Worlds Apart

Chapter Twenty

The flight was a painful affair – as any over four hours were.

At least I found out I wasn’t the only one that had to go through secondary immigration, I was joined by all but Rob. Apparently he was the only one of the group that had managed to keep his nose clean over the years.

It was a bit more of a comfort than when I was with my own band and was left to my own devices. There was a slight attempt at comradeship in this. However I was sure it was going to be more trouble than it was worth when Logan sent me a conspiratorial wink that the officer I was standing with saw. And she observed it with narrowing suspicious eyes. I was going to have to ask what he’d done to go through this every time he went through customs, because apparently I was a fellow schemer in the eyes of the country now.

To be honest it was a relatively painless procedure in comparison to some experiences I’d had going back into the states or Canada.

I was the first one to get out, and didn’t bother waiting.

My mind was still anywhere but England at the moment, so I figured some time alone for the first time since I’d woken up yesterday would be handy. Any attempts to distract me from my father and the impending doom he was bringing upon himself proved futile.

The trip to the bathroom towards the middle of the flight had been quite the waste. It was already quite the scene in there. My sweater carelessly thrown on the ground with my tee shirt having ridden up with the fevered touches and Cam’s jeans were caught around his ankles with my legs wrapped around his waist. That was when there was a knock against the door that my back had been pressed against. It was the flight attendant asking if everything was alright and if I needed help.

Suffice to say that had ruined the mood a bit, though it had made me smile for the first time since the phone call. I’d told her a rather chocked no, trying to hold back laughter while Cam buried his face in the crook of my neck to muffle his own.

After clumsily pulling our clothes back on and straightening what we hadn’t bothered to yank off, we made our way back to our seats – separately of course. It might have been the worse idea I’d had all day, because not only did I have my father and Lizzy’s phone calls on my mind, I’d managed to get myself worked up and frustrated.

And after that I’d drifted away from the reality laid plainly before me, forgetting about everything but the pain in my ass as the flight drew on. I just stared ahead. Even when Cam fell asleep to my side, I stayed there wide eyed.

The lack of sleep was going to hit me soon enough since I’d only had a few hours in the recent past, I could feel it but I’d bypassed tired a while back now.

Even though I’d taken off, it didn’t take long for both brothers to catch up. Apparently they’d left Graham back in the dust, but that didn’t matter when I found one on each side of me, walking as if it was the most casual thing in the world. Whenever this happened, I always found myself glancing between the two of them suspiciously, wondering if they were planning something.

This time I appeared safe as I rolled my single large bag of luggage behind me, carrying my guitar case in the other hand.

“What did you do to get secondary immigration?” questioned Cam.

If I wasn’t going to talk about my father, the very least I could do was act as if everything was alright. So I just grinned at him with a mischievous quirk of the eyebrow. He should know I wasn’t one to share in crowded rooms, only under stars and under the influence of too much gin. “Secret,” I answered, only getting an unamused look.

Opposed to his brother, Logan let out a loud laugh, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me into him. It was a good thing I wasn’t holding my guitar on that side or else he would have gotten the edge of a case to the gut.

“What a waster,” he observed, “What a fucking waster.”

Figuring he deserved the guitar case to slam into his gut, I settled for the next best thing and jabbed him with elbow hard enough to so his arm dropped. “You can’t even try to use that song against me,” I informed him, almost repeating the words that Cam had said to me a lifetime ago as I took a better on my luggage.

Although he gave a cough and pressed a hand where my vicious bony elbow had gotten him, Logan still asked, “What, why?”

“That was the song I played to get into Red Riot,” I replied casually.

“You never told me that.”

At Cam’s almost insulted words, I turned my head to look at him this time, noticing the line that had bridged between his brows again. And all I could do was give a shrug and reply, “You never asked.”

That had him shutting his mouth, and it firmed into a thoughtful line without his gaze as much as flickering. Not one to back off from such a thing, I only arched an eyebrow at him before moving onwards. In that silence where Logan had drifted off, searching through one of his bags, Graham just caught up as we reached a set of doors.

Rob was paused beside them, causing me to frown in confusion.

However I didn’t get the chance to ask why he was waited there until something was pressed onto my face from the side.

Making quite the face while I cringed and jolted away, I caught sight of the sunglasses that Logan was trying to put on me by surprise. “What the hell?” I asked, smacking him in the chest in attempt to put some distance.

I should have guessed that it would be pointless.

“Trust me,” he said, placing the sunglasses carefully on me, “You’re going to need them.”

“It’s two in the fucking morning,” I muttered moodily.

Instead of trying to press his point further, Logan just sent me that classic shit eating grin that he and his brother always wore so fashionably. Apparently he figured his words would be plenty for convincing, because he just lengthened his stride, tugging his own luggage behind him, in order to reach Rob.

The moment he had his back turned, I reached up, readying to yank them off my face. The windows were pitch black all around us, proving not only the time of day – or night – but the actual need for sunglasses.

Before I could even make contact I was once again stopped.

This time it was by the other brother, though he did it in a much smoother fashion. Halted beside me, Cam reached out, tangling his fingers through mine before I could yank them off and pulling our hands down between us.

“I don’t want to look like a gross eighties rock star,” I complained, glancing at him from behind the dark glasses. “I’m already a rock cliché; I don’t need to look like one too.”

“You’re going to need them,” said Cam firmly, reiterated his brother’s words.

Behind the glasses I rolled my eyes, not that it did any good to get my mood across since I figured Cam already had that down pact. The corners of his mouth twitching told me that without any words. “It can’t possibly be that bad out there; our flight was delayed six hours. There won’t be that many paps.”

“You’d be surprised, darling,” he informed me, giving my hand a tight squeeze.

Glaring at him, I just squeezed back even harder. It gave me that satisfaction of watching surprise flicker across his face before a slight grimace. He still didn’t let go of my hand, though, even with all the incentive I was giving him. Not yet, at least.

In the end he just raised his eyebrows back at me. I felt like I was being handed a dare, but I wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“Oi, you two, are you coming or what?”

Logan’s shout was enough to break us both out of the staring contest that we’d found ourselves competing in. I quickly pulled my hand from Cam’s, grabbing the handle of my bag instead as I started towards the other brother. He was wearing a brilliant grin, shoulders brushing Rob’s, but I noticed the way his eyes flickered from me to his brother that was lagging slightly behind.

Before I had the chance to shrug it off with some casual word, Cam was passing by me, shoulder barely brushing my own. “Just trying to save your sunglasses, mate,” he told his brother without so much as a glance at me, “She was about ready to snap them.”

I spared a dirty look at the back of Cam’s head, but carried on all the same.

“If I don’t need them and you have me looking like a twat for no reason, I will break them,” I warned.

Not bothering to feel threatened or take the glasses back, Logan contented himself with a snort as he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I only had the time to scowl as I rammed into his side before he was steering us away. Seriously this close proximity thing was a pain to deal with on regular occasions, let alone while wearing a back pack, lugging a guitar case and pulling a bag behind me. Now it was a severe pain in my ass.

I was considering giving him another elbow in the stomach, but then I noticed him digging through the pocket of his carryon to pull out another pair of sunglasses. How many did he carry on him? This was getting ridiculous.

Maybe we were an eighties rock cliché.

Shit, I’d gotten myself tangled in a modern Spinal Tap.

That was only confirmed by my glance to the side to see Cam brushing his hair out from where it had caught beneath his own glasses. Rob was rolling his eye and Graham – who had just caught up puffing slightly – didn’t have the time. Of course it would just be the lead singer and guitarist.

I didn’t have the time to make some sarcastic comment to diffuse the situation that I’d created in my own head, though. And that was something I dearly loved to do. My chance was gone when I was suddenly pulled, almost losing my balance, straight out the doors.

The fact they’d been right hit me immediately.

With a storm of flashes, pounding of feet and shouts; I was surrounded my paparazzi in a way I hadn’t been for a while now. The ones in California hadn’t come in hordes like these, but my arrivals had either been normalcy or random. This had been an imminent arrival yet a one shot chance at the same time, and they weren’t about to let the chance be passed up. Not the day after my supporting act had been announced.

We were front page news and there was no going back now.

I could only think they were like a swarm of locust descending upon us.

After years of dealing with just this, I ducked my head, letting my hair cover my forehead instinctively. The sunglasses dulled the flashing, but it did nothing for the shouted questions and words thrown our way that all blended in together. It might have been a good thing, though; hearing what they had to say was never a good thing. Every words was thought out to provoke a strong reaction, and I was always lead by instincts.

With the help of security that had been waiting for this moment, we were shepherd through the mess of paparazzi with a healthy mixture of fans for freshness. When a shoulder brushed against mine, I didn’t need to look up to know that it was the other brother to my side, leaving me sandwiched between them in what should have been a single file walking space. It was quite the squeeze for three.

To be honest I didn’t know if they were doing it unwittingly or not, but they were creating the perfect picture for the cameras to snap up. Not that I cared. I was more focused about getting out of the shroud without having my foot stepped on, because I might start throwing punches then.

As it happened my feet stayed safe, though I did feel like a ping pong ball ricocheting between the brothers.

When we reached the end of the line, Logan finally dropped his arm as we came face to face with the set of five identical black cabs. I could only guess that meant one for each of us, a hypothesis that was proved when Rob and Graham darted past us to separate ones in the line. Not lingering for a ‘see you later’ before their cabs were pulling away from the corner, leaving the chaos behind them.

“Get some sleep,” advised Logan as he took a step away.

With the corner of my mouth quirking up sassily, I said, “Since when are you the responsible one?”

Giving a laugh I couldn’t hear over the ruckus about us, he sent me that theatrical wink he did so well before turning away and heading to the last cab in the row. I hadn’t realized I was watching him walk away with a smile on my face like an idiot until I felt Cam inch closer. Although I didn’t dare to turn around to him, it successful gained my attention from the other brother.

“Don’t get comfortable at the hotel,” Cam whispered in my ear.

Resisting the urge to give a shiver, I kept my wits about me, casually raising a single eyebrow at the request. His lips were almost brushing against my ear, but keeping enough distance to drive me insane. “Who knew you were the bad influence?” I returned without looking back.

“Just don’t go to sleep,” he said, and that was it. Before I had the chance to question his motives, Cam had vanished from behind me.

That was when I finally gave in, swivelling around just in time to see him tossing his bag carelessly in the taxi ahead.

Letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in the first place, I ducked away from the chaos that had been awaiting our arrival. It was amazing how easily a crowd could be muffled when one dodged inside of a cab, shutting the door with a snap behind them. My entrance may have been clumsy having almost tripped over my guitar case, causing me to tumble inside with my bag still out the door but the result was the same.

And it wasn’t until the driver had whipped away from the curb – obviously knowing where we were heading already – that I pushed my hair away from my face. There was less of a chance of being blinded now.

It took me far too long to realize I was still wearing Logan’s sunglasses. When I finally did I slid them from my face, sending a sheepish look to the driver who wasn’t even looking in my direction. I didn’t toss them in my bag, though. Instead I held them in my hands, running my delicate fingertips over them absentmindedly as I lost myself in speculation concerning Cam’s words to me.

Whatever he had in mind, I wasn’t going to deny him. As always when I arrived in a new location – at least at the beginning of the tour – my body was taut with bundling energy, though the almost strobe like affect from the cameras at the airport might have had something to do with it. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep now, no matter how sound Logan’s advice had been.

When I’d arrived in Belmont I hadn’t been able to lose consciousness in my motel room, and that had been a sleepy desert town.

That was something London definitely was not.

I’d spent time during tours here, but never for an extended amount of time. I didn’t know the city at all. It was the mirror image of how Cam had felt about Los Angeles, he’d been there but he could never know the city like I did unless he’d lived there.

The drive from the airport began rather sluggishly. That didn’t bother me, though; I enjoyed staring out the window and watching the world pass. It was the oldest of my hobbies that never quite left even when I buried the old girl deep inside. Yet my mind was obscuring everything for me, letting the graffiti and buildings I saw slip past without me really seeing them. I had a whirling mess in my head, and it was causing a throbbing headache.

I’d spent the entire flight caught inside my own head with these problems – it was time to get out of it.

When I arrived at my hotel, there were people waiting to grab my things despite the early morning hour. Not to mention the press crowded around that I managed to ignore while keeping a tight grip on my guitar. I was sure some of them had zoomed straight here after meeting us at the airport.

I just shoved my way through, not needing any sheltering to make my way through a rabid crowd of paps.

All smiles and courtesy, I was handed the key card for my room and given the barest amount of information I was needed my two bags were taken up before me. There was no way I was letting go of my guitar now, though. It might have had to do with the severe lack of sleep I’d been having, but I wasn’t in the mood to be separated from my most precious cargo.

It didn’t take long before I was sent the way of my bags, heading straight to the elevator. And as I turned around, stabbing my floor number, I sent one last glance over the extensive lobby. Plush chairs, thick rugs over marble floors with atrociously ornate chandeliers hanging from the intensively decorated roof. Apparently I’d fallen into the lap of luxury. A lot different to the sleazy drive up motel in Belmont where I’d been handed the key in an envelope to be more or less told to fuck off and do what I want. Even the place I’d been staying down on Sunset had been on the plain side, just a normal hotel room.

There were two options to explain my stay in extravagance. The first was that The Bends’ management had been the ones to book it, trying to kiss my ass a bit in hopes that maybe I wouldn’t lay waste to everything I came into contact with. The other was that Mandy had gotten the room for me in order to try and remind me how good she and the record label were to me.

I was going to have to find out which one day.

As I’d been promised the bags Mandy had packed for me from my apartment were waiting in the room. They were stacked neatly beside the door; giving a clear view into the room I’d been given. It obviously wasn’t the most plush room money could buy in the hotel, which gave me the suspicion that Mandy had booked it after all. Still, it was worlds apart from the one in Belmont with the tasteful modern furnishings and bright lighting. The thing I liked the most was the dock for my music that was waiting on the ornate desk in the corner.

Not bothering to look around much because I was apparently a severely unimpressed specimen, I put my guitar on the bed before turning around to the pile of baggage. The bags I’d just brought were neatly placed to the side. Even though it would have been nice to get out of plane encrusted clothes, I didn’t rip into the bags I’d been allowed. I was more focused on the single envelope that was left neatly on top.

Carelessly, I ripped it open, going for the letter inside. I knew it was from Mandy – she liked leaving me letters all across the world. It was like some perverted sort of scavenger hunt.

‘All your instruments are at the rehearsal space, same with everyone else’s. Don’t fuck it up.’

With a grin spreading across my face, I shook my head lightly, noticing she hadn’t bothered to sign off. The bottom sheet of the page had all sorts of information like addresses and venue names, giving me a short itinerary for the week I’d be spending in London.

Placing the letter carefully on the bedside table next to the provided phone, I gave a sigh, glancing around.

Cam had told me not get comfortable, but since he’d given my no other information, I wasn’t about to take his advice. I was always at ease at my surroundings, and if I felt nervous and edgy I had the skill of pretending to be. It came with the rootless lifestyle I’d been living for so many years.

My first task was skirting the bed to get to the side where the speakers were sitting on the desk. They were obviously of the highest quality, and it didn’t take long for me to find out that they were a bit too high tech for me. There was no place for the outdated technology of CDs that I’d just stocked up on, just a place to drop your iPod into. Although I rolled my eyes, I dug through my bag, coming up with just what I needed.

A moment of standing while chewing on my fingernail was spent searching through the endless supply of music I’d gotten for myself, trying to decipher my mood and current best choice for music. I lingered over the album Deadbeat Holiday for a moment, considering it just for the fact it would have been nice to have the musician that had her back catalog in my back up band, but she was always made to be at the top of the chain.

In the end I skipped past that and The Spares’ discography as well, opting for something a little different.

I was in London for the first time in years; I wanted something that was reminiscent of the place. After spending too much thought, I ended up on the album that not only reminded me of the city, but of the band I was touring with. It might not have been the boys’ beloved Libertines, but Waterloo To Anywhere was always one of my top albums.

It started out with a kick and one of my favourite guitar pieces of all time as I pushed off my sweater and stepped from my sneakers. All the sudden the urge to dance had me moving forwards to the up tempo song, sending me forwards to the obscure mini fridge that had been built into the wardrobe.

“You had the world, boy; this is all you make it? You had the choice, lad, you wouldn’t take it...”

The song continued on, and I was singing along under my breath as I happily found that the mini bar was stocked up for my arrival. With all the thoughts whirling around in my head, I needed both music and alcohol to help me get out of it when I was alone.

“… And the years of my life some they were so good. But now and again I feel I was a coward. Are the holes in my soul in tatters for all these tears? Well you don’t see it that way.”

However when the chorus hit my voice strengthened, meeting the volume of the music evenly. Hopefully the rooms were sound proof, I wouldn’t want to get kicked out on the first night, not that I was bothered at the moment. “A way, a way, we’ll have it today. The dancing ones they really mean it. But something, boy, somethings going to change,” I sang with gusto, dancing and jumping as I spun in circles with the miniature bottle in my hand. “A way, a way, you’ve got it they say. How do they know when they’ve never seen it?”

I was missing words here and there from taking breaks to drink from the bottle that I’d already empty, though I never stopped dancing. One thing was for sure, though, I didn’t miss the next lines. “And what will you do when they forget your name? Well, you’ll up and get another one.”

Tossing my empty bottle away, I didn’t bother to get another, too focused on the dancing and singing. I could see the irony in singing this song that spelt out all the things I was trying to get out of my head; insecurities and fears all combined to make a potent mixture of exactly what I was trying not to think about. All the things I didn’t want to deal with could be brought back to this song. I just didn’t care, though. It was more than enough for me.

“Don’t give me that face. I know when I should live in disgrace not dig up the deadwood. I knew this place was never the place for me.” My dancing had slowed during the words, letting hand gestures come out instead, but I jumped right back into it as I sang at the top of my lungs, not caring that I didn’t sound good at the moment. This was my form of therapy.

“And the years that rolled by, yeah some were so good. But now I know that you were the coward. The holes in your soul tattered for all these years. But you can’t see it that way.”

The chorus hit and I continued dancing and singing.

It was one way for me to stop thinking, and it worked.

And I just continued through the album, skipping a single slower song because it just didn’t fit for my high energy dancing mood.

When I’d gotten in the room originally I’d been thinking how nice it would be to get out of my airport clothes, but the music kept distracting me. All I’d managed to get off after my sweater were the shoes I’d kicked off and the jeans I’d unbuttoned and shoved down my hips to the floor, leaving me dancing around my room in my underwear and tee.

“I’ve been chasing a dream round a dirty little room. I’ve been lacing up my coffee and screaming at the moon. It’s no good for my health,” I sang along, dancing about to the seamless groove of the rhythm section.

Through the chorus I was jumping up and down, losing my breath so my words came out softer than I would have wanted. It was good practice for the weeks ahead I hadn’t practiced for as I raised my hands over my head.

The person in the room below me was probably cursing me into oblivion.

“The instinct I have is to kill the thing I love,” I sang plainly as I spun around. Once again I was ignoring the implications that the song gave. “And it seems to come so natural, I can never never get enough.”

Just as I began singing the next line, the cellphone that had dropped to the floor with jeans, having tumbled out of the pocket began flashing. “And I know that she is wise. And she’s the apple of my eye. She’s my dirty pretty lover and I want her by my side.” I didn’t hear the sound of it ringing over the music, but the light caught the corner of my eye, making my voice trail off.

It was Cam’s number that lit up the screen.

I grabbed up the phone just before I missed the call, answering hastily. And this time it was just Dirty Pretty Things filling the room with the next words. “What a silly way to go. Mess up the only thing you know. And it’s rough, it’s rum, it makes me feel so dumb.”

“Where are you?” questioned an incredulous Cam in my ear, obviously hearing the thumping music on his end of the phone.

Feeling much better than I had since the moment we’d boarded the flight in New York, I grinned at his words. This was the only kind of therapy I indulged in. The dancing and shouting sort – and it did wonders. “I’m having my own kind of private party in my hotel room. I want to see if they’ll kick me out before I’ve even been here for an hour.”

He laughed loudly on his end, and without my noticing my grin grew wider. “I’ve been chasing round my room for this dirty little dream,” he sang in time with the music that he must have barely been able to hear, “I’ve been eyeing up your cigarettes and screaming at the queen.”

“See this is why we’re friends,” I replied with a giggle of my own. “So are you coming to my private party?”

“There are paps swarming the front of your hotel,” replied Cam.

Walking over to the speakers, I regretfully paused the music, letting me hear him easier. “And you care?” I asked in fake astonishment, not bothering to mention the fact he was already at my hotel. There was no point and I was getting good at ignoring all the little implications that came with not only music but actions as well.

“I thought you wanted discretion.”

“And I thought you were bad at it.”

He just chuckled in my ear as I lounged back on the bed, sinking back into the plush mattress and silky cover. I ignored the teasing feeling in my stomach as well. “C’mon down,” he told me, “You can eye up my cigarettes and we can go scream at the queen.”

Smiling I said, “I thought we were practicing secrecy?”

“Use the back door,” he countered.

“And you know that exists how?”

“I’ve had to sneak a girl out of there before,” Cam answered without a pause.

Rolling my eyes, I flopped down onto my back, not really wanting to hear about the forays he’d had with girls in the hotel I had to stay in for the next week. “I’m not wearing pants, it’s not really suitable for outside,” I replied, feigning reluctance. The one thing I wanted to do at the moment was sneak out a back door to see him, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

It was me, after all, there had to be a healthy amount of teasing in any conversation I had. And if it could be done to torture a Harrison brother a little bit it was all the better.

“Do you mean pants or trousers, darling?” he questioned seriously.

This time I couldn’t bite back the laugh that escaped me. “Sadly trousers,” I replied, putting on my worst attempt at an English accent.

“Damn it,” Cam said jokingly but added, “I’ll meet you out here in ten, okay?”

With that instruction, he hung up, leaving me on my bed with a phone pressed against my ear.

Giving a sigh, I pushed myself up, hair falling into my face that I blew away with a huff of breath. A shower might have been nice after that all that flying and dancing about sweating, but apparently that wasn’t in the cards.

Not knowing where any of my clothes were, I began digging through the bags I’d been sent at random.

In the end I dug up enough, dressing a bit warmer than I had for the nights in the desert as I remembered the temperature outside. Trading in my current dirty shirt, I pulled on a light leather jacket that had been packed for me along with ripped jeans and a pair of boots I wouldn’t have dared to have worn while in California since I’d been opting for sneakers and flip flops instead. It was with a smile that I found the ancient black beanie tucked into the front pocket of one of the bags.

I’d had the same one for years, and it was getting rather threadbare. The beanie had bought when I first began getting attention from the paparazzi and it had been one of my best purchases for no more than five bucks. I’d gotten it only a week before I’d met Josh, having already had enough with the people that were following me around the city.

If only I’d known how tame it was then. It had been the calm before the storm that had erupted from Josh and me together, and the force of it had never ended in my case.

Feeling no regret that I was sure to have hat hair – it couldn’t be worse than plane hair – I yanked it on, barely remembering to grab my door key and phone before I rushed out the door. Too impatient to wait for the elevator, I took the countless levels of stairs, feeling the energy buzzing through me. If I had been going up I probably wouldn’t have felt the same exhilaration that came from barrelling down the deserted halls.

When I finally reached ground level, I was thankful that I almost bowled over a poor man who had just happened to be walking past the door. I recognized him as the man that had been the one to welcome me into the hotel.

“Where’s the back door?” I asked him without the politeness of preliminary.

He just blinked at me, apparently dumbstruck by my sudden appearance. “Over there,” he replied blankly, pointing down the hall the stairway lead into.

I sent him a quick grin, pushing my hands in my pockets. “Thanks,” I told him shortly, heading in the direction he’d pointed. However I didn’t get very far before he’d gathered his wits about me, pulling me to a stop with the sound of his voice.

“Do you want me to get you a map?” he asked with so much concern in his voice it almost dripped. “It can be easy to get lost out there.”

This time my grin was less easygoing yet done to be a reassurance all the same. “I’m good,” I said before continuing on. I wasn’t much of a map sort of person anyways, which may explain why I was always getting lost. At the same time it was the thing that assured me the opportunities to get into all sorts of situations along the way. It was my favourite part of touring, and – as The Ramones had preached before me – touring’s never boring.

The door I found was rather monotonous, but I supposed that was the point. Gently I pushed it open, peering at my surroundings. It wasn’t so much a back door as I’d been promised as it was a side door, leading into a dingy alleyway that you could smell the stale cigarette smoke and garbage inside with what could only be three long steps to the next building.

It made for quite the contrast to the luxury I’d just been inside – bit of a reality check for those who weren’t so blind.

A quick search found it was a dead end, meaning I could only head back around to the front of the hotel. Taking in a deep breath, I headed in that direction, cursing Cam for getting my hopes up that I could escape without even having to pass the press. Before I’d even gotten to the mouth of the alley I’d made the decision if I was recognized, I was going to make a break for it. I was too wired with restless energy and hyped up on emotion after being stuck on the plane to deal with the paparazzi at the moment. I would just have to start sprinting.

Making sure the beanie obscured me at least slightly, I stepped onto the cobblestone street that was lit brilliant every few metres by the bright street lights that looked as if they’d come straight out of Dickens. A quick glance to my side proved what Cam had told me over the phone. The paps were still there, not as many as when I’d arrived, but enough to avoid.

Acting casual, I turned in the opposite direction, making sure to avoid the eyes of the few people I passed on the street. I didn’t need to get recognized right now. My beanie afforded me a slight chance, but it was a slim one. The best thing it did for me was force people to take a second look to confirm and by that time I was supposed to be gone. My problem was that I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by moving fast either.

I hadn’t gotten very far down the road when I caught sight of Cam, leaning against one of those black cabs across the street. They’d snagged a spot between lights, giving him that shady look of a B movie villain as he waited there. At least it was enough that people would have to squint confirm their suspicions.

For once having to check both ways before I crossed the street, feeling that hint of confusion that always came when people drove on the wrong side of the road, I scampered towards him.

“Do you call that a disguise?” he asked as I neared.

With a roll of my eyes, I came up to a halt just in front of him, not daring to look back at the press I’d just sidestepped down the road. “Do you think it’s cool to lurk in the shadows?” I countered smoothly.

He sent me that charming smirk of his, lifting a bottle covered in a paper bag up to his lips.

Without needing an answer from him, I reached between us, taking the bottle away instantly. I didn’t bother sniffing to tell me what I already knew, just took a gulp of my own. Whiskey it seemed, and this time it was the more expensive kind not that I appreciated much more than the cheap stuff we’d had in the desert. I’d never been much of a whiskey drinker myself.

“Is this what you left for?” I asked the next question, my eyes flickering over him. He obviously hadn’t taken the time apart to change, still in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he’d arrived at LAX.

Shrugging, he leaned back casually against the cab. “Had to go check the flat, make sure it still had my stuff in it.”

With a raised eyebrow, I took another gulp, resisting the urge to wince with great difficulty because he hadn’t broken eye contact. “How long has it been since you were there?” I said, pretending as if the whiskey wasn’t burning the back of my throat.

The knowing smirk that crossed his face was annoying to be frank, but to Cam’s credit he didn’t say a word. Instead he just took the bottle from me, hand brushing mine purposefully as he did. “Over a year and a half,” he answered before taking a gulp.

I frowned at his words before giving in to a grimace. “And that’s been sitting in your apartment that whole time?”

“Had to finish it sometime,” Cam said, “Goes down alright, doesn’t it?”

Fixing him with a dead eyed look to which his smirk only broadened, I told him, “It tastes like cheap whiskey with a thousand rusty pennies thrown in for good measure.”

Cam burst out laughing at my words yet only held out the bottle in offering. And as I never turned him down, I took the bottle back, quirking my eyebrows before I took another deep gulp. This time I did wince. If we were going on like this, I probably wasn’t going to last long. Although it was already into the wee hours of the morning, there wasn’t much longer to hold out for.

Interrupting the way Cam was silently smiling at me was the cab driver who rolled down the window right beside where Cam was leant. “Do you need me to sit here listening to you two flirting for much longer?” he asked impatiently, leaning across the empty passenger’s seat to speak to us.

That had me laughing, snorting a little bit of whiskey out of my mouth and onto Cam. Thankfully he’d been wearing those clothes for so long a little whiff of alcohol couldn’t harm matters, but I still quickly covered my mouth with my hand. The sight of Cam’s impassive expression had me breaking out in renewed laughter, though.

Shaking his head with a grin, Cam didn’t bother changing his gaze down to the man in the car. “So where are we going, darling?”

“I thought we were going to go scream at the queen,” I replied, taking a gulp to rectify the one I’d lost. To be honest, I knew he’d been joking when he’d given me the option, but I couldn’t think of many other places to go in this city – that might have been the alcohol talking, though. I’d been to good clubs and bars, but I didn’t remember any of them so that did me a lot of good.

Instead of responding right away, Cam waited patiently for another suggestion on my part. However when one didn’t come he just raised an eyebrow as if daring me to change my mind, to which I only grinned.

“I guess we’re going to the palace, then,” said Cam without breaking the gaze between us.

With that he stepped away from the cab, his body knocking into mine lightly. I sucked in a breath quickly, but it wasn’t just because I almost sloshed the innards of the bottle all over myself, though that had part of it. Trying to play it off, I sent him a sharp look, pressing his drink into his chest.

Laughing lightly, he pulled open the door behind him, not bothering to move away. All I could do was roll my eyes as I ducked beneath his arm, making sure to graze past him strategically. Two people could play at that game.

Clambering to the other side of the cab, I waited patiently while he did the same, falling back in the seat with his shoulder pressed against mine.

With the annoyed cab driver doing his utmost to ignore us, I couldn’t help but smile as I looked beside me to where he’d slouched casually. Offering he held up the bottle, those shadowy eyes of his sparkling mischievously, and I only bit the edge of my lips before nodding slightly. Not bothering to pass over the bottle, he raised it to my lips as I took a gulp before taking one of his own.

Reaching out, I brushed his dark locks away from his forehead casually. “I’ve never been out there before,” I observed, slouching back against him in turn.

Surprised he glanced in my direction, raising his eyebrows even as he took another sip from the whiskey bottle. “You’ve been to London all those times and you haven’t seen buck house? What kind of tourist are you?”

“A bad one apparently,” I chortled. “I’ve seen it from cabs and from backstage. I just never spent much time out here.”

“We’re being tourists then,” said Cam decidedly.

Taking the bottle away, I gave him a mock toast as I said, “Only if we’re the drunken kind.”

He grinned back at me as I took a drink. “It’s a deal, darling,” he promised just as I held the bottle up to his lips. And he just closed his eyes as I poured the drink into him.

The drive didn’t take long, but I still spent most of it looking out the window. Even if the cabbie appeared to studiously not care about anything we did, I was still attempting to keep to the caution side of things. He might have no idea who we were, but I didn’t need even more rumours floating around until I got the chance to speak to Logan.

While Cam would send a look in my direction every few seconds, he remained completely at ease as he lounged against me. He was rather unimpressed by what surrounded us, but I suppose it was his home. I wouldn’t be staring wide eyed out the window if I was going back to my place in the states. For me, though, I was captivated in the passing buildings and vehicles and people that flickered past.

It was a whole different world that flashed through the windows. And whenever I began touring, I had the innocence of a child in wonderment. This was a whole other planet from mine; it just made it all the more fascinating.

Whenever I’d gotten used to being in the states only to come over to Europe again, I was always shocked by the age and the history of the cities. There was nothing in America that had the same age as the buildings that littered the streets here, common as a penny. Nothing compared. And that small town Michigan girl inside of me wanted thousands of pictures as things whipped past that looked like they should have been from some book I’d read in my high school English class.

As promised, we were dropped off at none other than the street along Buckingham Palace. Leaving Cam to deal with the taxi driver, I wandered out, my eyes tracing the building. A part of me couldn’t even be all that impressed, having seen it in countless movies and shows. But then there was that little kid in me that was staring with a gaping mouth.

With the ornate building lit up so if one passed they could look nowhere else, I felt like we were protected by the shroud of darkness that hit everything but the palace. It was meant to grab the eye and raise its import, but I found myself more fascinated by the fountain. I wandered down the iron fence that was obscenely tall in comparison to me, eyes swallowing everything that came into view, committing it to memory.

There were less than a handful of people hanging around, but they made the walk easy for me by diligently trying to avoid eye contact.

However my quiet observation was ruined as Cam came running past me, grabbing me by the hand to drag me behind him. In my surprise I was lurched forwards, but I quickly matched my pace to him, my laughter ringing out behind us before his mingled in as well.

We didn’t get to yell at the queen directly – who would have guessed? But we did all we could, getting steadily more drunk as time went on and we took turns drinking from the bottle, abandoning the paper bag behind us long ago. It was drunken shouting that echoed around us punctuated with laughter and giggling. We scared what was left of the people lingering around as we ran about, shouting gibberish and song lyrics about us.

And once everyone had parted, sending us lunatics alarmed glances; we sprinted up the steps of the fountain clumsily. All we were silhouettes to any one that might look, the fountain giving off its own light filled glow while we shadows bolted around acting like children.

Stepping up on the edge that dropped immediately into the water with a step to the side, I dragged him up by the collar of his jean jacket to stand up there with me. I should have thought about how we were supposed to be careful if only for Logan’s sake and how we were trying not to be front page news, but it was far from my mind when he agreeably followed my demanding yank.

Instead I just pulled him against me with my hands on his cheeks, relying on the fact we were only silhouettes as I rocked onto my toes to meet him. There was no hesitation on Cam’s part. And when I ran my tongue lightly along his bottom lip, he gave a shiver before meeting me, letting the whiskey on his breath mingle with mine. The hand that still held the bottle of whiskey was pressed against the small of my back and kept forcing me closer into him until I was sure I would be able to pass through him in a moment.

When we finally had to come up for breath, I pulled the bottle from his grasp, the lips of the bottle replacing his as I drank back.

That was when he took my hand, spinning me around to a dance with no music around us. Yet after only moments of the dance, I began to hear the music in my head I’d created to go along with it and I could only wonder what he heard in his own. I didn’t speak aloud, though, not wanting to ruin the moment with talking.

Our laughter echoed around us as he moved us back and forth, paired with me raising the drink to both our lips in turn. Every second step almost took us over the edge, but our grip was so tight that if one of us were to fall the other would have no choice but to follow in the plunge. My toe or heel would waver over the edge, but I was too far gone in not only drink but exhilaration to be bothered. If we fell into the water it might jerk us back to reality, until then I was content.

It only lasted until he pulled me back snugly against him, and I found myself looking over his shoulder towards the road with the bottle dangling over his shoulder. With a frown puckering my brows, I squinted into the darkness as a car pulled up the curb in the distance. “Is that a police car?” I questioned confused.

Immediately at my words, Cam pulled away from where I’d been draped over him. The only contact that remained between us was our twined fingers while he turned to see. “Probably,” he replied, squinting as well.

It was then the doors of the car opened in unison, two distant figures stepping out.

“Run,” suggested Cam without a pause.

“What?” I asked blankly. My wits were slowing down, but I was keen to blame it on the past two weeks.

This time Cam didn’t answer he just jumped down from the ledge, dragging me behind him. And as he pulled me down the steps, I heard shouting from the car we had our backs turned to now. Finally catching up with matters, I kicked up the speed, racing along with him in the opposite direction that we’d arrived.

Instead of running along the stone wall until we hit an opening into the park beyond, we came to a halt along the stone fence that was about our height. Without waiting for my opinion in the matter, Cam gave me a light shove towards the wall before gripping me by the foot and giving me a boost up the wall to which I had no choice but to clamber onto. I wasn’t the most athletic person in the first place, let alone while running on three hours of sleep and having drank quite the portion whiskey. Despite all the odds being stacked against me, I managed to get on top of the wall, having pressed my foot onto the wall to help to propel me forwards and upwards.

Straddling the stone while still holding the bottle protectively in one hand, I reached down, grabbing Cam by the hand as he followed my lead. He was about as graceful as I’d been when he climbed up beside me, though he had far less help. I might have been more than a hindrance than assistance.

In unison we swung our legs over to the other side, facing the park that was almost pitch black before us. Flashing a grin in his direction, I took another swing from the bottle before we both dropped onto the safer side.

When I hit the ground I gave a good stumble, almost toppling onto my face before regaining my balance. We lost no alcohol in the debacle – we’d drunk too much for it to slosh over the edge of the bottle.

A quick glance behind us proved that the two were still there, following the blazing path we’d made but at a far slower pace.

Grabbing my hand again, Cam took off at a run but this time I didn’t need pulling, I was already there with him. My laughter was ringing around us as we raced away down the park, the trees lining the path.

If they were even cops, we never found out. They didn’t bother following us into the park, leaving the two of us to our devices.

I was realizing that not going to bed had been one of my best decisions for a long time. Sleeping in comparison to this was nothing. It didn’t matter that I’d barely gotten three hours in the past while; I was exhilarated and happy, running along through the park with Cam. There was no one around and it was like our days out on the hill in Belmont. It felt like it had been far too long since we’d been like this.

We were acting like children that weren’t even a quarter of our age, but it was more fun than I’d had for a long time. We chased each other, hid among the trees, drank from the bottle and laughed like madmen. There was an element of playfulness to the whole interaction that I hadn’t felt in forever.

Taking a running leap, I clung onto Cam’s back, practically missing him altogether as I ended up more on his side. If he hadn’t tucked his hands under my knees, straightening my position, I had no doubt I would have tumbled to the ground. As it was, I got the piggy back I’d wanted, still holding the bottle in my hands that I would hold up for him at points as I wrapped my legs around his waist, crossing my calves before him. He spun us around in circles with me giggling foolishly as I raised my face to the sky and when he took off at a run I almost lost my grip around his neck.

Eventually we took a break when we got to a grassy bank of the lake that mimicked the colour of the sky above us. The swans and ducks floated past quite content to ignore us humans as they went about their business. In the distance the London Eye gave off a blue glow, but it was too far away to be minded by right now. Cam just dropped with me still on his back onto the grass, leaning back into me on the ground until I finally shoved him off.

Agreeably he moved to lie beside me, finally pulling out the cigarettes I’d been promised when I’d been back hotel. With our shoulders pressed together, I put the smoke I was offered between my lips while he held up the lighter. It was almost an unconscious movement by now. Letting out a heavy breath filled with the grey smoke, I stared up at the sky we could see from our position. The stars weren’t a fraction as bright as they were in the desert, but that was alright – they were still there.

The quiet of the moment was already rubbing off on me after the elation of the previous time.

Even as he lit his own smoke, I felt my thoughts dwindling in another direction.

“What’s going to happen when the stars finally start burning out?” I questioned, taking in another breath as I stared upwards. “There’s always going to be an end. They’ve been gone for a long time now, but what happens with the constellations?”

“What do you mean?” Cam asked, turning his head to observe me.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the confusion littering his expression, wondering if I was talking about the literal stars before us or the metaphorical ones that we were. I wasn’t even sure what I was talking about now, maybe both. Yet I didn’t look at him, just sucked the edge of the cigarette, the tip glowing orange in the darkness above me.

“We have constellations that we’ve been learning about forever, but someday the stars are going to vanish. They’re going to die. And those constellations don’t make sense if even one of them dies. They need each other.”

Apparently he didn’t have an answer to my words as he stared at me wordlessly. He grasped that I wasn’t just speaking about the stars but at the same time I wasn’t talking just about us either. We were so entwined with the stars in my mind now it was hard to differentiate. Yet my words were true. The stars were going to die, just like we would. It wouldn’t make sense for the people that remained once it happened.

And since I didn’t need an answer because an explanation was impossible, I just turned my head to look at him. With a small smile, I raised the cigarette to my lips again. A false answer would have cheapened the serious question, silence was much better.

Coming to the same conclusion as me, Cam did the one thing that could never ruin a moment for us, moving in for the second kiss of the night.

It changed from the relaxed sensation, the questioning slowness of the moment, to something far more urgent within the first lazy stroke of the lips. The smoke I’d just sucked into my lungs had nowhere else to go but out my nose because my mouth was far too busy. Blindly, I reached out to my side, stubbing on the cigarette before I entangled myself in him, knotting my fingers through his hair and impatiently pulled him closer.

Not one to disagree, Cam rolled above, forearm pressed against the ground beside my head so he wouldn’t crush me beneath him. But when he thrust his hips against mine to perfectly coincide with him running his teeth lightly against my collar bone, I gave a throaty moan that echoed in the emptiness around us.

To my surprise it was him that pulled back, bracing both arms beside me so he could look down at me. And I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d kiss me like that if he was just going to stop a moment later. Almost every other man I’d ever been with had done things with a specific goal in mind, not to just stop when we had nothing to interrupt us. I didn’t get the chance to ask or understand his actions, because he cut off my thoughts when he put all his weight on one arm, brushing my hair away from my shoulder.

“What do you want to see in London?” he asked in a low voice that gave me a shiver. It didn’t hurt that he was still quite prominently pressed against me.

My mind was blank as I stared up at him, opening my mouth but closing it when I realized that I didn’t have an answer. Closing my eyes so I could think, the only thing that came to mind was a song, and wasn’t that enough. “That Waterloo Sunset that Ray Davies was on about,” I replied in a quiet voice of my own.

The words had a smile blooming across his face, and Cam quickly leaned down, pressing a firm if chaste kiss on my lips. “I can’t get you a sunset at Waterloo quite yet,” said he as he sat up, his legs straddling me. Casually he reached down, grabbing me by the hands and pulling me up to meet him in a sitting position. “But I could give you a Waterloo sunrise if we hurry.”

Despite myself there was an answering smile on my face as I searched his face. Instead of speaking, I dug my fingers in his hair, pulling him close for another kiss – mine was far deeper, though.

When we broke back, Cam quickly got to his feet, towing me up with by the hands again. With an excited grin, he announced, “Let’s go.”

Allowing myself to be dragged to my feet once again, made the conscious decision to grab the bottle of whiskey I’d placed on the ground, sending my half smoked cigarette a regretful look. Oh, well, some things had to be sacrificed for the greater good, didn’t they? With that thought in mind, I turned my back to the lake, only to come face to face with one thing I hadn’t been expecting.

Before I could stop myself, I gave a little squeal, shooting back a step and bumping into Cam.

I hadn’t realized we’d been watched the entire time.

Cam burst into delighted laughter at my reaction, wrapping his arms around my waist from behind casually. The enormous white bird didn’t have much of a response though, it just kept staring me down with those bored black beady eyes of his. With the way it was observing us it appeared like it was judging our every action, looking down its nose – our beak, so to speak. And it did have rather large beak to glare at us behind.

“Is that a fucking pelican?” I whispered. Even as I spoke, I didn’t dare look away, meeting its flat look with my still alarmed one.

“Yes,” answered Cam, his voice still shaking with amusement. Apparently he felt that was explanation enough – I begged to differ – because he began towing me away from the bird that I was beginning to think didn’t have eyelids.

It wasn’t until we’d gotten metres away that I broke the staring contest I’d been having with the bird, spinning around to pick up the pace.

With that we were off again.

This time we were moving a bit more slowly. There was more talking as we headed out of the park, and I wasn’t quite ready to break off the contact of the hand that was still holding mine, but I was acutely aware of it now that we’d calmed.

I didn’t bother to ask if he knew where we were going. After all those stories I’d been told of he and Logan, not to mention the other members of The Bends, marauding around London, I had no doubt he could get us to Waterloo as he’d promised. Even I didn’t have utter faith in the fact he could find his way around, getting lost in a city I wasn’t familiar with was one of my favourite hobbies.

Getting lost in cities I was familiar with, too. The last time I’d gotten lost had been with Cam in LA, and though it had forced me to go back on all the goals I’d set, it had ended fairly well.

So instead of pestering him about if he actually knew the way, I opted to question him about not only the things we’d seen, but the ones that were coming up before us. Apparently we’d been sprinting around St James’s Park. It seemed every couple steps we took, some new question would occur to me when I saw another ancient building or garden. And he always had some sort of answer for me, whether it was an explanation or an anecdote.

My favourite one being when he and Logan were righteously off their faces drunk one night and somehow managed to make it out here. It was long before The Bends were playing anything more than the smallest of bars. They’d played a gig, just the two of them in North London, before ending up out here by the Thames, leaning on each other for support because they’d been too drunk to stand steadily on their own accord. Logan had dropped Cam on the grass in front of a garden while he rushed in to take a piss, and Cam had been laughing madly as he rolled on the ground.

He didn’t even stop laughing when the cops had been passing and had rushed in to nick Logan, not even giving him the chance to shake it off. In the end his drunken behaviour had annoyed the cops enough that they’d slapped the cuffs on Cam as well – that was when he’d stopped laughing.

The only lull in conversation came from when I continued to hold up the bottle for us, the whiskey getting to the end of the line.

And when I didn’t have a question about our surroundings, Cam would ask one of his own as I stared wide eyed around us. I shouldn’t have been surprised when he asked why I had to go through secondary immigration, and this time I gave him the real answer, reversing the question to him. We had the same boring answer, being caught with drugs. And then he asked about What A Waster, once again something I wasn’t surprised by.

Giving him the real answer as we walked through another park we’d had to clamber over the fence to get to, I gave a chuckle at the memory, sipping from the bottle. We were still hand in hand, but far enough from the road that unless people were going to stop and peer through the trees at us they wouldn’t realize who we were.

I told him about how I’d had my first real conversation with Carl when he was rushing about and had smacked right into me. How I’d noticed him at the record store we both frequented all the time but we’d never spoken, and how I’d had a little school girl crush on the cool college kid who wore a leather jacket and like rock and roll. And how with that charming grin of him that made girls all across the country drop their pants, he’d asked if I could put this want add for a lead singer on the bulletin board because he had to run. I’d been nothing more than a blubbering school girl and how he’d made sure to smile at me kindly before he left, probably forgetting all about me by the time he’d gotten three steps away.

And I continued about how I’d decided at the last minute to go to the audition they were having, not having called or let alone know I was showing up, but getting there right when they were supposed to be over. In the memory I laughed about now, I could still remember how my hands were shaking and I was already regretting my rash decision, remembering that the only people I’d played in front of was my careless mother and utterly enthusiastic but equally offhand father.

I explained bluntly how Carl had smiled at the sight of me, shaking his head. Lizzy had been smoking a joint and had sent me an annoyed look, obviously not impressed at the sight. Brandon, on the other hand, reminded me that they were looking for a singer, not a guitarist as he nodded at the acoustic I was holding. Carl had told them to let me have a go anyways, and I played a song that I’d just learnt by some English band that the owner of the record store had told me I’d like.

The fact that my dad hadn’t shown up for a visit when we were supposed to be spending the week together had fueled the song decision, and the lack of the phone call had cemented it. I’d been furious for one of the first time I remembered. And What A Waster had painted my emotions perfectly between my opinion of the father that had been my hero and my own dwindling opinion of myself.

It had made Lizzy shed her despairing look that she’d focused on me, as well as Brandon’s pitying one. Carl had just looked delighted.

And when I finished the story, I took another gulp and then asked if the Thames always stank. To which Cam could only laugh, taking the bottle away for himself, informing me that it depended.

We got to Waterloo Bridge just in time, racing each other down Southbank. I won the race, but it might have had something to do with my nasty competitive streak – I’d given him quite the shove, making him bobble the bottle of whiskey to save what was left in the bottom. And it was standing on the bridge that we watched the sunrise over the city.

It made all the sense why The Kinks would want to immortalize it in song, even if this was the sunrise not sunset. The sky gradually brightened as I leaned against the edge of the bridge, not sending the people walking past a glance, just watching the scene devotedly. With the sky painted a navy blue then moving onwards to pink and then the yellow glow of the sun rising over the buildings and creating its glow in the sky, the usual murky brown of the Thames was highlighted with pink.

For a criminally short period of time the windows of the buildings old and new flashed with the fire from the sun, the boats on the river agreeably doing the same. And as long as I gaze on Waterloo sunset, I am in paradise.

However it wasn’t The Kinks song I sang when the early morning sun washed over us. No, it was Sunday Morning from the Velvet Underground. Ignoring the people that were passing past us impatiently, I let sang, “Sunday morning, praise the dawning. It’s just a restless feeling by my side. Early dawning, Sunday morning.”

It wasn’t a Sunday morning, but that didn’t bother me much.

Not bothered by the people who would undoubtedly know who we were – we were doing nothing wrong – I let Cam spin me around by the hand I held over my head. “It’s just the wasted years so close so behind. Watch out the world’s behind you.”

People just skirted around us, giving me a wide birth while I spun with my arms out. When I finally stopped, I sent Cam a smile before continuing, “There’s always someone around you who will call. It’s nothing at all.”

And from then on, we wandered around the city, though I neglected to hold his hand this time. There were too many people around for that. Suddenly the streets were filling again, so opposed to the quietness I’d felt when I’d left the hotel at almost four in the morning. People were waking up and the time we always reserved for each other at night was coming to a fast end. We still spent the daylight together, but it wasn’t the same. I always thought Cam and I were better suited for the night.

We wandered up through all sorts of landmarks, laughing and joking all the while, being stopped by incredulous fans on the cobbled side streets. Unless I was very much mistaken, I was sure I felt a wave of hostility coming from one of them every once in a while. I chose to ignore it, which easy with a drunken mind. They told us how they thought the rumours about me opening for The Bends were bullshit, and even as we confirmed the news before taking off in the other direction they still didn’t seem to believe us.

When we reached the end of our enormous whiskey bottle, it didn’t take long for Cam to find us another bottle. My little American mind was blown about the ability to buy alcohol at six in the morning, but I still appreciated the fact. This time I got to chose and, unsurprisingly, I chose gin instead. It was a nice change to wash down the whiskey.

It was like he had some sort of map in the back of his head, taking us through all these side streets that cars couldn’t pass down. The trips down some ridiculously small and winding alleys weren’t as pleasant, though; the putrid scent of piss appeared to have become one with the stone walls. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen that before.

My first trip on the underground was in a crowded train, everyone pressed like sardines with sweaty palms. We didn’t get stopped there – it was like people couldn’t believe it was actually us.

And it was in those tube stations that I first caught sight of the posters that announced the tour, after that I began to see them everywhere we went. There were two posters that had been decided on from the photo shoot.

The first was with me pressed between the brothers, all dressed up in our night best of leather and denim with messy hair and the brothers in sunglasses. They were leaning in to kiss me on either side of the cheek, but my hands were pressed against their chests, pushing them away. The second had my arms slung over their shoulders as I laughed, face straight up at the ceiling while my hair fell back. They were slouched over slightly so I could remain with my tip toes on the ground, looking across at each other with identical expressions.

Then I noticed that poster version of my album cover were pasted about. Not in the tube stations, probably because the rather large curse word in the middle turned them off, but plastered around the city. It had the release date spelled out on the bottom, the only change to the cover, telling the general public that it would be out in two and a half weeks.

In comparison to what the label did for Red Riot albums what they were doing for the publicity of my solo album felt like nothing. I didn’t mind all that much, oddly. If they didn’t believe in it, I didn’t care. I loved it and I wasn’t really bothered if it did well or not. It was an album I’d made for myself, not for acclaim or money. I already had enough of that. This wasn’t what I was used to when making an album; I usually had to do so many interviews and shows that they all started blurring into each other. It always became so monotonous. I had to talk a new album into the ground.

I liked the freedom of this; it was so different from everything before.

We made our way around all the main tourist areas as promised, still acting like fools and scaring the normal camera clicking bunch that horded in the city. I made Cam laugh when I told him Big Ben was rather unimpressive in comparison to what they made it seem in the movies. When I told him I wanted to go to London Bridge, I was rather underwhelmed by the plain bride that we wandered across, flat across to the other side of the river. I sincerely thought he was lying to me about this being the famous bridge, pointing down the river to the one I’d believed I was talking about. Apparently that was Tower Bridge.

That made me feel a bit odd, and I informed him that I was now going to have to question everything I knew about life. I think that was mostly the gin talking that we kept the brown bag covering now.

We wasted time wandering through a market slowly with me making sure to look through every single stall, went to one of Cam’s favourite record stores and even spent time in a toy store. The list was endless.

Eventually we made our way back to Cam’s apartment in East London, once again taking the tube. It was a rather average building to be honest – well in London at least. I was expecting something more akin to a ridiculous penthouse that P Diddy would live in. Instead I just got a plain stone building with a black door leading up to a stairway.

There was an intercom beside the door, but it was pointless due to the stone that was stuck between the door and the frame. Cam informed me that one of the other people that lived there had lost their key a while back and everyone was sick of having to buzz the guy in every night, so they just propped the door open instead. Taking a swing from the gin bottle, I asked how many reporters had snuck up to his apartment.

He just rolled his eyes at me.

With no elevator, we wandered up the three sets of stairs to the top of the building where his apartment was located. Since there were only two doors on every level, it was become clear this wasn’t exactly the apartment building I had been expecting. It reminded me slightly of the apartment Lizzy, Brandon and I had in California – my first place. Not the architecture of course, that one had been all bright colours and stucco. But the small sensation that it provoked – the welcoming – was the same.

At least he had a key to his door, pushing it open for me to walk through.

The first thing I noticed was the mattress propped against the desk right beside the door. The snowy white mattress still had the clear packaging on it.

For a long moment I stood there, staring at it with my head tilted to the side as if it was some sort of mystery. It was like I felt it was going to tell me something – unsurprisingly it didn’t say a word. So I changed my focus to Cam who was kicking off his sneakers at door. “What’s with the mattress?” I asked bluntly.

At my words he glanced in my direction, his eyes flickering to the object in question for a moment. Clearing his throat, it was with a put on casualness that he answered, “I had to get a new one. Graham and I burnt the last one.”

In my stupidity, I opened my mouth, ready to ask why the hell they’d done that.

And then I remembered his words to me months ago back on the hill in the desert. “I found my fiancé fucking my brother in our bed at my flat.” I quickly shut my mouth when the words floated through my head.

As if he knew what I was talking about, Cam quirked his eyebrows at me, but didn’t say a word. Instead he just tossed his keys on the side table. And when he did speak, it didn’t reference anything that we both knew the other was thinking about. He just said, “I’m going to go change.”

When he wandered through to the only other door in the apartment, I let myself look around.

My drunken mind was doing the calculations – slowly to be sure, but it was making the connections all the same.

Cam had told me when I’d first met him outside the hotel that he hadn’t been to his own apartment in over a year and a half. Then I remembered what Mandy had told me that night I’d woke her up to beg for information about The Bends – hopefully it was more subtle than it seemed. How he’d partied it up all over Europe for a while before he’d become a recluse in Paris before he’d come back to London to join his brother. It was almost immediately after that the band had flown to New York to do the first sessions on the album before they’d done the rest in the desert.

So he’d barely been here since he’d walked in on Arabella Park and Logan.

Taking another gulp at that information, I crossed my arms over my chest, beginning to wander around the wide open apartment. And even as I took in the brick walls and huge open floor plan, I was wondering how many times he’d even been in here since that day.

Letting out a deep breath, I could only ask myself if it mattered, and I came to the conclusion that it didn’t

Yet I was still second guessing my answer even as I tried to push it out of my mind. If he didn’t even want to set foot in the apartment, what did that mean for him?

I didn’t let myself think of the implications that entailed, instead focused on snooping around his apartment. Everything was rather up to date, if dusty. The open floor plan of the place allowed the kitchen to be in one corner before it flowed into the rather large dark table of the dining room and into the living room with a television stuffed in the corner. The walls were all brick, stopping for a big open window to the side that the dining table sat beneath. The enormous single window gave off enough light to fill up the entire room in the daylight.

Wandering to the side where there was an old fashioned red leather couch, dulled into darkness over the years, I looked at the single book shelf that wrapped around the room until it got to the kitchen. There were books I recognized, but when I came to others that weren’t labelled, I reached out, flicking it open.

They were journals. Song lyrics were sprawled out in them on some pages and others had just ramblings scrawled out. I tried not to read it, but I was fascinated by the structure and awful little doodles. At the top of the page I found the date written neatly, it was from eight years ago.

How long did he keep these?

With that thought in mind, I moved down along the shelf. This time when I pulled out one of the journals, the date was only from two years ago. And as I flicked through, not reading but looking, I had to stop at a photo he’d pasted in. It was of him and Arabella Park, having written lyrics around it.

With a frown I ran my finger down the edge of the page, realizing it was one of the singles off The Bends’ last album. My eyes were more for the photograph, though. It had been snapped in some club, people dancing around them as they sat at a small table beside the dance floor. He was drinking an amber liquid from a short glass, staring at her across the table and utterly focused just on her, like nothing else mattered. It was that Harrison stare. Arabella, on the other hand, had her hands gesturing wildly with a cocktail glass forgotten in front of her.

I couldn’t help but notice how stunning she was, and that was an unbiased opinion. She had every root of beauty about her. If there was some worldwide consensus of the most beautiful woman in the world I had no doubt she would win. That smile she was wearing was so warm, lips formed into the perfect shape, it dragged even me in, knowing everything she’d done and that the photo had been taken years before. Her hair was in shaped curls, carefully tumbled around, and those wide amber eyes were sparkling at the camera. I was sure that porcelain skin of hers was giving off a glow.

With a sigh, I snapped the book shut, returning it to the shelf. There was no point looking at that.

Deciding it would be better to avoid the journals now, I took a step back. And that’s when I noticed all the potted plants that had withered and died. They were on the island in the kitchen as well as along the window sill. The closest one to me was underneath the television that was hung in the corner, sitting on a cabinet. And that’s when another photograph caught my eye.

Walking straight over, I picked up the framed photo, and it didn’t take me long to realize who it was. Although they looked severely more innocent, it was without a doubt the Harrison brothers, but the toddler sitting in between them I didn’t recognize at all. It wasn’t a hard guess to say it was that younger sister I heard about every once in a while. They were sitting on a stone wall with flowers behind them. Even when he couldn’t have been older than thirteen, Logan was still devilishly handsome as he smiled broadly at the camera. And then there was Cam, his dark hair having been brushed carefully as he smiled back – he was missing his two front teeth. And the toddler that they had their arms wrapped around between them had bright blonde ringlets and eyes that were fixed in between the shades of her two older brothers’.

“Snooping?”

Not alarmed in the slightest by Cam’s voice, I glanced in his direction, finding him leaning against the doorjamb with a smile. I didn’t put the photograph down right away, letting myself look at it one more time. “You lot were adorable,” I observed, finally putting it back in place, “And I bet you gave your poor mother grief.”

“Lil wasn’t so bad,” he answered with a grin. As he spoke, he ran his hand through his hair, purposefully messing it up again.

“But you and your brother were terrors, no doubt,” I countered. As I spoke, I noticed that he had finally changed out of his airplane clothes. It was rather unfair how effortlessly great he could look, and only in a pair of dark jeans that followed his long legs and a plain black tee shirt that flirted with almost being tight.

Deciding that the trip to his apartment had sobered me up far too much, I took a long gulp from the gin I’d almost forgotten I still held. “So why are you all dressed up?” I questioned with my healthy amount of sarcasm.

“Wanted to wear some clean clothes for the sound check,” he replied calmly, “A shower would have been nice, but what can you do?”

Take a fucking shower was almost my flat reply, but then I paid attention to the rest of his words. And when my intoxicated mind recognized them, I sucked in far too quickly and the gin vapours headed straight down my throat and nose in a manner they were not welcome, forcing me to cough until my eyes watered.

“Sound check?” I asked in a choked sounding voice.

The smug grin Cam was wearing would have been enough for me to punch him most times, but there were more pressing matters at play here. Like the fact there was apparently a sound check when my hapless backup band wasn’t even on the island. I’d been told specifically that we had almost a week for practicing before the first gig.

“You’re not playing, darling,” Cam informed me, unable to wipe that self-satisfied look from his face. “We’ve got someone else.”

My first reaction was relief, but then I frowned as my ego came into play. “What the fuck?” I returned, watching as his expression fell to confusion at my out of the blue reaction. “I thought I was supposed to be opening the shows?”

“Do you actually want to play tonight?” When I didn’t have an answer, which only made my soundless reply a negative, Cam continued on. “It’s just an acoustic gig in a theatre; me on the guitar and Logan singing. We’ve had the same opening band booked for months.”

He stepped forwards, breaching the personal bubble just like his brother as he took the gin from my hands. After taking a gulp, he leaned closer, but I was still feeling a little bit insulted that I hadn’t been informed of the gig. So instead of letting him kiss me or whatever was on his mind, I said, “Better going then, right?”

We did just that, right back onto the streets of the city with our bottle of gin keeping us in the same frame of mind. We weren’t drinking enough all at once to become senseless, but it was a steady amount that was keeping us from being sober. And that was something I was quite on board with. I didn’t want to be sober. I just wanted to continue on like we’d been doing all day and morning; it meant I didn’t have to think of anything outside the moment.

When we got to the theatre they were playing, heading in straight through the back door that was held open for us by a rather huge security guard, we were already late.

And that’s when we found out that Logan wasn’t there.

While I felt a tingle of suspicion, Cam shrugged it off. Apparently it was the most common of occurrences for Logan not to bother to show up for a sound check, and he was far from bothered. He told me that he usually ended up doing every second one by himself even when they were playing stadiums.

So while Cam sat upon a single stool on the black stage, guitar in lap and microphone before him, I wandered about, polishing off the gin bottle. I liked the acoustics of the place – it sounded like it did when I sang in my shower in my mother’s house. Healthy and echoing. Between wandering to every end of the theatre and taking up seats to watch him from, a different one every song, I started to greet the crew.

If they were going to be my crew for the tour as well I figured we should probably be on good terms. I talked with the sound guys and the roadies, even met The Bends manager Clara at one point. At first she’d been rather guarded with me, but I think I’d managed to charm her a slight amount – I was still sure she was suspicious of me when we parted ways. She reminded a bit of Mandy to be honest, but that might have just been because she’d been friends with The Bends for a long period of time and was now their manager. The gin probably didn’t hurt that either.

With still no sign of Logan, me and a blasé Cam retired to a pub across the street. With pints we were taking out time to finish, we lingered about, drawing up a set list. Well, he wrote the set list, asking opinions every once in a while but he was mostly talking to himself. I just let him get on with it, watching the people in the pub and the ones that passed by the window we sat beside.

Between greetings of fans and how Cam’s phone kept ringing, I was the one that wandered back up to the bar to get myself a second round. Cam was sobering up slightly for the show. With the set list he was trying to make and fielding phone calls from friends who wanted to be on the last minute guest list and management, I could see him getting more clear headed by the second.

And, unless I was very much mistaken, there was a hint of nerves that were hitting him as show time approached. The line of his lips was stiffening and his hand started tapping a beat onto the table.

When Rob arrived at the pub with a glorified shout, I was certain Cam was nervous.

That was something I hadn’t bargained for. The idea that with all the arrogance he portrayed to the media that Cameron Harrison got nervous before gigs was almost laughable. If someone would have said that to me last year, I would have laughed in their face. Now I just reached out, stilling his hand with a light touch of mine.

It was weird to me that he could get worried when he was just going to do the same thing he’d been doing for years. I didn’t get anxious when I was going to play a gig with Red Riot, because I knew all I had to do was be myself and every person in the crowd was waiting for me to do just that. They wanted me and that’s the one thing they always got. Doing that first solo performance on the talk show had been a whole different matter, because it was something I’d never done before. I would have thought Cam would have the same thought process of me, but I was wrong.

When Cam asked Rob if he’d seen the missing brother, Rob just shrugged and answered in the negative. He was just as unbothered by it as Cam had been at the sound check. All the same he assured him that Logan would be there.

After finding out that Graham wasn’t turning up because he was spending the night with his girlfriend, we decided it would be best to get back to the venue across the street. That decision was made when we noticed the line up in front of the place that had begun to fill up the whole sidewalk.

Heading straight to the crowd that had lined up, Cam and Rob went about their business, signing and posing for photos with fans as we slowly made our way up to the front doors. I was asked as well, but a small part of me noticed that it wasn’t as many as I was used to getting. With a glance every once in a while in his direction, I noticed that Cam was loosening up with the action of actually doing something as he chatted and smiled at fans, agreeably doing what they asked of him.

I didn’t know why it surprised me to see him being so nice to his fans. I knew him by now. And knowing him, I should have known he wouldn’t have been the type to tell his fans to fuck off unless he had a seriously good reason. But the monster that the tabloids had made him and his brother into over the years had been planted in my mind, and I hadn’t even realized it. I wouldn’t have thought I’d let the tabloids get into my head that way, knowing firsthand what the lies they spun, but it was there.

Eventually being pulled inside by their single security guard that had let us in originally – his name was Louis, I was informed by Rob – we made our way backstage. The doors for the gig were about to open, leaving an hour and a half until Logan and Cam were due on stage together.

Back there, the three of us were joined by members of the crew and The Bends management, along with a few other famous friends that had wanted to see the gig. Between the beer that was being spilt around, Rob and I played a game of scrabble – as pathetic as that was – on the coffee table, sitting across from each other. We made it into a drinking game and the people around us chose sides between us.

I was quite proud to be winning as well, watching as Rob took the shooters of tequila that were the order of the night every time I got a word. I’d only had two shots so far. Most people transferred over to my side halfway through the game.

Yet I noticed the way that even when Cam was talking to people, his hand would tap nervously against his thigh and he’d send hopeful looks to the door. And the moment he realized that his brother wasn’t making his way through it the expression would darken before he focused on the person before him again. Yet within moments he’d be repeated the action again.

With a half an hour to go before the show started, there was still no sign of Logan.

Sharing a worried look with Rob, who was so shitfaced on the tequila it was amazing he noticed anything, I glanced in Cam’s direction. He was leaning against the wall, by himself this time, running his hands over his face. And when he raised his expression to the ceiling, I caught the panicked look.

Excusing myself from the game to the shouts of disappointment of the crowd we’d held rapt, I got Miles to take my place. Without a glance backwards as Rob stupidly agreed to a second game with a man who was almost sober, I made my way up to Cam in his corner.

“Hey,” I began softly, the playlist of mostly The Rolling Stones hiding my words to anyone else but him in the room.

Cam didn’t even look in my direction at my words, just kept staring up at the ceiling and I could see him gulp. “He’s not going to show up,” Cam told me, jumping straight into it. I heard a tremor in his voice that I’d never expected, the anxiety starting to clog his throat. “He’s not at home and he’s not answering his phone. He’s not going to be here and I’m going to have to go out there by myself.”

Not quite sure how I should handle this side of him, I just gave Cam a light elbow in the side, smiling at him in a way I hoped would assure everything would be alright. “He’ll be here,” I assured him, “He’s just being a diva.”

When Cam looked at me, it was flat, obviously not believing my words or my smile. Apparently he could see right through it, knowing I had as much confidence in Logan showing up as he did. And then he groaned, covering his face in hands again.

The smile fell from my face when I realized what good it did.

Instead I just leaned against the wall beside him, letting my shoulder brush his. “So what if he doesn’t show up?” I questioned in a low voice. “I told you before I thought you could do it without him. You can do it by yourself, it’ll be fine.”

Cam didn’t look up though. “I don’t do this without him,” he said, his hands muffling the words, “I don’t play these songs at gigs without him.”

“They’re your songs,” I reminded him, “You wrote them. Of course you can play them.”

That’s when he raised his gaze, skewering me on the spot when I finally saw just how nervous he was at the idea of playing without his brother. “Jude, I can’t play without him when it’s supposed to be the two of us,” he told me with gritted teeth.

And that’s what decided it for me. With a sigh, I flopped back against the wall and nodded.

“Alright,” I said thoughtfully.

“Alright?”

“Alright,” I confirmed, glancing at him, “I’ll go find him.”

Cam gave a disbelieving snort, going from horrified at the idea of playing without Logan to incredulous at me finding him in seconds. “And if you can find him, what makes you think you can get him here if he doesn’t want to be?” he challenged, “Its Logan. He doesn’t do what anyone says.”

“He’ll do it for me,” I returned, meeting Cam’s gaze evenly. And this time we could both see the implications in my words.

Not letting him get the chance to reply, I pushed up away from the wall and headed straight to the doorway. I never wanted to talk about what my words implied, and it was definitely not something Cam needed to think about right before a show. But I’d said it, and I was sure it was going to stick in his mind.

Figuring there was one sure fire way to find a famous person if they were out around the town, I pulled out my phone and typed in Logan’s name. As it loaded slowly, I made my way towards the back door. With all my focus on the phone, I wasn’t looking where I was walking and ended up smacking straight into Louis. He didn’t even move while I stumbled back two steps. It was like walking into a wall.

But the threatening scowl combined with the skinhead left when he smiled warmly at me. “Do you need something?” he asked from his position guarding the side door.

I opened my mouth to say no but thanks, yet then I realized that I shouldn’t just straight to the refusal, I did need something. Swallowing my words from before, I asked, “Would it be outrageous to ask you to get me a cab?”

He shook his head, still wearing that kind smile. “I can,” he assured me but then added in a more firm voice, “Just stay here until I get you.”

Nodding quickly because he wasn’t someone I wanted to get on the bad side of, his scowl was rather terrifying, I looked back down at my phone as he went out the door. It didn’t matter anyways; I needed to find out where I was heading in the first place.

In the end twitter was my saviour.

A single photograph came up after much searching, me flicking through my phone. It had been posted but an hour ago, a shot through the glass at some bar that showed Logan with a group of people. The person who had posted the photo had even included the location. With a sigh of relief, I tucked the phone back in my pocket, hoping for Cam’s sake that it wasn’t just a repost of an old photo.

Only seconds later Louis came back to usher me out through the swarm of fans and paparazzi, his towering figure standing behind me with a pretty clear warning. It had been a while since I’d had security, since the last Red Riot tour actually and definitely wasn’t worth it.

As I passed I was sent a giant grin by a person heading the opposite way, and I had to blink. I was almost certain that was Sergio, but I shook my head and barrelled on to the cab that was waiting idly on the curb for me. As much as I would have loved to talk to him, I had more pressing matters to handle that didn’t involve me being a fan girl. It appeared an acoustic set from the Harrison brothers was bringing out all sorts of stars if backstage was anything to go by.

Clambering into the cab, I wasted no time in saying, “I need to go to Camden.”

The cabbie just sent me an unamused look in the rear-view mirror, answering, “You’re already in Camden.”

“Oh,” I said in surprise, digging out my phone again to find the name of the bar I was heading straight to.

It didn’t take us very long to get to bar in question, the longest point had been getting away from the outside of the theatre because of all the fans and press that were crowded around. It was becoming quite the occasion.

On the way there, I finally let out a yawn, succumbing to the idea of sleep that I hadn’t thought about for some time now. It was only then that I realized how long it had been since I’d slept. In over the past forty eight hours, I’d gotten three desperate hours of sleep on the airplane beside Logan. It was starting to catch up now, but I couldn’t let it. I still had things to clean up before I got the chance to sleep.

Once we arrived, I asked him to wait desperately, saying I’d only be five minutes at the most then we’d go straight back.

When he agreed, I rushed away with a slam of the door and into the bar that had been staring at in a photo for the entire drive.

And when I pushed through the door, I identified Logan immediately.

He was laughing with a group of people, his back turned to me and the people seemed delighted by his attention. They were all chatting loudly, the affects of too many drinks already upon them. At the sight, a sudden wave of anger hit me that I hadn’t expected. I’d told Cam that I wasn’t going to be some kind of substitute mother on this tour, but I was already chasing Logan around and the tour hadn’t even started.

Marching straight up to the bar I demanded a glass of water, to which girl who was minding the bar hurried to fulfill my wish, sending me worried glances. Apparently I was looking absolutely furious.

When I got the glass of water, I stiffly told her thank you before informing her that they were going to need a mop in a second.

She gaped after me, but I didn’t bother with an explanation, spinning around on my heel. Logan still hadn’t noticed my presence in the bar, chatting away to his entranced crowd as he drank from a pint glass. However as I made my way up behind him, the people he was talking to began to notice me. Eyes first flickered to me and then back to focus, recognizing who I was without any trouble.

I just raised my eyebrows as I came to a stop behind Logan, noticing that his little audience all had their eyes on me.

“What’s –” he began in confusion, beginning to turn around.

And that’s when I dumped the glass over his head.

At first Logan could only splutter, knocking over his own pint as he hurried to wipe the water away that poured down his face. Everyone around us went dead silent, turning to look at the scene that I’d just caused.

Rising from his seat, Logan spun around and I was sure I saw his fist clench, the seat being shoved away to the side in the action. I’d always said he had that sort of energy that was like he was ready to get in a fight at any moment, and this time it was fixed on me. The anger hardened every line of his face just like it did when he and his brother got into it. And for a short moment I seriously thought he was going to throw a punch right away.

That’s when he caught sight of me and his tense body relaxed. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked blankly, fist dropping to his side.

“What the hell am I doing here?” I asked incredulously, tossing the glass I’d been given onto the table behind him. Whereas his anger had melted away, mine was still in full force. “What the hell are you doing here?”

In response to my spitted words, Logan sent me a grin that would usually have erupted an answering one in me, but I was too furious to do anything more than throw another drink on him. “Having a drink,” he told me calmly, “Do you want one?”

“No I don’t want a fucking drink,” I snarled, “I want you to go to your show.”

Unbothered by my attitude, Logan looked down at himself, shoulders covered in water and hair sopping wet and stuck to his forehead. “I don’t think you’re in a position to tell me what to do,” he observed, pushing his wet hair back.

Sending him a nasty glare, I crossed my arms over my chest, snapping, “It could have been beer.”

“At least it would have been good for the hair.”

Realizing that he was going to have some comment to come back at whatever I said, I gave up trying to speak to him. He’d been drinking and wasn’t in the mood to listen to anything I said about the show, as was obvious by all the changes of subject. And I didn’t particularly want to do have it out in front of a deadly silent crowd.

So instead of making any tries to reason with him, I reached up and gripped him right by the ear and yanked on it as hard as I could. The result was instantaneous, Logan giving quite the yelp before he leaned down to my level. And he didn’t bother to resist following me, because the result might have been for me to yank his ear off entirely since I wasn’t planning on loosening my grip any time soon.

Leaving the dumbfounded crowd watching our exit, I pulled us through the door and only then did I let go of his ear.

Immediately Logan straightened wearing a wary expression as he rubbed his ear.

The people on the street might have sent us second glances, but people knew better than to interrupt. My body language might have been a bit threatening and that was okay, I needed it about now.

“I have a cab waiting,” I told him, crossing my arms before me.

Yet Logan just answered flatly, “I’m not going.”

Sucking in an annoyed breath, I rubbed the heels of my hands over my eyes before looking back at him. “And why not?” I asked, trying to use a gentle tone of voice. Maybe with some honey it’d be easier to make him come with me. “It’s your guys’ first show back together in over a year, everyone’s there waiting.”

“I don’t like doing acoustic shows,” he answered, now looking over my head. “And he fucking knows it. I’m shit at those things but he made our management book for our first fucking show back too.”

It was really ridiculous how these brothers thought the other one had an agenda, and maybe they did, but at the moment it shouldn’t have mattered. They were supposed to be there for each other. Yet what had I expected? Even if they were best friends one moment, their relationship was so fractured; the smallest thing could break it apart forever. That thought had a shot of guilt pushing through my stomach.

Pushing it back, I said, “He’s freaking out without you there. He wants you there, Logan.”

“Good,” he snapped in return, meeting my eyes for a moment and letting me see the harshness there. “He made sure it was an acoustic show so it was all about him and now it can just be him.”

Letting out a deep breath, I stepped closer to him, reaching up to press my hands on his cheeks. With him being taller than Cam, we weren’t at the same eye level even when I raised myself onto the tip toes. However he conceded, looking down to me, and his eyes softened. “He needs you there,” I informed him, “He doesn’t want to do anything without you. He told me he couldn’t do it without you there.”

“Did he actually say those words?” Logan questioned me, his eyes narrowing on my face, searching for the sign of a lie.

I nodded, a small smile turning up the corners of my mouth as I stared back at him. The change was coming and I could see it as plain as day. “He said he couldn’t play those songs by himself when it’s supposed to be the two of you.”

Reaching up, Logan covered my hands with his, holding me in place even though I had no intention of leaving. “Will you come out with me afterwards?”

The smile broke out, completely taking over my face as I stared at him only a few inches away from me. “We were all going out to the after party anyways, there’s a whole room of your friends waiting to watch you play and then go party, sweetheart. Well, besides Graham, he’s too busy sleeping his girlfriend.”

“But you’ll go with me to it?”

“Of course,” I answered honestly.

However my smile faded slightly when I noticed that his eyes dipped down to my lips. Gulping, I quickly pulled away from him quickly. That was the last thing we needed right now yet he didn’t know any better and it was all my fault. Maybe I could have told him right then, but I couldn’t very well tell him that right before he had to go on stage with Cam, could I?

So I just gripped him by the hand, worried that if I let go he might vanish back into the bar, and pulled him towards the cab I had waiting.

Even before Logan had shut the door behind him, I was sending the driver the most relieved of glances while he stared at me in the mirror with raised eyebrows. “We’re ready to go back,” I confirmed, “And we need to hurry. He was supposed to be on stage ten minutes ago.”

As we pulled away from the curb, Logan swivelled around to look back at the bar we left behind. “I left my coat in there,” he announced sadly.

“Oh,” I replied impassively as I pulled my cell phone from my pocket.

“It was my good leather jacket,” Logan pressed, nudging me in the side.

Not impressed I glanced up at him before looking back down and answering, “Maybe if you showed up for your shows you’d still have it.”

I tried calling Rob to tell him that I had Logan with me and to just delay, but there was no answer. After that I dialled Cam, but got his answering machine. And those were the only numbers I had to call there. Maybe I could have made one to Graham so he could phone their management but I figured he was a bit busy at the moment. So I just sat anxiously on the drive back down to High Street, hoping that Cam would delay the show because I told him I’d get Logan.

To be honest I didn’t have much faith that he would, seeing as he hadn’t shown that much in the first place when I’d announced I’d get him. However he was nervous enough back stage that he might just put it off as long as he could.

When we got onto the venue, there was a horde of paps there and the fans that hadn’t had the chance to get tickets were crowded about. At the sight of Logan in the cab they made a mad dash trying to get a good look at him, but thankfully Louis was there. And though he couldn’t shove back the entire crowd himself, he was able to grab Logan by the back of the shirt and push him through the crowd, refusing to let him stop even to say hello to a fan. I just stayed close to Louis back during the debacle.

“I need to change my shirt before I go out there,” announced Logan once we got into the building, pulling at his damp tee.

“No you don’t,” I told him, giving him a shove as I sent Louis a thankful look.

As we made our way backstage, I let out a sigh of relief, noticing that I couldn’t hear a thing. Cam still hadn’t gone on stage. Maybe they’d gotten the opening group to play for a bit longer. When we were only two feet away from the dressing room, the door burst open only to reveal a harried looking Clara.

Her eyes trained in on Logan like a trained bulldog, and I could have sworn she would have breathed fire in that moment if it was possible. “Where the fuck have you been?” she exclaimed.

Although I wanted to laugh at her words, the casual shrug that Logan gave was enough to alert me of danger. Her eyes even flashed at him. He was brilliant at starting fights, especially when people were already stressed enough. So I stepped in front of him to defuse the tension, saying, “I found him. It’s all good. Where’s Cam?”

Her eyes flickered to me, and though she sent Logan one last dirty look, she focused back on me. “He just went to go on stage.”

To punctuate her words, a swell of hysterical cheering swelled around us, alerting all three of us to the fact he’d just stepped on stage.

“You told me he said he couldn’t do it without me,” accused Logan behind me.

“He did say that,” I assured him, turning my head to look at him. “But what other choice did he have? If he didn’t go on, knowing your fans, there probably would have been a riot. I mean, they learn from the best.”

Worried that he might just storm out of the venue altogether, I gripped Logan firmly by the hand for the second time that night. Even as I heard Cam’s amplified voice say a simple “Hi” through the entire stadium, I yanked Logan behind me straight to the stage, knowing exactly where to go due to my wandering during the sound check.

We were one second too late, though, because just before we got to the side door onto the stage, the first chords rang out through the theatre.

Stepping to the side, I stopped Logan from pushing past me onto the stage with a hand to his side. “Let him get through the first song, he’s already started,” I told him with a glance towards him.

Although he was buzzing with energy, Logan nodded slowly, falling back to wait on his heels.

Sending him one last smile, I turned my focus to Cam. I was seeing him from the back and in those jeans it was not a bad sight to be sure, he had an ass to boggle the mind. The plain leather guitar strap had the guitar latched onto him as he began to play, his head down and looking away from the crowd in front of the microphone. That stool he’d used in sound check was nowhere to be seen.

It didn’t take me long to realize it was a song from the first album, something I knew because that song and our first single had done war while trying to top lists around the world. Every second day our positions would change, Red Riot’s would be at the top and theirs in second and then it would switch around.

But as I watched, I leaned my head against the wall, smiling at the sight.

All those nerves he’d had about going on stage without his brother as some sort of security blanket had either been forgotten or he was doing a good job at hiding them. I just wished I could see him from the front, even if I had quite the view already.

There was a difference in hearing the actual songwriter play the song, something that you didn’t notice until you compared the two. Cam could deliver them with the best emotional punch, knowing the root of the song and where to come from. And even if Logan was a better vocalist – which there was no doubt – he couldn’t give the same sort of performance. That might have been a good thing, though, because then the songs could mean anything to anyone. They belonged to the people then.

However I was absolutely entranced by Cam up there and I could only see him from behind as I listened to his voice. And as he headed towards the end of the song, he added in lyrics from another one of his songs, fitting it in seamlessly in a way only he would have thought of. Trailing off into the end of the song, he tacked on the The Beatles’ Her Majesty to the song, adding a delicate twenty seconds.

And with that, he blew out every expectation I’d ever had for them for performing the song as the crowd cheered.

Smiling, I turned my head to meet Logan who had watched the entire thing from behind me. His expression was unreadable as he stared over me towards his brother who had no clue that the two of us were standing there.

“Go on,” I urged him, giving him a light shove.

Not hesitating after that, Logan walked onto the stage, and that’s when the crowd went ballistic. It was amazing at what the sight of him could do, and I laughed when Cam spun around, wondering what the hell was going on.

For a moment the younger brother’s face hardened, but he quickly dropped the look, stepping up to hug his brother tightly. It only made the fans cheer louder, and I swore the force of the sound waves were pushing me backwards – it was just so loud. As I watched, Logan turned his head, saying something in Cam’s ear to which he only pulled away with a laugh. And with a clap on his shoulder, Logan stepped up to the microphone while Cam dropped back, going straight into the song without any preparation.

Apparently there was no need, because Logan pulled the microphone from the stand and went straight into the next song with no issue.

By the time they were halfway through the performance, I was wondering how I’d ever thought they would be better separately. There was far too much chemistry between them to even compare to separation, something that could have only come from being brothers. It was like they knew what the other was about to do before he did it. They were so in sync with one another it was almost magical to watch, especially when it was just the two of them on stage with one guitar and one microphone.

There were only two other people I’d ever seen in a band together that had the same sort of instinct about one another, that same sort of mysterious chemistry. They definitely hadn’t been brothers, though. They’d been quite firmly in love. However that chemistry had only triggered an explosion when other elements had been added into the concoction.

If they could only keep it together, there was no doubt in my mind that they could last forever like this. That magic couldn’t fade, it wouldn’t be possible. It was always the two of them against the world.

And that was something you could see when Cam would step up to share the mic to do the backup vocals or when their eyes would meet over top of it. There were even points where Cam would pick up the lead for a line in a way that hadn’t been done by the song, and Logan held the microphone for him to do it, knowing that it was going to happen as if it was the most natural thing in the world. When they sang together, Logan holding the microphone between them and their foreheads pressed together, I could only hope someone had caught that on camera.

The gig was a triumph to say the least, the two modern likely lads there to soak it in as they took a joking bow at the end, arms over one another shoulders.

The amount of relief I felt when they finished their encore was incredible to be honest. I’d never been that stressed in the lead up to a show I wasn’t even playing in my life, and it filled the back of my mind with a little bit of dread. If that was what just the first show was like, what would that say for the rest of the tour? I pushed the thought away – now was not the time to worry, there was a bit of celebration needed.

As promised we headed to the after party that had been set up for them in some club that was only down the street. When I walked in with Logan, Cam coming a few moments later, I was heralding as more of a hero than the Harrison before me.

It seemed like everyone from backstage had gotten there, some I’d known before hand and some I’d just met, but they all wanted to buy me a drink. As it happened even I couldn’t accept all of them, I did my best though. All the while Logan was standing at my side, laughing as I took a shot with no hands, raising them into the air.

The crowd around the bar started thinning out when people wandered away to dance, and it was then that Clara made her reappearance. Instead of giving me those suspicious eyes, she stalked right up to me and gripping me by the chin, pressed a sloppy kiss to my cheek.

After my initial shock, I burst out laughing, leaning back against Logan who wrapped an arm around my back comfortably. I barely even noticed it or the fact that while he sat on the bar stool, I was situated between his legs. Pulling back from the kiss, Clara threw her arms around me, leaning into the hug that I could only do my best to support her.

I was thinking she was even more stressed than I’d been.

“I think you need another couple drinks,” I observed in her ear.

She just laughed as she pulled away, answering firmly, “Yes, yes I do.”

As she walked away to find the bartender that had moved down the line, I pulled away from Logan’s grasp, turning around to face him. He was smiling at me – that real one that didn’t have the underline of arrogance or aggression in it. And I could only think about what I’d promised not only myself but Cam that I would tell him.

The thought made me pick up the last shot of tequila that had been bought for me, drowning it with a wince. But in that moment I missed my shot, because Logan shouted at me over the music that was pulsing, “I need to talk to you.”

Slamming the shot glass back down, I wiped my mouth with the back of my head, opening my eyes to focus on him. I just smiled at him, replying, “I need to talk to you too.”

Despite the fact it was nearing three in the morning and we’d been going nonstop for far too long, Logan looked bright eyed and happy. He pushed up from the stool, and when he stood straight, I found myself trapped against him as we pressed between the bar stools. I thought about moving backwards, but the music was too loud to hear unless you were screaming or close together, and I didn’t want to shout this for everyone to hear.

It might not have been the most appropriate of places, but it was all I had at the moment. We’d been drinking and I could only hope that would help his reaction. I’d been putting this off since Belmont, refusing to tell Logan because I was petrified to hurt him or anyone for that matter. But I had to do it, didn’t I?

Before I had the chance to speak, Logan inched forwards that extra inch we had, closing in any space that we’d originally had. I’d assumed he was just being him, the way he refused to ever let me have any personal space, but then his hands brushed my neck, pushing my hair back over my shoulder in a way that gave me a flash of déjà vu.

Glancing up at him might have been a mistake, because that’s when his hands cupped my neck, his thumbs running along my chin as he stared down at me. Frozen in shock, I only stared back as the goosebumps ran along my spine. It should have been a sign to shoot backwards, this was a dangerous area but I was stock still with the strobe lights of blue flashing around us, his eyes had this way of pinning me in place.

That’s when he leaned forwards, ducking his head and I could see that all too familiar lusting look. I’d been seeing it for so long – from both of them.

I should have known where this was going and stopped it long before that, but it was only when his lips almost brushed mine that I closed my eyes and turned my head slightly. His lips, chapped from singing, ran lightly along the edge of my mouth, causing a shiver to go through my body.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I whispered warningly in his ear, “Logan.”

“Why not?” he responded bluntly, pulling back to put just an inch of space between us as his eyes searched my torn up expression. “Jude, you know I like you, and a lot. You’ve known for a long time.”

Not sure how to respond, I returned, “I know.”

However my attention waned as my eyes looked over his shoulder. Logan said something else, but I was more focused on the door that Cam was standing immobile in front of. Between all the people at the bar, the dancing, the music and the light I was still certain he was staring right at us.

For a moment I wondered how much he’d seen, and what he thought it was, but that was all answered for me when he turned around. Without so much as a glance back, he shoved through the door, back out onto the street.

I wanted to chase after him, but I couldn’t leave right now, not with Logan in front of me like this. So I focused back on him, raising my hands to his and pulling them away from my face.

“Jude,” he repeated, freezing me again, “I –”

I didn’t need to hear the next two words that I was sure were going to leave his mouth, I couldn’t hear them. Not now. So I only shook my head sharply, giving the hands I’d pulled to our sides a tight squeeze. “Don’t,” I said firmly.

“But –” Logan started.

Right then I should have cut straight to the point.

It would have been better to rip of the band-aid sooner, just get it over with, I should have told him I was sleeping with his brother – or at least I had been. However when I met his eyes, all those words died in my throat. He was looking at me just like he had back when I’d been leaving Belmont, like I was the most important thing in the world. And I just couldn’t hurt him like that.

This wasn’t that long of a tour, it was just for the UK. And once it was done, they’d move on to their next tour and I’d go home for the wedding only to figure out what I was going to do after that. They’d move on, it was what they did and I’d just be the girl they saw once in a while. I could wait until then. He’d realize he never felt the way he thought he did and that would be it. It could end then and I wouldn’t have to hurt him when he was looking at me like that.

I didn’t want to be the one to kill that sparkle that filled his eyes at the moment.

So the words that left my mouth were not the ones I’d intended. “We’re on tour, we can’t do that,” I informed him. Pushing his hands back at him and pulling mine away, I quoted, “So keep your charm where I can’t see it and your hands where I can.”

Before he had the chance to stop me, I shoved through the crowd, hearing my name being called but not stopping.

When I got out the door there was no sign of Cam anywhere.

Running my hands over my face, I just swore, “Fucking hell.”

- jesus christ, I just can't write chapters under fifteen pages anymore can I? I wish I could. This is another fucking enormous one. I don't think I want to know how long it is. 

Anyways, Deadwood from Dirty Pretty Things on the side. -