CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FIFTEEN
Because when we discover the truth, it’ll be sweeter than my favourite blend of coffee in your cup …
– from ‘Grapefruit Sweet, Grapefruit Sour’, by These Exiles
‘AND WHO EXACTLY IS going to be there?’
Did I sound nervous? I definitely didn’t want to sound nervous, but Jessy squeezed my hand as we walked along the pavement as though she knew I was.
‘Not that many people,’ Jessy said brightly as she wove the two of us through a gaggle of tourists attempting to take a photo of the entrance to Chinatown. ‘Just friends. Family, really.’
Friends. Family.
I swallowed. I only had a few of the former, and none of the latter. Not really.
Since Celine … well, it had always been easier not to trust new people.
The reminder that I hadn’t messaged Wes, Ben or Matt in days made the knots in my stomach twist even tighter. I really should check in on them – but any moment that I was on my phone was spent messaging Jessy.
And any moment that I wasn’t messaging Jessy was because I was with her.
The familiar sensation of her hand tightening around mine made me smile, and as I looked to my left, it was to see Jessy smiling too. ‘Seriously, Patrick. It’ll be fine. You don’t have to be nervous.’
I nodded, trying my best to relax my body.
It felt so natural now, walking about hand in hand, that I’d almost forgotten we were doing it. I tried not to think about how right it felt. Tried not to memorize the curl of her thumb, the warmth of her skin.
Add it to the long list of things I was trying not to think about. Like how her breath hitched whenever I leaned in to kiss her. Or how badly I wanted to make it past that, even if she was the hottest kiss of my life.
I tried to remind myself that sleeping with a woman I was contractually obliged to date had not gone well for me, historically … but there was a voice in the back of my mind that told me Jessy was different. That things with her would be different.
‘Here – I think it’s down here.’ Jessy’s voice interrupted my swirling thoughts. She peered down a lane that was barely a street. ‘I think?’
‘Who picked this place?’ I raised an eyebrow.
‘Oh, Anna always chooses where she wants to go for her birthday,’ said Jessy, laughter bubbling up. ‘So, it’s you, me, Laura, Anna and Anna’s two housemates. Don’t worry, she’s declared her birthday a phone-free zone, so there won’t be any photos. Just a small dinner.’
My shoulders relaxed. ‘OK.’ That felt less nerve-racking.
‘Not that it won’t be rowdy,’ Jessy added, grinning at me. ‘This is Anna, after all.’
I felt honoured, in a weird sort of way.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had invited me to their birthday dinner.
The only close friends I’d kept post-fame – and the only people I really trusted – were my bandmates, and we weren’t the type to be going out for fancy dinners. We got takeaway and watched trashy TV.
So here I was, going out with Jessy for something that wasn’t a contracted date, and it felt … good.
‘I can’t remember the last time I was down here,’ Jessy was saying. ‘Here it is! Oh God …’
I peered through the window. The dim sum place looked good – or rather, the sign was broken and there was a pane of glass cardboarded up, which meant that the food had to be incredible.
It was a general rule I subscribed to – the worse a restaurant looked on the outside, the better the food would be on the inside.
Sitting there in the window was a table of people laughing.
Laura, looking nicely done up and without her glasses again, two guys, neither of whom I recognized, so they must have been the housemates, and Anna, who was wearing a flashing light-up headband that screamed BIRTHDAY GIRL in neon pink over her voluminous ’fro. She was quite the sight.
Jessy snorted as she pushed open the door. ‘Classic Anna …’
The restaurant, if you could call it a restaurant – it almost felt like someone’s living room – was small and dark, but it smelled amazing, all dumplings and buns and noodles.
The instant I stepped into the place, a cheer went up, and the hackles on the back of my neck rose. I did not want to be spotted, I did not want to be papped and interviewed, and –
‘Jessy!’
‘Jessy, you’re here!’
‘Thank fuck – Jessy, can you get her to take that awful headband off?’
Oh. That was humbling.
Jessy was laughing. ‘It really is ridiculous, Anna –’
‘I want everyone to know it’s my birthday.’ The birthday girl in question sniffed. Now she’d twisted around to greet us, I could see Anna was wearing a bright pink top with rhinestones that spelled out BIRTHDAY GIRL too.
‘That’s what I told her,’ one of the guys was saying loudly. ‘I told her – without the headband, who would know?’ Sarcasm laced his voice.
I snorted and he looked up at me with a grin. His smile quickly morphed into one of recognition and I knew what was coming next.
‘Hey, you’re –’
‘Yeah,’ I said automatically.
I usually saved a lot of time that way.
The other guy sitting next to him looked between us as his friend continued. ‘I’m –’
‘No one cares who you are,’ Anna quipped, her face flushed and her bright blue mascara making her dark brown eyes sparkle. ‘Come on, you two, sit down, we were waiting for you to order.’
It wasn’t exactly panic roaring through me, but it sure as hell felt close.
This … this wasn’t my world. Ridiculous as it sounded, this wasn’t my sort of Saturday night. I spent Saturday nights playing to sold out locations when on tour, and eating terrible oven pizza in my flat when not. I didn’t – I never – I couldn’t –
Jessy squeezed my hand. ‘Come on.’
There was a seat, maybe a seat and a half, of space on a bench on one side of the table. Jessy pulled the two of us into it, leaving us pressed tightly together in a way that woke up parts of my body that should definitely not have been – not in public at least.
Anna was on my other side. She leaned forward, asking in a stage whisper that probably carried all the way through Chinatown, ‘So have you two fucked yet?’
Jessy’s face could have fried an egg. ‘Anna, what the hell!’
Seeing her discomfort made my own bearable.
Wait – why had Anna asked that? Just how much of this fake relationship was Jessy sharing with her mates?
My gaze flickered over to Jessy. She was still pressed up against me in the most delicious way, and I opened my mouth before I could censor myself. ‘Have you –’
‘Ah, food!’ Laura yelled and pointed to the waiter approaching our table.
‘I thought you said that you were waiting for us?’ Jessy said darkly, reaching forward and moving her glass so that the waiter could squeeze in another plate.
Anna shrugged. ‘Toby and Cas must have ordered before we got here.’
‘We are starving,’ one of them grumbled. ‘And we got here early. Besides, you always take ages to order.’
As conversation erupted around us, Jessy grabbed the waiter and requested a few dishes that were obviously favourites.
Thankfully no one seemed to need much input from me.
Laura was teasing Anna about something relating to a particular brand of strawberry lube, a story I wasn’t sure I wanted to know more about, and Toby and Cas – whose full name I’d learnt was Casimir – were laughing along.
‘I did never find that tube again,’ Cas said with a sly grin aimed at Anna.
I watched as her cheeks went a darker red. Yeah, there was definitely something going on there.
‘It was not my fault,’ the birthday girl protested, headband still flashing.
‘You already knew you were allergic to strawberries,’ Jessy pointed out, using her chopsticks to grab a few dumplings. She placed two on my plate, and two on hers. ‘Remember that time what’s-his-face, Yang –’
The entire tabled groaned or giggled.
‘I do not want to talk about Yang,’ Anna said firmly.
‘You said he could eat strawberries off your –’
‘I said I don’t want to talk about it!’
‘The point is,’ Jessy said with a grin, nudging me with her shoulder as she laughed, ‘the A and E nurse was super understanding, and my girl Anna here promised me that she would never touch strawberries again!’
‘But I did,’ Anna said with wry smile. ‘And I probably will again. Honestly, there’s something about an allergic reaction tingle –’
The table collapsed into giggles and calls for her to shut up.
I smiled.
This was beyond odd. Being part of a group like this.
I couldn’t remember the last time I had hung out with people outside of the industry. As we gorged on dumplings, and chatter – interspersed with laughter – rang out around me, a strange sort of realization hit me.
I’m a celebrity.
I was a celebrity. Everything about this dinner felt strange because I was so used to being the centre of attention. Forced to be funny and charming, making sure my good side was camera-forward, smiling at every inane comment …
None of that was me, and yet it had been my life for so long that I’d almost forgotten how much I hated it.
Or how nice this was.
‘– and that is exactly why I will never hire you to be my lawyer,’ Toby said with a snort. He picked up his glass before turning to me. ‘So what do you do, Patrick?’
The table fell silent. Jessy paused with chopsticks full of spring roll halfway to her mouth. Anna snorted into her drink, gasping as she put it down, and wiped her mouth. Laura’s lips had parted in silent shock.
Wait, is he being serious?
Toby looked around the table, as though mystified as to why everyone had halted their conversations. ‘What? Can’t a guy ask a question?’
I blinked. He was serious.
Of course he was. There were people who didn’t listen to These Exiles. Who didn’t know who I was, even if they recognized my face off a screen. I knew that. I just hadn’t encountered one in … in a while.
‘He’s in the music business.’
I turned my head to look at Jessy just as she popped her spring roll into her mouth.
Well. She wasn’t wrong.
Toby brightened. ‘Oh yeah? Lawyer stuff like Anna, or finance stuff like Jessy?’