It seems that over the next few days, between rehearsals, lessons and completing even more shifts at the book shop, I barely have a chance to stop. Before I know it, it’s mid afternoon on Saturday, and Willow and I are desperately trying to get changed and ready before Levi arrives along with the rest of the band to take us to Jethro’ house. I say house. I looked it up on Google maps, and it’s more like a mansion.
Willow examines her white dress critically. ‘Oh Zoey, I swear this is too summery and cutesy for a party!’
‘Borrow something of mine,’ I urge her, gesturing towards my wardrobe with my free hand. The other is holding my curling tongs, desperately trying to get my hair into some sort of order.
‘Something of yours?’ Willow repeats.
I look at my hair. Nope, it’s not cooperating. Sigh. ‘Yes, something of mine,’ I reply. ‘We’re the same size, aren’t we? It’ll just be shorter on you.’
‘If you’re sure,’ Willow replies, going over to my wardrobe. Giving up with the curling tongs, I instead plait the front of my hair over the top of my head speedily, thanking my lucky stars when it stays in place. Quickly putting on some rather glittery eyeliner that makes my eyes stand out, coupled with mascara and some foundation, I survey the result.
Not too bad. I eventually decided on a red day dress, a rather cute one with little shiny buttons on the front and a high waist, and added a baggy cardigan to make it less formal. I’m kind of pleased with the result, hopefully I look like a lead singer, without looking too formal.
‘You look amazing, Zo,’ Willow tells me, with a smile. ‘So effortlessly… indie-ish.’
‘Aww,’ I say, feeling touched. ‘That’s so sweet of you.’
She sifts through my wardrobe. ‘I’m still stuck. What should I go for?’
‘You suit everything, Will, I’m sure I can find something!’ Pulling out a dress at random, I hold it up to her, experimentally. ‘That would bring out your eyes,’ I say, mulling it over.
‘You think so?’ she asks, looking at it helplessly.
‘Definitely. Or this one?’ I ask, pulling out another. ‘You’d look gorgeous in that, for sure.’
She looks at it. ‘Ooh, I like them both! Which one?’
I suddenly realise the time, and thrust them both at her. ‘Quick! We have less than five minutes- decide, decide!’
Willow panics. ‘Oh I don’t know!’ she cries, so I take away the first, and tell her to go and change. Sometimes with Willow, a no nonsense approach is the only way forward to get something done.
When Willow is finally dressed, I hear a car horn beep outside. ‘That’s them,’ I tell her, and picking up my guitar, popping my phone in the side pocket of the case, I head downstairs.
As Willow follows me, she suddenly grabs my hand. ‘Oh no, Zoey! This dress is way too short!’
I look down. It is short for her, showing off the majority of her thigh, but it makes her legs look miles long. ‘I’m sure people will be wearing far less clothing than you are, Will,’ I tell her, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘You’ll be fine!’
Looking slightly reassured, Willow and I head out to the car Eddie’s parked in the drive way. It’s more of a van, actually, with the drum kit packed in the back, and Jamie, Matt and Levi sat in the back seats, Eddie in the front.
As Willow gets into the passenger seat, I notice Jamie eyeing her legs. Giving him a gentle shove, I laugh at him. ‘Stop drooling, boy!’ I tell him, and he looks up at me, innocently.
‘What are you insinuating?!’
‘Nothing at all.’
Eddie sets off, driving like a maniac as we make the half an hour journey to Jethro’s house. I’m actually really glad we’ll be staying there the night, that way we won’t have to travel backwards in the early hours of the morning. Though staying the night is a little daunting.
I look up at Levi, who is sat to my right. ‘Ready?’ I ask him, smiling, and he smiles back, his eyes running over my outfit.
‘Of course,’ he replies. ‘You certainly look the part.’
‘Thanks,’ I answer. ‘As do you.’ And he does. Dressed casually, in jeans and a plaid shirt, he’s perfected the balance between formal and informal just right. Plus, the blue shirt makes his eyes even bluer than normal, which is always a good thing. Right now, he just looks hot. Not that he doesn’t usually, of course.
After rowdy singing along to the radio which makes it far less awkward that I’m squished right next to Levi, we finally get to Jethro’s house. Yes, it’s fair to describe it as a mansion. It’s freaking huge.
Getting out, the six of us look at it in awe. The white walls of the exterior look more suited to a Spanish villa; the tall windows and doors gleaming down upon us all rather imposingly. The security cameras and the imposing looking metal gate before us only add to the whole impression of wealth which this building screams of. It’s so intimidating, that for a while, we just stand there, unable to believe we’ve been invited to play here.
Then, ever the business like, Matt steps forward, pressing the intercom to gain access.
‘We’re the Something Somethings,’ he says. ’Here for the party?’
The gates swing open, and we realise getting out of the car was rather foolish, as we now have to hurry back in and drive through the gate.
Eddie drives far more carefully this time, tentatively making his way along. As we pull up in front of the front door, Jethro hurries out.
‘Good to see you,’ he says, and I notice he’s dressed similarly to the boys; shirt and jeans. We got that right then. ‘I’ll show you where you can set up; people are arriving in about an hour or so, so you’ve got a while.’
We nod our agreement, and follow him through high ceilinged rooms, all full of expensive looking furniture and upholstery; a grand piano in one room, and as we pass a floor to ceiling window, I spot a pool outside. Just how rich is this boy? Or, more accurately, his parents?
Jethro leads us into the biggest room yet; a huge hall with large speakers and long tables along the sides packed with a few packets of crisps, but mainly with alcohol. A lot of alcohol: cans, bottles and plenty of plastic cups. I eye it warily, hoping it won’t be too much of a drunken brawl.
He must have caught me looking, because he laughs. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says, indicating the alcohol. ‘We’re planning just to play music from my iPod after you’re done; most people will be too drunk to appreciate you by that point.’
I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. At least we’ll be able to escape the madness, I guess; though it will still be going on downstairs.
Jethro points out an area full of amps and seats, and a few microphones. ’If you head over there, it should be all set up for you,’ he says. ’The amps link up to the speakers, so if you want to do a sound check, feel free.’
‘Thanks,’ Matt heads over, the rest of us following. I’ve got to say, it does look quite organised for a party. I’d imagined turning up and squatting in a corner while drunken people threw rotten tomatoes at us for not providing music they could rave to.
Absorbed in setting up, using all the premium equipment, it takes a while before I notice that there appears to be a great deal of people around the place, bringing in more packets of crisps and beer. More alcohol? This is madness.
Levi and I tune up, then plug ourselves in. Giving the guitar an experimental strum, I flinch as the noise echoes around the room, amplified by the speakers. It’s loud; very loud.
Eddie taps his drum sticks together, and we start to play. It’s so loud I can barely hear myself think, the bass thudding through the floor, the drum beat so loud it feels as if I’m sat inside one of the drums myself.
I feel a bit vulnerable as I go to sing. There’re a lot of people milling about, and my voice will be amplified so much that everyone will hear. How embarrassing.
I start to sing, and, as I imagined, the noise echoes around the room, people turning to have a look. I try to ignore them, and we continue the song, only finishing when Matt has declared himself satisfied, having fiddled the volumes and settings on each of the amps.
Now that that’s done, we all sit back and relax until the crowds arrive. We don’t have to wait long. Before many minutes have passed, people start coming in; most of the popular people from our school, the girls flashing their legs in extremely short skirts and dresses which make me suddenly feel very overdressed. They’re all fake tan and hair extensions, most of them very skinny with a lot of make up. Willow and I must look really out of place with our more natural look.
Jethro told us to start playing when people came in, so we do so, going through the order of songs which Matt made (on a spread sheet, surprise, surprise) as the hall continues to fill. Before long, it’s packed, and people are actually dancing along to the faster songs we chose, the noise so loud that I can barely even think.
It’s amazing though. It’s like we’ve actually got our own, serious gig, and we give it our all, wanting to do our very best. In between songs, I lean down to Willow, who has been stood eagerly by the side, watching us proudly for the entire time.
‘Could you get me a drink, please?’ I ask her, wishing I’d thought of that before. I have to shout thanks to the noise.
‘Ooh, me too,’ Levi pipes up.
She nods, and heads off to the tables through the crowds.
We start up the next song, and as I sing it, I look out over the crowds. There’s a sea of faces looking back at me, people dancing together, clutching their drinks in one hand. I can see people chatting each other up, people laughing together, and I wonder how they can hear each other over the racket we’re creating.
I glance sideways at Levi, who gives me a cheeky wink. It’s strange, but somehow playing this music together makes us feel so much closer. It’s a bond he and Imogen bloody Cooper will never have; they’ll never have this sort of connection as we play, the feeling that our voices were made to harmonise like they’re harmonising at this point, as if they were always meant to rise and fall as they’re rising and falling at this moment in time.
And Imogen isn’t even here. I’m don’t know why, Levi said she was busy or something, but I do know that I’m exceptionally relieved.
Willow arrives with a can in either hand. ‘Sorry!’ she shouts, as the song ends. ‘They only have alcohol!’
‘Thanks anyway!’ I reply, passing a can to Levi and opening one myself. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I’m desperately thirsty, and we’ll just have to make do with what we’ve got.
I take a sip, and wince. It’s got a rather unpleasant taste, but it does the trick of refreshing my sore throat, and so I set it down, wishing I’d remembered my water bottle.
We play on. Time seems to fly past, and it’s pitch black outside by the time we end. Levi and I are both on our second can of whatever-this-stuff-is, needing it for our poor throats, and so when we play the final chords of our last song, I feel a little tipsy. I’m not a drinker at all, so I assume it doesn’t take much to make me feel intoxicated.
The hall bursts into applause, as everyone cheers us. Maybe it’s just the alcohol befuddling their senses, but they actually seemed to like us. I glance at Levi, who appears to be grinning.
‘You were amazing!’ he shouts at me, over the noise.
‘So were you!’ I call back, thinking how adorably gorgeous he looks right now, with his hair all messy from his energetic playing and singing. Perhaps that’s the alcohol talking.
As I start packing away my guitar, I look up suddenly to find myself surrounded by a small crowd of boys, cheering and slurring drunkenly at me. Bewildered, I cling to my guitar, the alcohol running through my veins making me feel a little dizzy.
I can’t understand what they’re saying, but it seems that they’re attempting to hook up with me, because one of them slides an arm around my waist, reaching to lightly pinch my bum. I shove him off, with such energy that I tumble into another, who clamps his arm around me.
He stinks of cigarette smoke. I struggle against his leather jacket. ‘Eh, babe,’ he croons, hooking a strand of hair out of my eyes. ‘Just one kiss? You know you want to.’
What the hell are the rest of the band doing?! Can they not see I’m being molested?!
‘Levi!’ I yell. Why him, I’m not sure. Jamie’s most likely stronger, Eddie does kung fu, but for some reason, Levi’s name is the one I’m calling.
‘That’s not my name,’ mutters the boy clasping me to him. ‘My name’s Joe, alright?’
‘Let go!’ I shout, kicking at him.
‘Feisty one, that one,’ comments one of the others. ‘I like that in a bird.’
Desperate times call for desperate measures. With a move a contortionist would have been proud of, I bend my foot up and kick my captor as hard as I can in the balls. It does the trick.
Yelping, he lets go, and I stumble backwards. It’s no good. There’s a ring of them jostling around me, and I’m too short to be seen over the top. I see now why the others aren’t saving me- they can’t bloody see me!
Lifting my guitar, I wave it in the air like a flag, as more of them head over my way, not put off by the fact that I’m brandishing my instrument as a weapon, instead seeming to be turned on by it. One of them strokes my hair, another traces his fingers over my lips, moving as if about to kiss me when…
‘Oh god, Zoey!’ Someone seizes me round the waist, pulling me through the melee of boys, back up to the safe stage, where the others are all standing, calmly packing away their things.
Levi. He saved me. I turn to look up at him. ‘Thanks.’ It occurs to me that this should be awkward, being tightly wrapped in his arms, but the alcohol makes it hard to care.
‘You’re welcome,’ he says. ‘I lost sight of you, sorry. None of them, well, did anything, did they?’
‘Nothing too bad,’ I reply. ‘I think one of them came off worse when I injured his nether regions.’
Levi looks concerned, and maybe, just maybe a little bit jealous. ‘I didn’t realise they’d go for you.’
I shake my head at the others. ‘What crap body guards you lot are,’ I tell them, disapprovingly. ‘You let me get molested!’
‘Sorry,’ Jamie says, looking guilty. ‘It’s hard to see with all this noise and all these things going on.’
I laugh. ‘Don’t worry. I had Levi, my knight in shining armour, to save me.’ Oh gosh. Did I say that? What’s wrong with me? Ah. Alcohol. Seems to have loosened up my tongue. It makes Levi grin, anyway.
We finish packing our things up, as someone plugs their iPod into the speakers, sending music more suitable for dancing blasting through the room. As we head out of a door, Jamie reaches over to grab a few bottles from the side, along with a bag of crisps.
I give him a look. ‘What?!’ he asks. ‘We deserve a little celebration!’
‘Looks like a big celebration judging by those bottles,’ I tell him, raising an eyebrow at the amount he’s brought with him.
‘There’s six of us,’ he reminds me, and as we tug everything out of the room, except for Matt’s keyboard and the drum kit, which we’ll rescue in the morning, we find ourselves out on a little patio, which then leads to a garden lit only by stars. It all looks rather romantic, and it’s a welcome quiet after the rowdiness of the hall, which we can still hear, though thankfully relatively quietly. I spread my arms out, enjoying the cool air. That hall was far too hot.
Levi laughs at me, taking my hands to spin me round.
‘Someone’s been drinking,’ Matt comments, sounding pissed off. I laugh.
‘There was no water!’
‘You could have gone to the kitchen?’
‘In the middle of a set?!’
‘Cheer up, Matthew,’ Jamie tells him, patting him on the head and taking a swig out of a bottle, passing it to Willow afterwards, who looks into it cynically, but takes a sip none the less.
‘Let’s stay out here!’ Eddie says, taking the bag of crisps, and sitting down on the floor with them, hugging the packet lovingly. I chuckle; everything seems a lot more funny than usual.
Over the next hour, we all sprawl there in the grass, Levi and I not drinking much, but still tipsy from our cans of drink, the others giving in and drinking a lot out of the bottle. As they start playing drinking games, I stop playing after only one round, realising that I really don’t want to get drunker.
So I lie back on the grass, chuckling for no reason. Levi flops himself down next to me, laughing for some reason too. It comes to my attention that we’re both slightly drunk, but this just makes me laugh more. We’re not too bad; are we? Not as bad as Jamie, Matt and Willow, who seem to have gotten a bit too enthusiastic with their drinking, and are now dancing around together to the faint music they can hear. In fact, Matt appears to be trying to get Willow to ballroom dance with him, which makes me laugh (I seem to be doing a lot of that) because ballroom dancing doesn’t exactly match the dubstep that’s playing loudly from the hall.
‘Let’s dance in the hall!’ Jamie suggests, slurring somewhat, pulling Willow back into the hall, both of them shrieking with laughter. Well, I would never have expected Willow to have gotten like this, she’s never even drunk before. I get the impression that I would have felt guilty and worried about her, but at the moment, it’s really hard to care about anything.
As I look back towards the house, the windows lit in the darkness, the orange glow from the dance floor seems fuzzy and distorted before my eyes. It’s a bit surreal, being here, and nothing seems to make sense for a few seconds.
Eddie crumples up the huge packet of crisps, and gets up, telling us he’s going to go and find some more, Matt going with him, informing everyone he goes past that he loves them; clearly he‘s tipsy. I realise I’m alone with Levi, and laugh some more, not bothered by this in the slightest. It’s hard to be bothered when you’re feeling so inclined to laugh at the slightest thing.
Levi sits up, chuckling too, and looks down at me, his eyes running down my body, which is currently sprawled ungracefully on the floor. ‘You look like a little flower,’ he murmurs, his words blurred slightly by the alcohol. ‘Like a little poppy.’
‘I like poppies,’ I reply absently, laughing at how hilarious that was. I can’t seem to stop myself. Poppies. Red poppies. Pretty red poppies. I look up at him, and find myself a little disconcerted by the look in his eyes. Well, at least the drink hasn’t affected me that much then.
I get up. ‘Let’s look for poppies in the garden!’ I say, and as if I’ve had the most hilarious idea ever to be thought up, Levi and I stumble around the garden, looking for poppies in the darkness, laughing like maniacs.
‘Is that one?!’ Levi asks, pointing at a flower bed, and promptly falling over, bringing me with him, so we tumble in a tangle of legs and arms. His body is warm against mine, filling me with all sorts of nice sensations.
‘That went well,’ I murmur, trying to get up, but my coordination is even worse than usual, and I find myself just making things worse. Levi sorts us out, helping me up, his arms lingering around my waist.
I look up into his face, trying to read the expression in his eyes. He’s smiling, and his eyes are smiling too as he watches me. I feel a little as if I’m tumbling into the blue depths of them, and tighten my grip on him as if that will keep me from falling right in.
‘My little songbird,’ he whispers softly. Goose bumps erupt over my skin at that pet name. Songbird. His songbird.
The space between us is decreasing rapidly, his forehead meeting mine as he bends over me, our noses meeting, his soft skin on mine... He pulls me closer, I tilt my head towards him, and our lips meet.
His lips are gorgeously soft. I’d forgotten what it was like to kiss him, I’d forgotten how his lips moved so perfectly against mine, coaxing me into responding with more passion, how his mouth seemed to fit mine exactly. His tongue runs across my lower lip, and I let it slip in without hesitation, my arms snaking around his neck as the kiss deepens, my fingers sliding into his hair, twisting it, playing with it. He tastes faintly of alcohol, but, underneath it, there’s still the familiar Levi taste that I used to know so well. A tiny groan escapes his lips, and he staggers a little, perhaps feeling the same weakness in his knees as I do.
Before we can steady ourselves, he stumbles backwards, me going with him, both of us landing in the flowerbed. I go to laugh, but he flips us over, so I’m lying on the floor. Moving over me half protectively, half predatorily, he recaptures my lips, and I spend no time protesting, instead curving into him, pressing our hips together and kissing him back with even more passion than before …