was in LA a few weeks ago to do some writing and recording for my new album. Mostly experimental stuff because I just finished the last one. Anyways, I got stuck in the studios with this absolutely lovely girl. Does the name Jess Rego ring a bell to you?”
“You recorded with Jess?” I asked, my heartbeat instinctively started to quicken. I hadn’t heard that name in ages! Sure I thought about her a lot, about how amazing and perfect our summer together was, but it had been three years!
“I did indeed,” said Alex. “Lovely girl Aston,” she said with a wink, walking away from me and out of the trailer.
I chased after her. I hadn’t heard anything about Jess in ages! I wanted to know what she was up to, how she was doing. I really hoped that things were going well for her.
“Wait Alex!” I panted as I caught up with her.
“What?” she smirked at me.
“Tell me about it!” I said. “How was it recording with her? How did she look?”
“She’s your friend Ast,” laughed Alex.
“Yeah, but we haven’t talked in ages. Just want to know how she’s doing, that’s all.”
For the next ten minutes Alex laid it all out for me. She told me about Jess’ studio and the tracks they’d worked on, how she’d like Jess’ methodologies for making new songs. She told me about going for lunch with her, and then seeing her DJ at a club on her last night in town. The entire time I had this stupid smile on my face. I was so proud that she was thriving out there.
Before I knew it though, Alex was being called away to get ready to go on.
“You should look her up when you’re in LA next month,” said Alex. “I bet she’d be glad to see you.”
“What, just call her work or something?” I said.
“Why not?” said Alex. “Look I gotta go, talk to you later.”
“Good luck babe,” I smiled and gave her a quick hug as she scooted off to her trailer.
At that point I wandered back to where the boys were and took a seat, messing around looking at old pictures on my phone. Pictures of Jess and I. I smiled to myself remembering how perfect we had been together. I really missed those times.
“What is that stupid grin for?” asked Marvin.
“What?” I said innocently, switching my phone off and sliding it in my pocket.
“Ast…” warned Marv. “We can see right through you, what’s up?”
“Just some good news from Alex,” I said shrugging my shoulders.
Before long we to were getting ready to go on stage. I’d managed to evade any more questions from the boys and get ready. Now I just needed to formulate a plan to see Jess when we were in LA in three weeks time.
