Chapter 2 #2
Normally I’d be scoffing down the lamb and pigging out on roast vegetables.
I’m always ravenous after a day with the band, rehearsal sessions like a gym workout, the physicality of drumming consuming both my body and my mind.
Tonight, I pick at the food like a fussy toddler, racked by a different sort of hunger.
Nothing is normal anymore. Not after my latest encounter with Rachel MacDonald.
The last time I saw her—at some party at Ollie’s place, I think—she was attached to a bloke in a suit.
He looked daggers at any guy who so much as glanced in her direction, all possessive glare and puffed-up chest. Meanwhile, he couldn’t seem to keep his own eyes—or hands—off every other woman in the room.
Not that it mattered to me then. I was with someone, and one thing I guarantee: the girl I take to a party always has my full attention.
And now, out of nowhere, Rachel has mine.
I hear it—my name, on her lips.
“Teddy can ride? No. You’re shitting me.” Laughter bursts from her. She plants a hand on Garrett’s chest, long fingers with red-tipped nails pushing him back in his seat. “Really?” she says around him, her plush mouth open wide, incredulous.
“Yeah—” Before I can finish my sentence, fucking Ollie jumps in.
“Really, he can,” he says. “There’s evidence. Have you seen the video for ‘Ember’?”
‘Ember’ is one of the band’s few ballads.
Starts slow and builds with a ‘Stairway To Heaven’ vibe.
Not my favourite, since the drums barely get a look in over the guitars—but shooting the video up in Scotland was brilliant.
Okay, the weather was shit—damp and moody, which you’d think the director must have ordered specially—but I had fun.
Rachel’s head flicks back towards Ollie. Crap, the bastard’s stolen the only crumb of her attention I’ve had since she sat down. Thankfully, Garrett pushes his chair back, so at least I can see the conversation that should be mine.
“No. Never seen it.” She shakes her head, and the long blonde strands ripple like waves across her shoulders. “But I know the song.”
“So,” Ollie says, leaning back in his seat, ready to tell the story. “The director wanted a brooding feel, and this time travel theme running through it. We’re on set in Scotland, up near Glencoe. It’s pissing down most of the day, foggy in between.”
“One of the many reasons I don’t live there anymore,” Rachel says. “Number one is my father, but he’s only just ahead of the fucking awful weather.”
“You really moved to London for better weather?” I joke, hoping to seize back a spark of her attention while chasing away the cloud that passed over her face at the mention of her father. Looks like we have daddy issues in common.
“Amongst other things,” she says with a wry smile, but Ollie captures her again. Is Haley paying him for this?
“They had us dressed in kilts, old school ones, you know, Outlander style.”
“What the fuck? Kilts? You’re fucking joking, right?”
This girl curses like a sailor, and I like it. Zero filter. It’s refreshing. I’m mostly surrounded by women who pick their words carefully, every one chosen to impress; to captivate. Not Rachel. She literally doesn’t give a toss about what people think.
“No, they insisted.” I chime in. “It was like having bloody great oversized nappies hanging loose between our legs.”
We all choke with laughter at the memory. It was one of the first videos we made, so we just did whatever they told us. No way we’d agree to that now.
“Well, we’d shot the first part,” Ollie continues, “and we’re kicking back having a coffee—bundled up in jackets, trying not to freeze with our hairy legs bare to the world—when a horse truck pulls up, and these grooms unload four horses.
Then, a few minutes later, a van arrives with the stunt doubles. ”
A huge guffaw billows from Rachel, so uninhibited.
“Stunt doubles? To ride a horse? Fucking hell,” she chokes out.
“Well, we weren’t getting on the bloody horses,” Garrett says. “Especially not dressed in a skirt.”
“It’s a kilt, you heathen,” she cuts in, giving him a finger-wag, eyes twinkling beneath a mock frown. “Say skirt again and see what happens.”
“Okay,” Ollie grins, “we’re all wearing kilts. Us and the doubles. The director says we should hop in the van till they’re done, and it’s so damn cold we’re all very happy with that idea. Except for Teddy. At first I thought he was trying to hit on one of the grooms—that would be his usual style—”
The others snigger, and I cringe. The last thing I want is Rachel reminded of my reputation as a ‘love ’em leave ’em’ guy.
I’m over it. No one ever thinks I could have anything more than a quick, superficial, and mostly physical relationship with a woman.
I know it’s my own fault after years of blatant womanising, but times like now, regret snipes at me.
“But no,” Ollie continues, “he walks straight past the pretty girl holding the horse and starts patting it, claiming he’s ridden horses all his life.”
“I didn’t,” I protest. “I said I’d ridden horses when I was a kid.”
“Well, that was only yesterday,” Garrett quips.
“Shut your mouth, old man.” I glare at him.
I hate it when they point out I’m the baby in the band. It’s especially humiliating tonight when I’m trying to impress this gorgeous woman who’s obviously a few years older than me—and is someone I’d very much like to get to know in decidedly adult ways.
“Anyway,” Ollie grabs her attention again. “Teddy shoves his double aside and insists he’s going to ride the horse.”
I did, and I did it bloody well, too. Sure, it was pretty tame riding—the horses hardly broke into a canter—but I’m proud to say I never even came close to falling off.
Rachel whips out a phone from her pocket and begins typing in a search.
“This it?” She angles the phone at me.
“Yep. Forward it to around 1:50,” I say. “Proof.”
I know what she’ll see. At one minute fifty-two, four riders crest a hill and come to a halt, the horses blowing a little, their breaths a fog in the air.
The camera pans across the tussock in front of them, snow-capped mountains behind, and then swings back to the riders.
It zooms in on one. Me. That close-up shot wasn’t planned—but then they didn’t expect one of Stellar Riot to actually get on a horse.
Perhaps I should have asked for payment.
“Oh my god,” she gushes. “It is you. Fuck. I’d never have guessed.”
“More than just a pretty face.”
“Well, that’s decided.” She snaps the phone shut. “I expect your pretty face in the stables at eight in the morning.”
I hold back the urge to fist-pump the air while silently thanking my childhood neighbours who let us village kids hack around on their ponies whenever we liked. That and a director prepared to humour a cocky young rock star.
“I’ll be there.”
“Great. When Loreena said she had horses, I hoped there’d be someone else here who’d ride with me.”
Rachel’s innocent comment sends my mind straight to the gutter, and I bite my lip to suppress a smirk. Before she can spot the evidence of my filthy thoughts—surely written all over my face—Garrett scrapes his chair forward, cutting off my view as he leans over his plate.
My left knee bounces in anticipation beneath the table.
“Cut it out,” he growls.
I force myself to stop and try to focus on shuffling down a few forkfuls of the food going cold on my plate.
When my right hand starts tapping a happy rhythm on the tabletop, Christian shoots me a pained glare. I clench my fist to still the movement, fighting to contain my excitement over this first small win, but there’s nothing I can do to subdue the elevated rhythm of my heart.
It’s 9pm—eleven hours from now, I’ll have Rachel MacDonald all to myself.