Among a Thousand Stars

by Jo Bartlett

  ‘Because we love you.’ Stevie didn’t have to say anymore, he’d brought her home and he obviously wanted her there – that was enough.

  ****

  Zac took in Ashleigh’s pale appearance and gave her a hug; for once the Romeo act was on the back burner. Stevie had phoned him and filled him in on what had happened, when they’d stopped at the services en route. Ashleigh had pretended that she needed the loo, although all she’d really wanted was to have a cry in private.

  ‘I think a cup of tea and some biscuits are in order.’ Zac took her hand and led her through to the expansive kitchen. He was more down to earth than before, as if he was growing to like the mundane – making his own tea, cooking for them. It was real and Ashleigh had never seen him look happier. ‘Flick the TV on babe. There must be something terrible going on in the world somewhere that will make you feel better about all this.’

  ‘Good idea, let’s hope for some horrible disaster.’ Stevie grinned and Ashleigh didn’t miss the look they exchanged, which needed no words.

  Zac had been right, the twenty-four hour rolling news from Sky didn’t disappoint. There was a plane crash, a flood and even a fatal shark attack to help put her troubles into perspective. There were also the lighter hearted pieces, including one about a family in Bradford who claimed they had seen the face of Christ in their Shredded Wheat, as well as some entertainment news. The newsreader smiled broadly as he announced Susie-Anne’s release from hospital after three weeks of bed rest, over footage of her cradling her stomach and clutching on to the arm of an impassive looking Tom like her life depended on it.

  ‘Well, that was… nice.’ Zac’s cup of tea hovered in mid-air.

  ‘Do you think they’re back together?’ Stevie barely whispered the words, as if saying it out loud might push Ashleigh over the edge.

  ‘It doesn’t really matter.’ Exhaustion washed over her again. ‘If they are, I feel sorry for her. It won’t be because he loves her. It might just be a pretence to help her career, but it doesn’t matter either way because the only thing he does love at the moment is the business.’ A frisson of worry prickled her scalp. ‘I wonder who’s looking after Bertie?’

  ‘Will you call, see if he’s okay and check on Tom too?’ Stevie looked over at Ashleigh. ‘I know he’s been an arse, but part of me can’t help feeling for the bloke. His mother’s just died and he still has to put up with the likes of Susie-Anne and deal with all the crap that comes with it.

  ‘I think it’s best left alone.’ She put down her cup and stood up, her head was full of concrete. ‘It’s all such a mess. He made his feelings clear and they’re hardly going to change, are they? I think he’s made that blatant enough, even for someone as hopeless as me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Zac put his hand over hers. He was suddenly acting like an expert in love, after years of messing everything up, as if he wanted to fix things for everyone around him too. ‘You don’t want to have any regrets.’

  ‘You know the worst part of it all?’ She couldn’t stop the tears, any more than she could control how she felt about Tom. ‘I know he can feel love, real love. I saw how he was with his mum, so I can’t even say it’s a problem with him. He just doesn’t love me, that’s the simple truth. Like Liam said, the problem with me is…’ She didn’t even finish the sentence. ‘I’m going to have a lie down, if that’s okay? It’s been a long couple of days.’ She sniffed and Zac nodded, letting go of her hand.

  ****

  ‘Will you stop looking at me like that? I’ve told you before there’s nothing I can do about it.’ Tom addressed Bertie and the Labrador whined again, his misery since Ashleigh had left knew no bounds.

  Tom tried again to get him to eat. He’d cooked some chicken breasts specially and sliced one up carefully for the heartbroken dog. Back before Isobel had died, Tom would have risked losing a finger if he’d dangled chicken in Bertie’s face and the Labrador would have swallowed it whole, hardly tasting the food. Since Ashleigh had left, Bertie scarcely bothered with his food and, as Tom had no appetite either, the seagulls at the landfill site were doing quite well out of them.

  ‘What do you expect me to do?’ Bertie looked up as Tom spoke, his big round eyes a picture of sorrow. ‘She left us you know, not the other way round.’

  Tom put the bowl down and Bertie had the decency to sniff the chicken before rejecting it and curling up in his basket.

  ‘I know you think I’ve been a complete idiot and maybe you’re right, but we’ve only got each other now, so you need to buck up.’ Tom took a bite of the chicken sandwich he’d made for himself and then pushed it aside, in much the same way Bertie had reacted to his lunch. It was like wool in his mouth. If this was how it was going to be now, maybe he should just curl up on his bed and take Bertie’s approach to the rest of his life.

  ‘How about a walk, boy? Maybe that will cheer us up?’ Bertie moved his head less than an inch off the base of the basket and sighed heavily, before sinking back down into the tartan blanket that lined his bed.

  ‘You’re right, I doubt it would work either.’

  Tom took a bottle of bourbon out of the fridge and poured himself a generous slug. If losing a friend felt this bad, he was more grateful than ever that he’d never been in love.

  ****

  Over the years, there were members of the paparazzi who had lived off Zac’s exploits. He’d been their bread and butter and provided enough stories to pay off the mortgage on at least one reasonably-sized family home. As a result, there were members of the tabloid press inclined to hang around outside the gates of Zac’s estate and to poke their telescopic lenses through any gaps in the hedgerow that provided the slightest opportunity. One such lowlife would be paying for his summer holiday on the strength of the pictures he’d taken of Zac holding Ashleigh in his arms in front of the chapel in the estate’s grounds. It served to fuel the rumours about Zac building on his budding New Year’s romance with a little known celebrity photographer, who was surely set to become fiancée number eight.

  Accustomed as they were to the tabloid’s tenuous relationship with the truth, the three of them decided to ignore it. They’d got into a routine, not unlike Ashleigh and Stevie’s old student lifestyle, of staying up late, drinking and putting the world to rights, getting up just in time to catch the start of Morning Sunrise.

  The usual presenters were all either on holiday or covering high profile stories for their other presenting roles. As a result, Dominic Hargreaves, former boy-band front man, turned wannabe presenter, had been given his big break, alongside, of all people, Susie-Anne. Her recent high profile, and the historical pattern of weather-girl-turned-daytime-TV-presenter made her a natural choice for a trial shot on the show – which was no doubt a dream come true for her.

  ‘O.M.G… Shall I turn it off?’ Stevie couldn’t have looked more horrified if they’d given the job to a serial killer.

  ‘Christ yes!’ Zac had his head in his hands, the shock of seeing Susie-Anne on screen apparently making his head too heavy to hold up without support. ‘Her voice is grating on me already.’

  ‘Hold on, don’t switch off yet!’ Ashleigh grabbed the remote and turned up the sound, making Zac wince more than ever. ‘Look, they’re talking about us!’ Susie-Anne and Dominic were chatting to the presenter of ‘The Viewer’s Voice’, and the topic of the day’s phone in was serial engagements, with Zac and Ashleigh the celebrity case study.

  ‘Isn’t that the girl who was going out with Tom Rushworth until recently?’ Dominic turned to Susie-Anne with a smug, you-ought-to-know, sort of smile.

  ‘Yes, and I’m glad she’s moved on, just as we all have.’ Susie-Anne smoothed down the material of her dress over her neat, almost non-existent bump. ‘With the baby coming we want to concentrate on the future rather than the past. I just hope that Zac really means it this time.’ Her saccharine tone might convince people that she really c
ared, unless you actually knew her of course. She’d conveniently forgotten that everyone who’d read a tabloid paper, or who followed her on Twitter, knew that Tom wasn’t the father.

  ‘Yes, you’re right, let’s hope Zac’s serious this time. Although what an average-looking wedding photographer has that a string of models don’t, I’m not sure.’ Dominic gave a wry, man-of-the-people type smile and pointed at the camera, directly to his audience at home. ‘Just saying what you’re all thinking!’

  ‘Okay, enough already.’ Stevie grabbed the remote back from Ashleigh and flicked off the TV.

  ‘I think I might go back to bed.’ Leaving the sofa without another word, Ashleigh beat a now familiar path up the stairs to the guest room. There were no tears anymore; she just curled up on her bed, staring at the ceiling wondering what the hell she could do to ever get away from all this. There was one solution, but it meant leaving her best friend, just like she’d left Tom.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Exhaustion washed over Tom. If the old adage were true, that being tired of London meant you were tired of life, then he was more than ready to curl up in a corner and hibernate until summer.

  ‘There are some press cuttings here that need your attention.’ Francine entered his office without knocking, her cloying perfume reaching him before she did. If anything, he’d been colder to her than ever since his mother’s funeral, but Ashleigh’s disappearance seemed to have given her renewed hope. She was wearing bright red lipstick and had the look of Joan Crawford about her, hard and scarily ambitious.

  ‘Thanks.’ He couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm for work and even less so for his humourless PA.

  ‘There’s some urgent stuff amongst it, most notably about Zac and Ashleigh. Seems she’s as much of a bed hopper as he is!’ Francine raised an arched eyebrow, as his hands clenched the edge of the desk – his knuckles turning white.

  ‘She’s nothing like Zac and I don’t ever want to hear you spreading that sort of gossip.’

  ‘I can’t understand why you’re still defending her. She left you at your mother’s funeral, I think that says all you need to know about the girl.’ Francine knew nothing about the situation, had no idea how hard Ashleigh had wrestled with the decision; but Tom did.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it, least of all to you. But I meant what I said and I don’t want to hear you talking about Ashleigh again.’ He was tempted to tell her to get out, but he had to work with her and Susie-Anne, had to pretend the things that had driven him for the past ten years still mattered. Didn’t he?

  ****

  Ashleigh opened the email for what was probably the hundredth time since it had arrived in her inbox, the words “at least a year” swimming in front of her eyes. Six months earlier the offer contained in the short and to the point message would have been a dream come true, now it felt like her only option, but, if she took it, would she just be running away?

  ‘Not bad news, is it?’ Zac was suddenly behind her. He might play the eccentric rock star, but he didn’t miss a trick. He must have noticed the logo of the hotel emblazoned across the email and everyone had heard of The Golden Rock in Las Vegas.

  ‘No, just a job offer.’ She hadn’t planned to tell Zac or Stevie. For once in her life she wanted to make a decision without seeking someone else’s approval, break the mould, but it was such a huge thing it was almost a relief that Zac had caught her out.

  ‘Please tell me that you’re not thinking of taking a job as the official photographer in the hotel foyer? The Golden Rock might be fantastically OTT and the sort of place that Stevie would love, but you can do way better than that.’ Zac was unusually serious and, to her surprise, Ashleigh had to supress a smile. At least things hadn’t got that bad.

  ‘No, not quite. The email’s from Calvin Welch, I don’t think he bothers appointing those sort of staff.’

  ‘Calvin! Wow, if he’s been in touch then it must be a serious job offer. He contacts me every so often to see if I fancy a stint in residence, but I’m not that old yet.’ He grinned and pulled up the chair next to her, craning to try and read the email on her iPad. ‘Apparently he’d been a fan from the days when I was still in my first band and Tom told me at the time that I should be flattered Calvin got in touch direct, normally everything comes through his assistants.’ Zac clamped a hand over his mouth. ‘Sorry, I forgot we weren’t mentioning he-who-can’t-be-named.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ She shrugged, they’d talked the situation to death, there was really nothing else to say. ‘That’s how Calvin found me. He said in the email he looked me up after he saw the shots of your album cover and tracked down my blog. I’ve been posting a few photos I took in London, which he loves.’ Ashleigh swallowed hard, Calvin saying that had been the best news she’d had in a long time. She’d never told anyone but Stevie about her hopes for those photos, but Zac was a massive part of his life now and, by default, of hers. ‘I’ve been working on some photos of life on the streets, from city bankers and shopaholics on Regent Street, to those who have no homes to go to. I’ve always had this stupid dream about doing a book, seeing it on display in a shop window.’

  ‘It’s not stupid.’ Zac put a hand over hers. ‘You’re brilliant at what you do. It’s about time you start to realise that. So what does Calvin want you for?’

  ‘He’s made me two offers. He wants me to photograph the shows, the VIPs, guests and the celebrity performers, to help the hotel keep its number one spot on the strip. In return he’ll give me my own exhibition, Vegas in Black and White, which he’ll put through his publishing company – so I’ll finally get that book.’ It still didn’t seem real. She’d always imagined the euphoria she’d feel at that sort of offer – instead she just felt numb because of the price tag it came with.

  ‘A man with a finger in many pies, that one.’ Zac squeezed her hand. ‘It’s an amazing offer, especially to come from the man himself.’

  ‘It is but it’s a long way from you and Stevie and…’ She didn’t finish. There was no ‘and’ anymore, but it was still there – in her heart.

  ‘We’d miss you, but it wouldn’t be forever and maybe it would do you good.’ Zac squeezed her hand again. The old Ashleigh might have worried he was just trying to get rid of her, so he could have Stevie to himself, but she knew it wasn’t that. ‘Who knows, you might meet someone with more balls than Tom, balls enough to love you.’

  ‘That many balls? I’m not sure I could handle it. I’m off relationships for good.’ Ashleigh managed a wry smile. ‘So, if Calvin Welch is after a fling in return for his offer, he’s barking up the wrong tree.’

  ‘I think you’re quite safe on that front. He’s happily married,’ Zac paused for a moment, that trade mark grin back in place, ‘to his fifth wife and, at twenty-nine, you’re too old to become number six. I think the current one is four years younger than you!’

  ‘Listen to you, Mr seven fiancées!’ She nudged him in the ribs.

  ‘I know, I know, but now I’ve found my Mr Right and I just want you to be happy too.’

  ‘Do you think I should take the job?’ Even as she said the words, her hand shook. ‘The contract, to get the exhibition and the book deal in return, is for a minimum of a year.’

  ‘Stevie will freak…’ He paused again and nodded. ‘But this isn’t about him or me or what we’d want you to do. If this really is one of your dreams, then I think you’ve got to grab it with both hands. How many people have one of those come true?’

  ‘Not many.’ Hitting the reply button before she changed her mind, she started to type.

  ****

  ‘I would say I don’t think much of your PA, but she’s a marked improvement on the last one.’ Angus bent down to pat Bertie, who lifted his head in a half-hearted way and then took up his default position, flat out underneath Tom’s desk. ‘Although he’s about as pleased to see me as Francine always wa
s.’

  ‘He’s been like that…’ Tom caught himself, he didn’t want to talk about Ashleigh. That was over. ‘Since mum died.’ He changed the subject, although it led back to her in one way or another these days. ‘Is there anything in the press I need to know about?’ He didn’t elaborate, Angus would know exactly what he meant.

  ‘No. It’s all quiet on the Francine-front. Susie-Anne has put something on her website about new representation, but it seems they’re all sticking to the rules. Obviously I got your message, but do you want to tell me exactly what happened?’

  ‘It wasn’t my finest morning.’ For a second he almost smiled. He didn’t regret any of it, but it was still hard to explain how it had all come about. ‘Something snapped when Susie-Anne turned up with that idiot Dominic Hargreaves in tow, she’d brought him into the offices to see if I’d represent him.’ He didn’t mention that he’d heard, an hour before Susie-Anne’s arrival, that Ashleigh had left for Las Vegas and his mood had been less than charitable as a result. He’d seen the clip of Morning Sunrise with Susie-Anne’s inference that Tom was somehow still part of her life, as well as Dominic’s comments on Ashleigh. They were both idiots. It was like a light bulb had been switched on when he watched it and he knew there was no way he could stand to be associated with her anymore, not even in a professional sense.

  ‘How did you get her to go quietly? She’s not exactly known for taking rejection lying down.’ Angus laughed. ‘Although maybe I should rephrase that!’

  ‘I told her if she didn’t make a fuss, I’d arrange for Toby Goldstein to sign her and her latest lap dog, Dominic, to his new agency.’ It had been like a weight had lifted from his shoulders. ‘Do you remember Toby? He used to work for me, but he moved on to set up his own agency last year. Even though he’d represented some of our major clients, they all decided to stay with me after he left. So he was more than happy to sign the two of them up and I couldn’t wait to get shot of her. I got Francine to sort out all the paperwork before she left.’