Chapter 15 #2
I shake my head. ‘I think that will raise more questions that I don’t have an answer for right now,’ I reply. I shake off the emotion and force my performance smile onto my face. ‘Coffee?’
‘Oh, please.’ Luc practically salivates at the thought.
I climb out of bed and locate my slippers, strewn across the floor. Luc follows, walking down the stairs with his hands on my shoulders. When we get to the bottom, I find myself reaching out and holding his hand.
Pulling the cafetière out of the bottom cupboard, Luc stands behind me, hands on either side of my hips while I dump ground coffee in the bottom. Luc drops his face on my shoulder, and I lean into him, turning around in his grasp so we’re face-to-face, body-to-body.
‘Currently wondering why I distracted us with rules last night,’ Luc breathes into my ear.
‘You made your bed.’
‘I can stand by making that bed and also regret it.’
‘Morning,’ Jess’s voice filters into the kitchen from the doorway.
Luc and I splinter apart like shrapnel. It’s no use. Jess has seen all she needs to see. To her credit, she doesn’t mention it. She lets us pretend she’s walked in on us sipping the coffee I haven’t finished making and standing on other sides of the kitchen.
‘Mimi said she’ll be over around half past ten, if that sounds good to you, Sie?’
‘Sure. What for?’
‘Tour updates and, erm.’ She looks down and picks at her gel manicure. ‘Progress with Luc, I think.’
Is she blushing?
‘You can join us if you like, Luc?’ she offers.
‘That’s a very kind offer, Jess,’ Luc says.
Is it?
He looks at me, searching my face. I widen my eyes and hope that gets the message across.
‘But I’ve got some edits to finish today, so I’ll have to give it a miss this time,’ Luc finishes.
‘No worries at all,’ Jess smiles, and then it turns into a smirk.
‘I’ll leave you to it. I’ll have a coffee if you’re making one.
’ She gestures to the cafetière on the counter behind me, the ground coffee sitting dry in the bottom.
When Jess leaves the room, Luc and I stare at each other from our new locations.
‘Do you have sugar? I can never remember,’ I stammer, avoiding eye contact. I drop a spoon as soon as I pick it up and it clatters on the side.
‘Depends on the day. None today, thanks,’ Luc responds.
I’m sure I hear Jess laughing from the living room. ‘I’ll have a sugar today, please,’ she calls. Is she making fun of us?
‘You always have sugar,’ I point out.
Once the coffee is ready, I pour all three of us a cup, taking Jess’s through to the living room with Luc close behind me.
‘We’ve decided for pre-sale, Sienna, to surprise anyone who either pre-ordered the album or who was already registered to your newsletter before the album was announced with a code to access a super-exclusive pre-sale,’ Jess says.
‘That’s a great idea.’ I take a mouthful of my coffee. ‘Good for PR.’ I join Jess on the sofa but Luc hovers, standing near the record player.
‘Anyone would think that’s my job,’ Jess laughs. She doesn’t look up. ‘You can sit down, Lucas.’
He perches on the armchair next to the sofa.
Jess gestures to the papers scattered across the coffee table. ‘If you’re looking at these plans now, I’ll have to get you to sign an NDA,’ Jess warns him.
‘I’m keeping an entire fake relationship a secret for Sienna, I think you can trust me.’
I glance at Luc and then back at Jess. ‘He won’t say anything.’
‘Now, you know the UK and Europe leg of the tour started at the beginning of November originally. This has now been brought forward to the middle of October due to huge demand overnight,’ Jess explains. ‘We’ll be announcing the dates later on today, but tickets go on sale a month-ish from now.’
‘Middle of October is soon,’ I tell her, at the same time as Luc says, ‘How have you managed to schedule a tour at that time of the year, with the football season, and everything?’
Jess frowns at him. ‘She’s Sienna Martin.’
Luc shrugs. ‘Fair point.’
Jess turns to me, ‘Actually, it’s still pretty far away in the grand scheme of things.’
She can’t know that I’m thinking about the end of the arrangement. That mine and Luc’s end date is now weeks earlier than it previously was. Alarm bells ring.
‘Is that enough time to finish choreography and rehearsals and… everything?’ We’d started them when we did thinking the tour would start in November.
Jess nods. ‘I’ve also managed to get Colin and all the other money grabbers at the label to turn off dynamic pricing for tickets.’
A quick exhale of breath escapes my mouth. ‘Thank fuck for that.’
It’s Luc’s turn to frown.
‘It’s when a ticket seller – I mean like the official ticket seller for the tour not, like, a scalper – automatically raises their prices to hundreds of pounds for a ticket right at the top of the stadium.
Just based on the demand in the virtual queue,’ I explain.
‘So, like, when the pre-sale starts, a ticket in the top level of Wembley might be seventy pounds, but by the time general sale opens it might be more than two hundred for the same seat.’
‘And who would want to make more money?’
‘I don’t want to be crass, Luc,’ I say. ‘But I don’t need the extra money.
And if those prices are the difference between someone who was a fan from the beginning getting tickets or not, then I don’t want to raise the prices.
’ I pick up my pen and start drawing in the top corner of my notebook.
‘I’m happy with seats at the top of the stadium being a standard seventy pounds.
I would go cheaper if the venues let me. ’
‘Yeah, we also don’t want to see any articles about how Sienna is ripping people off plastered all over the tabloids.’ Jess shakes her head. ‘PR disaster.’
‘I just want people to be able to see and enjoy my music. I don’t want to price anyone out.’
Luc reaches out and puts his hand over mine. ‘I’m sold.’
I catch Jess looking at the contact and pull my hand away.
Jess smiles. ‘So, you should be okay to end things between you by the end of October. So, it’s not much longer for you both.’
I swear she’s assessing me, looking into my eyes for any sign of reaction. To see whether that is still the plan at all.
Of course it is. Things between me and Luc will now end at the end of October.
A month earlier than originally planned.
My stomach sinks. But it’s for the best. We can go back to a friendship quicker.
‘I hope you don’t mind I stayed over.’ Jess knows she has an open invite to her bedroom here.
‘I just thought if we were having a meeting early this morning, it would be easier to stay in my room.’ She turns to Luc.
‘Lucky, really, Luc, that you slept in Sienna’s room last night.
It could have been quite awkward for us. ’
‘I slept on the sofa.’
‘You were insistent on how comfortable my sofa is,’ I back him up.
‘It is a comfortable sofa. Not comfortable enough for a second night stay though, Luc?’
Luc laughs, a big, throaty laugh.
‘Jess,’ I say, struggling to hide the laughter in my own voice. ‘What do you want us to say?’
‘I was wondering how long it would take you to crack and admit it.’
Luc is still on the sofa when Mimi knocks on my door at exactly ten thirty. Still in the clothes he went to the theatre in, the clothes I wanted to tear off. I don’t dwell too long on what that means. Probably old habits dying hard.
Luc’s words are still vibrating around my skull.
I want to make sure that we’re doing this because we’re us and not because we’re anyone.
Was last night something I would have done with anyone?
I’m not sure I would. I thought I would sleep with him, get it out of my system, and then run. It’s who I am.
But maybe Luc has broken the rule I wouldn’t let myself set. Don’t let him in.
I’m always glad to see whoever has stayed over leave, but I don’t want Luc to ever go.
This is not good. Someone – probably me – is going to get hurt.
My doctor is not far behind Mimi. I realise then that I’m not ready. I don’t want to know what my fate is yet. I want to continue living in the luxury of ignorance for just a little while longer.
The doctor looks out of place in my living room, like this group of people are not a group of five people who would ever be together otherwise.
I’ve only met her a few times – I guess she’s more of a consultant.
She did my tests in hospital a few weeks ago – a little camera down my throat.
I want to stall, to keep her here for as long as possible, but she has other patients to see.
And maybe I should rip the plaster off. Get it out of the way as quickly as possible.
‘Would you like to speak somewhere privately first, Sienna?’ she asks me, her voice soft.
Jess, Mimi and Luc all leave the living room without a word and close the door behind them.
‘I’m just going to repeat everything you say to them, anyway.’
‘I know you are, but it’s never nice to be told something with an audience,’ she says. ‘I’ll get straight into it, because I know you’re anxious.’
I try to smile, but I know, even without a mirror, that it’s more of a grimace.
The doctor opens her file full of my notes.
‘The scans show that you have vocal polyps. I’m sure you’re familiar with them because of your industry.
They occur typically from repeatedly overusing your voice, which I imagine you have probably done after fifteen years, or maybe not using your voice properly,’ she explains.
It’s exactly what I expected and what I feared at the same time. The fears I wouldn’t give a voice to, but which came true anyway.
‘I would recommend voice rest and working with a vocal therapist for the next two months and we’ll see where we are. I know you’re going on tour in four months, so we’ll do another scan and see if there’s any improvement.’
‘The tour is now in three months,’ I say quickly. ‘What do we do if there’s no improvement?’