Ex in the City, page 19
‘You need one of your special beers,’ Mikey tells him with a laugh as they all take their positions. ‘Honestly, don’t look so worried. There are thousands of fans outside and pretty soon they’re all going to be in here, screaming your name. You’re Dylan fucking King. I bet there will be at least one or two of them screaming your name a bit more privately later.’
Taz, right on cue, supplies Mikey with a drum sting – ba-dum-tss – for his oh-so funny joke.
‘Uh, Dylan, uh, uh,’ Jamie grunts in a high-pitched voice.
‘All right, come on,’ Dylan says, laughing it off. ‘Let’s get this soundcheck checked off the list.’
‘Yeah, let’s do it, lads,’ Mitch encourages them. ‘Tonight marks the start of The Burnouts comeback, you’re going to be bigger and better than ever. You thought things were crazy before – you haven’t seen anything yet. I’m taking you guys to the fucking top and beyond.’
Suitably hyped up, Taz counts them in before they break into their first song. Seeing Dylan up there, performing the old songs, with all the charm and charisma he had before – except now he is not only about a million times hotter, but he seems to have me grabbed by the knickers too – is great for about five seconds, and then reality sets in.
It should be great, that things are shaping up to be as good – if not better – than the old days but… I don’t know. Is that good for me? There’s a part of me that worries things might go back to how they used to be, and that Dylan will soon belong to the fans again, and then who knows how things will go? The fame and the hype and the temptation can carry people away – sometimes past the point of no return. I’ve been through that before, and I don’t want to lose him again.
31
‘Come on,’ Mikey bellows out, punching the air. ‘We’re the number one trend, everyone online is talking about us, about how we’re back – we fucking smashed it.’
After an exceptional first show – honestly, every single one of them has seriously refined their talent since the last time they gigged together, it blew me away – we were rushed away from the venue and bundled on to the tour bus to head to the next city before the fans even had a chance to leave.
We’re almost at Leeds, where the boys will be playing their second secret show tomorrow – not that it’s much of a secret any more, of course.
‘Yeah, we smashed it,’ Jamie replies. ‘Honestly, that might have been the best performance of my life.’
‘Yeah, my forearms are throbbing,’ Taz adds. ‘Totally worth it, though. I played my heart out.’
You can tell that the excitement and adrenaline from the gig are still coursing through their veins. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like, to get that buzz, one that can only come from performing on stage in front of a sea of adoring fans.
‘What do you reckon, Dylan?’ Mikey prompts him. ‘Bit of all right, wasn’t it?’
Dylan laughs. I can tell you how he’s feeling going off the look in his eyes alone.
‘Best feeling in the world,’ he replies with a smile.
‘And this is just the first night,’ Mikey reminds him. ‘It’s only going to get better from here. We’re definitely going out to celebrate tonight.’
I smirk to myself, thinking, once again, that I might not be cut out for nights out starting after 10 p.m. any more. My days of partying until dawn feel like a lifetime ago – honestly, I don’t know how I did it.
‘Well, the plan is to check into the hotel first,’ Mitch reminds them. ‘But, yes, we can go out to celebrate – so long as you remember that you have another show tomorrow. Let’s not go too crazy on night one.’
‘Oh my God, tits!’ Jamie calls out. ‘The first tits of the tour – look out of the window.’
Mikey is straight over there, peering out of the window as the bus grinds to a halt.
I look to see where we are and see that outside the hotel there is already a group of eager fans, hoping to catch a glimpse of the boys.
‘How do they know we’re staying here?’ Mikey asks no one in particular.
‘Because you always used to stay here,’ I remind him. ‘Fans remember details like that. They will know every move you’re going to make – probably even before you do.’
Dylan furrows his brows, deep in thought.
‘Who was that girl who used to follow us around?’ he asks.
‘Oh, yeah, that crazy one – you found her in your wheelie bin,’ Mikey says with a laugh.
‘Cherry,’ I remind them, my eyes widening with horror.
They all say her name at the same time, and the memories flood back.
‘She was unhinged,’ Mikey says.
Cherry wasn’t very nice at all. She definitely had issues. When she wasn’t rifling through bins in search of treasure, she was resorting to desperate measures, like throwing herself in front of the tour bus or sending her horny fanfic to my work email address in the hope that I’d pass it on to Dylan.
‘Straight in, boys, unfortunately,’ Mitch tells them as he ushers us from the bus. ‘No time for tits.’
‘There is always time for tits,’ Mikey replies.
Mikey really has changed over the years, I can’t get over it. He used to be so shy and he took everything far too seriously, but now he’s gone a bit too far in the other direction, and he isn’t even charming with it, like Dylan was, he’s coming across as arrogant and sleazy. I’m not so sure it suits him.
I breathe in the subtly fragrant air of the hotel lobby. Okay, this part of the lifestyle I have definitely missed.
It’s all sparkling chandeliers and polished marble floors – and every member of staff looks fit to serve the royal family. A pianist plays a soothing melody on a grand piano over by the bar, which only adds to the boujee atmosphere.
Mitch is over at the check-in desk where a seriously well-dressed member of staff is helping him check us in. Eventually he returns with the key cards – practically a deck of them – for the band, the crew and then, well, me.
‘Here you go, Dylan,’ Mitch tells him as he hands him a couple of cards. ‘This one is yours, this one is for Nicole. Then, Mikey, this is for you…’
Eventually everyone has a key for their room – not that it seems like most of them are planning on going to them just yet.
‘Okay, boys, the hotel is going to arrange your transport to the club,’ Mitch announces. ‘I want the closest thing you can manage to best behaviour, yeah? Especially you, Dylan, I know what you were like.’
Dylan gets a few cheers and claps from the others – those who were there, or read a newspaper at the time. I just sigh. I remember what he was like too.
‘Yes, lads, let’s go,’ Mikey says, clapping his hands together. ‘Lads and Nicole – sorry, Nicole.’
I laugh it off. I always did feel more like one of the boys.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I reassure him. ‘I think I’m going to get an early night anyway.’
‘What? Really?’ Mikey replies in disbelief, because going to bed early on tour is just not the done thing at all.
‘Yeah, I’m tired, and I have work to do – someone needs to make sure there’s good press from tonight,’ I say with a smile.
Dylan hands me the key card he’s been holding.
‘Here’s your key card,’ he says. ‘If you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ I reply confidently.
After a round of goodbyes, I make my way to the lift. It’s true, that I should do some work, but the thought of watching them get swarmed by eager fans while I get pushed to the sidelines isn’t the night I’m after. I know, this is why we’re here, this is what I signed up for but, still, there are parts of the ‘good old days’ that I’m pretty sure I’ve grown out of.
As the lift doors slide open to my floor, I let out a long yawn – which proves to me that my decision to not go out partying was the right one. I step into the corridor and locate the door to my room, fumbling with my key card, eventually letting myself inside.
‘Wow,’ I say to myself – and you know something is really good (or really bad) when you find yourself talking out loud to yourself.
This isn’t just a room; it’s a lavish penthouse suite – one with multiple rooms.
The first thing that strikes me is the sheer opulence. The first room is a huge open-plan living space, kitted out with plush sofas, fancy furniture and striking contemporary artwork. A gleaming modern kitchen area with stainless-steel appliances and polished granite countertops sits at one side of the room – with floor-to-ceiling windows at the other. Oh, and everything you could possibly want in between, like a piano and a cinema screen.
Back in the day, this is exactly the kind of space we would always get, for at least a few nights of the tour, so that we could have huge parties. They would always be these big, beautiful rooms… and then the boys would destroy them. There is no chance of me doing that, not unless I have some sort of clumsy accident, which now that I think about it wouldn’t be unlike me, so I’m not going to tempt fate with that one.
Venturing deeper into the suite, I discover that there are two bedrooms, but it’s the larger bedroom with a super-king-sized bed that calls my name. The brilliant white sheets look so inviting, I can’t wait to climb in – after removing my make-up not once, but twice, lest I leave grubby brown and black marks on the pillows. The en-suite bathroom is a dream of white marble and shiny gold fixings, and the bath looks so deliciously deep – it would be rude not to.
I head back into the bedroom and then step out onto the balcony, despite the chilly air that immediately nips at my skin, to take in the city. The Leeds skyline stretches before me and while it brings back so many memories, from when I lived here, I can’t help but feel a little freaked out by how much it has changed.
Leeds was so different ten years ago, with only a handful of iconic landmarks dotted around the otherwise seemingly flat skyline. But now, towering skyscrapers have sprung up all over, totally transforming the cityscape. Somehow it just looks like the future – even though compared to somewhere like London it is still tiny – but that’s probably just because I can’t get my head around how somewhere that was once so familiar has been totally transformed.
Just about being able to pick out my old haunts – my flat, my office, the various venues I used to always be dashing to – allows me to look back in time, and I can’t help but wonder, if I really could turn back the clock, and make different choices, and carve out a different path for myself – would I do it? I suppose everyone thinks that, don’t they, but the likelihood is that I would just find a different way to mess it all up.
It’s almost not worth thinking about, because it’s never going to happen, but I don’t suppose that will halt my imagination, especially not when I’m here, literally looking out over my past, all on my own.
I hover for as long as I can stand the cold air before deciding to head inside for a bath. Oh, it’s going to feel all the more glorious, now that I’m a bit chilly.
I’m only back inside about five minutes when I hear a knock at the door.
‘Room service,’ a voice calls out as I approach it.
I definitely didn’t order any room service but, now that I’ve remembered it’s a thing, I’m definitely going to do it.
I open the door, ready to sadly send the staff member on their way – and probably crack some kind of lame joke about how they will be returning shortly – only to find Dylan standing there, a plastic bag in each hand.
‘Hello,’ he says with a smile.
‘Erm, hi,’ I say, laughing. ‘I thought you were going out – you’re the last person I expected to find lurking outside my room.’
Dylan laughs as he steps inside.
‘So, first of all, confession time, this isn’t your room, it’s my room,’ he explains.
‘Noooo,’ I whine – playfully, but I am low-key devastated. ‘I should have known this beauty was too good to be true. I’m assuming I took your card by mistake?’
‘Oh, no, I gave you the wrong one on purpose,’ he explains confidently, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. ‘And then I nipped to the shop next door, to get the things I needed to make you dinner.’
‘I thought you were going out to celebrate with the others,’ I say again, not that I’m complaining.
‘And I thought I would rather hang out with you,’ he tells me with a smile. ‘There will be plenty of chances to party but, I don’t know, I would rather celebrate this one with you.’
My body warms up, all at once, as Dylan’s gesture gives me a strange, tingly feeling. I don’t know what it is but it’s definitely a good sensation.
I guess, for the boys, this is the start of a new chapter, the beginning of their second act, and all being well, tonight will be the first night of many. For me, this is a one-night-only (well, technically three nights, but you know what I mean) kind of deal, I’m just here with Dylan, because I’ve been helping him out. This isn’t my life any more, and soon enough I will be back to reality. So it’s really nice that he’s celebrating with me tonight, seeing as though I will be going home soon. Wherever that is.
‘Thanks,’ I say with a smile.
We look into each other’s eyes, only for a second or two, before Dylan heads for the kitchen.
‘So, what are we having?’ I ask him.
‘The best thing you’ve ever eaten,’ he says confidently. ‘But a much shitter version, because it’s made by me.’
I laugh.
‘Remember in LA,’ he prompts me.
I freeze. Every time I remember it, it feels like I’m being hit by a car.
It feels like so long ago, and it was so surreal, that it honestly feels like a movie I watched – one of my favourite movies, that I think about all the time. It’s one of those memories where you look back and think to yourself: there is no way that happened to me.
Dylan and I became best friends on pretty much the day we met. We had this instant, undeniable connection, this sudden big love for one another that hit us from the word go. I will never be able to explain it but, looking back, it was clear that we both knew that we wanted to be together in some way. He was Dylan King, I was a journalist. He was – according to the press – a serial shagger, a man incapable of a meaningful relationship. I was – what I now can look back at and say with ease – a dummy, who had this silly idea of what she wanted her life to be like.
I idolised celebrities, I wanted to be with one, to be one myself – and Dylan was never going to be an option. So we friend-zoned one another almost instantly, but definitely mutually, and then settled into a friendship, and it really was a great one. In fact, we were so close that, when Dylan finally got his divorce from his grifter of a wife, and I found out that Luke, my boyfriend, was shagging his way around Europe behind my back, we decide to go on holiday together. Honestly, it was just what I needed, it gave me the time and space to forget about Luke-bloody-Fox, and it seemed to do Dylan the world of good too. He hadn’t seemed healthy when he was with Crystal, or in the immediate aftermath, but escaping to the US for a road trip with his bestie seemed like it changed him. While we were away, it was probably the best I’ve ever seen him – not including the present day, obviously. We had the best time, and I could feel us growing closer and closer by the day, almost as though – without the shit back home – we could just be us, and our true feelings could finally come to the surface.
So, on our last night there, we went for dinner – and had the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches and fries, which I really did say was the best thing I had ever eaten – and then we went for a gorgeous night-time walk. And then he kissed me, and while I was totally stunned, I was somehow, confusingly, not at all surprised. It was like we both knew this moment was coming and, when it finally arrived, it was even better than I had imagined it. We spent the night together – the whole night – and then I woke up in his arms, very much feeling like things had changed, like our relationship was going to be so different from there on out. And it turned out that it was going to be different, just, you know, not for the better. We landed back in London, all over each other, like love’s young dream. The second I looked up from kissing him, in the airport, the front page of the Daily Scoop caught my eye, and they were running this huge feature on the women Dylan had slept with, while he was still married to Crystal.
Looking back, with rational eyes, it seems as though Dylan and Crystal called it quits, and so he went right back to his old life before they were divorced. But back then, to me, the girl who had just thrown away years of friendship by sleeping with her best friend, it just seemed to me like he was never going to change and that I had made a huge mistake, so I tried to style it out, to walk it back. I’m pretty sure I just laughed, kissed him on the cheek, told him that he was never going to change and that was fine, we would always be friends. Yep, I know how stupid that sounds, and all it did was pretty much kill our friendship, and then the band broke up, and then – well, I guess you’re up to date from there.
Sex with Dylan was nothing short of incredible. It was like we’d had years and years of foreplay that all built up to that moment, and I had never (then, or since) experienced anything like it. That feeling of my entire body being on fire, of my skin burning wherever he touched me, but in the most amazing way. Even something as simple as him kissing my neck felt like a nuclear explosion.
I need to stop thinking about it because it gets my knickers in a twist, even now, and despite little hints here and there, the two of us haven’t actually had a serious conversation about it. I’m not even sure we need to, but that memory is going to haunt me for the rest of my life, for better or worse – I suppose it’s a bit of both.
I watch Dylan pottering around in the kitchen, grabbing the things he needs to make me a sandwich, somehow looking so normal in some ways, but making me feel almost star-struck in others. Dylan King is making me a sandwich. The Dylan King.
‘Oh, there’s a present in that bag for you,’ he prompts me.
I smile and cock my head curiously as I peer inside. I laugh as I reach in and take out a bottle of red nail polish.
