Fallen for Rock

by Wells, Nicky

  ‘Absolutely,’ I declared staunchly. I meant it, too, even though I had no idea how that would work out. ‘I insist on it. And you can stay here as long as you like. I’d love to help in any way I can.’

  I paused, unsure of what I was promising. ‘I mean, I don’t know how I can help, but I’m good with numbers, obviously, having worked in a bank. And I have a way with words and maybe… I dunno. Maybe I could be your PR girl, or something.’

  He looked up sharply. ‘Where’d that come from?’

  ‘No idea,’ I confessed. ‘I was making that up. But isn’t that what PR is all about, making it up?’

  ‘Among other things, yes.’ Mike smiled wryly. ‘Offer of help gladly accepted. I don’t know how or where or what, but I’m sure there’s something you can do. You were pretty good at handling that Dexter bloke.’ He grinned briefly at the recollection. ‘But first of all, you’ve got to sort out that thing with your ex. What’s the plan?’

  Ah. The plan. The one I didn’t have. I sighed. ‘I thought—I think—maybe if I go round to his place again.’ I had a brief flashback to my multiple rounds of driving by Nate’s building and amended my plan. ‘You know, actually park up and ring the doorbell, try to see him face to face…’

  ‘Hm. Doesn’t sound like much of a plan,’ Mike commented truthfully.

  ‘You got a better idea?’

  ‘Does he still work? Didn’t you say he had a day job?’

  ‘He did. He does. I tried ringing him there, but they wouldn’t put me through.’

  ‘Well, when does he get back home? Or better still, where does he hang out for lunch?’

  The coffee shop in Covent Garden. I looked at the oven clock. Just after eleven a.m. If I left now, I would probably have enough time to get there and install myself at his favourite table.

  ‘Mike, you’re a genius. I gotta go. Make yourself at home. Bring as much stuff as you want. The guest room is yours. There’s a spare key on the pegboard in the hallway.’ I jumped up and flapped about gathering up my purse, phone and keys. Mike looked slightly bewildered at my sudden burst of action. I placed a quick kiss on his cheek before I rushed out. ‘Wish me luck!’

  ‘Good luck, Emily,’ he said obligingly. ‘Go get him!’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I ordered a panini and a large latte and ensconced myself in an armchair at a table in the far corner. I had considered sitting in the window, but I didn’t want to tempt fate. The coffee shop wasn’t as busy as it had been when Nate and I met, probably because it was a glorious sunny day this time, and I prayed that Nate would appear regardless. If, in fact, he was still working at the architect’s firm.

  By the time I had finished my lunch, tiny mouthful by tiny mouthful, it was nearly one o’clock. For almost an hour, I had watched people come and go, ordering food alone or in groups, laughing, chatting, or doing something on their tablets while munching their sandwiches. But no Nate. I had considered ringing his office again, but I couldn’t summon the courage. This was fate. Either he would show, or he wouldn’t.

  Dejectedly, I ordered another coffee and a piece of double chocolate cake. After I had finished up my pudding, I would go home. The minutes ticked by slowly as I eked out my favourite cake for as long as I could. I was in the middle of persuading one of the last crumbs onto my fork when I heard his voice.

  ‘A bacon butty for me, please. And a Coke. Thanks.’

  My head snapped up abruptly, and my heart rate accelerated to a thousand beats per minute. How I had missed the sound of his voice!

  My vision blurred as I tried to focus my eyes on my erstwhile boyfriend. I was hot and cold all at once, and there was a nostalgic warmth in my loins. Nate. My man. There he was.

  He paid and placed his food and drink on a tray. Any second now, he would look around for somewhere to sit, and he would see me and join me, and we would talk. I sat up a little straighter and smoothed my clothes down. Of course, Nate would probably look straight past me, what with my different haircut and unusual clothes. With no work to go to and Mike staying over, I had resurrected my jeans-and-snug-shirt outfit from the tour, and I was glad now that I looked more like the kind of girl that might be Nate’s girlfriend if he were a rock star of global renown.

  I put a wide, welcoming smile on my face, ready for Nate to sit down with me once that flicker of recognition had bloomed on his face. But oh.

  Oh no.

  Nate was still at the counter. He hadn’t looked around for somewhere to sit. He had turned and started chatting to the woman next to him. Tall, blonde, heavily made up and somewhat scantily dressed, given the time of day, but gorgeous nonetheless. She was buying a salad and a diet Coke, and she put her items on Nate’s tray without either of them giving it a second thought. What the hey?

  She’s a colleague, my brain screamed. She has to be. Or a client.

  But she didn’t look like a colleague. Not even remotely. While Nate was in a suit and tie, obviously having come from work, she would probably not even be allowed past the front desk in her get-up. As for client… Nate wouldn’t take a client to this coffee shop. His firm had access to a fancy dining room in their building, and that was where clients were taken to lunch.

  Who the heck is she?

  I slid low down in my chair and hid my face behind my iPad, pretending to be busy. My cheeks were flaming, and my heart was hammering unsteadily—boom boom-boom-boom boo-oom—as if somebody had thrown a wrench in the works. Tears pricked at the back of my eyes, and the massive lump in my throat nearly stopped me from breathing.

  Nate and his mystery lady walked right by me on their way to a free table, and Nate’s leg brushed against my knee. I nearly fainted.

  ‘So sorry,’ Nate muttered, sounding mortified. ‘You okay?’

  I kept my face down and vaguely flapped a hand about. ‘Fine, yeah, no worries, dude.’ My voice was raspy and hollow and sounded nothing like me. Thank God for small mercies.

  ‘Um, I’m kinda busy,’ I barked by way of dismissal, keeping my head down all the while, before Nate could ask anything else. I needn’t have bothered; his blonde companion had already moved him on.

  Splat. A fat tear landed on the screen of my tablet, and I swiped it away hastily. Plop. Plop-plop-plop. An army of smaller drops followed the spearhead, and I wiped them away before they could destroy my gadget. The floodgates were open now, and I put the tablet in my bag, fleeing from the coffee shop before I would make a soggy spectacle of myself.

  As I yanked at the door ineffectually—stupid thing, why won’t you open, c’mon, c’mon—I caught Nate staring after me with a bemused look on his face. He hadn’t recognised me, that much was clear, but he was wondering. The blonde bombshell leaned heavily into him, whispering something and giggling softly. She put her hand on one of his knees, and he took his eyes off me to look at her instead. The vision of the two of them gazing at each other imprinted itself on my retinas and remained there until, quite some time later and with no recollection of how I got there, I unlocked the front door to my flat.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ‘You should’ve seen her,’ I sobbed hysterically into the mug of sweet tea that Mike had made immediately upon my return. ‘She’s not even his type. She…she…’

  I hiccupped, unable to formulate my thoughts.

  ‘Go on,’ Mike encouraged. ‘Say it. Spit it out. It’ll help.’

  ‘She was a blombe…a blonde blombe… a bomb…’

  ‘A blombe?’ Mike exploded with laughter. ‘That’s fantastic. I like that. Blombe.’

  ‘Bombshell,’ I finished.

  ‘Oh dear.’ Mike’s voice was full of sympathy. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. That wasn’t what we’d hoped for, was it?’

  I shook my head, no.

  ‘Still.’ Mike was philosophical. ‘It’s closure, right? That was the other thing you wanted, one way or another.’

  ‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘But I’d have preferred one way over another. I was a bloody fool.’

&nbs
p; ‘Poor you.’ Mike wrapped his arms around me. I relished the comfort but noted that there was nothing else now. No lust, no excitement. It was simply nice being held by a friend.

  We remained locked into our awkward embrace for a few moments before I recovered.

  ‘Stupid me. But you know, it’s the upset. I’m not really upset, as such. That happened weeks ago. It’s the upset at seeing him with someone else so soon.’

  Mike shook his head. ‘You’re not making much sense, but I think I get it.’

  ‘Well. I knew things were over, really, only I was hoping against hope, and now there’s no hope; and that hurts a little again. But.’ I squared my shoulders. ‘It’s my own stupid fault, and there’s no point crying about it.’ I ran two fingers under my eyes to try and stem the floods.

  ‘Wow.’ Mike smiled. ‘What bravado. Bully for you.’

  ‘Bully for me, indeed.’ I downed my tea to underscore my bravado, banged the cup down hard, and stood up. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Um. I dunno.’ Mike was clearly taken aback by my change of pace. ‘I still need to get some more stuff from my house…’

  ‘Right, let’s do it,’ I commanded. ‘Do you need a ride?’

  ‘A ride would be good.’ Mike visibly relaxed at my suggestion. ‘Doing this by taxi was proving cumbersome, to say the least.’

  So for the next three hours, we went back and forth between my flat and Mike’s house to fetch clothes, instruments, Mike’s computer and the gear for his portable home recording studio. ‘Studio in a box,’ he called it laughingly, and that was exactly what it was: a very large box with fold-out, foam-insulated sides to absorb and focus sound around the microphone, a small console, and a couple of amps. Even carrying it together, we struggled a little with this cargo owing to its dimensions, especially as we had to take it out the back way via Mike’s and his neighbour’s gardens because the front of the house was still besieged by the press. This meant scaling the back fence, with the neighbour’s permission, of course, and creeping about inside the house well out of sight of the windows.

  ‘I feel like a spy,’ I remarked towards the end of our third trip. ‘How much more do we have to get?’

  ‘Only my wash kit and a few extension leads if I can find them.’ Mike dived into the bathroom and flung bottles and tins into a black wash bag. ‘There. That’s that. The extension leads are in the attic, I think.’

  The doorbell rang and interrupted his statement. We both jumped, then crouched down on the floor holding onto each other’s arms and ducking our heads.

  ‘Mike Loud, we know you’re in there. Open up.’ An imperious male voice shouted through the letter box, and Mike recoiled in horror. He crabbed his way out of the hallway and into the kitchen, pulling me with him as he went. We disappeared just in time too, for the last thing I saw was a pair of eyes peeking through the flap.

  ‘I think we’d better leave the extension leads,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve got a couple at home anyway.’

  ‘Surge-protected?’ Mike was hung up on detail.

  ‘Probably not. But surely we can buy some if we need to? We have to go!’

  ‘You’re right. You’re right.’

  Mike stood and glanced around sadly.

  ‘Goodbye, house,’ he murmured, unexpectedly wistful. ‘I’ll see you when I see you.’

  ‘This will blow over soon, you’ll see,’ I tried to soothe him. It felt good, trying to take care of somebody else’s worries. It certainly helped me move on from my own interlude of woe, and I felt much freer, much lighter now.

  ‘I hope so.’ Mike shrugged and failed to look convinced. We made our way out the back door one last time. Mike set the alarm before he locked up, muttering under his breath his heartfelt thanks to the engineer who had insisted on having arming panels near the kitchen door as well as the front door, and we were off.

  By nine o’clock that night, my humble guest room had been transformed into a rock star’s den. Not one, not two, but four Fender guitars and one bass were lined up on their stands along one wall. A keyboard stood at the bottom of the bed. The dressing table sported the recording console and the microphone, and the mirror was completely obscured by the fold-out recording booth. Two amps sat beside it, plugged in and ready for action. Lengths of foamy sound-insulation material hung roughly tacked from the picture rails and at the back of the door. Stacks of sheet music graced the armchairs, and leather trousers, black shirts and man-size jeans were peeking through the half open door of the wardrobe. Had it not been for the pristine white bedding with a pattern of tiny blue cornflowers embroidered along the edges, I wouldn’t have recognised the room as mine.

  I regarded the new decor in silence, part shocked, part awed. I hadn’t quite reckoned with such a transformation when I had offered Mike asylum, but I supposed I was in for the proverbial penny and pound.

  ‘Sorry about the girlie bedding,’ I offered to cover my flustered state. ‘I have something without flowers somewhere, or I can get you something more manly tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Mike laughed. ‘I quite like it, and it is your flat. Even if, perhaps, the room is slightly unrecognisable.’

  ‘Slightly,’ I agreed weakly.

  ‘It’s all temporary,’ Mike assured me. ‘But it does mean I can do some work without bringing the house down, or your neighbours, for that matter. As insulation goes, it’s not perfect, but it’ll contain quite a bit.’

  ‘That’s good.’ I smiled. ‘I can’t wait to see you at work and hear what you come up with.’

  ‘Great,’ Mike laughed some more. ‘But I must warn you, I’m hell to live with. And I’m secretive when I work. You might not see much of me while I’m writing, and I will bite your head off when you disturb me.’

  ‘I’ve got a thick skin,’ I smiled. Somehow, this whole setup was exciting me. I had visions of sustaining my resident musical genius with copious cups of tea and healthy home-cooked meals whilst solemnly listening to the results of a day’s composing and offering my increasingly sophisticated and pertinent feedback…not. Get a grip, Emily, I reined in my rosy daydream. He’ll probably be grumpy and bad-tempered. You’ve been warned.

  We celebrated Mike’s moving in with a humble bottle of wine and a takeaway pizza consumed in front of the telly, sitting on opposite ends of the same couch with our feet sharing the squashy footstool. We were friends and housemates, and nothing more. I felt surprisingly at ease.

  The only fly in the ointment was that my lawyer’s appointment was looming in the morning, and I was debating not going. I dreaded confrontation, and I hated to think how much he would charge me. But Mike insisted that I should go, at least for an initial consultation, and he even offered to come with me.

  ‘It’s what friends are for, right?’ he commented earnestly. ‘You help me, I help you.’

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed, enticed by the prospect of not having to go alone. ‘That would be lovely. If you’re sure.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ‘Well. Wow. That wasn’t too bad.’

  My head was spinning from a very intense hour’s consultation with Mr Budd, the employment lawyer. ‘Thank goodness you were there, Mike. I had no idea you knew so much about this stuff.’

  Mike grinned modestly. ‘Comes with the territory. You know, negotiating all those contracts for the band. You pick up quite a bit.’

  ‘Evidently.’ I poured more sugar into my latte and stirred vigorously. ‘But really, thanks. I don’t know if I could’ve done it without you.’

  Mike took a bite out of his pastry. We were in a secluded deli-patisserie near the lawyer’s office, and I had treated us both to a celebratory cake and coffee. I would have offered something stronger, but it was only the middle of the morning.

  He took another bite, chewed and swallowed, and grinned some more. ‘You did quite a fine job standing up for yourself. I wish I could see your boss’s face when that letter arrives.’

  Ah. Yes. That letter. Written by my lawyer
—or soon to be written by my lawyer—it would state my case clearly and demand that I be reinstated with full apology immediately.

  ‘In effect,’ Mr Budd had droned triumphantly, ‘they’ve tried and judged you without due diligence. The very fact that you were simply asked to leave without any clear recourse or a schedule of hearings invalidates your suspension. Moreover, as you are patently not guilty of the alleged offense that would have constituted breach of contract, your company has put itself into a very vulnerable position, and we shall seek restitution forthwith.’

  Restitution. Now there was a word I hadn’t used before. I rolled it around my head a few more times. Mr Budd was going for compensation in a fairly big way. The figure he had bandied about had made my eyes water. And this would be after my reinstatement, of course. Which, according to Mr Budd, would be fairly instant once his letter winged its way to my boss and HR. He didn’t really expect the matter to require further action, and I had already paid my fee for this consultation plus a small retainer, just in case.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Mike prompted when I failed to respond to his last utterance.

  ‘They’re not worth a penny,’ I joked. ‘But you know…I really don’t know if I want to go through with this. The battle, the asking for money, the going back.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m probably being stupid here, but I don’t want to go back there. I’m really hurt, and I’d feel awkward hanging around the office. It’s a bit like being with somebody who’s accused you of cheating and thrown you out, but has to take you back because somebody else tells them to. Does that make any sense?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  I snorted. ‘You sound shocked. I suppose I might have gone a bit gaga. But think about it. All this money making, it’s not real. It’s a sham. All the millions I’ve shifted around for companies—that’s not even real money, it’s all on paper. It’s fiction.’ I paused, trying to gather my thoughts. ‘All the sleep I lost over this…well, I don’t want to do it anymore.’