Someone was breathing in Lainey's face, and her head thrummed with a dull ache. She cracked open an eye to see Paul McCartney staring at her from eight inches away. She squeezed her eyes closed. "No," she whispered. "You're so not real."
She felt him cup the back of her head, pressing none too gently on the tender spot at the base of her skull.
"Ow! Quit that!"
"Swelling's gone down." He brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes before lowering his hand. "I would've given you a frozen steak to help with the swelling but we're fresh out."
"Thank goodness for that." She squinted her eyes at him. "So it wasn't a dream."
"What wasn't a dream?" he said evenly.
"You. George. John Freaking Lennon. Oh. And Ringo. Can't forget Ringo."
"Hmm. So, you ready to talk?" He was turned toward her, one arm under his head. His hair looked mussed from sleeping. She wondered if it felt as soft as it looked. Holy hell. She had just woken up beside Paul McCartney, with his hair all sleep-ruffled.
She curled her hands into fists and focused on a spot on the wall just over his shoulder instead of getting lost in his dreamboat eyes. "As long as it doesn't make my head hurt worse."
"We'll start with an easy one. How do you know so much about us? We've done nothing in America, and hardly anyone in London knows who we are."
His gaze flitted over her face, lingering on each of her features as if he was thinking of drawing her later from memory. She licked her lips and noticed his gaze fall to her mouth.
"Can I trust you?" she asked.
He nodded. "Course you can. I'm a trustworthy bloke."
"But I can hardly believe this myself. I don't know how I can expect anyone else to."
He pursed his lips, considering. "Let's start from the beginning. Why were you outside EMI, and how do you know who the Beatles are?"
"Everyone on earth knows who you are in 2012."
He arched a brow. "We're still sticking with that story, are we?"
She groaned. "Paul. Have you ever had anything happen to you that was...let's say...supernatural?"
Paul studied her face for a beat without speaking. "I'm going to need a ciggy for this." He rolled to a sitting position and fumbled in the drawer of the night table. "You smoke?" he asked over his shoulder.
"God no."
"Mind if I do?"
"It's your funeral."
Paul barked out a laugh. "Clever."
"It's an old joke." She watched him tap out a cigarette and light it. "You don't even know smoking is bad for you yet, do you?"
"Don't be soft. Smoking isn't bad for you. It relaxes you. Calms the nerves." He settled back onto the pillow, blowing out a breath of smoke. "You asked if I've ever had anything supernatural happen to me?"
She nodded.
He examined the tip of his cigarette for a moment before answering. "I lost my mum when I was a kid, and I've had dreams, visions...whatever you call 'em, where I could swear she was with me. So yeah, I suppose I have."
"Maybe this is sort of like that. I know it's connected to George. His picture is in this ring." Lainey waved her hand in front of his face.
"Let me see that." The cigarette dangled from his lips as he reached for her hand.
She jerked her hand away. "Don't mess with it. I'm not going to be responsible for sending Paul McCartney back in time fifty years and breaking up the Beatles. God. I'm not Yoko."
He squinted at her through a haze of smoke. "You are one strange bird."
Lainey sighed. "It's something to do with the ring, but I don't know how it works, and I don't know how I'm supposed to get back home. Maybe I have to go back to Abbey Road with a picture of my mother or something. But how am I going to get a picture of my mother off my phone? It's not like you have Shutterfly in 1963."
Paul listened patiently to her babbling before holding out his hand. "Let me see the ring."
She balled her right hand into a fist and covered it with her left, clutching them both to her chest. "No. It's too dangerous."
He laughed. "You're being daft."
She shook her head.
"I promise I won't touch it, just hold it up again." He leaned over and dropped the cigarette in the ashtray and rolled back to the pillow.
Lainey lifted her hand in front of his face. He reached for her fingers, frowning at the ring. She held her breath. It was so intimate, lying next to him on the pillow, their heads touching, his fingers holding hers. She could smell the shampoo he'd used and the cigarette he'd just smoked.
Her heart started to jump around and she took a deep breath, trying to focus on the matter at hand. This was not the time to think about how Paul McCartney smelled or how his hair felt. If she didn't figure out what was going on here, she could end up stranded in England in 1963 with no money, no friends, no family, no proof that she even existed.
"It's a beetle," Paul said.
"A Scarab," Lainey corrected. "And there's a letter S on the back of it, in ancient script or something."
"How is this connected to George again?"
Lainey pulled her hand away. "His picture is inside it. I looked at it right before I went soaring through time and knocked myself out." She frowned. "I don't really know which part of that came first..."
"Did you put the picture of George in the ring? Did you come to EMI to meet him or summat?"
"No!" She rubbed her face. "I mean, yes, I came to Abbey Road because of George but I never in a million years would have expected to meet him because he...just because. I didn't come there wearing this ring, an old gypsy woman read my palm and gave it to me."
Paul sighed. "Lainey, come on. The truth."
"That is the truth!"
"Get off. A gypsy read your palm? You must know how ridiculous that sounds."
Lainey lifted herself on her elbows, her eyes brimming with frustrated tears. "I have no reason to lie to you. I didn't ask you to bring me here. I'm only trying to get home."
"All right, all right, don't cry." Paul smoothed a hand through her hair. "We'll get it all sorted, don't worry."
She lay back on the pillow, sniffing. "I have to get back to Abbey Road right away, wearing this ring."
Paul shook his head. "It's gone dark. You'll have to wait 'til the morn. We'll get something to eat and you can stay here tonight and we'll take you back to the studio tomorrow."
"I'm not staying here tonight."
"Well, you have to stay somewhere. You can't go back to EMI tonight. Got any money?
"I have twelve British pounds and a Discover card."
"Whatever that is, I don't think it's going to get you a room."
"Probably not. Not in 1963, anyway."
Paul's voice was gentle. "So you can stay here, and I promise I'll be a gentleman." He smiled down at her. "Although you're very pretty, and my mind has wandered a time or two looking at you in that nightgown, I promise I won't take advantage of a young lass on holiday with a head injury."
"You think I'm pretty?" Lainey hadn't heard another word he'd said after that.
"You're very pretty."
Oh my god. Paul Effing McCartney just called her pretty. Twice. Which only proved that she was hallucinating.
"There's something familiar about you," he said, his eyes sweeping over her. "I spotted it right off, but I can't put my finger on it."
"Maybe I remind you of George."
His eyes fell briefly to her breasts and he grinned. "Trust me. You don't."
Lainey suddenly thought of something. "Did George ever talk about a girl in Liverpool named Marie? Marie Spencer?"
"Sure. I knew Marie. Pretty American girl, had a thing for George. She used to come to our shows, years ago." He frowned, scrutinizing every feature of her face. "You do look a bit like her. Whatever happened to her?"
Lainey's heart was beating so loudly that she wondered if Paul could hear it. This was something her grandmother had never talked about, her life in Liverpool. "She moved back to America."
"And you're related to her."
"Yes!" Now they were getting somewhere. She leaned forward, searching his eyes, pleading with him to get this, to believe her.
Paul frowned at her. "And she's trying to get back together with George, so she sent you on this wild goose chase—"
"No! Geez, no." Lainey threw herself back on the pillow again and scrubbed her hands roughly over her face. "You'll never believe me."
He casually rested a hand on her stomach, and her breath caught in her throat. "I am trying," he said. "Tell me something about the future. Convince me."
"How can I do that?"
He thought a minute. "We're recording our next LP. If we're so famous in 2012, name some of the songs."
"What's the name of the album?"
He shrugged. "Don't know yet."
"Is it the Please Please Me album?"
"No, that was released months ago."
Lainey tapped her thumb against her bottom lip, trying to concentrate on something besides Paul McCartney's hand, moving against the soft fabric of her dress. She studied his face. "So you're starting to write more of your own music on the second one...I would say She Loves You, but maybe that was only a single...All My Lovin'?"
Paul's eyes went wide. "How do you know that song?"
"Because it's one of my favorite early Beatles songs." Lainey began to sing, slightly off-key. "All my lovin', I will give to you-ooo...All my lovin', darling I'll be—"
"Stop." Paul placed his fingers over her lips. "Stop singing that."
She pushed his hand away. "I know I'm no Rihanna, but you don't have to—"
"We recorded "All My Loving" today. No one has heard that song but us and the studio engineers. I only wrote the bloody song a few weeks ago."
"I love that song..."
"Who are you, Lainey Spencer? No more of this bollocks. It's time for the truth."
He looked angry. She needed him not angry. She needed him on her side, so the one they called Neil didn't call the cops and have her hauled away.
He hovered over her, inches away. Acting on impulse, Lainey grabbed his face in her hands and pulled his mouth to hers. It was a sweet kiss, warm and tentative. But her hands had a mind of their own, sliding around his neck, her fingers curling into his hair.
He released her mouth, pulling away just enough to look into her eyes.
She blinked, trying to focus on his dark eyes. "Oh god, sorry! Sorry, that was weird, I—"
"I like weird," he said, and captured her lips again with his. His lips were warm and soft, and Lainey felt her head spinning as he gathered her closer and moved past the mere brush of lips into a full-fledged kiss that had her blood pounding through her veins and her fingers curling into his hair and hanging on. Her real life in 2012 began to feel oddly dreamlike and distant.
She felt the tip of his tongue teasing her lips, gently parting them, then slowly moving inside her mouth to meet her tongue. Lainey felt like a top spinning. No wonder women lined up to date this man. He set a new standard in kissing. His hand moved up her side, pausing just below her breast.
She whimpered, and he lifted his head. "Lainey Love. This is the sort of kissing that leads to lots of energetic sex. Is that what you're after?"
"Oh god." Lainey lowered a hand to her chest, wondering if she was too young for her heart to explode. "This is crazy."
He rolled away, and she sat up, running a shaky hand through her hair. "Oh god. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kissed you. I know you have a girlfriend, and—"
"What? How do you know I..." He rolled his eyes. "Never mind."
She covered her face with her hands. "I just freaked out for a minute thinking what it would be like to be here all alone, and I need you on my side..."
"I am on your side, love." He pulled her hand away from her face, brushing his lips lightly across her palm. "But you can kiss me all night long if it'll make you feel better."
He sat up and smiled at her, still holding her hand, the hand wearing the ring, which made Lainey forget all about the kiss. It took all her willpower not to jerk her hand away. Paul shouldn't be touching the ring when she didn't know quite how it worked, how it sent her back in time. She carefully pulled her right hand out of his and replaced it with her left.
His smile faded. "Look, Lainey, I want to help you, love, I do."
She squeezed his hand, nodding. "Okay. Thank you."
"I'll take you back to the studio in the morning, but I want you to promise me that if for some reason you're still...homeless...here in 1963...at the end of the day, I want you to come find me. I don't want you roaming the streets thinking you're from the future or something."
"You still don't believe me."
"No, no, it isn't that. But...let's keep the whole time travel thing just between us, all right?"
"No duh, Captain Obvious."
"What?"
She sighed. "I'm not going to tell anyone else."
He dropped her hand and stretched, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. He found her sandals and handed them to her. "How about we get summat to eat, maybe come back and watch a little telly?"
Lainey smiled shakily, her heart rate slowly returning to something like normal as she slid her feet into her sandals. "Sure. Got any video games? Ever played Beatles Rock Band?"
He reached for his shoes, ignoring her. "Then first thing tomorrow we can—"
Paul's voice suddenly blared from inside Lainey's handbag at the bottom of the bed.
"You say goodbye, and I say hello...hello hello...I don't know why you say goodbye I say hello..."
Lainey lunged for the bag, frantically digging for her phone.
"Who is that singing? What is that song? Who the fuck is that?" Paul crawled across the bed, reaching Lainey just as she pulled out the phone and stared at her mother's face on the screen.
"Mom?" she cried, all thumbs as she tried to answer the call, almost dropping the phone.
Suddenly she was spinning through space, and the last thing she heard was Paul yelling her name.