PART TWENTY ONE
“Remember, don’t breathe a word to anyone,” Jess told me as I turned to leave her flat.
“I won’t!” I said, annoyed that she kept repeating that. After signing the list of rules Jess had told me to keep my mouth shut. It was only going to work if we were the only people who knew the truth. That meant I couldn’t say a word to my bandmates, or even my mum!
As I finally managed to get out of her flat I jogged down the stairs. I had studio time booked in for late morning with the boys and I figured I should grab some food to take with me over there.
“Oh, Aston, hey!” someone said as I pulled the door of the building open. Marnie was stood there with her key in her hand and a shocked look on her face.
“Hey,” I replied, pulling the door open further so she could come in.
“You weren’t here all night were you?” she asked awkwardly.
“No, just came to drop something off.”
“Oh. So what, are you and Jess a thing?” Marnie asked me.
“Umm… I guess,” I shrugged. I hadn’t had enough time to work out how I was going to break this one to people; I had literally signed the paper only minute’s prior. In fact, I was looking forward to the drive across town to the studio to figure that one out.
“Well I’m going to tell you one thing Aston,” Marnie said, a dead serious look on her face, “Watch out for yourself.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I questioned.
“Jess is a bit of a maneater,” Marnie said pointedly.
“A what?”
“Maneater? Ball-crusher? I don’t know… she toys with guys.”
“Really?” I asked. That didn’t seem like Jess. When I’d first met her she seemed like a nice girl, although her crazy work persona could explain this side of her a bit more. Maybe she was bipolar?
“Oh sure, she’s not innocent, by any means,” Marnie told me. “Have you gotten her whole, ‘I don’t fall in love’ speech yet?”
“Yeahhh…” I sighed. Was I already being played by this girl? It was too much to keep up with!
“All I’m saying is that she sticks to it. If you start getting too close she’ll push you away. Hard.”
“Seriously?”
“Last guy to try it on with her was publicly embarrassed, in front of at least 300 people.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to piece it together.
“He still doesn’t show his face at society events.”
“But what about that George guy?” I questioned. This all didn’t make sense to me. If Jess was a ball-crusher, why was he still hanging around? Surely she’d have done something equally horrible to him by now.
“He’s an exception to the rule. He just can’t get enough of the challenge, no matter what she does to him. And she’d done a lot. But he’s also properly insane sooo…” Marnie said flippantly.
“Right, well, thanks for the warning,” I said, moving to head towards my car.
“No worries! See you around!” Marnie said brightly.
Driving to the studio I tried to put together everything that had happened in the last half hour. Somehow I’d managed to get myself into a fake relationship with Jess. I wasn’t sure exactly what sold it to me, but she was being so persuasive and she legitimately made it seem like the best idea for the both of us. It wouldn’t hurt to get papped with her here and there, right? It wasn’t like I had to do much else!
But then what Marnie said freaked me out a bit. Jess was a bit of a maneater? What did that mean? What had I gotten myself into with this? I could only imagine that if I were to mess everything up she would make sure to take me down before seeing her reputation hurt.
I was definitely in too deep.
My first instinct was to call Jess and pull the plug. Why not quit this before it started? But there was some nagging voice in the back of my head telling me not to knock it before I tried it.
So I guess I was going for it.
“Hey Ast,” Marvin said with a goofy smile when I wandered into the studio.
“What’s that face?” I asked warily.
“You’ve got some explaining to do…” he told me in a sing-song voice.
“Oh god,” I sighed. He pushed a paper towards me, the images of Jess and I greeting me for what felt like the zillionth time already that morning.
“So?”
“So what?”
“Is it true?”
“I guess…” I sighed. Marvin’s eyes almost bugged out of his face as I answered him, so I added a hasty response. “We’re just going to see what happens. It’s new.”
“Seriously?” Marvin asked, “You’re finally giving up being single?”
“Well… She’s really busy so we won’t see each other that often,” I said, “And we’re traveling quite a bit too over the next few months. We just agreed to go out a few more times and see where it goes. No strings attached.”
“You think it’ll work?”
“Don’t know unless I try it,” I said, cringing at how ironic the statement seemed to be.
“So that kiss?” Marvin asked, “It was real?”
“Yeah,” I replied, lying again, “Took me by surprise, but it was nice.”
“You’re blushing,” Marvin laughed.
“Am I?”
“I think someone is in looooove.”
Oh no, no I was not. That was against the rules. And I knew what the consequences were! There was no way I was going to let Jess take me down!
“Just blushing because that hasn’t happened in awhile,” I lied, “Kissing a girl like that I mean.”
“Hmm ok Ast,” Marvin smirked.
I went off and hid in the corner after that, getting to work on some lyrics that I’d started a few days prior. The other boys filtered in over the course of the next hour or so and I got the same inquisition from each of them in turn.
“Just let it go guys!” I sighed as they whispered on and on about it.
“But Ast, you do realize what a momentous occasion this is! We must go celebrate!” JB said.
“Celebrate?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
“Clubbing? You can ask Jess to come.”
“I know for a fact she’s busy tonight, but I wouldn’t mind hitting the town,” I lied. I may not have known that for a fact, but I did know that she would outright refuse to come to the clubs. I could tell from her attitude that clubbing was probably on the bottom of her list of things she’d want to do on a Saturday night. She was just too uptight. Maybe I could get her to go just to piss her off at some point? Loosen her up a bit? Hmmm…
We spent the afternoon writing and then split up to get ready, meeting again later in the evening at one of our current favorite clubs.
To be honest, I’d jumped on the idea just because I wanted to try this new “in a relationship” lifestyle out. Could I really wander around the club and not have girls throwing them all over me? Marvin and JB did it all the time and it seemed to work… maybe it was the magic I needed to really have a fun night out?
The answer in the end was, it sort of worked. It was definitely better than before, and I was able to sit comfortably at the table with my boys without having that dreadful feeling that there were eight girls standing behind me waiting for me to get up. It was still hard to be on the dance floor without the constant attention, and trips to the bar were still the same. But, I could only imagine that things would get better with time.
Maybe this whole crazy plan wasn’t so crazy after all?
PART TWENTY TWO
“What about Friday?” I asked, my phone glued to my ear as I tried to work out another ‘date’ with Jess.
“Nope, we’re running a late session at work.”
“Thursday?”
“Nope, family dinner at The Savoy,” she replied.
“So when are you free?” I questioned mockingly, “Or was this too lofty a goal?”
“Saturday, dinner?” she said.
“Fine,” I sighed, “I’ll text you details in a few days.”
It was so hard trying to find time to meet up with Jess. She was so much busier than I’d ever expected. When I’d signed up to this whole thing, quite literally, it was just for a few hours a week. But even that was hard to find what with all of our work commitments.
After hanging up with Jess I racked my brain for a list of restaurants to go out to for dinner. She was relatively high class, so I wanted to keep things that way. I ended up calling a new restaurant of a modern fare in Covent Garden. It wasn’t my ideal place, but it would work for the pair of us. Particularly if we were just looking to get papped.
“Hey,” I said as she strolled in. Normally I would have picked her up, but she was coming from a family thing, so she’d asked if she could meet me.
“Hi,” she sighed, dropping her bag under her chair as she shrugged into her seat, her raincoat falling off her shoulders.
“How’re things?”
“Busy.”
“That’s it?” I prompted.
“It’s a good word to describe my life,” she replied, challenging me.
I shrugged her off, staring down at the menu. It really wasn’t my favorite type of food, but I was trying to be classy. I’m sure there was something I could eat on there!
“This all looks gross,” Jess whined.
“You’re kidding right?” I said, exasperated.
“No, what the hell is duck confit?”
“I picked this place because I thought you’d like it!”
“Well newsflash Mr. Popstar, I might come from a higher upbringing, but that doesn’t mean it’s my favorite thing!” Jess said to me. I was a bit scared of her to be honest. She was wearing a black work dress and tall heels, her hair pulled back in a tight bun. It was one of those outfits that gave her power.
“So what do you like?” I asked. We’d never discussed this before.
“Mexican.”
“Mexican?” I questioned, “Doubt you can get that at The Savoy.”
“I never said that I liked The Savoy,” she parried back.
“So what do you like?”
“Not going to find it here,” she said with a frown.
“Just tell me Jess,” I sighed, dropping my menu in front of me, sick of her games.
“I know this place,” she shrugged, “Its not far from here. It’s American.”
“What is it.”
“Sort of fast food Mexican. Ish.”
“I thought the whole point of this thing between us was to get papped, not to eat good food.”
She stared at me for a second, taking my statement in. “I know,” she replied, “I’m just so tired of this kind of food. It's been a long week, I wouldn't mind something I enjoy.”
“So what do you want?” I replied, intently.
“The fast food,” she shrugged.
“You’re kidding me!”
“No, let’s go,” she said, grabbing her bag from under her chair. I watched her take a few steps and then throw her head over her shoulder, a somewhat cheeky smirk on her face, “You coming?”
“Fine,” I replied, hesitantly. I threw my napkin in front of me, and a five-pound note on the table for the trouble they’d gone to in securing the table for us.
“So where is this place?” I questioned.
“Ten minutes walk,” Jess announced, starting off down the sidewalk. I had no idea where she was leading us, so I left it to fate, hoping we’d get where she intended.
“And you can manage in those heels?” I laughed.
“Watch me!”
I walked alongside her, right down the sidewalk. It was weird to be out like this, I hadn’t been wandering around Central London in ages. It was sort of refreshing.
“Aston!!!” a voice shouted after me. Instinctively I turned, only to be flashed right in the face.
“Bloody hell,” I sighed, grabbing hold of Jess’ arm and prompting her to walk faster.
“What?” she asked, wrenching her arm from mine slightly.
“Papped.”
“Cheers,” she laughed sarcastically, “Two more blocks.”
“Good,” I replied, trying to keep up with her, the mysterious cameraman right on our heels. We eventually ended up outside of a Mexican place in Soho, Jess smiling to herself as she pushed the door open and we were left alone.
It was weird wandering in to this place. I’d been planning on a relatively nice night out, and I’d dressed accordingly. But this place was full of American tourists in jeans and t-shirts, our outfits seemed smack out of place.
“What do you want?” Jess asked.
“I have no idea what is good,” I sighed.
“You want me to order for you?” she asked, running her eyes across the menu.
“Sure,” I said. To be honest I had no idea what was good so I just played along. I stood behind her as she rattled off our order, making sure that it was what we wanted and then adding a starter and some drinks.
“I’m a bit nervous,” I said awkwardly as we sat in the front of the restaurant at the big window looking out on the street, our legs dangling off our stools as we eyed up our food.
“It’s good!”
“Are you being crazy Jess or normal Jess?” I inquired.
“Excuse me?”
I couldn’t help but laugh a bit at this, “You seem a bit bipolar sometimes.”
“You’re kidding right?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not at all!” I replied. “Football Jess has been fun, normal. And then there was the crazy girl that you were at the charity event. I have no idea what to even make of that.”
“Being in that scene riles me up a bit,” she defended.
“I don’t know if I believe you,” I replied.
“Fine, don’t.”
“All I’m saying is that you definitely have a weird side, and I’m not really sure I like her.”
“What? So you like my fun side?” she asked, smirking lightly.
“I never said that!” I exclaimed.
“Ok, right. Eat up!”
I took a bite of my food, pleased that it tasted nice. It was like nothing I’d ever had before. Chicken with hot peppers, cheese and some sort of Mexican bean in a tortilla. Jess had also ordered me a margarita, and we were splitting an order of tortilla chips and salsa. I was certainly surprised when I liked all of it.
“You’re definitely bipolar, ordering me this!” I laughed at her, only to receive a massive frown back.