Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ilove spending long, lazy days with Josh, soaking up the sunlight through our huge Belgravia windows. I’m staring out at the city on this bright November morning, my stomach still fluttering in disbelief as he relaxes beside me.
There are so many exciting thoughts whizzing around my head, the memory of Vinnie Hampton’s lion statue still fresh in my mind.
The world looks different now in the aftermath.
So many different people, living so many different lives.
I spent so long terrified of the crowds out there, feeling like the victim of a witch hunt, afraid to be myself.
But I am myself. I’m more myself than I’ve ever been, free of the shackles of poverty, and the drain of Connor dragging me down for years on end. Even before I knew it.
“You’re doing the lip thing,” Josh says, squeezing my knee. “What’s on your mind, baby? Still buzzing over Vinnie?”
I laugh, and do a claw motion with both hands.
“I don’t think I’ll ever stop buzzing over Vinnie,” I tell him. “That kind of amazing is crazy amazing.” I take a moment to appreciate another round of butterflies. “Nope. It’s not going anywhere. I think I’ll be buzzing over Vinnie Hampton for the rest of my days.”
“Not surprised. There aren’t many entertainers who’d get a taste of that guy’s cum. I’m lucky to have got a second-hand sample.”
Josh looks at me with adoration and ease. No possessiveness, or insecurity. No shame in what we do.
I didn’t think I had any shame, either. I never thought there was any shame in being an entertainer, right from day one, but it’s not what I thought of the world of proposals that was at the crux of it.
It’s what other people might be thinking of me that put the shame and the fear into my heart.
Feeling judged and on trial, even when I wasn’t realising it.
I owe Vinnie a helluva big thanks for bringing the truth to my attention.
I look back out over the cityscape, wondering again who is out there, and how many people know me. How many people know my name?
I’ve been so petrified of being recognised, but it wasn’t about me. It was about dragging everyone else into that recognition with me. Josh, my parents, Tiff, Eb… Heath. But they all know what I do, and they all love me anyway.
I need to start loving myself like they do. Ella, not just Holly the whore, in the confines and safety of The Agency.
Go me on the self-coaching!
“I miss Heath,” I say aloud, and Josh squeezes my knee again.
“I know, baby. Me, too. Just a few more days to go now. I can’t wait to get my arms around him.” He smirks. “And my cock inside him.”
I turn to my boyfriend, running my fingers through his freshly washed hair.
“We need to work out this return to normal stuff before we see him. If we aren’t clear on what we want, then how can he be?”
Josh shifts at my words, sitting upright.
“What does return to normal mean to you, Ells?”
“I don’t know.” I feel myself doing the lip thing again. “I guess I thought I did. Just carrying on like we were, proposals fenced off, having the time of our lives when we were with him, and keeping him shielded from it when we weren’t. But is that what we really want? Any of us?”
Josh’s eyes dig into mine.
“Is it what you really want?”
I pause, picturing the beloved Heath as my heart pangs.
“Urgh, it’s so hard. Just imagine he was here with us now, yeah? It could be like it was in Cannes anywhere. It would be like that right here, in Belgravia. The location doesn’t matter shit, it would still be the same. It would still be amazing.”
“Yeah, it would be.”
“So, isn’t that more normal than the proposals we had before? Isn’t the new stuff more normal than the old? The months apart were terrible. More of that doesn’t even bear thinking about.”
Josh doesn’t speak. He stares out of the window along with me, both of us sitting in silence as our minds ponder.
“I’d love Heath here with us now,” he says finally.
“I think all three of us would. But Heath is still a client. He’s User 1543, a regular on The Agency booking system.
He pays us for proposals, just like everyone else, and it started that way because he wanted it that way.
” He sighs. “The lines can get blurred so easily. It’s hard to see the wood for the trees. ”
“The lines are already blurred, and the woods are packed with so many trees I can’t even think straight. The lines were blurred the very moment we got on that plane for Cannes.”
I lean my head against Josh’s. I let out a groan.
He traces his fingers in patterns around my knee.
“The lines were blurred way before that for me, but Heath is an introvert. His career is very important to him. So is his elusive reputation. A man of mystery.”
“Not important enough that he didn’t want to see us when things were turning to shit. He was so fucked off with us for keeping him out.”
“So fucked off with me. You had nothing to do with it.”
“That isn’t a normal client. He will never be a normal client.
” I turn to my boyfriend. “What if normal is meant to be more than that? Would Heath be so ashamed of being associated with the pair of us that he wouldn’t be able to cope?
I’m not so sure he’s as elusive as you think. Not when it comes to us.”
Josh smiles, raising his eyebrows.
“Vinnie’s got into your head, well and truly. Heath is a very different character. He’s not about shock rock and parading like a hot freak onstage. He works on a TV show and lives like a recluse outside of it.”
“I know.”
“We need to keep him safe, Ells. We need to keep us safe, too. Our careers safe. His career safe. There is so much at stake and so much to lose.”
Josh’s walls are up high, and I adore how protective he is, even though I know he’s feeling the same pull for more as I am. But what if those walls came down hard, for all three of us? What if there was a whole new life waiting on the other side?
“There goes the lip thing again,” Josh says, tapping my bottom lip playfully. “Listen up. When we last saw Heathy baby, we agreed we would all think about things. Your answer doesn’t need to be the same as mine. Your reasoning doesn’t have to match up.”
“We’re partners, though,” I say. “It’s a united front.”
“We’ll always be a united front on the road together.
Whether we agree on specific factors or not, it makes no odds.
” He plants a gentle kiss on my lips. “Stop putting other people before yourself all the time. Stop doubting your own beliefs and sacrificing your truth to live up to other people’s ideals.
You’re far too beautiful a soul to clip your own wings. ”
I smile. “You sound like Vinnie now. Poetic and philosophical.”
“Ha. Not with a microphone in my hand, I wouldn’t.”
“I dunno. You sounded alright in our late night singsong.”
He laughs, his awesome smile at full beam.
“I’m hardly rock god material. Or TV star material for that matter. I’d make a shit vampire if I was in Heath’s shoes.”
At Josh’s words the theme song of Nighttime Whispers comes into my head. It pangs bad.
I look back out of the window, wondering if our Heathy baby is out there.
I know the direction of his place, far in the distance.
I wonder if he’s home right now. It would be so easy to get a cab over and knock at his door.
But my heart toughens up at that thought.
The Agency rules are there for a reason.
I don’t want to jeopardise them. Not for Heath, and not for us, either.
Damn it. I’m churning, stewing, driving myself mad with what ifs.
“Ells, listen to me,” Josh says. “We can talk things through for the next three days straight if that’s what you want, I’ll always be here to listen, but your values and wants and needs and fears all belong to you.
You need to be true to you. Not to me. Not to my logic or reason or experience. To you.”
Something about that sentiment feels alien. Putting me first, as me. Ella. Without giving first place away to my notions of what I should do for the sake of other people.
I’d lay down my life for Josh, or my parents, or Heath. I’d walk through fire to keep Tiff and Eb safe. But I’m someone I need to be willing to walk through fire for, too. I have to be Ella. For me.
And I need to be proud of it.
Fuck it. The onion layers go far deeper than I ever gave credit to.
I snuggle against my boyfriend, thankful for the sanctity of his love.
He isn’t out to control me, or influence me, or manipulate me into doing his bidding.
Not even when the subject directly concerns him.
I wrap an arm around his strong shoulders and whisper I love you, banishing all other thoughts from my mind.
“I love you too, baby. For ever and always,” he says.
It’s a quiet few days for us on the proposals front, but my mind is churning away in the background.
I have video calls with my parents, who always gush with relief whenever they see the smile back on my face.
Josh and I meet up with Tiff and cackle over a bottle of Prosecco while she moans about Christmas tunes coming so early.
“They should set up a compensation fund,” she says. “I want a quid for every single time I have to listen to Mariah. I’d make more in a month than on a fucking proposal.”
I wish I could tell her about Vinnie, and Heath, and everything we’ve got going on behind the scenes, but I don’t do it.
I don’t break the confidentiality, even though it stinks.
I could scream from the rooftops about how amazing my night with a rockstar was, and how loved up both me and Josh are about heartthrob Heath, and I’d love her input as to what she thinks back to normal would look like for us going forward.
Christmas is coming, and all I want for Christmas is… Josh and Heath. Together. With me.
There is another thing I keep behind the scenes from Tiffany, too. Another piece of news that came from the sidelines, unexpected.
Josh’s sister, Carly, is pregnant.
She revealed the news to us last night over dinner, and she was so happy. So crazy happy that it made me cry.
Josh is going to be an uncle, and I’m going to be kind of an aunt. And who knows what that kind of baby exposure will lead to?
Will I want to be a mum myself, and watch Josh blossom into being a dad?
One day, yeah, for sure. Me and Josh, for ever. But what about Heath? What about clients?
What if, what if, what if?
My mind cycles so fast, I even try out Josh’s meditation cushion to get some clear thoughts, but it makes no odds. I’m still a mash of emotions with no release valve.
By the time the morning of the proposal comes around, I legit have jittery fingers, I’m such a fidget. I eat breakfast with Josh and try to play it down, but he clocks it in a heartbeat. He takes my hand and stills my shakes as he passes me the tomato ketchup for my bacon sandwich.
“It’s gonna be ok,” he tells me. “Whatever happens tonight, baby, it’ll be ok. Heath isn’t going away, no matter what normal looks like. Any kind of normal for us has him in it.”
It always will. That’s what I want him to add. But he doesn’t.
There have been more pictures of Heath online with the real-life Polly Anna in the show, with speculation they are more than coworkers outside of it.
I’m pretty sure it’s click bait bullshit, but I can’t help but wonder how I’d feel if it wasn’t.
If Heath settled down, in love with someone else and waved goodbye to being a client for good.
I wonder how Josh would feel. How it would wrack his insides with loss whenever he thought back to the love we shared.
Yet more what fucking ifs to be stewing over.
I’d be happy for Heath, no matter what his road looked like, but I’d be so fucking sad for us.
“I still don’t know what the hell normal means, I really don’t,” I say to Josh as I pull up my stockings, ready to get going.
No pale blue hoodie for me this evening.
“I’ve been thinking it through from every angle there could be, and I still have no bloody idea.
” I sigh in frustration. “I just wish I had a clear head about it. A definite plan. Some common sense or inner wisdom or divine guidance from the heavens above.”
I watch Josh put his jacket on, wondering how he’s feeling on the inside. I get the tiniest glimpse of nerves in his eyes, despite his confident smile.
“We’ll work it out, all three of us,” my boyfriend says. “Three heads are better than one.”
“Are you bringing your laptop so we can draw up a PowerPoint presentation?”
He kisses my forehead.
“I’ll save that for meetup number three, if we can’t get our shit together. We can all have a go with the talking spoon on session two.”
“Get a mediator in, if it comes to it.”
“How about Vinnie Hampton, the soul mentor? He should do the trick.”
We both laugh together, tension easing.
“Fuck all the brain churning bullshit, I can’t wait to see Heathy baby,” I say to Josh. “Vinnie Hampton is amazing, but Heath is better than amazing. He’s amazing in a whole other league.”
“And it’s time to go see Mr Amazing, luckily,” Josh replies. “Hopefully we can get some amazing ideas on the table between us and get this new kind of normal started, whatever it looks like. It’s long overdue.”
Yes. It is.
I may be a big bag of jitters when the cab arrives, but my heart is soaring when we pull away from Belgravia.
One night with Heath is worth more than a million words, so a whole new normal with him…
That would be worth anything.