Tilly Maguire and the Royal Wedding Mess

by Emma Grey

  ‘Why do I do this to myself?’ she asks, trying not to sob on the phone to Kat Hartland, who might be a major pop star these days, but she’s also the most trustworthy friend Angie’s ever had. Kat’s been watching it all play out in the media with Reuben’s bandmate, Angus Marsden, for the last hour. ‘Why can’t I just get over this?’

  Kat laughs. ‘That’s not how it works, Angie. It’s not some tap that you get to turn on and off whenever it’s convenient.’

  She wishes it was. That would make things so much easier.

  ‘They were all over each other tonight,’ she explains to Kat. ‘Seriously! It was worse than ever. Secret glances. Surreptitious winks. Standing as close together as possible. He had his arm around her in front of everyone and she didn’t even care! If I hadn’t known them both since school, I’d say they were discovering each other for the first time. No wonder that poor intern Tilly got the wrong idea! It was all so – bleuch.’

  ‘Ange,’ Kat interrupts gently, ‘maybe it’s time to tell them how you feel?’

  Kat is literally the only person who knows. Angie had confided in her, after Kat had watched them all together once in a group and had guessed. She’s told absolutely no one else. She can’t risk the fallout.

  ‘Tell them? But that would change everything. You know how big this is, Kat.’

  There are seven billion people on the planet. Why did Angie have to fall for someone so totally unattainable? She can’t tell anyone about it! She’d risk more than friendship. She’d risk her job. And she adores being a pop star’s PA, except on nights like this, when Reuben goes all knight-inshining-armour about a girl and decides the band’s secret country hideaway needs organising before they get there.

  ‘This never gets in the way of my work, Kat. Nobody else has noticed. I can be completely professional around them. Trust me. I just need to move on somehow!’

  They both know she can’t. She’s tried so many times. Tried seeing other people. Nothing ever works. It’s always that same dull ache. Always right back to where she is now: carrying around this massive secret like a huge weight on her chest – every single day spent in this agonising, exhausting act while they all think she’s Little Miss Sunshine. Arrgh!

  She checks the fuel gauge. It’s sitting just below empty. Of course, she hadn’t anticipated an A-list emergency this evening or she’d have filled the car. Why couldn’t Reuben be like any other pop star and just drop Tilly off somewhere normal, where she could fend for herself and spend the next two years agonising with her best friend over every single nuance of their brief interaction, trying to work out where she went wrong? Why did he have to bring her here?

  Angie puts her foot on the accelerator. ‘And naturally, Reuben just had to rush in and rescue Belle from the unwanted scoop with this crazy counterclaim that Tilly is somehow his muse of all things – a girl he’s known literally five minutes after one simple red-carpet run-in —’

  ‘Er, whatever that was on the red carpet looked like a bit more than a run-in,’ Kat says.

  Whatever! ‘All I know is that unrequited love is the pits,’ Angie announces. Both girls laugh. ‘This crazy band! How did we get mixed up in this? Don’t answer that, Kat. You’re happily mixed up in it. Do you know Tilly? She’s Australian.’

  Kat laughs again. ‘Australia’s a big country! We’ve got, like, twenty-four million people or something!’

  ‘Yet two of you ending up girlfriends to boys in one British band?’

  ‘Reuben’s only calling Tilly his muse. Not his girlfriend.’

  Angie swings off the main road and puts her lights on high beam. ‘Being his muse is even worse! There’s a fine line between inspiration and adoration, right? Can’t you just see it? Tilly, floating around the band’s country mansion, barefoot as usual, in her weird green dress, platinum-selling song lyrics and music notes falling mystically out of her aura, landing in the composing app on his phone . . .’

  Kat bursts out laughing. ‘You say some random stuff!’

  ‘Because if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry, Kat. I mean it.’ The tears spring back. ‘Ugh! I hate feeling all of this for someone and having no way to express it. Complicated scenarios work out for you! You got your happy ending. And your career break. And you did it all in a way that meant you kept your friends. It’s not like that for everyone else. I can’t see how this whole thing could ever work out in my favour. My only option is to find a way to give up on it.’

  There’s a pause, like Kat is carefully choosing her next words.

  ‘You’ll get your happily ever after somehow, Angie. You will. It might not seem possible right now, but situations change. People come into your life —’

  ‘Other people,’ Angie says, feeling utterly deflated. ‘But it’s not the same, is it?’

  Chapter 9

  Let me get this straight, Tilly’s best friend, Caitlin, types in Messenger, while their car screeches through several back streets trying to shake the pack. It’s not even nine am on Saturday morning at home, but Caitlin’s up early for her shift at Knox City Bookshop, which is how she happens to have caught up on the explosion of developments overseas. You’re currently alone in a car . . . with REUBEN VAUGHAN!?!?!?!?!?!?? How?

  Long story.

  It always is with you! This is off-the-scale UNBELIEVABLE! And so romantic.

  No, it isn’t.

  C’mon, Tilly! Don’t betray your younger self. He’s gorgeous!

  Tilly glances as far as Reuben’s hand, which is resting on his thigh beside her. Actually, the hand isn’t so much resting as forming a fist. Repeatedly. The other hand is occupied scrolling through social media, where he appears to be digesting post after post from the ball.

  BTW, what is with your hair in these pics? Caitlin types. She sends a screenshot of a paparazzi photo of Tilly in the car, wild-eyed, wild-haired and Reuben backing off while she barks at him.

  And then another one from inside the ball. The now-deleted image Tilly herself had taken of Belle leaning in to speak with Reuben, holding his hands as if the perfect two were in a promo shoot for a Cinderella movie. Tilly flicks obsessively between both images. Isabella: poised, graceful, luscious dark hair pulled into an immaculate bun. Tilly: totally wrecked, certifiably unhinged.

  It’s not how it looks, she types. Except unfortunately, it’s exactly how it looks, if not worse. And suddenly, she sees it all from what must be Reuben’s incredibly painful perspective. An innocent conversation with a friend. An interfering photographer. The ensuing PR nightmare. Topped by a failed attempt at rescuing Tilly from herself. No wonder he’s making a fist with his hand.

  I think I’ve botched this up, she types to Caitlin.

  YOU THINK?

  Even her best friend is angry with her. She’s never felt more alone.

  A call comes in from her mum, which she declines. She can just imagine the lecture.

  Tell mum I’m fine? She types. I can’t deal with her now. Don’t tell her that bit!

  ‘Hey you. You okay?’ Reuben asks. His voice is undeniably warm, which is undeniably weird when he’s clearly furious with her.

  ‘Not really,’ Tilly answers honestly, staring out of the window. His unexpected kindness is the last straw. The tears that had been threatening since the moment Henrietta hauled her into the drawing room flow freely now, making a fresh mess of her mascara.

  ‘I’m so sorry about everything that happened back there,’ Reuben says. ‘I’m worried about you.’

  Worried? ‘That’s really nice of you, particularly as it’s all my . . .’

  ‘Hang on a moment,’ he says and, as he turns to face her, she realises with horror that he has an earbud in and is actually on the phone. Oh my GOD.

  She watches, frozen with embarrassment, as he takes in the sight of her. Blotched face. Rivulets of black liquid running down both cheeks. Hair every which way. Miserable. Homesick. Distraught over her actions. Sick with exhaustion. The dress.

  ‘Look, I have to go, Belle,’ he says.
‘I’ll call you later.’

  Belle? He and the princess are so close. Maybe Tilly really has stumbled across something secret between them and ruined it completely. Great. The debacle is worse than she thought!

  ‘I wish I could go back and start the night again,’ she says, her voice shaking.

  He rubs his forehead with the palm of his hand like he has a headache. ‘I just want the night over, frankly.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Somewhere no one will find us for a day or two.’

  ‘But I don’t want to go with you,’ Tilly protests. ‘I really don’t. Can you let me out?’ She puts a hand on the door handle.

  ‘Throw you to the paparazzi? Leave you to face Henrietta? Or the Royal Family? Or worse, my fans . . . They annihilate girlfriends of the band.’

  ‘I’m not your girlfriend,’ she reiterates. ‘You said so yourself. I’m your —’ She can’t bring herself to say ‘muse’ – the whole idea is ridiculous.

  ‘That’s not the story they’ve gone with, though. Check it out.’ He passes her his phone, open on the Daily Mail’s very helpful roundup of headlines crammed with shots of them fleeing the museum together.

  ‘Vaughan in Hot Water with Redheaded Mystery Muse,’ she reads aloud. ‘Jealous New Girlfriend Behind Bizarre Leaked Photo of Boy Band Star. Reuben Vaughan Playing Royal Roulette. Pop star, Princess meet Hot Mess from Austra . . .’ Her voice trails off.

  He frowns, and takes back his phone. ‘That’s why I rarely read anything in the press,’ he says. ‘It’s all lies.’

  She swallows a sob.

  ‘Tilly, you’re not a hot mess,’ he offers magnanimously.

  You’re not a hot mess? Of all the conversations she used to script in her head with him when she was thirteen, this sentence had never figured. She can’t even work out if it’s a compliment or an insult. ‘Are you in love with her?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Reuben says quickly. ‘It never will be.’

  She doesn’t believe him. How can he be so sure about it? His certainty is a dead giveaway that he’s covering something.

  ‘Can you see why you can’t stay in London?’ he asks. ‘We have to get away from all of this. Think about our next steps. I think if we handle the whole thing strategically we’ll cause minimal disruption for both of us.’

  Tilly doesn’t want there to be any next steps with Reuben Vaughan. She doesn’t want to be something that has to be strategically handled in his life. She doesn’t want to have to face any of it.

  ‘The media’s not going to stop. We can ignore it, or we can get on the front foot. Give them what they want. Fake a friendship, whatever. A fleeting one. Maybe you’re my temporary muse for a new solo album —’

  Has he completely lost his mind?

  ‘Then you can stage a very public breakup of this —’ He searches for the correct description. ‘This friendship, or . . . professional relationship, or, er —’

  Muse-ship? She’s lost it . . .

  ‘After which I’ll lick my wounds in various hot spots with a string of ditzy socialites, you’ll fade back into obscurity and we’ll both live happily ever after. How’s that for a fairy tale?’

  She thinks it sounds absolutely ridiculous. She’s also reached the point where everything is swaying in front of her.

  ‘You look atrocious,’ Reuben says, pulling the armrest down between them, inviting her to rest her head on it. It’s the one bit of sense he’s made all night.

  She isn’t going to pose as his girlfriend. Muse. Professional whatever.

  She’s never heard of anything so stupid. She’ll put an end to all of this as soon as she wakes up and can think straight.

  Chapter 10

  Tilly is out cold on the armrest between them, thick auburn curls spread everywhere, including all over Reuben’s left thigh. How does a person have so much hair?

  He thinks about phoning Belle back, but doesn’t want to wake Tilly. She’s completely destroyed, and he’s spent enough time with the band on international flights to know how desperate she must be for sleep. Besides, she’s easier to deal with this way. He hasn’t felt this awkward around a girl since the Year 6 disco, when his friends had pushed him across the dance floor towards Brooke James. He’d been besotted with her for so long, but when he was finally able to dance with her, he’d had no idea what to say or do, and made a complete idiot of himself.

  Tilly is nothing like Brooke James. Nor is she like the relentless procession of glamorous girls who’ve thrown themselves at him since the band made it big. She’s not like Isabelle, either, whom Reuben thinks is the definition of ‘conventionally beautiful’.

  Sprawled beside him on the back seat of the car, Tilly isn’t conventionally anything. Maybe it’s the impossible struggle to put her in a box that’s setting him on edge . . . She’s the kind of girl who should come with graduated emergency warnings like you get for tropical storms. Watch and wait, watch and act . . .

  He leans down and retrieves the jacket from his Italian wool suit, which she’s thrown on the floor between them. It won’t kill him to cover her shoulders with it, he supposes, even though she’s comprehensively messed up his life. While he’s picking it up, he sees a message flash up on the screen of her phone from her mum. Matilda, answer my calls! And STAY AWAY from that pop star. They’re all the same! Hmm.

  Her body moves as he places his jacket on her skin. She burrows into it. One of her hands falls upturned against his knee and he looks at it and knows for certain she is the type of girl who would starfish her long limbs in her sleep and consume an entire bed. Evacuate immediately for your own safety . . .

  How could a person mistakenly post something to almost every media outlet in the world? Seriously. He’s known all along it was a bad idea for the Royal Family to encourage public posting at private events as if this was a school social. ‘Keeping up with the times,’ they’d said. Keeping up with the Kardashians, now Tilly is involved . . .

  It’s close to midnight, and he glances out the window. They’re headed for the band’s secret hideaway. A country estate no one knows about, with a private manor house big enough for the two of them to be in for a few days without getting on each other’s nerves. Angie will have gone ahead, so there’ll be food in the fridge and fires lit. Of course Tilly will have none of her things – they’ll have to sort that out tomorrow.

  Her hand shifts against his leg and ratchets up the alert level. What’s a level worse than ‘emergency’? Catastrophic? ‘I Can Hear the Bells’ leaps into his head, from Hairspray. What in the world? He hasn’t thought about that song since school, when he played Link Larkin in the Year 10 production. Get a grip!

  The estate is a bolt-hole for disasters just like this one. They can’t have news of its existence leaking out. Can Tilly even be trusted? Clearly not, if tonight’s effort is any example, but Reuben still thinks there’s something innocent about her. He believes her when she says it was just a monumental mistake and nothing malicious.

  His phone lights up with a text. It’s Belle.

  I want to see you, her message says. Talk things through?

  He’d like nothing more than to be with Belle right now, finishing their conversation. In fact, what is he even doing here, in this car, with this girl? Is that . . . is she snoring? Tilly takes garden-variety ‘annoying’ and knocks it way out of the park . . .

  Can’t for a few days, Reuben types into the phone. Need to keep a low profile.

  He’s sick of his whole life being managed.

  Belle has no idea about the Unrequited hideaway. In fact, Tilly will be the first outsider any of them has taken there. He doesn’t think even Kat Hartland knows about it, and Angus tells her everything. Wow. What an idyllic relationship that’s been the last couple of years. They’ve threaded each of their music careers almost seamlessly through their relationship, which is apparently nauseatingly good. Reuben remembers watching them together at the Brit Awards — the way Angus looked at
her, just how genuine the whole thing was – and thinking, ‘I want that with someone one day’.

  It’s hardly going to happen any time soon. Not with Tilly Maguire crashing into his life and applying herself to the task of convincing everyone he’s the world’s worst player before they’ve even been properly introduced.

  The car turns onto a gravel driveway and pauses at the heavy iron security gate. The driver punches in a number and the gates roll back as Reuben shakes Tilly gently by the shoulder.

  ‘We’re here,’ he says. ‘Wake up.’

  But she won’t.

  ‘Tilly!’ he says, more firmly. ‘Wake up. Come on.’

  The car crawls along the meandering driveway and draws up outside the entrance to the house. She’s totally out of it.

  His jacket slides off her body again as he reaches his hand under her neck, through her curls and pulls her upright. Nothing. She’s a rag doll.

  He scoops her out of the car, wrestling with the crazy tulle skirt, as the driver goes ahead to unlock the house. He carries her up the steps, pushes through the open door, lugs her into the sitting room and dumps her on an enormous couch. There is no way he’s staggering up the stairs with her to a bedroom.

  The fire is pumping heat into the room. He dismisses the driver with a quick nod, and pulls a cushion under Tilly’s head, trying to disentangle his fingers from her Venus flytrap curls. No need to get her shoes off. She practically threw them at him earlier. He puts his hand into his pocket and feels for the tie. It’s still there. Good. Except – why is he getting sentimental over it? Pull yourself together, for God’s sake!

  He finds a couple of cashmere blankets which he drapes over Tilly before standing up and clasping his hands behind his head, assessing the situation in the flickering light of the fire.

  He’s calling it: Most. Infuriating. Person. Ever.