All In Good Time - A Time Travel Beatles Fanfiction

Track 28 - You Say Goodbye and I Say Hello

"What are you so cut up about? Yer single. Birds are bloody everywhere. You lift an eyebrow and knickers hit the floor."

Paul lowered the camera and eyed his best friend and bandmate. John was right, birds were everywhere, especially now. The Beatles weren't exactly living in a monastery. But they were usually so exhausted every night that all they wanted was to get laid and go to sleep. It had been five long months since Paul had wanted anything more than that from a girl. How could he explain the way Lainey made him feel? Every time the funfair ride slowed for a moment, typically when he was alone in a hotel bed, it was her face he saw when he closed his eyes. He wanted to ring her up, tell her how his life was changing. But of course he couldn't do that. He'd been thinking of this girl as his girlfriend for six months now, and he'd never even heard the sound of her voice on the telephone.

He needed to see her. He needed more than a physical release...hell, he could get that anywhere. He needed to know she was still his girl, that she'd be waiting for him when this crazy ride ended. Mostly, he needed to get his head straight so he could write again.

For the last LP he had written exactly three songs. Oh, he'd written many more ditties in the last five months, but they were mainly about Lainey, about missing someone, describing the impossibility of their situation, and these were not the sort of songs he fancied playing in front of anyone, not even his songwriting partner and best mate.

His life was a blur and he needed a week off to just sink into Lainey's softness, her calm sweetness. He just wanted to hold her, for Chrissake. But there was no way in hell he could say any of this to John without sounding like a lovesick fool who wanted his head examined.

He eyed the pack of American cigarettes sticking out of John's shirt pocket. "Giz a ciggie, mate."

John shook out a cigarette and handed Paul a lighter. "You daft git. If I didn't have Cyn with me, I'd be shagging my way up and down the Eastern Seaboard."

Paul dragged a hand through his hair and exhaled a breath of smoke. "It's been yonks since we've had a break, yeah? This girl lives on a nice quiet plantation, like, where I can breathe for once. 'Sides, I want her thoughts on a couple of the songs I've been working on."

John arched a brow. "Letting some bird in to your little private songwriting headspace? That sounds like it would be more intimate than sex to you, Macca."

Paul waved it off. "I just need to take a breath without a reporter in my face." A middle-aged couple entered their car and Paul lowered his voice. "You know that actress I met the other night? The English bird..Jill? It's already in the papers back home that we're dating."

"Yeah? You're famous, Paul. Everybody wants to know who you're shagging. Remember what my Aunt Mimi used to say? Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. Looks like we got it."

John got to his feet and laid a hand on Paul's shoulder. "Try Malcolm."

It turned out Mal could be persuaded by a bottle of the finest single malt Scotch whiskey and promises of more. Mal wasn't as adept at planning things as Neil, but he did manage to come up with a passable disguise and smuggle Paul through the kitchen and out of the hotel and into a waiting car. They only got lost twice while motoring through eight inches of snow from D.C. to Richmond.

And Mal was a good sport about it. He didn't care where or why, he just did what the lads asked, within reason. The miles flew by with the two of them reminiscing about how far the Beatles had come from the Cavern days to their first momentous concert in America last night. The size of the crowd, the strange surroundings, the noise, the flashbulbs, and the fact that it was being filmed for closed-circuit television...it was overwhelming. Ringo had played like a madman, laying out a beat so fast the rest of them had trouble keeping up with him. "I could've played for them all night!" Ringo enthused, and everyone agreed.