Ghost Note: A Rock Star Romance

by Vicki James

  “It turns things into thin strips. Like little spirals of aubergines and stuff.”

  Danny scrunched his nose up. “Seriously? There’s a thing for that?”

  “They’re actually quite popular.” I smirked, watching him as he turned the box over in his hands. “People use the veggies as an alternative to pasta.”

  “The world and its issue with carbs.” He shook his head. “Wanting to eat any form of aubergine is wrong, never mind wasting minutes of your day making it curly.” He leaned closer to read something before he pulled his chin back and raised both brows. “Huh. You can spiralise apples, too.” His mouth turned down before he dropped the box onto the kitchen island where I sat. “I’ll just leave that there.”

  I chuckled silently, knowing that the spiraliser wasn’t going anywhere until he’d tried it out. Danny only had to be curious about something for a minute before he gave it a go. After another stretch and reach, he lifted a box down from the very back of the top shelf, his groaning and grunting doing nothing to help me stay on the platonic side of this friendship… if friendship is what it was.

  Wiping a hand over the lid of the big cardboard box, he knocked a thick layer of dust off before he glanced up at me in question.

  “Do you know what that is?”

  He shook his head. “Not a clue. But look at this.” He brought it over to the kitchen island, standing only a foot away when he pointed to the faded black ink on the top.

  For Daniel’s Eyes Only

  “That looks like something you should open on your own.”

  He began to wedge the lid off, ignoring me as he dropped the lid on the counter to reveal a box filled with letters and pictures.

  “What the hell?” he whispered to himself, picking up the first folded note that had his name scrawled on the back. It was no more than an A5 piece of writing paper, and Danny unfolded it easily. His eyes scanning the words before he began to read them out.

  To my Daniel,

  Over time, memories fade. They fade, or they change into something they never really were. I have plenty of memories of your grandfather when we first started courting. Back in those days, we wrote to one another, our thoughts and feelings permanently etched onto white paper. When Albie died, I relied on those letters he sent to see me through the hardest days. Letters and pictures. Nobody can take those away from you. No update on a phone is going to wipe those memories clean, and no technology is going to spoil the quality of them over time.

  You’ve always been too busy living to stop and spend time remembering, so I decided a long time ago to do that for you. In the loft, you’ll find boxes and boxes of pictures from your childhood. In here—in this box—you’ll find the things I think will matter to you the most. Things you might have missed along the way, and things I’m certain you’ll be thankful to have one day in your future, no matter how near or how far away that may be.

  Alongside your grandad and father, you have been the single most precious thing in my life.

  Thank you for loving this old lady with your vibrant young heart.

  If I’m not around when you conquer the world, make sure you conquer it wisely, with a good mind leading you forward, and a nice home worth returning to when you get tired from everyday battle.

  Those are the things you’ll cherish more than money or fame.

  All my love forever,

  Grandma Florence

  Danny cleared his throat, and he brought his thumb to the corner of his eye before he dropped the note down beside me and started to riffle through the box. There were so many letters folded over the same way that the first one had been, but he didn’t read any more of them out, instead, sliding them along to me to look over. Even with his permission, I didn’t read them. They were a private thought from Flo’s mind to her grandson’s, and my eyes didn’t belong there.

  There were polaroid pictures, too. Memories of him growing up in this very house, sitting with his parents around the table on Christmas Day, sprinting in the garden or helping his grandad dig up the weeds. There were memories of him on the beach, his youthful smile lighting up the camera every time he was placed in front of it, and that floppy dark hair of his always in his eyes or an untameable bird’s nest he couldn’t be bothered to sort.

  The whole thing was overwhelming and emotional. I was sitting in the middle of something I shouldn’t have been… until he pulled out a picture of the two of us together. Danny held it in both hands, between his fingers and thumbs, his smile growing as he stared down at it and shook his head.

  “You and I had just started dating here,” he said softly. “This was the first time you met Gran properly.”

  “The one where she made us stand by the willow tree in her back garden and cuddle?” I cringed.

  “Yeah.” Danny huffed out a laugh and handed it over.

  I took it, drawing in a breath when the image of us together, so innocent, young, and happy, stared back at me. Danny wore some long, khaki cargo shorts and a plain black T-shirt, while I stood next to him, wrapped up in his arms, with my hair poker straight and down to my hips. I was fourteen and so incredibly in love, unable to believe that I had somehow captured the attention of Danny Silver.

  “Two young kids,” I sighed. “God, we were dorks.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he teased, pulling out another picture and staring down at it.

  But I was lost in this first picture of us. “If you could go back and say anything to those versions of us, what would you say?”

  “I wouldn’t say anything.”

  “You wouldn’t warn them about… I don’t know… what was to come? The decisions they’d have to make. Those happy days would… end,” I said, the word ‘end’ as barely a sound when it left my lips.

  “I wouldn’t do anything that would change a moment of the time those two kids spent together, no. I wouldn’t warn them about it ending because then all those amazing memories they shared wouldn’t exist. It would just have ended sooner because they knew it was coming.”

  “Maybe sooner would have been better for me.”

  Danny slid closer, and his hand was under my chin within a second, his soft touch guiding my head up to look at him. “You can’t regret amazing things just because they come to an end, Daisy.”

  His eyes searched mine, and that pull to him was hard to rationalise. Even though he’d been the only man to hurt me in my life, he was where I felt the safest, too.

  “I need you to believe me when I tell you I’m sorry,” he whispered. “And I need you to stop pretending that you hate me. I can see it in your eyes, Zee. You can’t hate what you still love… even if that love is platonic. Even if that love is there in a non-romantic capacity. You can’t hate what you care for.”

  “I can want to hate you, though.”

  “Absolutely.” Danny lowered his head, his eyes never leaving mine. Not even when there was nothing more than a few inches between our lips. “But hate takes up too much energy, and your heart is too pure and pretty to carry it around, so let it go, and know that I will always love and care for you, too. Always. You’ll never stop being my girl.”

  Tears welled and my throat dried. I glanced down at his mouth, desperate for a kiss. Desperate to release all this pent-up frustration within me by slamming him against a wall and taking what I needed so badly from him—what I’d struggled to get from any other man since he left my life: passion, unwavering desire, and that unrivalled attraction, where the only thing you could think about, night and day, was having them inside you.

  “However,” Danny whispered, bringing my gaze up to meet his twinkling eyes. “You have a boyfriend now, and I have to respect that. I can fall asleep with you in my arms, and I can think about being inside you while I struggle to sleep at night, but I won’t leave this place and turn your life upside down again. I won’t walk away from a fire I started and expect you to put out the flames. That’s not fair… no matter how much I want you one last time.”

  Walk away…r />
  One last time…

  Those were the only options available at the end of the week for us.

  The words He’s not my boyfriend throbbed on my tongue, begging to be set free, and I couldn’t find the strength within to push them out of my mouth. I needed that excuse to cling onto, even if that excuse was nothing but a lie. Living a lie had saved me from falling into the truth since he’d left, and that was how I was going to have to survive for now.

  “You’ve never played fair,” I reminded him.

  “Maybe it’s time for me to try.”

  He let me go and left me cold as he walked over to the wine rack next to Florence’s large silver fridge. Danny bent and glanced through the collection of red wines she’d gathered over the years.

  “To say she didn’t drink so much, she kept a lot of booze in this place.” Slipping out a bottle, he threw it in the air and caught it, flashing me a smile when he did. “Shall we? It might take the edge off all of this.”

  I didn’t particularly like red wine. “Sure,” I said anyway, and I reached over for another picture of Danny and me together. This one was when we were around fifteen, the two of us laughing as Danny tried to drag me into the sea on the day of The Cove Festival. “I can’t believe she kept so many memories of us. I’ve never seen some of these before.”

  I riffled through some he’d already picked out and dropped on the counter, finding one of us playing Jenga at this home’s dinner table. My face was scrunched up as I pulled a wooden block out, the tower already crumbling, while Danny’s head was thrown back in laughter.

  “She captured some real beauties,” I said quietly.

  The glass of wine was placed in front of me, and Danny peeked over my shoulder to take a look, bringing a cloud of aftershave with him that made my nipples turn hard beneath the thin material of my top, and goosebumps rise on my skin with nowhere to hide them.

  He laughed. “You were always so bad at Jenga.”

  “Hey!”

  “I’m not even sorry. You sucked at it.”

  “That’s because it’s a stupid game.”

  “Nah, you were just always so unsure about the shit you removed. You’ve got to have a steady hand, even when you’re not sure if the thing you’re taking out is going to make everything fall down or not. It’s all about your confidence.”

  “And you had plenty of that for the both of us.”

  We went about our business for another five minutes, with me looking through the pictures while Danny focused on the letters. I caught sight of him scowling to himself on occasion before he’d bring the wine to his lips, take a good few mouthfuls, and then fold the letter up and pick a different one to read.

  “You were so loved, you know,” I found myself saying without thought.

  He turned to look at me but didn’t say a word, and the realisation of what I’d said made my cheeks heat. I picked up another picture and held it in front of me. This time in the photo Danny was on Florence’s sofa, while I sat in his lap with his arms around my waist. It looked like we were doing nothing more than watching television together, but something about this picture made my stomach twist up. I missed that closeness with him, and the thought that it could take years, if not decades, to find and nurture that intimacy with someone else made me ache.

  “You were so loved, and you still left. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.”

  “Daisy, all the love in the world from everyone else couldn’t help me to love myself. That wasn’t going to happen until I went out there and did what I was the most afraid to do,” he said, and I looked up at him. “It’s easy to live a quiet life and get caught up in the way we think things are meant to go—too easy—and I know you don’t get it, but I was sick of always feeling so safe. There’s no adrenaline in safety. I wanted the scary stuff. I wanted to do things that would make my heart feel like it was about to fucking fly out of my chest with nerves.”

  I thought about telling him how he’d done that for me every time we’d been together, but I was tired of sounding pathetic, so instead, I simply offered a nod, dropped the picture back down onto the counter, and I picked up my wine.

  “What are you going to do with all these?” I asked.

  “She wanted me to keep them, so I’ll keep them.”

  “In storage or something?”

  Danny softly shook his head. “No,” he sighed. “I think I’ll take this box with me wherever I go.”

  Twenty-Two

  Hours passed by too easily, and what was meant to be sixty minutes or so of my time soon turned into me sitting by the gas fire of Florence’s living room with my legs crossed on her faux sheep-skin rug while the moon came out, permitting the sun to sleep. A third bottle of wine was sitting on the floor between Danny and me. The right side of his face and jaw was lit up with an orange glow, contrasting against his tanned skin and dark clothing.

  We’d gone through the rest of the kitchen, deciding what could stay and what should be packed up and given to charity. We’d been through the bathrooms, bedrooms, and the study, too.

  “I’ll tackle the double garage on my own,” Danny said as we talked about the things we’d found. “Grandad had a load of shit I don’t think even Gran would have looked through. I’ll just box it up this week, and then that’ll be that.”

  “Whatever you think is best.” I took a drink of my wine, unsure how many glasses I’d had now. The awkwardness had turned to softness as the alcohol took control. “Can I ask you a question that’s been bugging me since our conversation on the rooftop this morning?”

  “Sure.”

  “If you’re so quick to want to sell this place, what do you plan to do with your parents’ house—the house you grew up in?”

  The muscles in his jaw twitched before he scratched an eyebrow awkwardly and looked down into his lap. “I… uh… I haven’t planned to do anything with it yet. I haven’t even been back there since… you know…”

  My brows rose. “In five years?” I whispered.

  He looked up slowly. “I’m not ready.”

  The sadness in his eyes killed me, and I tilted my head to the side, copying his grief-filled expression. “What happened to you not wanting to let nice places go to waste? That’s a beautiful home, Danny. It deserves to be looked after.”

  “By who? I can give someone else the gift of Gran’s home, sure, but I can’t give up the house I grew up in. The one I slept in. The one where Mum and Dad used to call me down for breakfast, watch me do my homework, yell at me for spending too many hours on the Xbox, and all that shit that seemed so unimportant and irritating at the time—the shit I’d give anything to relive. There are too many memories. I can’t even go back inside without thinking of…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m ready to face a lot of things, Zee, but that’s not one of them.”

  I held my hand out for him to take, and he reached over, squeezing my fingers in his palm and holding my gaze. “Danny…” I sighed softly.

  “I’ve fucking missed you saying my name like that,” he croaked like it was an admission he hadn’t meant to make.

  Glancing down at my almost-empty glass, I tried to find something appropriate to say. Instead, I drained the wine and dropped that glass down on the fireplace before I shuffled closer to Danny. He looked at me warily, as though he wasn’t sure if I was about to slap or hug him.

  “You will always matter to me, Danny Silver,” I whispered. “Even on the days when I want to throw darts at pictures of you, deep down in here,” I tapped my chest with my free hand, “you’ll always have a place. I can’t unlove you, no matter how hard I try.”

  His eyes searched mine, and my heart raced. “Do you have any idea what I’d give to kiss you right now?”

  “Please… don’t. I can’t go there with you again.”

  “Not even once?”

  “Once would never be enough. You’ll still leave on Saturday.”

  Danny swallowed, and his lips parted before his eyes fell t
o my mouth. “Okay,” he whispered.

  Reaching up, I ran a thumb over his bottom lip. “You made your choice, superstar. Now it’s time I made mine. As much as I want to stay, I have to go.”

  “No, you don’t. I can control myself.”

  “You might be able to, but I’m not sure I can for much longer.”

  “You still want me?”

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know… the wine is blurring the lines, and this long old trip down memory lane is making me focus on the good times instead of the times where I was left pining for you. Which is why I should—”

  Danny moved quickly, his hand reaching around to grip my neck and pull me closer to him. His lips smacked against mine with such a fiery need, the kiss took my breath away, making my body sing with an electric current I hadn’t felt in so, so long. His fingers dug into my skin, and I watched his eyes close before mine followed, and I allowed myself to sink into it.

  When his mouth moved, massaging mine with a familiarity that made my heart sing, a small moan rumbled in the back of my throat—a hello to an old friend that my body had missed. His tongue soon found mine, massaging it with the perfect amount of pressure that had a knot of want and need forming in my stomach.

  Everything I’d been searching years for with Ben came back after two seconds with Danny.

  This should have been our first reunion kiss, not the messed-up attempt in the stockroom of my shop. This felt different, and against the glow of the fire, I let myself believe for a small second that I could survive his touch just one more time. I wanted his fingers between my thighs. I wanted his breaths washing over my cheeks as he drove inside my body, panting and sweaty. I wanted to scrape sharp nails down his smooth back, and I wanted it to last until the sun came up.

  But my heart winced, despite my body’s pleasure.

  It groaned under the weight of want, reminding me of its weak repairs, and how I could have the most intense night of my life, and it would be that heart that would have to pick up the pieces the morning after.