CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The next morning, Lillie looked in the hotel bathroom mirror, noting the dark circles under her eyes, and she decided that she might need a night apart from Jed so that she could get more than a few hours sleep. Besides, all the sex was making her sore and she wasn’t even sure if she’d be able to participate in any for a while. She turned the bath taps on, fiddling with them to get the temperature just right.
Back in the bedroom, Lillie grabbed her phone and a set of headphones and watched Jed sleeping for a moment. He’d moved to cover as much of the bed as possible now that Lillie was out of it. She smiled at the sight of his six foot two inch frame sprawled across the bed, taking up all the available space, covers caught up around his waist, limbs flung wide and fought the urge to lay down and cover him with her body. Instead she decided it was safer to go back into the bathroom.
Chris had put the band’s new album on her phone, and she forwarded to one of the songs she needed to learn. She lay back in the bubbles and listened to it whilst she texted Tess to organise her visit before the band left for France.
Tess wanted to meet the band, especially Jed, and it would be months before Lillie would see any of her family again after she left the UK in a few days. With her parents in Spain and her brother living up North, Tess was the only one Lillie would be able to get together with before leaving.
They decided Lillie, Jed and whoever else wanted to tag along would go to their parent’s house in Brighton where Tess was housesitting during her uni holidays. The morning after the Portsmouth gig was the best choice, although it would mean it was going to be a short visit, as they were catching the ferry to France later that night.
Visit organised, Lillie closed her eyes and replayed the song, singing along to the words and rewinding it when she got them wrong. One song down, she forwarded to the next one, becoming so engrossed she didn’t hear the door open. She let out a scream as Jed’s fingers ran along her thigh.
‘You scared the hell out of me,’ she said, sitting up and pulling the headphones out of her ears. She stared at him accusatorily, noticing his nakedness even in her fright.
‘Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You look so, mmmm…’ he stared at her hungrily. ‘Edible,’ he continued, leaning down for a kiss.
Lillie stretched her neck, eager for his mouth on hers. His hands reached down to cover her breasts, fingertips skimming over her hardening nipples. Lillie’s stomach flipped in the now familiar feeling of all encompassing lust that she’d only ever felt with him. She reached up around his neck and pulled him into the bath. He laughed in surprise as bubbles and water cascaded over the floor, rearranging his body so that he didn’t crush her. They kissed again, oblivious to the flooding they were causing, trying to find a way to fit together in the cramped bath.
‘This isn’t going to work,’ Jed said, pressing feather-light kisses across Lillie’s collarbone. ‘Come on,’ he instructed, sloshing more water over the floor as he stood up, extending his hand to her.
Lillie took his hand, and he pulled her up and against him, their wet bodies sliding against each other. Jed stared down at her through wet hair.
‘I think I like it best when you’re naked and wet,’ he said huskily.
Lillie winced as his fingers brushed against her.
‘I think I need a rest,’ she whispered, embarrassed and frustrated that her body was betraying her in this way. She traced patterns on his chest, her eyes following her fingertips as they travelled down his wet body. She heard him gasp as her fingers brushed against him and smiled to herself as she lowered herself to her knees.
Five minutes later, she rose to her feet and Jed kissed her hard, reaching for a towel to wrap her in. He held her close to him, kissing the top of her head.
‘I love you Lillie. I love you so much, you know that right?’ He looked at her intently, and she nodded.
‘I love you too,’ she said, wrapping her arms around him and burying her head in his chest.
‘You know what we should do today?’ he suddenly said, stepping out of the bath and wrapping a towel around his waist. He had an overly excited expression on his face as he lifted her out.
Lillie shook her head, smiling in anticipation.
‘Laundry!’ he exclaimed, eyebrows raised and a maniacal grin on his face. ‘Oh the excitement of the rock ‘n’ roll life, hey Lil?’
She laughed and commented that his laundry would be easy – just the one load of black clothing.
‘Why d’ you think I only wear black or grey? Did you think it was an image thing?’ he teased. ‘Know what else we should do?’ he paused dramatically. ‘Sightsee,’ he proclaimed.
Lillie groaned and screwed up her face.
‘Are you serious? Didn’t you already see Buckingham Palace and all that touristy stuff last time you were here?’ she moaned, pulling on black skinny jeans and a grey and black striped racer back vest. Jed looked disappointed.
‘I thought it would be more fun with a native,’ he replied, also pulling on black jeans and looking around for a clean t-shirt.
‘It won’t be,’ Lillie promised him, turning to the mirror and starting to put make up on. ‘We could go and grab some food and hang out in Hyde Park though. It’s a nice day. We could spend some time together, you know, all of us,’ she suggested, widening her eyes as she applied mascara.
Jed was far more excited about the idea then she thought he would be. So excited that he immediately left the room to go and bang on the various doors of the band, yelling that they were going to Hyde Park. She smiled to herself at his enthusiasm as he rushed back into the room.
‘You know, you need to work on your rock star persona,’ she said, as he danced up to her, taking her hands and twirling her around the room. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be all moody and anti-sunshine, skulking around in dingy pub corners getting trashed?’
‘Well, it’s my day off from all that. It’ll be fun and you’re right, we should spend some time together as a band. Maybe we’ll come up with our number one hit!’ He spun her away and then back into him, dipping her and taking advantage of her vulnerable position to steal a kiss. He straightened her up again as someone knocked on the door, frowning at the interruption.
He opened it to the rest of the band and Kate, mostly looking tired or hungover. Lillie assumed they must have gone out drinking whilst she and Jed had come back to the hotel.
‘Hey guys!’ she said as they all dragged themselves into the tiny room. Standing room only, Lillie thought. Such glamour.
‘Don’t bother getting comfortable,’ Jed instructed, ‘let’s go. We need to get food and beers. Eddie, Johnny, grab your guitars. We’ll do some work this afternoon. Maybe come up with some ideas for the next album.’
***
The sun was shining and it seemed all of London was intent on cramming a month’s worth of vitamin D into one afternoon. Lillie couldn’t blame them: uninterrupted sunshine was scarce in England.
Finding a relatively empty space, they flung themselves onto the grass, the boys immediately reaching for beers and Lillie and Kate grabbing cokes.
Lillie hugged her knees to her chest and watched the band mucking about and joking around with each other. They were so tightly bonded, she wondered if she would ever properly fit in with them. She felt like she barely knew Eddie, and things weren’t much better with Chris. She resolved to spend more time with them, recognising that the entire band needed to be a unit, and she couldn’t just hang out with Jed and Johnny.
Lillie turned away from watching Eddie covertly rolling a joint and noticed that Chris and Kate were sat a little apart from the rest of them. Kate looked ridiculously happy, leaning back into Chris’ chest as he talked in her ear. It was funny, Lillie hadn’t thought of Chris as much of a talker. She realised how little she knew him, and her thoughts inevitably turned to her and Jed. She wondered how much she knew him really. She watche
d without really seeing as Kate turned a delicate shade of pink and laughed, turning round to smack Chris’ arm in mock outrage.
‘Hey Lil!’ Johnny was waving a hand in front of Lillie’s face. ‘Hellloooo,’ he said.
She started and pushed his hand away, smiling.
‘God, where were you? We were just saying that maybe we should practice that song from last night, you know, “Car Crash Lives”?’ Johnny looked at her and she noticed Jed’s face hovering behind him, looking concerned.
‘Oh, umm, yeah, good idea. I could do with some practice on that one,’ she replied.
‘I know,’ Johnny said wryly. ‘Eddie, you ready?’
Eddie nodded, adjusting the tuning of his E string. Johnny, Jed and Eddie all sat cross-legged and faced Lillie.
‘Ready?’ Jed asked softly. She nodded as he moved over to sit next to her, their knees touching. She felt the jolt of physical desire for him run through her body and sighed inwardly. Sex and Jed seemed to be inescapably linked. She thought that she should probably separate the two. After all, sex wasn’t enough to keep a real relationship going. Although, for now, the sex was enough to keep them besotted with each other. She didn’t have time to ponder further as Eddie started playing the opening chords and Johnny joined in. Lillie noticed that Johnny was actually quite an accomplished guitar player, his antics onstage overshadowing his skill.
Jed started the first verse and Lillie really listened to them playing, appreciating their talent instead of being awed by their performance. She joined Jed in the chorus, her voice belying her shyness at singing out in the open. Jed, still singing, gestured for her to sing louder, his eyes wide with encouragement. Lillie raised her voice slightly, and noticed people turning to watch.
Jed fell quiet as Lillie took over for the second verse, his knee jerking up and down to the silent drum beat, making her leg shake in time too. Chris and Kate had stopped talking and Chris was beating out the bass line on Kate’s knees. Jed joined in again for the chorus and they sang the last verse together, Jed’s rough, low voice contrasting well against Lillie’s softer, more melancholy tones. Lillie could feel herself blushing and she knew her voice held a tremor that showed her embarrassment. Relieved that the song was over, she immediately reached for a beer.
‘That was great but you might wanna work on the blushing,’ Johnny said, a smile on his face.
‘Thanks Johnny,’ Lillie retorted. ‘I can’t help it. I wish I knew how to stop it from happening.’
Jed put his arm around her, pulling her into his side and kissing her hair.
‘Practice, Lil, practice. One day you’ll be onstage and you’ll suddenly realise that you’re not nervous at all. I promise,’ he reassured her. ‘Eddie always used to play with his back or side to the crowd so that they couldn’t see him properly,’ he continued.
‘’S’true,’ piped up Eddie.
Lillie hadn’t even known he was paying attention. Johnny nodded, laughing at the memory.
‘It’s all about faking it ‘til you make it,’ Johnny said. ‘We all shit our pants in the beginning. We know what it’s like to think people are laughing at you or that they’re gonna think you suck. You’ve got it lucky that you’ve come into a band with a fan base, it’s way worse playing in front of people who don’t know your stuff already. Believe me.’ He paused, picking his guitar up again. ‘We’ve got some real horror stories of shit that’s been done to us ‘cos some little pricks didn’t like our music. I’ll tell you all about them but you gotta get over your fear first.’
He swept an arm out and said ‘this is your audience today. Now, they probably won’t throw piss at you but I’m not gonna guarantee it!’ He laughed and Lillie smiled, her face calming down from a searing heat to more of a glowing embers warmth.
Johnny then started playing the beginning of the new song, the one about her and Jed, nodding encouragement at her. She sang the song through, Jed remaining silent but mouthing the words along with her and tapping the beat out on her forearm.
Lillie could feel that she was bright red again but her voice stayed strong and didn’t waver once. When she’d finished, the band and Kate clapped, and she saw that the people nearest to them were looking over and smiling.
‘See,’ crowed Jed, shuffling around to lay his head on her lap and looking up at her, ‘better already, right?’
Lillie nodded her agreement and asked Johnny and Eddie to play a song that wasn’t on their set list. Lillie saw Johnny shoot a panicked look at Jed, whose body stiffened as soon as she said the name of the song. Almost immediately, Jed seemed to relax and he turned his head towards Johnny and Eddie and nodded his agreement.
He stared into the sky as he sang the despondent lyrics to a song that was all rough guitars and insistent drum beats on the album. With just two acoustic guitars, the song sounded more like a lament than it was probably intended to. Half way through, Jed suddenly broke off and sat up abruptly, making Lillie jump.
‘Know what? I really don’t like that song. Let’s do “Dead Untruths”, Lil, you need to know this one for later,’ he said, avoiding her eyes.
Perturbed by his reluctance to sing “Grave Love” and paranoia working double hard, Lillie practised the four or five songs she was singing that night for the next hour or so, but her heart wasn’t in it. She felt like he was hiding something from her and her mind was coming up with all sorts of solutions. Jed had quickly relaxed back into his usual self, charming and tactile, but she found it hard to forget his reaction to the song, and it plagued her throughout the practice session.
Finally bored of playing and singing, even Jed forgot about practising for that night’s gig, and the afternoon degenerated into story telling. Kate and Lillie laughed at the stories of onstage cock-ups, like Jed forgetting lyrics and Johnny falling into Chris’ drum set whilst he whirled round and round like a Tasmanian Devil.
Somewhere, in amongst all the funny anecdotes, Lillie decided that maybe there wasn’t a sinister reason for Jed not liking that particular song, maybe he really just didn’t like it anymore. That wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, was it? She didn’t want to ruin a fun afternoon by quizzing him about it when it might be nothing. Anyway, she was meant to be spending time bonding with the band, not creating drama when there probably wasn’t any need for it.
Once she’d relaxed to the idea and put real effort into it, Lillie got to know the band a bit better, bonding with Eddie over an annoyance with bloggers who only blogged about the mundanities of their everyday lives.
All too soon, the sun started to set and it was getting cold. Lillie had been lying with her head on Jed’s stomach as he played with her hair and she chatted with Chris and Kate about the difference between American and British reality TV. They had come to the conclusion that, as usual in the televisual world, the Americans did it better than the Brits, when Jed noticed her trembling.
‘Okay, we gotta go. Lil’s turning to ice and we need to eat and get to soundcheck before Steve busts a gut.’
Lillie sat up and Jed immediately hugged her into him, rubbing his hands up and down her glacial arms.
‘Jesus. You’re freezing, you should have said,’ he said.
‘I didn’t really notice,’ Lillie said, turning to him for a kiss. He obliged, leaning back and pulling her on top of him. She didn’t fight him like she normally did, always conscious of other people, and he took advantage by rolling her over so that he was on top of her. He hovered above her, staring without saying anything. Lillie stared back, waiting for him to tell her whatever it was that he was struggling with.
Instead, after a long moment, he whispered that he loved her and kissed her nose before rolling back off her, standing up and pulling her to her feet. Lillie put her arms around him for a quick hug, smiling up at him.
‘I know you do,’ she said.
He raised an eyebrow at her and cocked his head to t
he side, waiting for her to say she loved him too. Lillie raised an eyebrow too.
‘What?’ she said, with a smirk.
‘You know what,’ he replied, trying to grab her as she darted away from him, running off towards the others who had left them to it with a collective sigh. He gave chase, quickly catching up and swinging her into his arms. He bestowed a sloppy lick up the side of her face and she squealed in disgust, struggling in his arms.
‘Uuugh, that’s so gross,’ she squawked, ‘put me down, you vile boy!’
‘No way,’ he laughed. ‘I’ve got you now and I’m gonna keep licking your face until you say it back,’ and he swiped his tongue up her face again before she could turn her head away. Lillie kicked her legs and yelled for help, locking her arms around Jed’s neck in case he dropped her. Johnny and Kate turned to look and Lillie shouted out another plea as Jed tried to lick her ear. She removed an arm from his neck and wiped at her face as Johnny and Kate laughed and turned away.
‘Those two aren’t gonna help you, Lil. Now, all you have to do is say four teeny words, it’s so easy, c’mon, just say it,’ he cajoled.
‘Uuuuuugghhh. Alright, alright!’ she screeched as he delivered another sloppy lick to her cheek. ‘Obviously, I love you too. There. Now stop licking my face like a dog and put me down,’ she demanded.
Jed flashed his special ‘straight to the groin’ grin at her and lowered her to the ground, and Lillie made a big show of wiping her face in disgust as he slung his arm around her shoulders in victory, laughing.
‘You are so gross. Yuck. I’m so going to get you back for that.’ She shuddered theatrically as she wiped her face again. Jed laughed louder and pretended to lick her cheek again.
‘Stop it!’ she shrieked, pulling away from him. He grabbed her hand and pulled her in for a long kiss. Lillie broke it off and looked for the others. ‘C’mon’ she said, tugging him towards the gate. ‘They’ve all disappeared now and time’s getting on. I need to change before we go.’
How to Catch a (Rock) Star: A Story of Sex, Love and Rock 'n' Roll Page 10
