CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
I dropped down on to one of the benches they had out here and shook my head. ‘Nah, you go for it.’
Jessy looked out across the city, all glittering lights and sirens, and sat beside me. I had kind of hoped she’d be the one to say something, but no. She just … sat there. Next to me. Her hip pressed up against mine, her bare thighs just inches from my hand.
Inches from my hand.
Don’t do it, Patrick. Don’t be that guy. She said kissing you was a mistake.
A mistake that I wanted to repeat again, badly.
Do it. Touch her. The adrenaline shit was an excuse. She wants you. You’ve seen the heat behind her eyes, whenever you pull her in close.
‘You’ve changed. You know?’ Her soft voice drew me out of my rampant thoughts.
I turned to her and froze. Jessy was looking at me like … like she’d never looked at me before.
The gold body glitter shimmered in the low evening light and her eyes sparkled, but there was a directness and intelligence there that was painfully disarming.
As though she was picking me apart.
‘Changed? How?’ Hopefully for the better.
Jessy nodded, pushing her hair back behind her ears. ‘Yeah, different. I mean, when you took me to that fancy restaurant for that first date –’
I winced at the memory.
‘– you were so … so closed off. So absent, I mean. Not really there.’
I swallowed.
It had been deliberate. The distance. I had still been furious with Derek and the label for the whole fake relationship idea, and I’d wanted nothing more than to push Jessy away. Perhaps if she’d found my behaviour off-putting enough, she would have pulled the plug on the whole thing.
As I sat with her now, I was glad she hadn’t.
‘But when we went abseiling –’
I grinned. ‘Ahh, the abseiling you hated every second of.’ I let out a chuckle so she knew I was only teasing.
‘I – I did not hate it!’ Jessy protested, though there was a twinkle in her eyes that told a different story.
My smile widened. ‘You absolutely hated it – but you did it. Twice!’
‘You were a great encouragement.’
That should not have made me feel as warm and fuzzy as it did.
‘So, what’s the deal?’
I blinked. Jessy was looking at me expectantly, twisted on the bench now so she could look at me straight on.
I let my eyes trace her face. Her eyes, her cute button nose – and I couldn’t help but glance at those rosy lips of hers. ‘Deal?’ I questioned, voice softer than I could imagine.
‘Yeah. With you.’
With just us out here, alone on the Forty Six’s balcony, the balmy evening had a magical feel to it. Like we were cocooned in our own little world.
Jessy’s smile was that knowing one again. ‘Patrick Tetlow, reformed player and bad boy of music, the dark and mysterious singer of These Exiles –’
I laughed at that. ‘Fuck off.’
‘Well, you know what I mean!’ Jessy nudged me with her shoulder, and I tried not to notice how good it felt, to be in contact with her again, even for a brief moment. ‘What gives, Patrick?’
My laughter faded as I looked up at her open and unguarded querying expression.
What gives.
So much. Not enough.
Any other situation, any other person, I would have shut down this line of conversation and merely laughed it off.
But the alcohol was still gently buzzing in my skull, and there was something even more intoxicating about this woman.
Jessy. Jessy Donovan.
I knew almost nothing about her, I realized with a twist in my gut. She worked in finance. She had a twin whose dating app she was trying to promote. She hated heights.
How could I be dating this woman – fake dating, I reminded myself sternly – and know so little about her?
Probably because she knew fuck all about me.
I knew then that if this was going to stay tolerable – hell, stay enjoyable, something I had not allowed myself to even think until now – Jessy needed to know something about me.
Not everything.
But something.
‘I’m … I’m …’
Jessy waited for me with bright, curious eyes – a curiosity that only heightened my nerves.
‘The distance is to protect myself.’
‘What?’ Jessy blinked, as though she hadn’t expected my answer.
I explained. ‘I … I’m not interested in all this fame.
Maybe once upon a time, when I was younger.
Before I really knew how much of myself I’d have to give up.
But not any more.’ It was the truest thing I’d said to her, probably, since we’d begun this sham, and I’d expected it to sting to be so open.
But it felt right. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love making music with the boys.
They’re the only thing that keeps me going, honestly.
And I never want to get in the way of their success, so I’ve learnt to just hold back – it’s so much easier that way. Does that make sense?’
I wasn’t sure it made sense to me. God only knew what Jessy made of it.
‘Yeah.’ Jessy nodded, her smile still tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Was she laughing at me? Or did she get it?
Part of me didn’t care. Here was someone, finally, who I actually wanted to talk to about this stuff. Who wanted to know more about the real me.
‘The music,’ I started slowly. ‘That was why we – Wes, Ben, Matt, I mean – it’s what we loved. Love.’
Jessy just … sat there. Looking at me. Listening.
When was the last time someone had completely listened to me?
‘When I’m writing lyrics, when I can see how the chords will come together – it’s like … like the most satisfying, incredible thing.’ I grinned awkwardly. ‘It’s kind of like sex.’
Jessy raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Like – like two people absolutely knowing what the other person wants. What they need. When a song comes together in the studio, I can feel it moving through me, like …’ I scrabbled about for a word. ‘Like the world inside me is finally out there in the world. For others to see.’
At some point, Jessy had taken my hand in hers. When had she done that?
‘I know it sounds dramatic –’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ A smile flickered across her face. ‘It’s probably the most real thing you’ve ever said. To me, I mean.’
I felt vulnerable, sitting here on a bench in the dark, pouring out my heart.
But it also felt right.
‘It was supposed to be about the music, not – not the number of followers we had on socials, or whether or not Musica Italia would put us on the cover,’ I said, my own smile returning as I spoke.
‘It was never meant to be about our childhood friends selling stories to the papers –’ or, if it came to it, my mother – ‘or ex-girlfriends trying to use our dating history to land a reality-TV job.’
Jessy winced. ‘Yeah, I remember reading about that.’
Of course she did. Everyone had.
But I couldn’t blame her for it. Hell, sometimes even I couldn’t avoid seeing my own face online, and I’d gone to all the effort of blocking my name from searches.
I glanced down at my hand. Jessy’s hand.
In the dark, I could barely tell. ‘It all happened so quickly. Fame, I mean. It took me a while to realize no one really wanted to talk to me. They didn’t care what I was about to say, just that I’d said it, and to them – like they were in some sort of fucking inner circle. ’
‘Sounds lonely.’
I blinked. Jessy was staring at me with sympathy – not pity for the poor famous guy who just had it so tough, but for a person who had spent the last four years holding themselves at a distance from the rest of the world.
I never thought anyone would get it. Get me.
‘It is,’ I said simply.
Silence fell between us, but it wasn’t the awkward or uncomfortable silences we’d so often shared before. It was … different. Warm. Comforting. Like a hot tub I’d slowly lowered myself into. You didn’t need to move to feel the benefit of the warmth, it just … was.
‘So that’s why you’re so guarded,’ Jessy said, a teasing lilt in her voice.
The track changed inside and whoops went up to herald the new song. The noise echoed out here on the balcony.
And I just stared at the woman now tangling and detangling her fingers with mine. ‘You believe me?’
‘Yeah.’ Jessy shrugged, as though she hadn’t just said something incredible. ‘Who doesn’t want to be believed?’
It was hard to take it in.
This was a woman who knew about These Exiles – who on the planet didn’t? – but she didn’t seem to care. Sure, Jessy was a fan of the band, but it was like she wasn’t affected by me at all. In a good way.
She hadn’t asked to do any social media collabs, or take selfies together, or any of the stuff Celine had wanted. In fact, I hadn’t seen her tag me in anything online. Had she even posted anything since this whole fake dating thing had started?
A quiet discomfort shifted through me. Everyone was out for something – that was something I’d had to learn, thanks to Cassie.
What did Jessy want?
I pushed the thought away. She’d shown me, more than once, that she wasn’t here for my fame. In fact, if it wasn’t for Butterflies and Jessy loving her sister dearly, I wasn’t sure she would ever have agreed to it.
‘It’s … it’s so weird talking to you about this,’ I said, breathing a laugh into the silence. I hadn’t let my walls down around anyone, other than the boys, in … I couldn’t even remember how long. ‘Talking to you is just so easy.’
Above us, the moon had come out from behind a cloud, and I gazed at Jessy now bathed in moonlight. Her skin was like a beacon, calling to me on the deepest, basest level. The music from inside faded into the background as the space between us narrowed.
Before I realized it, I had leaned forward to capture her warm lips. The kiss was softer, gentler, than the last. And she did not pull away.
Fuck, she tasted wonderful, and when my hand somehow found the nape of her neck to keep her close, she didn’t fight me.
My whole body stiffened and then sagged as she broke the kiss. She pressed her lips together as though she was about to say something, but then thought better of it.
A second later Jessy rose from the bench and stuck out a hand. ‘Come on. Let’s go back inside, I need to get the girls back to my hotel.’
Her gaze didn’t quite meet mine.
Was she seriously going to ignore us kissing … again?