No Control (Book 1)

49. More Than This

I stared at Harry. "Ed Sheeran?" I repeated. "Really? Isn't he touring the world at the moment?"

He grinned back at me. "Yep. He's on a week's break between New Zealand and South America. There will only be a few hundred people there." He lowered his voice. "And you won't need to worry about keeping your distance from me while we're there. No one will be taking pictures or anything."

"Really?" I said, beaming at him.

"You seem more excited about that than you do about meeting Ed Sheeran," Harry remarked.

"I am," I replied, honestly. "Not in an ungrateful way," I said hastily, not wanting to spoil his surprise. "But that night we first met and we went to that club, Lagoon, where we could just do what we wanted and not have to worry about paparazzi... well, that was awesome." The champagne was talking again.

He smiled at me. "And there was me thinking you weren't that into me."

What?!

"What?!" I said stupidly, staring at him like a bozo.

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "This isn't a conversation for here."

"What isn't?" I asked. I was completely confused. I felt like I had joined the conversation halfway through. "What do you mean?" I asked, when he didn't answer.

"Nothing," he said, averting his gaze.

"Are you guys ready?" Lou called down the table to the rest of us.

"Yeah," Harry and Liam called back.

"We should get going really," Lou said.

Harry stood up quickly, and I picked up my bag and followed suit, feeling unsettled. Harry led the way towards the door, and through the window I could see a crowd of paparazzi outside. Great. I hung back a bit and let Jeff and Glenne pass in front of me, and fell into step in front of Liam and Louis.

"You ok?" Liam asked.

"Yeah, fine," I said. "I just hate this bit." Up ahead I could see Harry glance behind, looking for me. I shot him a quick smile, before dropping my gaze to the floor as the door opened for us and the cameras started flashing.

I let Liam guide me to the waiting cars, trying not to squint at the blinding lights, and jumped into the backseat of Harry's Range Rover next to Harry.

As soon as the door closed the car moved off and I buckled my seat belt and we smiled at each other. We drove about 10 minutes down the road, the others following in the cars behind. Harry chatted to Dale and Paul who were both in the front of our car. My female intuition told me he was making conversation with them to avoid having to answer the questions he more than likely knew were burning on my lips. We turned down a back street and stopped outside a grubby looking door.

"We're here," Harry said; the first proper words he'd said to me since leaving Cecconi's.

"Here?" I repeated, looking at the door in confusion as Harry jumped out of the car and held his hand out to me.

"It's the back entrance," he explained as I took his hand and felt the familiar spark as our fingers touched.

"To be fair, Jess doesn't look like the sort who likes using the back entrance," Louis' voice came from my left as he and Liam walked over from one of the cars that had been behind us.

"Louis you seriously need to get some action," I shot at him. "You're like a sexually frustrated teenager with all these innuendos."

"Ha!" Liam laughed, as Louis was momentarily lost for words. "She's hit the nail on the head."