Christmas on Primrose Hill (28 page)

To their left, behind the makeshift wall, was the stage and Nettie could feel the vibrations from the amps pulsing through her feet and making her bones hum as the music boomed. High-pitched screams came in a constant pulse, the sound like a force field that instinctively made her want to step away and take cover.

She checked the time on her watch as she heard singing. Ten minutes past nine and he was on already. She felt a pinch in her stomach and a stain creep across her cheeks. Of course he was! How stupid she’d been to think he’d keep all those people waiting just for her – and she’d betrayed her egoism by falling for the bluff. She’d come, he would know now, in the very hope that he’d been telling the truth, flattering her . . .

‘Yeah!’ Jules yelled, beginning to dance as they walked.

Nettie smiled back as Jules grabbed her arm excitedly, but she couldn’t let herself go in the same way. She felt breathless and overwhelmed by the scale of everything – the noise, the size, the energy that was electrifying the air. She could feel it crackling around her. It was the flip side, the good version to what had happened earlier. And this was just his
job.
He’d been right earlier when he’d said his job was odd. What was wearing a fancy-dress costume for a couple of weeks compared to this?

She wondered where Ron was taking them. Down to the mosh pit? Into the wings? The anticipation of seeing Jamie again made her heart try to compete with the bass beat and she forgot all about the look on Dan’s face when she’d turned to him at the door.

They climbed a few steps and turned into another corridor, which had a run of doors on both sides, huge black-and-white posters of Jamie slapped up along the walls, lest anyone should forget who was playing here tonight. She dared herself to look into his khaki eyes as they walked, a kind of endurance test. Maybe if she could practise holding that gaze before she had to do the real thing . . . ?

Ron had stopped outside a door and popped his head in. ‘Sorted.’

‘Oh
cool
!’ Jules said, walking straight in, with the familiarity of someone who’d been here many times before, rather than just the once. She must have said something inside, for Ron nodded and Nettie stepped out of the way to let him pass, watching as he ran off in the direction from which they had just come and talking into a walkie-talkie.

When she turned back, Jamie was in the doorway, watching her, wearing the faded black jeans he’d been in yesterday and an indigo T-shirt, the fit and feel of which looked indecently good.

‘You’re not on?’ she asked, after what seemed like an age.

‘I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?’

She gave a nervous laugh. ‘Yes, but . . . I didn’t think you actually meant it.’

‘Didn’t you?’ His eyes were steady upon her, unrelenting. ‘And yet here you are.’

She looked away. ‘I wasn’t sure if it was’ – she swallowed – ‘a joke, some sort of game.’

‘I never say what I don’t mean.’ He seemed amused. ‘So now
I’m
late because
you’re
late.’ He walked out into the corridor towards her with a slow tut. ‘You’ve made all those people wait . . . Can you hear them?’

She should have done. They were right behind the wall, but as he stopped in front of her, all she could hear was the rush of blood in her ears.

His hands brushed down her arms, leaving a ripple of goosebumps in their wake. ‘I’m sorry about earlier. I felt like such a shit for leaving you there.’

‘What are you talking about? It would have been dangerous if you’d stayed. The second you went, I was fine. I just felt so bad for making you go out without Pho.’

‘He was pretty mad with me when I got back.’ His eyes danced. ‘I guess he’s never tried to impress a beautiful girl before.’

She didn’t know what to say to that and her eyes fell to his chest. ‘Nice T-shirt.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Selfridges?’

He shrugged, a low laugh escaping him. ‘What can I say? They deliver.’

She laughed too. ‘Good. I’m glad.’

‘
I’m
glad that you’re here,’ he replied quietly. He still hadn’t shaved and his stubble was now a light beard. It brought out the colour in his eyes and framed his mouth. He took her hand and wagged her arm lightly. ‘Although it’s just as well I resorted to blackmail. I didn’t think you’d behave.’ His eyes fell to her lips as they parted into a shocked ‘o’. Yet again, silence bloomed between them. Words couldn’t say what eyes could. ‘Come on, then. We’d better give them what they want.’

He put his hand in the small of her back and walked her down the corridor to where Ron was now standing by a door, a guitar in his hands.

‘Ready?’ Ron asked, handing it over, and Jamie slung the strap over his neck, the instrument moulding into his body as familiarly as a child, the way she wanted to.

‘I am now,’ he said, glancing at her as he adjusted the strap. ‘Don’t. Leave.’

She shook her head, overwhelmed. Overpowered. Her head had no chance against her heart.

Ron opened the door and the wall of sound fell upon them, Jamie’s name amplified into a war cry that sounded to the heavens. He took a deep breath, a grin growing on his face as he took one last look at her, and then he disappeared through the doorway, the roars and cheers exploding in on themselves a moment later, like fireworks that kept repeating to something ever more beautiful, as the light found him and all those eyes came to rest upon him and him alone.

‘Come on, you can watch from over here,’ Ron said, leading the girls through the doorway and up another set of steps. Everything was draped in black cloth, the noise like a heat, a cloud she had to push through.

She started as something touched her shoulder, turning to find Jules standing behind her with an expression of envy, excitement and concern marbled on her face.

‘Oh my God! Like, get a room!’

But Nettie clutched her by the arm. ‘Jules, you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell him.’

Jules looked taken aback. ‘But—’

‘Promise me! I’ll never speak to you again if you tell him.’

Jules looked shaken by the wildness in her eyes, the ring of truth in her words. ‘Of course I wouldn’t,’ she said.

‘You have to say it.’

Jules blinked, the excitement and envy disappearing from her face now so that all that was left was the concern. ‘I promise, Nets. He’ll never hear it from me.’

Chapter Sixteen

The after-party at Bodo’s Schloss was everything Jules had ever dreamed and she was in her element, dancing on a table with another girl and impressing the band’s bass guitarist with her air guitar. Many eyes were upon her and Nettie felt grateful, for once, that she was too far out of reach for Jules to drag her up there too, which was the usual way of things.

Instead, Nettie was sitting in the middle of a semicircular booth, with Dave, Dave’s wife, Minnie, and Jamie himself. Nettie had Minnie to her left and Jamie to her right, and so far was doing an admirable job of appearing nonplussed to be sitting with the star of the show. His left arm was slung out along the booth behind her, his left thigh so close she could feel the heat from it, but he had yet to graze a single finger along her neck or touch his leg against hers – and the wait was killing her.

Because Jules had been right earlier. They had a chemistry together that was impossible to ignore. She’d known it the moment she’d laid eyes on him at the cinema on Thursday night – had it really been only forty-eight hours since then? – and she knew just what they were spinning towards. It was as predictable as the rising of the sun, and for all her futile efforts to keep him out of her life, it was already too late: he was in, straight into the smack, bang centre of her world and she wouldn’t sleep now till she knew the feel of him; she wouldn’t eat till she knew the taste of him; she was addicted even before their first high.

People kept coming over to their table to congratulate Jamie, slapping him hard on the shoulders and fist-bumping him in the case of the men, the women bending down to kiss his cheeks, flashing plenty of cleavage and lingering looks.

Nettie didn’t know how to react to them. Jamie seemed as friendly to one as to the other, showing no particular favouritism or interest, but neither did he reassure her with a squeeze of her hand or something that told her – and all those other girls – that he was with her tonight. Nettie kept scanning the crowd for sign of Coco Miller. She’d thought she’d overheard someone saying she was here. Or was that just paranoia?

‘So how did you and Jamie meet, Nettie?’ Minnie asked her, recrossing her legs and seeming genuinely interested as she sipped through the straw of the famous ski-boot cocktail.

‘Uh, through work.’

‘You’re a singer too?’

‘Oh!’ She laughed quietly at the idea. ‘No. Nothing so exciting, I’m afraid. I work for an agency that handles the CSR of big companies – corporate social responsibility,’ she added, knowing from experience that that would be the next question. ‘We connect big corporations with charities or community projects and create campaigns that help raise public awareness and funds for them.’

‘Oh, so you’re like a charity fundraiser, then?’ Minnie said brightly, holding out the boot for Nettie.

‘Basically, yes,’ Nettie smiled, finding her straw and drinking too. Her head was spinning, her entire body fizzing and she’d barely drunk a drop yet.

‘Oh, I get it! You’re involved with that thing Jamie’s doing with the bunny?’ Minnie said excitedly.

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh my God – have you met the Blue Bunny Girl? She’s amazing!’

‘Thanks,’ she laughed, before adding quickly, ‘I’ll tell her you said that.’

‘Do you know her?’

Nettie nodded, drinking a bit more.

‘What’s she like?’

‘Um, normal, I guess.’

‘Oh, I bet she isn’t,’ Minnie squealed. ‘She’s so hard-core. I’d be terrified if I ever met her. Jamie’s obsessed, isn’t he?’ she said, directing the question to her husband.

‘Yeah, I reckon so,’ Dave laughed, shooting Nettie a knowing wink.

Nettie blushed. Really? Did he really mean it? Jamie, obsessed with
her
?

‘It’s so amazing you got him,’ Minnie continued. ‘I mean, he never says yes to that kind of thing, does he, Dave?’

‘Actually, it was all his idea,’ Dave said. ‘
I
was the one trying to talk him out of it. He’s in the middle of a world tour. We’re doing the States in the new year – thirty dates there, then down to Brazil and Argentina.’ Dave shook his head. ‘And with the single out next week, he should be trying to find time in his diary, not filling it up even more.’ He gave a big shrug. ‘But he’s a stubborn bugger. There’s no talking him out of anything he wants to do.’

He drained a shot just as the crowd on the dance floor before them parted and a waiter came through, carrying an open nebuchadnezzar of champagne topped with a sparkling, hissing and crackling light fountain. A cheer went up as it was set down on the table in front of Jamie and he looked across at her, as if assessing her reaction. Compared to the frenzied revellers cheering and dancing and drinking around them, he seemed curiously calm – the eye at the centre of the storm, inured to the fact that all of this was for him, because of him, that everyone wanted to be with him, one way or another.

Maybe he’d burned off his energy earlier. Images of him on stage flashed back to her – the way he’d run across it for two hours, jumping on and off the massive speakers and jamming with his band, making jokes with the crowd, his laugh sexy and low as he chatted, strumming chords all the while as hundreds upon hundreds of girls reached forward, their arms outstretched, phones recording him. Every time he’d come off stage, he’d come off on her side, speaking to her quickly – was she enjoying it? Was she OK? Was there anything she needed? – as the sweat rolled down him from the heat of the lights, his eyes fixed upon her as he rehydrated. Only once had he exited on the other side of the stage, when he’d changed his T-shirt, but she had still been able to see him and the tight roll of muscles beneath his tanned skin as he pulled an identical T-shirt over his head.

‘Just another quiet Saturday night, huh?’ she quipped, a tremor in her voice.

‘Exactly.’ His eyes held hers and the noise around them tuned out. It was like stepping into a soundproofed studio, their togetherness filling the space, their silence louder than any amp.

Was she imagining this? Was her mind playing tricks? Was all this hyper-inflated to her because of who he was? Had his fame distorted things? Was she acting on a lust that had been fostered when he was nothing more than a face on a wall, a voice in her ear? Not a real person but an idea, a fantasy?

But no, it couldn’t be – she was only here now because
he’d
chased
her
, brought her back here with his own driver, made threats to stand up all of London if she didn’t show . . .

The light fountain burned itself out and the waiter pulled it from the bottle’s neck, struggling to tip the heavy bottle to pour it into their glasses. Champagne splashed everywhere, making Nettie shriek as cold droplets made contact with her bare skin. Jamie laughed, jumping up from the booth suddenly and grabbing the bottle himself, his thumb positioned over the neck as he began shaking it up and down.

Dave was on his feet in an instant, clearly knowing what was coming, but Nettie and Minnie weren’t so fast and in the next moment cool crystal champagne was sprayed through the air and all over them. The room erupted as Jamie turned in circles, the bottle emptying fast, but not fast enough.

The girls screamed with delight, but there was no way out of the booth for either of them with Dave at one end and Jamie at the other. Minnie – more seasoned in these matters – climbed up onto the table, holding her hand out to help Nettie do the same, but Jamie, spotting their escape attempt, stood on the spot and directed the spray at them both, making them dance as the champagne rained down.

Nettie had never laughed or shrieked so hard, her heels drumming on the table as she was steadily soaked.

‘Oh my God! Make him stop!’ she squealed to Minnie, who had her hands and face in the air, mouth open and trying to drink the fizzy stuff like a toddler catching snowflakes on her tongue.