How to Catch a (Rock) Star (The Dead Hour #1) (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

‘Errr, we might not want to forget these,’ Lillie said, pointing to two scarves tied around the posts of the bed. Jed laughed and untied them.

‘That would have given them something to talk about, you little minx.’

‘Speaking of which, can you look for that photo today?’ she said, taking one of the scarves from him and tying it around her neck. He nodded as they left the room to check out, reassuring her again that there was nothing to worry about.

After a leisurely and late breakfast of homemade waffles and raspberries, they drove back to his parents’ house via the supermarket where Lillie stocked up on Twinkies, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Milk Duds, ignoring Jed’s teasing about her love of all junk food.

At the house, Jed checked the internet for the photo whilst Lillie phoned Kate, Tess and her parents before helping Sandra bake cakes for a charity event she was organising. Cakes in the oven, Jed finally called her in to see the photo. It was blurry but definitely them. Thankfully, it was also a post-coital photo, although nobody would know it really. They looked like they were just about to kiss, Lillie’s dress fully covering her bum, she noted with relief.

‘You see?’ he said, swivelling in his chair to face her. ‘You worry too much, Lil. You need to just chill out a bit.’

‘I know,’ Lillie agreed. ‘So, what are they saying about us then?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual. Most people love us as a couple. There are lots of comments about how sweet this photo is.’ He gestured to the screen. ‘A shit load of guys commenting on how hot it is too.’

Lillie smiled, looking at the photo again. If it wasn’t so blurry, it would actually be quite a nice photo she thought. They didn’t have many photos of them together, just quickly taken ones from various mobile phones. She said to Jed that she thought it would be nice if they had some taken together and his face lit up. He got up quickly, calling Sandra and grabbing Lillie’s hand, rushed into the kitchen.

‘Get your camera, Mom. We’re gonna have ourselves a little photo session.’ He rounded up the dogs, ‘C’mon boys, let’s go! C’mon Lil!’

Lillie looked at Sandra, smiling at her son’s exuberance.

‘Jed, I didn’t mean right now. I’ll just go and, you know,’ she gestured to her face.

‘Don’t be crazy, you’re beautiful! Let’s do this now, the light’s really good, right Mom?’

‘C’mon, honey,’ Sandra said, grabbing a huge camera off the counter and leading Lillie through the French doors. Jed was already outside, playing with the dogs who were taking full advantage of the extra play time.

‘Just pretend I’m not here,’ Sandra said, waving her hand towards Jed, indicating that Lillie should join in with him and the dogs. Lillie walked over to Jed who grabbed her in a bear hug and swung her around. She instinctively tried to pull away, shy in front of Sandra. Jed gave her a stern look.

‘That’s not going to make a very good photo, is it now, Lil?’

He leaned in to kiss her and she leaned back. He leaned further forward and she leaned further back until her spine wouldn’t allow her to move in that direction any more. Triumphantly, Jed stole a kiss from her and she gave in to him. She could no more refuse his kisses than she could refuse pancakes. Lillie wrapped her arms around his neck and laughed when he finally let her breath air again. He lifted her upright and brushed her fringe out of her eyes, staring at her in that intense way he had.

Lillie held her breath, waiting for him to say ‘I love you’, but instead he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers before turning to call the dogs to him. He threw a Frisbee for them and Lillie joined in the game, laughing as the dogs jumped all over her in excitement.

Before the warm glow of daylight started to fade behind the lake, Jed took some photos of her and Sandra, and back inside they had coffee and muffins whilst they looked over the photos. There were some lovely ones of Lillie and Sandra and more than a few amazing shots of Lillie and Jed. Lillie could see that Jed’s artistic nature came from Sandra and made her promise that she would email her them all so she could get them printed out. Sandra pooh-poohed the request, saying she would get them all printed out before they left New York.

Lillie and Jed were staying back at the house for their last night and a farewell dinner. Sandra was planning all Jed’s favourites and Lillie helped her in the kitchen while Sandra chatted away, finding out as much as she could about her along
the way. She didn’t know what Jed was up to. He’d disappeared out of the kitchen at Sandra’s command.

Lillie learnt how to make the bacon and mushroom risotto that Jed always asked for when he came home, that was the starter. The main meal was to be Sandra’s aubergine parmagiana and dessert was ice cream sundaes and Oreo cookie cheesecake. Sandra made her own chocolate fudge sauce, banning Lillie from going anywhere near it and Lillie smiled at the fact that Sandra knew her well enough to keep her away from it.

With all the cooking practically finished, Lillie went in search of Jed, finding him in his room. He was painting over his graffiti wall. She watched from the doorway as he sang, painting a Manga style portrait of them. He suddenly whirled around.

‘Hey Lil, what do you think?’ he said, sweeping his arm out over the wall. He had an excited look on his face.

She was impressed but perturbed that he had gone to such lengths to prevent her from reading all the messages and writing on his wall. It must have shown on her face because his excitement faded.

‘You don’t like it. Shit. I knew I should have done something else, I was thinking of – ‘

‘No, no. It’s really cool. I like it but, well, what was wrong with it before? You painted over all those memories.’

‘I prefer this memory,’ he said, turning back to the wall and adding blue-grey paint to one of Manga Lillie’s eyes.

She didn’t know what to say, so she stayed silent and shuffled her feet to change position as she kept watching.

‘I took photos,’ he said, still with his back to her. ‘If you want, you can check them. Maybe you’ll find whatever it is you think I’m hiding from you.’ He still didn’t turn to look at her, his voice weary.

‘Jed, I don’t think you’re hiding anything,’ Lillie lied, fighting the urge to ask him for the camera so that she could search for proof of his secret. ‘I just think it’s a shame to get rid of memories like those.’ She stayed in the doorway and finally he turned around.

‘I don’t need those memories, they’re mostly not very good ones anyway. I’d rather forget a lot of them,’ he said, crossing the room to her. ‘Why don’t you get that?’ he searched her eyes for something, understanding maybe.

‘I’m sorry, I guess I don’t have memories that I’d rather forget. Well, not that many anyway.’ Lillie felt awful that she was making him feel like he had to explain why he was painting a mural of them. Most girls would be totally blown away that their boyfriend had done something like this for them.

‘Can I help? I’m not very good at painting but I can do something easy.’

Jed flashed a grin at her, tugging her over to the wall.

‘Okay, so I thought maybe some stars or something, just kind of here and there – ‘ he grabbed a brush and painted a white star high up on the wall, excited face back as he kissed her and gave her the brush.

Lillie tried to copy his rather cool looking star but soon gave up. Instead she did asterisk style stars dotted about on the midnight blue background. Jed carried on touching up their faces, pink lips and grey blue eyes for her, red lips and bright green eyes for him, jet black hair for both of them, even though Lillie’s was more dark brown. She commented on the fact and he gave her a look as if to say he wasn’t finished yet and would she please leave him to his masterpiece.

Lillie was done with her stars, not wanting to overcrowd the sky. On a whim, she put some pillar-box red paint on her brush and painted a hand sized heart in the bottom corner of the wall. She sat back to admire her contribution just as Sandra came in with snacks.

‘Wow, you guys! This looks great. What an improvement, don’t you think, Lil?’ She offered Lillie a cookie before taking one herself and giving the plate to Jed.

‘It’s fantastic,’ Lillie said around her cookie. ‘Your son is very talented.’

Sandra beamed, putting her arm around Jed.

‘I know. I’m so glad you’re painting again honey, it’s been far too long,’ she said, kissing his cheek before handing Lillie another cookie.

‘Yeah, well. I felt like it, you know.’ They shared a look and Lillie figured that he had had a bout of depression and stopped painting for a while. They both turned to look at her, sat cross legged on the floor shoving the last of the cookie into her mouth.

‘What?’ she mumbled, embarrassed at her eating habits.

‘Honey, thank you for making him so happy,’ Sandra whispered in her ear as she bent down to give her a fierce hug. ‘He loves you so much and you’re good for him.’

Lillie squeezed her back, a little overwhelmed at her words and the sincerity and strength of her hug.

‘Now, we’re eating in an hour, so you both better start getting cleaned up,’ Sandra said, looking meaningfully at Lillie’s hair and Jed’s hands.

‘I’ve just got to finish up Lillie’s hair. She thinks it’s too black,’ Jed moaned.

Sandra studied the cartoon Lillie and agreed.

‘Her hair’s more chestnut than black. You might want to think about putting some colour in her cheeks too,’ she teased and they both turned and watched Lillie’s cheeks turn pink.

‘Okay, so come down when I call you and not a moment before,’ she instructed as she left the room, adding that they should dress nicely.

Lillie got up and lay on the bed, watching Jed turn her hair the right colour and add a tiny amount of pink to her cheeks, despite her protestations.

Under her breath, Lillie started singing a song she had been working on but couldn’t seem to find the right words for the chorus. She had the first few lines but was experiencing serious songwriter’s block coming up with another two to finish it off. She was singing the lines to herself over and over when Jed joined in and, when she stopped at the end of the two lines, he carried on. Two perfect lines that completed the chorus. She sat up quickly, asking him to sing them again.

‘I need to write them down, quickly – where’s some paper?’ she leapt off the bed, rifling through drawers for pen and paper.

‘Here,’ Jed handed her a felt tip pen and held out his arm.

‘Oh no. No way. Your mum will kill us – she said to dress nicely.’

‘I’ll wear long sleeves,’ he sighed, thrusting his arm at her again. ‘Besides, I’m going to paint you a piece of paper on the wall. You can write it up when the paint’s dry.’

Lillie grabbed his arm, scrawling the two lines on the inside of his forearm before she could forget it.

How many times does it come around

A feeling like a vital part of me’s been found

‘They’re perfect! You’re so clever!’ she squealed at him, flinging herself at him for a hug.

‘Hmmm, I know,’ he said as Lillie rolled her eyes at his immodesty. She clung onto him as he turned back to the wall and painted a big white rectangle above their cartoon heads.

‘Now then, I think it’s time to get you dirty,’ he said, picking her up suddenly. He smothered her protests with a long kiss, transferring the paint from his face onto her cheek in the process. Pink paint. Lillie squirmed in his arms but he held her tighter, squashing her against his chest. She was on the edge of giving into him when his phone chimed out.

He set her on her feet reluctantly, grabbing his phone, glancing at the screen and giving her an odd look, one she couldn’t interpret. He hung up on the caller without answering it and tossed the phone on the bed.

‘You know, we never went out on the lake,’ he said, ‘too caught up in photos.’ Lillie nodded, smiling.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’d rather have the photos and I think your mum got some really good ones. I’ll have to send some to Tess, see what she thinks.’

‘Oh yeah, you should. How’s things going with Tess? I guess she’s back at school now?’ Jed was in the bathroom, washing out his paintbrushes.

‘She is, yeah. I think she’s really enjoying it. She’s braver than me, studying something she really wants to do rather than doing what our parents wanted her to do.’

Jed came back into the bedroom.

‘But now you’re doing what you really want, right? All the stuff you did and didn’t do led you to me, so really, we both have a lot to thank your parents for,’ he came to stand in front of her, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her close to his body.

‘You know, we weren’t supposed to do that gig at The Cavern in Brighton,’ he said. ‘The band that were supposed to be playing all came down with some bug and Steve wanted us to do it for some reason so we agreed because, you know, an extra gig is extra money so – ‘ he shrugged. ‘Imagine if that band hadn’t eaten at some dodgy Chinese the night before.’

Lillie laughed and kissed him.

‘Imagine! I’d probably still be working for that witch, Felicity, miserable and blaming my parents for my shit life.’ She kissed him again. ‘And it turns out I actually have to thank them for stopping me from dancing because it was all fate’s way of leading me to you –’ she grinned.

‘That’s right. What a story – hygiene issues at a Chinese takeout and overbearing parents equals true love. Who’d have thought it?’ Jed laughed and dipped her backwards, kissing her soundly, a hand sliding up her top. Lillie wiggled out of his embrace.

‘No way, mister. Your mum has slaved away making dinner and I am not going to be late,’ she said, skipping out of his reach and darting into the bathroom for a quick shower, leaving Jed to sort out his hard-on.

She got dressed whilst Jed showered, taking extra care with her make-up as she knew the camera would be back out and she wanted to look her best this time.

When Sandra finally called them, the smell of food wafting up the stairs had Lillie salivating.

‘Oh my God, I am starving,’ she exclaimed, moving as fast she could in her vertiginous shoes. They were exquisite – matt black satin with a spike heel and a blunt, almost square toe. A sparkling jewel as big as a small child’s fist adorned the front, sending skitters of rainbow light across the room. They were definitely dinner shoes, not meant for walking far at all. When she said as much to Jed, he disagreed, calling them sex shoes as they were clearly not meant for walking at all. Lillie laughed and said that maybe he was right, considering that she was leaning heavily on him all the way down the stairs.