Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The door of the hotel banged open so loudly that Sally leaped up from her seat behind the reception desk, eyes wide.
‘Where’s the fire? Oh, it’s you. Good morning.’ She frowned when she saw Frankie’s face. ‘Blimey. Are you okay, Franks?’
‘I need to borrow your phone,’ said Frankie, teeth gritted, hot and sweaty from running straight along the lane from the field, her golden-brown hair no doubt ridiculously enormous and frizzy again.
Sally was clearly trying not to look at The Hair. ‘Woah, calm down. Okay, okay… let me get it. Hold on.’
‘You. Don’t. Understand,’ said Frankie, trying to catch her breath. ‘He left.’
‘What?’ Sally glanced at her watch. ‘The ferry? Did it go early?’
‘No…’ Frankie tried and failed to catch her breath. ‘Helicopter.’
‘You’re making no sense,’ said Sally, coming round to her side of the desk and handing over her mobile. It was much more up to date than Frankie’s old brick of a phone, with a cool psychedelic plastic cover that somehow didn’t have a scratch on it despite chaos following Sally wherever she went.
‘Dylan. Gone. Helicopter,’ said Frankie, still incapable of full speech. It was like all the breath had been sucked from her body.
Sally’s eyes widened. ‘That’s what the noise was?’
‘He really is famous.’
‘Well, duh. Anyone could see that. Didn’t you see that leather waistcoat thing? Who wears that in normal life?’
‘Yeah, I know, but I…’ Frankie grabbed at her side as a stitch kicked in. ‘I didn’t bloody believe him, did I?’
Sally led her over to the sofa in the foyer and pulled her to sit down beside her. ‘What? Why not?’
‘I don’t know,’ wailed Frankie, putting her head in her hands, the phone clutched in her fingers. ‘I thought he was some kind of a wind-up merchant. He could have said any old thing, couldn’t he? How would I know if it was true or not?’
‘Surely you could see it, Franks? He had one of those faces.’
‘What do you mean, “one of those faces”?’
Sally waved a hand. ‘I don’t know. Luminous, somehow. Like he didn’t belong with the rest of us. You know, when someone comes to the hotel who’s famous and everyone starts muttering under their breath. Except with Dylan it was the same even if there was no one else around.’
Frankie glanced across at her with a frown. ‘Are you going to make some sense in a minute?’
Her friend waved a hand again as if it was obvious and Frankie resisted the urge to strangle her. ‘Oh, I don’t know. He was just a whole vibe. Surely you noticed?’
‘Well obviously I didn’t, did I? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t know, did I? I thought you were just playing it cool. I was playing it cool. You gotta do that with celebrities, haven’t you?’ Sally gave her shoulders a squeeze. ‘Sorry, Franks. At least we got to meet him, eh? That was mad.’
‘Mad is one word for it,’ she grumbled.
Frankie took a breath and unlocked Sally’s phone with the PIN they had both shared for years. Sally’s birth year combined with Frankie’s birthday. Neither could be bothered to think of a new one. She went straight to Instagram. At least, small mercies, the wifi was back up and running.
Sure enough, there was Dylan, front and centre, in the same outfit she’d seen him in that first morning, but this time he was very much awake, standing behind a microphone, guitar slung across that chest of his. Sweaty and arrogant and looking for all the world like a born rock star.
‘That was him at RockFest the other night, look,’ said Sally.
‘Helpful, thanks,’ said Frankie. She let out a small groan. ‘I can’t actually believe that man was on our island. It’s crazy.’
‘Think we ought to put up a commemorative post box or something?’
‘That’s not a bad idea. Would he have to come back to officially open it?’ said Frankie, looking up at her friend.
Sally laughed. ‘I was being sarcastic.’
‘Sorry. Missed that.’
‘If it would make you happy, I’m sure we can arrange it.’
‘It would. Oh my God, Sal, I can’t believe he was here.’
‘Soooo…’ said Sally. ‘Did you two…?’
Frankie gave her the best side eye she could muster. ‘Did we… what?’
‘You know.’
‘No, I don’t know. Did we what?’
Her best friend grinned, blue eyes sparkling. ‘Did he show you his suite, if you know what I mean?’
That man. Making her blush even when he wasn’t here. ‘The whole bloody world knows what you mean.’
‘Did you?’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Did he ask you?’
Frankie faltered at that. ‘Yes. Maybe.’
Sally let out a squeak. ‘I knew it.’
Frankie laughed. ‘Calm down. Nothing happened.’
‘But you wanted it to.’
‘I don’t know what I wanted. Yes. No. I don’t know.’
‘Did you kiss him?’
‘Not really.’
Her friend scoffed. ‘Then you didn’t. Does he know you’ve never…?’
Frankie shook her head violently. ‘No, of course not, as if I was going to tell him that.’ She gestured to the band’s Instagram again, where she was still scrolling their feed as she spoke, one eye out for every photo of Dylan, every gesture, every pose. No sign of a girlfriend, anyway.
‘Why not? Honesty’s the best policy and all that. Besides, men like a challenge.’
‘You are such a dinosaur. Feminists everywhere would be rolling in their graves or whatever. Anyway, what would have been the point?’
‘Does everything have to have a point?’
Frankie sighed. ‘He was only here for a day. He absolutely does not need to know what a pathetic loser I am. Everyone else does.’
‘I don’t think you’re a pathetic loser,’ said Sally with a shrug.
‘How about now?’ said Frankie, turning back to the phone and tapping ‘Dylan W’ into the search bar. And there it was. He had his own account. Her heart thumped in her ears as she passed the phone back to Sally. She really needed to get her own smartphone so she could do some proper stalking.
‘Yeah, that was pretty pathetic,’ said Sally. ‘Come on, let’s get some breakfast and you can tell me all about that helicopter. All I know is, it was loud…’
‘So loud,’ said Frankie with a weak smile, trying to ignore the deep, dull ache in her chest.