Ain't She Sweet

36

Monday December 9th
To summarise my evening, I had not felt such intense butterflies since the evening before my exams years ago in school. Sleep had been an uncooperative ally last night. The mere recollection of what had happened was set to repeat in my mind, replayed and adjusted so many times that I awoke this morning with what appeared to be a most nightmarish memory. What a frightful, and hideous thing. So cold. My mere breath could probably have frosted the air. Consequently, I could not face him now for fear of humiliation, or worse, hatred.

You idiot, I thought. Way to compromise your friendship again so soon.

Seemingly I had made a spiderweb of complications out of the simple friendship between two flippant bumble bees, having considerably undermined my feelings towards George; I now felt uncertain of what I truly wanted from him. And who to even talk to to express this dilema? John and Paul were quite obviously inappropriate choices. Admittedly, there was Ringo, who posed as a great gamble to the Gods. Wholeheartedly he possessed a degree of candidness I admired, and felt safe with him as my confident, however, he was prone to slip ups.
Nonetheless, he was all I had.

After some ten minutes I spent psychologically battling the door handle to even leave the premise of my hotel room, I sought out Ringo for advice. Realistically, he was the only one I could talk to. He was the only one with enough patience to listen. He was the only one I trusted enough to explore my feelings for George within his safety net before throwing the bait and being reared to the shores of reality. It was not fair to-

"Grace."

"Huh?" My head flinched with a moment's panic pulse through my veins that it would be George.

"I didn't catch you last night after the show." Paul extended an arm to embrace me.

I sighed in relief, stroking my perspiring palms against my chest.

"Oh, right. Good show?" I chuckled awkwardly, caught slightly off guard.

Absentmindedly, Paul clutched my wrists from my shirt and reeled me into his chest to squeezed me for a hot second. It seemed he had taken to this manner of greeting me recently.

"Where did you go?" He asked kindly as he held me by the shoulders, straightening the ends of my shirt.

"Just went for a walk with George." I shrugged, averting my eyes over his shoulder to the corridor behind him.

"Strange that." He said pensively.

"What?"

"He told me he went straight back to his room last night." He puzzled. "You didn't happen to accompany him, ay?"

Although his language was playful, and he flashed a savvy wink as he inferred, tapping his gentle fingertips against my forearms as he admired my hands. I could not help but reflect on what George had said. Perhaps his interests were not so innocent after all.

"What's it to you?" I relived a subtle smirk, retracting my hands from his loose grip, experiencing a minor electrical sensation as his palms brushed against my own.

"Jus' makin' sure they're treating you right is all, love." He nipped my cheek. "Best treat a lady nice."

"You make me blush McCartney." I soothed the cheek.