harriet (6)

chapter thirty one

‘You WHAT?’ Bryan was screaming at Sandra. She’d finally come clean.

‘I’m so sorry.’ She looked ready to burst into tears.

‘And you think that helps?! You stupid woman! Do you know what you’ve done?’ Sandra shook her head, pitifully. ‘You have made one of my closest friends hate me! And who knows if he’ll forgive me for this! But you’d better hope he does!’

‘I’m so sorry Bryan.’

‘Stop apologising! You know what you’re going to do? You’re going to go and find Mark, and you’re going to tell him what you told me!’

‘He won’t listen.’ She was crying now.

‘Then you keep telling him until he does listen, because if you’ve ruined this friendship your life won’t be worth living! And you can forget about being in the band as well! So you’d better start praying that he does listen.’

She just stood in front of him, sniffing. ‘What are you waiting for? Go and find him!’ She nodded and ran from the room. Bryan couldn’t believe it. How could she? And to think he’d actually liked her...

Mark couldn’t find Bryan anywhere. They had to talk. To think he’d thought that Bryan could have done something like that! Mind you, it sounded like Bryan had thought he’d done something like that too! He couldn’t believe Sandra.

He ran round the corner, and straight into Bryan.

‘Bry!’

‘Mark!’ There was an awkward pause.

‘Bry, I’m so sorry.’

‘No man, I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything.’

‘No, I should have trusted you. And you didn’t do anything wrong anyway.’ The two of them apologised about 6 times each before Mark smiled.

‘This is stupid. Friends?’ He stuck his hand out.

‘What do you think?’ Bryan hugged him. ‘Women - they only cause trouble!’ The two of them laughed and walked down the corridor chatting away. They had a week’s worth of gossip to catch up on!

Nicky grabbed his keys and wallet and shut his the door to his room behind him. He was meeting Laura for lunch before they both headed off to the SECC for another manic afternoon. What was it about Scotland? Things were always so mad. But good.

As he waited for the lift, he wondered what it was that Laura had to tell him. She hadn’t given him any clues, but he had a feeling it was something fairly major.

He walked into the restaurant they’d arranged to meet at and spotted Laura chatting on her phone in the corner. He walked over and sat down. She switched her phone off and put it away.

‘Honestly, you girls, always on the phone!’

‘I was on the phone to Shane as it happens! I’ll tell him that next time I speak to him!’

Nicky grinned. ‘So, what is it you have to tell me?’

‘Okay, here goes. But just let me say this, and don’t interrupt. I’ve been rehearsing this, so if I mess it up because of you, you won’t be popular.’

‘On you go.’

‘I never told you this before, because I knew it would do more damage than good. But things have changed this week.’ Laura looked at her hands. ‘I love you Nicky, and I don’t just mean as a friend. But you and Georgina ending this week has made more than one change. It made me realise that you two have sacrificed your friendship, because your relationship didn’t work out. And I would never want that to happen to us. You mean way more to me as a friend than you ever would as more than that, and it’s just not worth the risk.’ Laura looked up. ‘You can speak now.’ She smiled nervously.

‘What do you want me to say? I mean, if you’ve decided that you just want friendship, why have you told me?’

‘I dunno. I just knew I had to tell you. Are you okay with it?’

‘I’m flattered.’ Nicky stroked her cheek, and Laura held her breath. ‘But I totally agree. I wouldn’t have got through this week if it wasn’t for you. There will be some very lucky guy who can make you a much better boyfriend than I ever would. Laura, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I don’t want anything to ever change that.’

Laura took his hand away from her cheek, and held it tight. ‘Me too, Nix, me too.’

Shane saw Lucy sitting by the bar, drinking an OJ. Before he knew what he was doing, he went across and sat on the stool next to her.

‘Shane! What are you doing?’

‘Talking to you. Is that a crime?’

‘Alec might think it is.’

‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘She isn’t pregnant!’

‘What? Don’t be ridiculous!’

‘I’m not! She never got it confirmed. She told you she was further on than she could have been, and the pregnancy test got it wrong!’

‘Keep your voice down! You don’t want everyone knowing! How can this have happened?’

‘She convinced herself she was pregnant, and because she wasn’t eating since she was worried about telling me her periods stopped!’

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not. Lucy, don’t you see? This means there’s nothing stopping you and me.’

‘There is! Even if she isn’t pregnant, I’m still Alec’s friend. I couldn’t do this to her.’

‘We talked this morning. She said she still had feelings for me, but that she understood that I didn’t feel the same way. She says she’ll be friends, and that she doesn’t want to force me into being more than that.’

‘You’ve got to be making all this up.’

‘Why would I?’

‘To make me admit that I feel the same way about you as you do about me.’

‘Do you?’ Lucy nodded shyly. ‘Really Lucy?’

‘God yeah! But I didn’t want to do anything when Alec thought she was pregnant!’

‘What about now? Now that she isn’t?’

‘What do you think?’ Lucy smiled, and as Shane kissed her lightly on the lips, he felt all the worry of the past few days disappear.

Kian smiled to himself. He had already forgotten the past few days. Bianca had phoned him the night before, just after the show, and he’d wanted to hang up, but something had made him hang on.

He’d spent another late night up talking, but this time it was with Bianca, instead of ‘Rina. He’d realised that he’d only been fooling himself by saying that he didn’t love Bianca. Talking to her had only brought back all his feelings. She was coming across spend the rest of the tour with him, and she’d made an appointment with a doctor she knew in London, so they could go for a scan.

Kian was whistling as he waited for Karina in the dining room. He was exhausted, but happy. He had told Karina last night that he and Bianca were back on, and she’d seemed fine about it.

‘Morning Ki’.’

‘Hey. Sleep well?’

‘Apart from being woken by the phone at 3 in the morning, yeah!’

‘Sorry about that, I just had to tell someone.’

‘She’s a lucky girl.’

‘No matter what happens with me and Bianca, you will always be my best friend. I don’t want you to forget that.’

Karina smiled. ‘I was a bit jealous I guess. And I just wanted to protect you - that’s why I went to see her.’

‘I’m a big boy now, I can look after myself!’ The two of them smiled and went to get some breakfast.

The five guys sat in their dressing room at the Point, smiling, for what seemed like the first time in weeks. The day before, everything had been finally sorted out between them. Kian had decided that he would take matters into his own hands, and demanded a band meeting after the previous night’s concert.

***

‘Look, I know things haven’t been easy over the past couple of weeks, for all of us. But we’ve come through it individually, and now we need to come through it as a group. We’ve already let down a lot of the fans, just because we weren’t putting everything we could into the concerts.’ Kian looked round at each of them. They were listening, that’s a start. ‘Tomorrow night is our last night, and we have to prove to the fans, and to ourselves, that we’ve come through this.’ The other four nodded in agreement. ‘We’ve worked so hard to get this far, and I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t want that all to go to waste now. That’s all I have to say.’ Kian sat down and waited for a reaction.

Mark started clapping and the rest of them joined in. Then they all hugged, and apologised for the past fortnight.

***

They were all chatting happily, but each of them had in the back of their minds what Kian had said the night before. They all knew he was right - they had to pull out all the stops tonight, and try and give something back to the fans.

Laura stuck her head round the door. ‘You’re on in 5 minutes guys. Head up to the stage.’ She smiled, and gave them a thumbs up. ‘Knock ‘em dead.’

‘Thanks Laura.’ Nicky grinned. ‘We’re on our way.’

The five of them headed up to behind the stage. Kian, Bryan, Nicky and Mark were about to go up on stage, when Shane called them back.

‘Hang on guys, aren’t we forgetting something?’ He stuck his hand out. The four of them came back, smiling, and put their hands on top of Shane’s.

‘HAON, DO, TRI...WESTLIFE!’

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