Loving the Band (12 page)

Riley was funny, flirty and uncomplicated. This is what I needed for the short time I had in London. And, afterwards, who knew?

When the final movie ended, Riley flipped me over on to my back so I was looking directly up at him. He smiled lazily. ‘I don’t want to move from here, but I need to check work emails and the fan pages. Do you have a laptop I could borrow?’

‘Sure, it’s over there.’ I pointed to where I’d left it on the chair. I wandered over to the mirror to make myself look vaguely presentable after not having had time this morning. I tied my hair up and applied a smidgen of
make-up.

‘You don’t need that, you know,’ Riley said, looking at me in the mirror.

‘Er, I thought you were meant to be checking emails! You do your work and leave me to my very important tasks.’ I grinned cheekily.

‘You’ll pay for that comment later,’ Riley laughed, opening up the laptop. ‘Hey, what’s this?’ he suddenly asked, sounding shocked.

‘What’s what?’ I turned round, curious.

He tilted the laptop to face me, and the article I had read earlier about me and Tegan at the beach popped up on the screen.

‘Oh …’ I mumbled, leaning over, embarrassed to see it again in front of me. ‘Don’t bother reading it – it’s nothing,’ I lied.

But Riley read on anyway and I saw the anger and frustration mounting in him as he pushed back his hair. ‘What a load of bull!’

I nodded my head, not really sure of what to say. Riley had seen me return with Shaq after our walk down the beach that evening, but it definitely didn’t help things seeing it in black and white and reading a stranger’s insinuation about what had happened. I shuddered as I thought about how many millions would be viewing that webpage.

I walked over and gently rubbed Riley’s shoulder. He placed his hand on top of mine and tipped his head back to look at me. ‘You think I’m the one that needs
comforting, Jess?’

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Well, it could be worse,’ I said positively.

He sighed, turning his body round so that we were facing each other on the bed. ‘Well, it’s not exactly good,’ he said sadly.

‘Aw, aren’t I famous enough for you to be seen with?’ I joked, sticking my bottom lip out and poking him lightly on the chest.

Riley shook me off and scoffed, standing up and walking over to the window. Obviously he didn’t take it as a joke.

‘I’m not like that at all, Jess,’ he said, shaking his head.

‘I was joking, Riley,’ I cried. ‘What’s wrong with you? It wasn’t you they were saying things about.’

The fire in his eyes softened as he saw that he’d upset me. ‘And it’s not me I’m worried about, Jess.’

‘Well, who, then? Because I’m sure your fans know a fabricated story from a real one when they read it!’ I exclaimed.

‘It’s you!’ he whispered. ‘I’m worried about you. I never wanted to bring you into the world of harsh gossip and tittle-tattle. And this isn’t how today was meant to go!’

I walked over to him and wrapped my arms round his waist, leaning my head just underneath his chin. ‘It’s not your fault, Riley. When I met you guys, I had a choice and I
chose
to become friends with a famous boy band, and somewhere along the line I knew that something like this was bound to happen. It’s not your fault that the press
decided to make up silly rumours about relationships and everything. All they’re doing is trying to come up with something interesting to get hits for their site. Please don’t worry about it, really.’

He gave me a small smile. ‘Friends, huh?’

‘You know what I mean,’ I protested, feeling ruffled by the comment for some reason.

Riley sensed my change in mood and changed tactic. ‘Yeah, I guess so. I just don’t want you to be the subject of hateful gossip. I’ve seen its effect on people first hand, and it ain’t pretty.’ He shook his head like he was trying to get rid of a bad memory.

‘I’m a big girl, Riley. I’m sure I can handle it.’ To prove it, I took his hand, sitting him back down on the bed.

He smiled and let go of my hand, moving up the bed towards the laptop. Sitting in the middle of my bed with his legs crossed, studiously looking at the computer screen, I couldn’t help but smile at how much he seemed part of the furniture already.

I watched him as he typed furiously. He looked up from the screen to me. ‘Just on Twitter, replying to the fans.’ He looked back down to the screen and began scrolling through the endless tweets. I felt my mouth drop open as thousands upon thousands of tweets popped up every second. Riley noticed my reaction and began to chuckle.

‘Do you have Twitter, Jess?’

‘Yeah, give me a sec and I’ll follow you.’

He chuckled as I mumbled something about his four million followers.

‘Done. Oh, don’t I get a follow back, Mr Popular?’ I jibed.

‘Of course, let me just, ah, there, found you. You are now officially followed by Riley Townsend.’ He grinned like it was a big achievement on my behalf.

‘OMG!’ I shrieked. ‘I so have to ring my best mate, she will be well jel!’ I threw my hands in the air like an excited kid and started to jump on my bed.

‘OK, OK, I get it!’

I giggled as I sat back down next to him.

‘Ooh, is that Shaq’s account?’ I said, pointing to Shaq’s name on the screen.

‘Yeah, why?’

‘I wanna check it out.’ I moved Riley’s hands off the laptop. At first he tried to protest, but gave in after a few minutes. I clicked on Shaq’s page.

‘Hey!’ I exclaimed. ‘He’s on web cam!’ I said, my finger hovering over his latest tweet.

I clicked on the link and Shaq popped up on the screen along with Callum.

Shaq stood up, turned round to grab his phone and walked off. I giggled as tons of tweets about ‘Shaq’s bum’ popped up. Well, I don’t blame them, really; he does have a nice bum. Callum shuffled over to the screen and leaned into it, reading tweets out and asking what everyone was up to. Shaq came back and pushed Callum out of his seat.

I watched Riley as he typed something into the chat bar and grinned when he pressed enter.

Shaq’s face suddenly turned from looking pretty bored
to slightly excited. ‘Ayyyy! Riley’s watching!’ he said into the computer.

Callum just smiled at the camera and dipped his hand back into the bag of crisps he was now munching on.

Riley bent over the laptop and continued to type.

‘What else are you saying?’ I asked, feeling slightly wary for some reason.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I just said it was the both of us watching.’

‘Oh. Right,’ I mumbled, lying back.

I was staring at the ceiling, but I could still hear Callum giving people shout-outs and asking how their day was. Shaq seemed to have disappeared completely.

‘Aren’t you interested any more?’ Riley asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I’ve got the real thing,’ I replied, but really I was wondering why Shaq had walked off. Could it be because he now knew Riley and I were here together?

My thoughts were interrupted as I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pulled it out and opened up the source. Twitter appeared and I clicked on my mentions.

Riley_Townsend mentioned you in a tweet.

I knitted my eyebrows together as I clicked on the link.

Riley_Townsend:
everyone follow my good friend @Jessica-Wright. Hope you’re all well xx

I groaned. ‘Why did you do that?’

Riley just chuckled as I heard him shut the laptop and
slide down the bed to lie next to me. He gently linked his leg through mine and kissed the side of my neck. My breathing quickened as he began to stroke the small of my back. It was crazy the effect he had on my mood. Suddenly there was no one but me and him.

‘You know that feeling when you’re about to go on a rollercoaster?’ I whispered. ‘When you’re excited for the ride, but you also feel scared at the idea and your heart just beats faster and faster in anticipation? Well … That’s how I feel around you,’ I said, keeping my eyes averted the entire time, scared to look at him.

‘Oh, Jess,’ I heard him say softly, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ I forced out a small laugh, shaking my head while prising my hand from his and sitting up. ‘I can’t believe I just told you that.’

Riley sat up next to me. ‘Really?’ he asked, seeming surprised. ‘I’ve been waiting to hear something like that from you for the past week.’

‘Oh, as if. You know how charming you are!’

‘Well, I am Riley Townsend!’ he scoffed.

I giggled, but secretly I wondered how many other women had fallen for his puppy-dog charm. I watched him earnestly as he ran his fingers though my hair. He met my stare as he reached out to brush a strand back from my cheek. I leaned into his touch. He had an intense look in his eyes as he cast his gaze upon my lips. His hand was still placed on my cheek, and I was almost certain he could feel me blushing. With the gentlest of movements he began to kiss me slowly but firmly. I felt as if I was melting.

‘Oh, Jess,’ he murmured, ‘I’m so sorry. I really need to go back to the hotel soon. We have an evening TV interview,’ he whispered.

‘Mmm,’ I mumbled, unable to say anything in return, lost in his embrace.

Ten minutes after Riley left my heart was still beating furiously. I heard my phone buzz and when I opened the new email it directed me to Twitter.

Riley_Townsend:
I miss you already @Jessica-Wright :( xx

I smiled hard. But I wondered why he hadn’t just texted that to me. By using Twitter Riley had pushed our relationship even more into the public eye, something which I’d thought we were both trying to avoid. Maybe I was thinking too much into this? Probably. Maybe he didn’t think it through. Or maybe he just wanted to use Twitter now that we were following each other.

My phone continued to buzz; my mentions were going crazy, and I noticed that I’d gained a healthy amount of followers. I scrolled through my numerous amounts of tweets and I couldn’t believe the things that were being said:

onlyway96:
who is this @Jessica-Wright? She’s well ugly.

Oh, charming. One after the other I got torn apart by people who didn’t even know me.

truefan101:
@Jessica-Wright she’s too short.

RileyNo1:
@Jessica-Wright Riley deserves more

There were probably nice tweets too, but the horrible ones stood out a mile.

I decided I should probably tweet Riley back, but I didn’t really know what to say. If I said I missed him too, people would really think we were dating and I would probably get murdered by the fans, and if I didn’t tweet him back people would just think I’m a bitch. Why on earth hadn’t he just texted me instead of broadcasting it to all his millions of followers? I decided to settle on a simple tweet.

Jessica-Wright:
@Riley_Townsend miss you guys too x

I smiled, happy with it. Hopefully people wouldn’t come to the conclusion that we were dating.

I threw my phone back on the bed and let out a long sigh.

A voice came from my open door. ‘Am I interrupting?’

Tegan walked in. She looked so happy, probably from being loved up with Callum.

I felt the bed sink next to me as Tegan came and lay down. I sighed, not meaning to, and said, ‘You’re smitten! Have you been with Callum?’

Tegan gasped then giggled, slapping my arm, and replied, ‘Yes, but I’m not smitten! But, more importantly, I was on Twitter and saw that tweet from Riley! What happened today? Tell me all the juicy details!’

‘Well, Riley charmed me, through and through. He said all the right things at all the right times and we spent the day watching movies together and any thoughts of Shaq just flew out the window. But then he started chatting with Shaq and Callum on web cam and Shaq just walked off when he found out that Riley and I were here together. He wouldn’t chat back. And it just feels like all the old tension is still there. I can’t understand it. Shaq’s had so many chances to make his move if he really wanted to, so it doesn’t make sense for him to act that way.’

Tegan scrunched up her pretty face. ‘Things sure are complicated.’

I groaned in agreement. ‘Really, I should just relax and enjoy my time with Riley. Oh God, Tegan, we’ve really failed at having a boy-free, drama-free holiday!’

Tegan laughed. ‘But seriously, Jess, if even after spending a whole day with Riley alone you’re still unsure about your feelings, maybe you need to take some more time and listen to your heart. Remember, you’re in control here.’

Listen to my heart. Easier said than done.

I woke up the next morning groggy, with a sinking heart. I’d hoped that a good night’s rest would mean I’d wake up with a clearer idea of how I felt about Riley, but it wasn’t to be that easy. As I watched the sun come out from behind the clouds, I thought about Tegan’s words of advice. Maybe I just needed more time to think. Vibrations from my phone broke my train of thought.

Good morning, beautiful. I hope you slept as well as I did. I’m an idiot and I left my keys at yours. Any chance you could make it over to the hotel this evening? The boys and I are at interviews all day but should be back by 8. R xx

I clapped my hand to my forehead. It seemed I wouldn’t have as much time to listen to my heart as I’d hoped.

Tegan bounded into my room, her usual chirpy self.

‘Hey, Jess, how’d you sleep?’

‘Oh, so so,’ I replied.

‘Do you fancy getting breakfast out somewhere? I’ve a mad craving for a bacon buttie,’ she said, licking her lips.

I laughed. ‘That sounds delicious. Give me a few mins to get myself together.’

Tegan left the room, skipping at the thought of butties, and I jumped into the shower. The pounding hot water felt good against my skin as I tried to forget all my worries. Rubbing myself dry, I stepped into my favourite jeans and pulled on an oversized white shirt, nipping the waist in with my favourite belt. I twirled my hair into a messy bun and went to get Tegan. She was waiting at the front door, eager to leave.