Summer Star (The Blue Phoenix Series Book 1.5) (13 page)

“Would serve you right if a pack of paparazzi descended on you!” He pauses. “Hang on. Whose car? I took yours.”

“The girl's. I promise I'll explain, just help me out, man.”

I head back to Sky’s car, head bowed. Surely, the nearest press pack are miles away, and if they’re tipped off I’ll be out of here by then. But if they appear, I have nowhere to go. Ironically, in the open space of the car park, I’m more trapped than if I were hiding in the Broadbeach house.

“If I do this, you come back tomorrow, or I tell Steve where to find you,” Bryn continues.

“Fine.”

“Are you still in Cornwall?”

“Yeah.”

“Lucky because if you were closer, I'd drive down there and drag your ass back here myself!”

I’m relieved London is a four-hour drive from where I am because this is a Bryn I don’t hear very often. When Bryn gets pissed off, he’s more aggressive than even a stoned Jem. Takes a lot to rile him but beware if you do. “Can you find me some numbers? People I can call to pick this car up and get it fixed. And someone to take me back to... where I'm staying so I can pack.”

“Is the chick I heard with you?”

“No, she left.”

“Who is she?”

“I don't know.”

This lie to Bryn is halfway to the truth. I don't know Sky, but I want to know everything and I think I may just have fucked up any chance of that.

Climbing back into Sky's piece of shit car, I tell Bryn where I am and what I need, painfully aware the peace of the last few days is over.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I'm unimpressed when the people I call inform me they can't get to the supermarket for a couple of hours. Used to clicking my fingers and having people run, this doesn't suit me. Confined in Sky's car, I pull out my phone and set about reconnecting to the world I’ve hidden from.

Myf wasn't kidding about the death notices; Google my name and my demise is the top hit.
Huh.
Apparently, I crashed my car and died instantly. In a way, I did when I hit Sky, colliding with her killed part of me. The outpouring on Facebook and Twitter from a couple of days ago astounds. Yeah, people love me but the reaction and disbelief is incredible. As is the level of pissed off my fans were when the hoax was discovered.

I flick through the Blue Phoenix social media sites, reading the explanations from PR. There's radio silence from the other band members, told to keep quiet I expect. Cressida, as suspected, has wailed all over the internet about how she can't cope with my moods and my abandoning her. We need to talk when I get back; no way can she be seen as my girlfriend when Sky is in the picture.

When I get back.
The heat and hunger intensifies the nausea from the thought but returning to Blue Phoenix is unavoidable now. I rummage through the bags Sky left in the car and pull out a chocolate bar and as I eat, the thoughts and fears loop around my head. I know I can't escape the life I created; I sold my soul for a life of fame without realising how empty this would leave me. I came here to discover who the man is buried beneath the confusion and lose the other for a few days. This Dylan gave his heart and soul away in just a couple of days, to a smart, sexy girl whose heart needs fixing too. Is it too late to convince her we can start on a new path together?

****

By the time Sky’s car keys are handed over to curious guys with a breakdown truck, it's early evening. Hours sitting in a car park did not improve my mood so following a gruff exchange about how the car is fucked and they need to fix it, the guys leave.

At which point I realise I’m now in the middle of the tarmac world with nowhere to go.

With disbelief at my stupidity, I pull the peak of my cap down and call a taxi. Seems pointless now, but I ask the driver to drop me a ten minute walk away from the house and finish the journey on foot.

The whitewashed cottage fades into the dusk as I head the last few hundred metres to the garden path. Inside, the house is silent; Sky isn't in her usual spot on the sofa with her book; maybe she left already. I head upstairs to check if she’s in her room but change my mind and walk back down before I reach the top step. If Sky is here, I need to wait until she's ready to talk to me.

I slump into an armchair, exhausted by the events of the afternoon, head aching from the heat as I rehearse the words cycling in my head. How I need to tell Sky the truth and why I hid this from her, how I want her to come with me when I leave tomorrow. We can finish our holiday at my Hampshire place – share with Sky the luxury of my real lifestyle, she’ll love that.

The creak of Sky's footsteps on the wooden stairs breaks the quiet and I immediately stand when she walks into the room, holding her rucksack. The look on Sky's face fractures my heart into more pieces; she's looking at me with the unimpressed look from the first day but worse, every spark of happiness at my presence gone from her eyes.

Without a word, Sky sets the full bag on the floor and heads to the kitchen.

Fuck.

I follow, grasping at what could be my last minutes with her. “Can I talk to you?”

Sky’s pale-faced distance remains, the thread holding us together stretched to breaking point. Her unruly hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she’s changed into jeans and a loose, non-descript grey top. This ordinary girl fills my life and heart with the extraordinary, and an overwhelming desire to hold Sky and stop her leaving.

“How did you get back here?” she asks.

“The same way you did. I walked.”

“What if someone saw you pursuing some girl you wouldn't be seen dead with?” Her cool attitude is matched by the icy tone to her voice.

Stepping forward, I continue to resist taking hold of Sky and shaking the truth in. Instead, I clench my teeth. “Don't. Say. That.”

“How else am I supposed to take it?”

“You completely overreacted. Haven't you listened to anything I said? How I feel about you. About us.”

“Us? There isn't an us!”

“Of course there fucking is! Otherwise you wouldn't be so pissed off with me!”

Sky gives me her 'I'm lost for a response' glare. So many nuances about this girl I know already, even when she tunes me out I'm aware of the smallest parts of what makes Sky who she is.

“I called someone to come and get us. If you'd waited...”

“Who?” Her voice rises in alarm

“It doesn't matter. I've asked them to take your car and fix the engine too.”

“I don't need anything from you!”

Sky moves to leave and I stretch my arm across the doorway, preventing her walking away from the conversation we need to have. “Please, Sky. I meant what I said. Don't go.”

“I have to go!”

Desperation taking over, I attempt to embrace Sky but she moves back. “Can’t we talk about this? Until I said what I did, everything was going so well. Don’t leave yet, not because of one dickhead comment.”

“Things are different.” Sky’s voice is hoarse as she speaks the words to the floor.

“Why? Because of the sex?”

Sky’s gaze remains on the tiles as she says the words I dread. “I know who you are now.”

Time freeze-frames as the words blow apart the remaining fragile wall around us. “How?”

She turns her dull eyes to mine. “I googled you.”

“Why?” I ask hoarsely.

“Because my curiosity took over, and I needed to know who you were.”

“And?”

“I think I should leave. I don't want to get caught up in...whatever.”

I slump against the doorframe, pissed off the decision to tell Sky who I am is taken out of my hands. “I wish you hadn’t done that.”

“I was going to find out eventually. You should’ve told me.”

“We said no to the real world, so I didn’t. Just like you didn’t tell me who you are. It’s not fair you’ve done this; I can’t fucking google you.”

“I’m an accountant-receptionist-dogsbody and I live in Bristol. I just split up with my boyfriend of five years, whose family I unfortunately work for. So I'm probably jobless now too.”

“That’s not much compared to what you know about me. Or think you know.”

“There’s nothing much to know. I’ve not had the most eventful of lives.”

Every word pushes us further apart when today we were moving together, but this changes nothing, she needs to hear; understand.

“Do you know how fucking hard it is to be owned by everyone around you? What that does to a person? Coming here freed me – meeting you, the first person who treated me the way I deserve, both good and bad.” I edge closer and this time Sky doesn’t move. We’re close but the heat from her body is the only warmth between us. “You showed me who I could be. And now you know who I am, I’m their Dylan Morgan again, not your Dylan Morgan.”

“Mine?”

“I mean the one you know. The one you freed by not knowing the other one.” I stiffen against the desire to scream, walk away, or yell ‘this isn't fucking fair’ but grip my hair to hold myself in the here and now. “Too fucking good to be true.”

“But this was always temporary. We would both go back to our old lives and everything would be over. Playing out fantasies about returning to the world of our childhood where nothing can touch us is an illusion.”

“I wanted to live in that illusion for longer.” The new understanding that Sky never held the same desires as me, that she won't accept the other Dylan, hurts. “You let me breathe, Sky. You connect me to something long gone, and now that’s lost again.”

“Leave then. Go further than Broadbeach. You have the money, disappear and make a new life.”

“Where? How? Are you listening to me?”

Sky rubs her face. “Okay, if you can't run then face things. If someone is trying to control your life, take the control back.”

“That’s hypocritical. You ran away from your problems!”

“To get my head together after things ended with Grant. But even in the first day of being apart, some of how I felt was relief. Grant was trying to change me and I'm never going to be anything but myself from now on. I control my life, no one else. You should do the same.”

“You're telling me to go back?”

“Not if you don't want to. Dylan, do what you want. If you need time out to get your head together, fine, but face them - whoever - and tell them.”

“It's not that fucking simple!” I yell.

“Why?” she replies as forcefully.

“I've done this since I was seventeen, Sky. How can I stand up for who I am when I haven't got a fucking clue who that is?”

Finally, I get through to her. Sky's tension drops and her expression reflects her old understanding of why I'm here, who I really am. How lost I am.

“I don't know what to say to you. I don't understand your life or the world you live in,” she says softly.

Reaching out, I tentatively touch her face. “Say that you'll stay with me a little longer.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you here. With me. Telling me home truths and making me face shit.”

“I can't. I don't want to be here when the press or whoever tracks you down. They're looking for you and I'm not getting dragged into your life.”

I let go of the control, the pretence; the need for her trumps everything and I seize Sky's face. “Sky, please, I want you. I want to get to know you, all of you. I don't know why but we were meant to meet and we did at the exact point in time we needed to. You walked into my world and showed me a glimmer of a different life I could have.”

She pushes me away. “What if they're out there now? The person who saw you? And now, you've told people where you are. No, Dylan. I can't do this. I’m about to start a new life, one I can control.”

Heart pushing against my chest, I stare at the shaking Sky, at her fear and denial. Why does her rejection matter? Because we belong. I have no fucking clue why now, why here, and why so suddenly, but this woman is my world. My new world.

“Tomorrow. Wait until tomorrow?” I ask.

“What's the point?”

“The point is you don't have your car and it's getting late. I'm leaving tomorrow too; I'll have someone take you home.”

Her voice rises. “You'll have someone take me home? I don't want anyone taking me anywhere! I want my car back!”

“Then you'll have to stay here, won't you? Until your car’s fixed. They said tomorrow.”

What happened to the Dylan Morgan who could persuade anybody to do anything? Sky happened. Her refusal to accept my attitude is one of many things I like about her. Now it's backfiring big style.

My phone rings and jolts me from the attempt to get through to Sky.

“What?”

“Dylan, it's Kim.”
PR girl
. Shit, I should've looked who it was before I answered. “Don't hang up, listen!” I hesitate at her words. “There are pictures of you on the internet and...”

“What? Where? Fucking deal with it!”

“Someone put one on Twitter of you and a girl and it's spreading fast. Plus, somebody already figured out where you're staying. Dylan, I think...”

“How?” I interrupt but she doesn’t reply. “Okay, well I'll have to fucking leave then. Who gave them the fucking address?”

I head out of the room; the house, into the quiet garden and away from Sky, already aware I need to hide this world from her. “Kim, tell me exactly what's going on.”

“You were seen. Someone took pictures. The internet did its job. The usual.”

“Yeah, what I was fucking running from!”

“Look, I've no idea what's going on with you, this has been a nightmare for all of us and you're refusal to talk to me - Steve - hasn't helped. Let us help out.”

“I don't need your fucking help! I want to be left alone.”

Kim sighs. “That's not going to happen. Not unless you find yourself a desert island.”

Yeah? Well, I can do that
.

“I'm sending a car, half an hour, before your paparazzi friends find you.”

There’s movement in the doorway and Sky appears with her rucksack, ramping up my heart rate. I grip my hair. She can't be here when the press arrives. “What's going on?” she asks.

I shake my head at Sky and continue. “Half an hour? Who contacted you? No, you get on fucking Twitter or whatever and tell them I'm somewhere else. I don't know - the fucking moon!”

I can't. I just fucking can't. I throw my phone as hard as I can into the dusk, wanting to hurt someone. Instead, I smack my hands against the house wall, my palms sting as I rest my forehead against the cool bricks. The familiar panic seizes, the outside world retreating into the distance and I'm close to slamming my head, too.