Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place (6 page)

I
shoot him a look which hopefully tells him that while I did find that funny,
we’re sort of up against it.

‘Actually,
I’m just looking for a friend. He came here to buy…’ I pause for a moment
because it just sounds so dodgy. ‘…pleasure beads.’

‘Dylan!’
she shrieks. ‘What a soul!’

‘Oh,
yes. Troy, aren’t I always saying that about our Dylan?’

‘Yeah,’
he chuckles. ‘It sounds a bit like that.’

I
subtly give him that evil glare again before turning back to the Eddie
lookalike.

‘Anyway,
do you know where he went?’

‘Yes,
but it’s not my place to say.’

‘It
really is,’ Troy interrupts. ‘You’re the only person who knows where he’s
gone.’

‘I
don’t want to cause him any trouble,’ she insists, biting her lip.

‘You
won’t be, we’re his friends,’ Troy assures her in that soothing voice of his
that has been making me melt for the past few hours.

‘He
met Lola and seemed quite taken,’ she says uncomfortably. ‘They’re staying at
the same hotel so they went back there.’

I
don’t know why she found it so hard to tell me that, if only she knew I’d been
chasing him from woman to woman all night long. A customer walks up to the till
with a pair of feather earrings, so the Eddie lookalike goes to serve her
quickly. We hang around for a few seconds to say thank you.

‘Bloody
hell,’ I whisper to Troy. ‘The easiest way to find Dylan would have been to
book a room and wait, he’s shagging his way through the hotel.’

Troy
laughs and kisses me on the cheek.

‘Oh,
are you not Dylan’s girlfriend?’ the shopkeeper asks me after she is finished
with her customer.

‘Nope,
I’m not.’ So that’s what she didn’t want to tell me that he’d gone off with
this Lola chick.

‘Is
it because he’s a Leo?’

‘No.’
I smile. ‘It’s because he’s an arsehole. Thank you for all your help.’

We
quickly leave the shop and I’m careful not to knock the giant baby like I did
on my way in.

‘You
know how some people have a little black book?’ Troy asks me as we wait for a
taxi.

‘Mr
Reeves,’ I say, faking shock. ‘Do you have a little black book?’

‘I
don’t have time for a little black book. But other people do, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Is
Dylan’s little black book just the actual phone book?’

I
laugh. ‘Brilliant. Have you been working on that one for long?’

‘Since
the prostitute,’ he replies proudly.

Our
taxi pulls up, so we hop in and head back to the hotel. I’m having so much fun
with Troy, I almost don’t want to find Dylan. It doesn’t even cross my mind to
stop trying and hang out with Troy though, because whichever way I look at it,
Dylan needs to be at that charity show tonight. He owes it to himself, his band
mates, his tour manager, his fans and the charity to be there. I know he would
never intentionally let anyone down, he just gets too drunk, starts thinking
with Little Dylan, and loses track of time.

At
the hotel, once again, I stroll up to Mrs Williamson and lay my cards on the
table.

‘Listen,
I know I’m annoying you, but I’m looking for a guest called Lola and I’d really
like to find her without having to sling anymore dirty words your way, so could
you please just check and the sooner I find her the sooner we can leave, and I
promise to never come back,’ I rant.

Mrs
Williamson doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t show a speck of emotion, she
simply taps a few buttons on the keyboard.

‘No
one by that name staying at the hotel presently,’ she says, as if that’s an end
to that.

‘Big
mistake, lady,’ I warn. ‘Do you know how much time I take off work? I’m coming
here for my holidays.’

Mrs
Williamson gasps with horror. ‘Well, there’s no need for that!’ she exclaims.

‘Excuse
me,’ Roger the concierge interrupts us. ‘Mrs Williamson, I’ll take it from
here.’

Roger
ushers us away from the front desk before we make too much of a scene.

‘You
looking for Lola?’ he asks.

‘Yes!’
I cry with relief, do you know what room she’s in?’

‘I
just took champagne up there, room 398.’

‘Thank
you, Roger,’ I squeal, kissing him on the cheek.

‘By
the way,’ Roger starts, but Troy doesn’t let him finish.

‘No,’
Troy says, placing his hand over Roger’s mouth. ‘You’re still in our bad books,
buddy. No tip today.’

We
race off towards the lift and as the doors are closing I’m sure Roger shouts
something to us, but I don’t hear it. All I know is that if Dylan was just in
this room and ordering champagne, there’s no way he’ll have left yet.

‘If
there’s a woman and champagne, then there’s no way Dylan will have left this
room – not this quickly.’

‘Speaking
from experience?’ Troy asks me with a cheeky wink as he places an ear on the
door of room 398 to see if he can hear anything. ‘I think I can hear crying.’

‘What?’

I
put my ear to the door a little too enthusiastically and knock my head on it.

‘I
don’t hear anything,’ I say, just as the door opens causing me and Troy to fall
into room 398.

Still
laid out on the floor I gaze up expecting to see Lola, only to see a very tall
man, wearing very high heels and women’s underwear. I can tell he’s been crying
because his make-up is smudged all over his face, and just after I notice that
he is wearing a hairnet I spy his long, blonde wig on the floor next to me.

‘Lola?’
I ask, my brain putting two and two together.

He
starts crying again. I look over at Troy who is just staring blankly, like his
brain is processing the evidence in front of us a little slower than mine did.
I may not be shocked when it comes to what Dylan gets up to, but this scenario
is new to me.

‘I’m
looking for Dylan,’ I say softly. ‘Was he here?’

‘He
was,’ Lola yells, spitting on the floor in temper – what a lady. ‘The drunk
pig, he’s gone now.’

I
climb up off the floor and sit down on the bed next to Lola, which I’m guessing
isn’t his real name but it’s the only one I have for him.

‘What
happened?’ I ask.

‘We
really hit it off, we came back here, I ordered some champagne… one thing lead
to another.’

I
glance over at Troy who is still on the floor, only now he’s looking shocked to
his core.

‘So
what went wrong?’ I ask – as if I didn’t know.

‘Well,
we were kissing-‘

‘You
were kissing?’ Troy interrupts. ‘You and Dylan? Kissing?’

‘Yes,’
Lola replies, clearly offended. ‘Would you like some too?’

Troy
shuts up again and goes back to just staring in amazement.

‘We
were kissing,’ Lola continues. ‘But when we started undressing each other he
must have realised I am not a natural woman and he went crazy. First he tried
to jump out of the window, then he realise we were on the fourth floor and
bolted for the door.’

I
bet he did. Dylan is the kind of man who won’t even wear pink, so getting off
with a man is way out of his comfort zone.

‘When
was this?’ I ask.

‘A
few minutes before you arrived,’ Lola tells us.

I
give him/her a hug and then grab Troy by the hand, pulling him up and dragging
him towards the lift.

‘That
was a man,’ Troy says when the doors are finally closed.

‘Yep,’
I reply.

‘That
was so blatantly a man though.’

‘Yep.
I could see his Adam’s apple.’

‘Nicole,
I could see his penis. He was a man. How did Dylan not know that was a man?’

‘Lord
knows,’ I say, laughing to myself. ‘I can’t believe he tried to jump out of the
window. And there wasn’t any champagne in that room, which means he took it.
Which means he is still off his face and things are only going to get worse.’

The
lift pings and the doors open. The lobby is busy with all of the “festival
people” checking out, but we can’t see Dylan anywhere.

‘Roger,’
Troy calls out, spotting him making his way towards the exist. His shift must
be over, but he might have seen Dylan pass through here. ‘Has Dylan been down
here?’

‘The
last time I saw him he was with…’ Roger’s voice trails off.

‘Yeah,
thanks for the warning,’ Troy says, pushing money into his pocket. ‘Next time
I’d open with the important details if I were you.’

I
plonk myself down on the sofa behind us. The trail has gone cold and time is
almost up.

‘Get
back up,’ Troy insists. ‘We’re not done yet.’

‘Unless
you know something that I don’t, we’re so done.’

‘Look,
Roger didn’t see him leave. That means he’s still in here somewhere. I doubt he
had time to find another girl – or boy – so he must be in one of the public
areas. One last sweep of the place, what do you say?’

You’ve
got to admire his enthusiasm, although this is his first Dylan hunt. This kind
of nightmare is a regular occurrence for me, although he’s never proved this
hard to find before.

‘Ok.’
I pull myself to my feet with what little energy I have left. ‘One last sweep.’

It’s
5:30pm and we haven’t found Dylan. Not only have we not found him, but we’ve no
leads. It really is game over now.

Finally
defeated, Troy and I get back in the lift to head up to the room I was supposed
to be sharing with Dylan. He might not be on the bus at 6pm, but at the very
least I can make sure his stuff is. I imagine anything we leave in the rooms
Mrs Williamson will have passed on to an exorcist so she can thoroughly cleanse
her hotel of us “festival people”.

‘No
one can say you didn’t try, Nicole,’ Troy assures me, but I feel like I’ve let
everyone down. ‘Not only has he had sex with everyone in town – female and male
– but he’s been all over the place and you’ve followed him everywhere. At the
end of the day, you’re just his friend. This isn’t your problem. If I did this,
I wouldn’t expect my friends to have to track me down, that’s what his tour
manager is for.’

I
think about Claire and how mad she is going to be when she realises Dylan isn’t
on the bus. Dylan is The Burnout’s front-man, sure the charity gig can go on
without him, but what’s a band without a front-man? All music and no lyrics.

As
we step out of the lift I take the spare keycard that Claire gave my from my
bag.

‘I’ll
give you a hand,’ Troy says, following me along the corridor.

‘Are
you sure?’ I ask. ‘Don’t you need to go pack your things?’

‘My
tour manager can do it, he works for his money.’

I
look at him and laugh – because if I didn’t laugh, I’d cry – and as I go to
push the door open Troy grabs me and kisses my passionately, ushering me
through the door and into the room with the skill of someone who does this all
the time. As he pushes me back onto the bed I can’t help but notice how
uncomfortable it is. It’s only as we stop kissing for a second that we realise
the bed is moving – no, it’s not a ghost, someone is in it. Have I come to the
wrong room? This is the room Claire told me to come to. Still on top of me,
Troy pulls back the covers and sure enough there is someone underneath me, and
that someone is Dylan. In his own room, in his own bed, alone – well, until
Troy and I joined him.

‘Nic,
please don’t have sex on me,’ Dylan says with a groan, pulling the covers back
over his face.

‘Oh
yeah, because you’d never do that to me.’

‘That
was one time,’ he replies with a chuckle, wiggling free from underneath us.

Troy
and I stare at each other in amazement for a movement. We’ve found him in the
one place we never would have considered looking for him.

‘Dill,
I’ve been looking for you all night, what are you doing here?’

‘I
was tired,’ he replies, pulling the covers up over his face.

‘Yeah,
I’m not surprised,’ Troy chimes in.

Dylan
sits upright in his bed and glares at Troy.

‘What’s
that supposed to mean?’ he asks defensively.

‘This
poor girl – your friend – has been chasing a trail of tail all over town to try
and find you.’

‘I
can’t help it if the ladies love me,’ Dylan says smugly with a wiggle of his
eyebrows.

‘Yeah,
and the men,’ Troy quips.

Dylan,
who didn’t look that healthy to begin with, goes ghostly white as he realise
that we know about Lola.