My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend (12 page)

‘Well, genius – eat a muffin. I’m having this chocolate croissant. Probably two.’

I pass him his cup of tea and we curl up next to each other on the sofa, top to tail. His arm is so close to mine that it is almost touching. The funniest thing is that it doesn’t feel
funny. The close-together feeling we had on the phone last night, at a safe distance, is still there – only it’s much more electric and dangerous now.

Although my heart is beating about one-third more frantically than it usually does, it’s not in the way I would have anticipated. If I could have predicted any of this craziness, I would
fully have expected still to be sitting here inwardly imploding, silently shrieking to myself, ‘OMG, it’s Jackson Griffith!’ I’m not. Not really. I’m sitting on a sofa
with a gorgeous boy, who’s actually not that much older than me, feeling nothing but happy and surprisingly relaxed. There’s something about him that makes him very easy to be around.
The fancy hotel room, the china cups, the best
pain au chocolat
I’ve ever tasted in my entire life – none of it matters all that much; it’s just random stuff that makes a
weird, special day all the nicer.

‘Hey, kiddo.’ Jackson pokes me in the shoulder with a dexterous bare toe. ‘You make a mean cup of tea.’

‘Thanks. Well, there’s only one thing that’s better than a good cup of tea . . . and that’s daytime telly. If I’m skiving off college, we’ve got to watch
Jeremy Kyle
. I’ll talk you through it – the guy is basically like Jerry Springer but really, really mean. Ooh, “Admit You’re a Prostitute, Then Prove My
Boyfriend’s the Dad”. This should be a good one.’

‘You sure know how to show a guy a great time.’

‘If you’re lucky, I’ll take you to Greggs later. You’ll love their cheese-and-onion pasties. Not until after
Cash in the Attic
though.’

‘Sounds electric. Where’ve you been all my life?’

We spend most of the day like this. Watching TV, chatting, giggling a lot, ordering chips and Cokes from room service for our lunch. So slowly, at first I think I must be imagining it, I begin
to notice that Jackson is gravitating towards me on the sofa as if we are both magnetic. I feel as if I’m in a dream. When I realize that his hand is resting across my leg I almost stop
breathing, frightened that if I move it will break the spell. I look at him out of the corner of my eye, searching for a clue, but his eyes are fixed on the TV. In fact, I notice that he is
starting to look a bit glazed – jetlag might finally be setting in. I wonder if he’ll want me to go soon, and the idea of this makes me feel sadder than I would have imagined.

Just as I think I can hardly bear it, he turns around and looks at me.

‘Hey, Tuesday?’ he whispers sleepily. ‘This is really nice.’

He leans down and for one crazy moment I think this is really it – he’s going to kiss me. Then he nestles his head into my shoulder and closes his eyes.

‘I’m really glad you’re here,’ he mumbles, before falling straight into a deep sleep.

I have to pause for a second to remind myself that this is real, and then I have to stop myself from bursting out laughing. His mouth is hanging open and he immediately starts snoring, but
somehow he looks totally adorable. I lie there, half curled up on the sofa, and try to remain as still as possible so as not to disturb him.

Then, after quite a while, I start to wonder when he might wake up and how difficult it would be to manoeuvre myself out from underneath his lanky sprawl. My right arm has gone completely
dead.

I should leave. It’s getting late and there is no point hanging around here watching someone sleep. This would be the ideal point for me to slip away, write him a note on that fancy hotel
stationery I clocked on the bedside table and get myself on to the next train home. That would be the sensible thing to do.

But, when I think about moving, I find myself mesmerized by the starfish shadows of his eyelashes, unfairly long and thick considering his light hair. It’s like he won every possible round
of the genetic lottery. He hit the jackpot. In sleep I can get a good look at the perfect lines of his face – his slightly wonky nose, the hollow of his cheekbones, that impossible jawline.
For the first time, that hint of ‘it’s Jackson Griffith!’ hysteria is threatening to set in; it just seems so crazy that I am sitting here watching him sleep that I almost have to
stop myself from snapping a photo. I have a feeling I might want to remind myself of this strange, dreamy day at some unspecified point in my future life. I don’t want to be creepy though, so
I force myself to commit the moment to memory the old-fashioned way – by staring like a psycho with barely a blink.

Then he lets out a small puff of a fart in his sleep – and he is just a nice, handsome boy again. I have to suppress a giggle.

I keep telling myself I must leave, but I can’t bring myself to. I do my best not to move for what must be a very long time, keeping one eye on the TV and the other on the sunlight moving
around the room and beginning to fade. My entire right-hand side has now gone completely dead.

He wakes up eventually, with a start, kicking his legs out and mashing his eyeballs with his fists. He sits bolt upright, every muscle tensed. He was so peaceful only seconds ago.

‘Where am I?’ he asks in a strange voice.

‘Um, in London? In a hotel? I’m Tuesday, remember? Off the Internet.’

He breathes a sigh of relief, and so do I, as he crumples back down into the sofa. He puts both of his arms around me and cuddles into me and I don’t have time to think about anything else
but how nice and cosy and warm he feels.

‘Ruby Tuesday. Of course I remember. I’m so glad you’re here. I sometimes get freaked out in new places by myself. I know I’m crazy; don’t be mad at me.’

‘I’m not cross with you,’ I murmur back, stroking his surprisingly silky hair. ‘Of course I’m not. It’s OK. I’m here.’

We lie scrunched up on the sofa together like that for ages. I’m not sure how long, but neither of us moves. We barely breathe. He smells inexplicably like bonfires and fresh cake mix. By
the time he breaks away and sits up,
Pointless
is on.

‘I’ve got to go,’ I say lamely, not moving.

This time I know I’ve really got to. I’ve already stayed much later than I should have done.

‘Oh, Ruby Tuesday! Don’t go. Please.’ He sounds genuinely panicked. ‘I was hoping you could stay over. We could spend the whole evening together. It’s my last night
in London before I have to go off and start doing these gigs. I thought you said that we were going to go to Gram’s for a cheese pasty.’

‘Greggs,’ I correct automatically and then pause. ‘Are you nervous about going back out there – these public appearances, I mean?’

‘Well, when you think about it: imagine being washed up, divorced and in therapy by the age of twenty-three. Having to start out all over again, everyone thinking I’ve screwed it up
for good. It’s not a great feeling.’

‘But most people at that age are still just starting out,’ I argue. ‘You’ve already achieved so much more than any of them – you should feel really
proud.’

‘I could use you there to hold my hand though. I wish you didn’t have to go. Can’t you come with me?’

I want to so badly – and know that it’s impossible – that I can’t speak. Gathering that I’m not going to say anything – the silence hanging in the air making
the room uncomfortable for the first time all day – Jackson picks up yet another guitar and starts strumming aimlessly, lighting a cigarette in his other hand.

For want of anything better to do, I put my sandals back on and gather up my bag and various belongings. Once that’s done, there’s nothing else I can think of to procrastinate
further. I guess this is it.

Inwardly I’m crying out to stay here with him; I don’t
want
to go. I keep thinking of all the reasons why I could technically stay – my mum’s out for the evening
anyway; nobody would ever have to know. But it seems like too big a step, like I’d be selling myself out. I should not let my head be turned by all this. Maybe it’s silly, but it seems
very important to me somehow.

‘Well, thanks for a lovely day,’ I call out, the words sounding brittle, breaking the intimate atmosphere that’s built up between us. ‘Do I owe you anything for all that
food we ordered?’

‘No, my management are picking up the tab,’ he replies, only half turning around. ‘It’s cool.’

‘OK. Bye, then . . .’

‘Bye, Ruby Tuesday,’ he says quietly, and his voice sounds so sad that I want to weep.

I stand there for a minute, but he still doesn’t turn around, and so I close the door softly behind me as I leave. My footsteps on the thick carpet in the hallway are so muffled by luxury
that they are completely silent.

To: Tuesday Cooper

From: jackson evan griffith

Ruby Tuesday/ace young writer/pretty girl/lovely tea-pouring internet princess in a red dress . . .

Please forgive me. I had a wonderful day visiting with you. You were and are just as sweet and as smart as I hoped.

You were right to leave when you did. It bores me stupid when people just do what i want all the time and agree with every damn word I say. I know you’re different and that’s why I
like you, but I guess I still sometimes have a ways to go in not being a rockstar ego diva nightmare.

I want to see you again so badly. Right now I’m eating a room-service curry and watching some terrible movie on TV, some crazy morality tale about a nice girl with a terrible boyfriend. If
you were here, it might seem funny. You make me laugh like nobody else has for a very long time. Did I mention that you looked really pretty in your red dress?!

I know it sounds weird but I think I miss you. You only left a couple of hours ago – I guess you are home by now. Do you still want to talk to me?

Love, Jack xxx

‘So, how was your date?’

‘It was . . . perfect!’

I am home now after a miserable train journey back to the suburbs. I’ve had a shower and I’m in my pyjamas, scrubbing off all the make-up, hope and preparation. Still feeling a bit
grubby and not quite right. Guilt is a bit more difficult to eradicate, I suppose – like black London bogeys. I’m eating a tuna sandwich when my mum sails through the front door.

‘Eleven out of ten,’ she adds for good measure.

I must admit, she is looking beauteous. It’s not only her flimsy blue sundress, white jacket and high heels, or her new highlights and matching nails. She has a definite glowy-ness to her,
almost invisible but totally unmistakable.

It makes me wonder for a second whether my actions are written as legibly on me. My mum is unmistakably a woman who has just come home from a great date, a woman who has recently been kissed. I
remain unkissed, and I can’t decide whether to be relieved or disappointed about this state of being; I mean, I didn’t expect a man like Jackson Griffith to want to kiss me or anything,
but I wonder whether I look like a girl who has spent the day in a hotel room with a notorious rockstar. No – of course I don’t. I just look like Tuesday Cooper – a girl with a
silly name, wearing pyjamas and eating yet another sandwich. I try my best not to feel grumpy and resentful about my mum and her new boyfriend, who will undoubtedly become the centre of our family
universe, whether I like it or not.

‘So, tell me all about it then!’ I grin, not just to be kind but because I’m glad of the distraction. ‘I want to hear all about Richard Jenkins the history teacher. Did
you call him “sir”? Bet you did, you strumpet!’

‘That’s a fine way to talk to your mother, young lady!’ she says with a laugh.

We troop upstairs and I loll about on her bed as my mum takes off her ‘date dress’ and begins her extraordinarily complicated skincare regime. She despairs of me and my ‘soap
and water when I can be bothered’ approach. Maybe I would be a better person if I could make myself care about that sort of stuff. Maybe I’d realize I really
am
‘worth
it’ after all. Or maybe not.

As she potters about at her dressing table, Mum tells me about her night. Richard Jenkins took her to a French restaurant (her favourite), and he ate oysters and a rare steak (sexy, apparently).
My thoughts, of course, stray involuntarily to Jackson – I wonder if I’d think it was sexy if he ate an oyster. Not particularly. But at least he looks like a man who
could
eat
an oyster if he wanted to. Seymour’s allergic to them. He’s allergic to most shellfish and to pineapples and kiwi fruit. He also has mild asthma. Jackson looks like he could, like, fix
a car and go surfing and then eat three dozen oysters. And then an ice-cream sundae.

I slap myself down immediately. I need to stop thinking like this; it’s not fair on Seymour. It’s horrible of me. I am evil. I need to decide what I’m going to do, and soon
– it’s inexcusable not to. I’m just really dreading having to have any kind of conversation with him.

It’s funny though – it wasn’t long ago that I felt so lucky that Seymour wanted to go out with me, like he was too good for me or something. I don’t want to get above
myself, but in the last two days Jackson has made me feel more awesome about myself than Seymour ever has. In fact, it’s made me realize that Seymour doesn’t make me feel good about
myself at all – and, whatever my faults, surely that’s not right. Jackson aside, I don’t know how I can have gone so long without fully realizing that there might be something not
completely great about me and Seymour.

As if this wasn’t realization enough, my mum is still talking about exactly what a dream date
ought
to be: ‘We drank lots of red wine, and we talked and talked. We
didn’t even notice that we were the last people in the restaurant and that they were stacking chairs on to tables all around us, we got on so well.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that it was so late. Only now do I realize it’s gone midnight. I must have got home later than I thought as well. Thank goodness Mum’s date went so
well – I would have had a lot of explaining to do otherwise.

‘He kissed me as I was getting into my taxi; we’re going out again on Saturday night,’ she confides. ‘He’s already texted me twice since I got home. He’s a
very charismatic man.’