Chapter Seventeen

“It’s 7 o’ clock on a beautiful Friday morning. Hope you’re all well out there and…” Ben turned off his alarm clock and rolled over. It was far too early to be awake. Slowly opening his eyes, Ben yawned and wished he didn’t have to get up. But he had to be at the studio in an hour so if he didn’t get up now, he’d be late and that would mean the recording session would run over and he’d be late meeting Chloe. Ben sat up and thought happily that tomorrow morning, there was a good chance he’d be waking up next to Chloe. Getting out of bed, Ben put some clothes on and went into the kitchen to get some breakfast. Opening a cupboard, Ben discovered puzzledly that the cereal wasn’t where it usually was. Then Ben remembered that Mark had been the last person to tidy up the kitchen and so chances were, all Ben’s food would be in logical Mark places.

“If I was Mark, where would I put cereal?” Ben asked himself.

Ben opened a random cupboard. He didn’t find the cereal but he did find the coffee, which wasn’t where it usually was either.

“You are one weird person Mark.” Ben mumbled, putting the kettle on and getting a mug.

Ben decided that if he didn’t want to be searching for food all day, he should go through all the cupboards one by one and put everything back in the right places. Okay, it would take a bit of time but how stupid would he look to Chloe if he didn’t know the way around his own kitchen? Just as he got the first wrongly placed item out of the cupboard, his mobile beeped at him. Ben realised he didn’t actually know where his mobile was. He felt in all his pockets and it wasn’t there. He looked around the room. It was spotless. How could he have lost his mobile in a tidy room? That was just stupid. It beeped again and following the sound, Ben found it on the edge of one of his shelves. He had a message from Mark. It said,

LEAVE EVERYTHING TIDY!!!

Ben smiled. “Thank you Mark.” He said.

He sent him a message back saying,

That’s the least of my worries, I

can’t find any of my food, you’ve

put it in all the wrong cupboards!!

From his text message, Mark got the feeling that Ben was going to be late getting to the studio. And he so had not put all the food in the wrong cupboards, it was Ben who had them in the wrong places. Mark had just sorted things out for him. He was keeping cereal in the same cupboard as tins of spaghetti, where was the logic in that? Poor Ben, he hadn’t said it but Mark could tell that he was totally stressed out about Chloe coming to stay. It was quite sweet really, he wanted everything to be perfect but Mark was sure he didn’t need to go to too much trouble. Yes, the cleaning up was definitely a good move, Ben’s flat had been disgusting and Chloe would have probably run a mile if she’d have seen it, but Ben didn’t need to worry so much about what she was going to think. After all, she was going to see him, not his flat.

Mark looked around him at his immaculate room. Laughing at himself for being such a hypocrite, he went downstairs.

“Where you off to this morning?” his brother Colin asked him as he entered the kitchen.

“Recording session.” Mark told him.

“God you’re such a pop star.”

“What?” Mark thought that was pretty much a given these days.

“You! You’re like, oh boring recording session, life of an internationally adored pop star eh? I’d swap with ya.”

Mark grinned at him. “Shut up you, I never said it like that. And believe it or not, it’s not the most exciting thing I’ve got planned today.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Rose is coming to stay.” Colin said in a childish tone.

Mark ignored the way he said it. “Yes, she is and you better be nice to her or I’ll kill you.”

“Oooh, the idle threats of a younger brother.” Colin taunted, emphasising the word younger. “Just coz you go to the gym once a month you think you’re so tough.”

“I go more than once a month. And I’m very tough thank you very much.”

“Yeah, sure you are Mark. I know it’s hard for you to face up to your inferiority next to me but one day you will have to come to terms with it.”

“I knew there was a reason I didn’t miss you.” Mark said.

“Oh and another thing.” Colin said, ignoring Mark’s last comment.

Mark sighed. “What’s that brother dearest?”

“It’s about time you got yourself a proper job.”

There was a silence and then both Mark and Colin started laughing.

Mark looked at his watch. “Are you busy?” he asked.

“Now?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope.”

“Can I talk to you about something?” Mark asked, seizing this brother to brother bonding moment.

“I knew eventually you’d come running for my advice.” Colin joked.

Mark smiled. “It’s kinda serious.”

Colin nodded. “Hit me.”

Mark closed both the doors leading out of the kitchen and sat down at the table. Colin joined him with a mug of tea.

“You can’t tell mum and dad or anyone else okay?” Mark said.

“I won’t.” Colin said, clearly intrigued.

“Promise?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You know Sam?”

“Ex-girlfriend Sam?”

“Yep. Well a couple of days ago, she came round to see me.” Mark paused. “She told me something, um…”

Colin started to look concerned. “What?” he asked.

“She’s um, she’s…” Mark hated to say it coz it made it so much more real. “Pregnant.”

“She’s pregnant?” Colin asked. “That’s um, well I don’t know, is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Well it’s pretty bad when you know who the father is.” Mark said, skirting around the subject.

“Who is the father?”

“Me.” Mark said quietly.

Colin’s worried expression turned to one of complete shock. “Jesus Mark. You should have told me about this straight away. Who else knows?”

“Just Ben, Chris and Paul.” Mark said.

“And you’ve known about this how long?”

Mark shrugged. “Couple of days.”

“You should have rung me Mark.”

“I know. But I didn’t want to tell anyone until I’d sorted it out in my head. Until I knew what I was going to do.”

“What are you going to do?” Colin asked.

“I don’t know.” Mark dropped his head to the table in despair. “Well no actually, that’s not strictly true, I’ve had this conversation at least once with everybody that I’ve told and so I know lots of things I could do and I know what I should do but I still haven’t quite mastered what I want to do.”

“Go on then,” said Colin. “tell me what you could do.”

Mark sighed and started reeling off the list of options facing him. “Run away, not recommended, get back with Sam, not get back with Sam but help with the baby, not get back with Sam and not help with the baby, kill myself, easy option…” Mark trailed off.

Colin frowned. “And what should you do?”

“There’s really no…”

“What should you do?” Colin asked again.

Mark rolled his eyes. “Either get back with Sam or just stay friends and help her bring up the baby.”

“And which of those two do you want to do?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Mark said exasperatedly. “Why does everyone seem to think it’s so simple?”

“You’re not getting back with Sam.”

Mark stopped being depressed long enough to register his surprise at what Colin had just said. “What?”

“She’s no good for you Mark, I won’t let you get back with her.”

“But…”

“She put you through hell last time. You might have forgotten but I certainly haven’t. She didn’t treat you how you deserve to be treated. I’m not gonna let that happen again.”

Mark clearly didn’t know what to say to that. In a way, he felt incredibly relieved, as if someone had made the decision for him and he didn’t have to think about it any more.

“I know it may sound a bit harsh but from an onlookers view, she was a complete bitch to you.”

Mark opened his mouth to say something but he didn’t have anything to say so he shut it again.

“Why didn’t you tell mum and dad?” Colin asked.

“I couldn’t. I mean, I can’t!”

“Why not? They’d understand, they could help.”

Mark shook his head. “They’d be so disappointed.”

“Why?”

“They just would. I couldn’t let them down like that.”

“How are you letting them down? It wasn’t your fault, everyone makes mistakes. Tell mum at least. You know she’d want to know and you’ll have to tell her at some point anyway.”

“Maybe.”

“No not maybe, definitely. What are you gonna do? Keep the kid a secret its whole life? Mum would want to know that she had a grandchild. Dad too.”

“No, I am not telling dad. He’d probably have me castrated!”

Colin laughed. “He would not.”

“You should have seen how he reacted when I told him about Rose’s age. I half expected him to get the shotgun!”

“Now you’re just being stupid. Mum told me about it and he didn’t so much as raise his voice.”

“It was all in his eyes.” Mark said.

“You’re mad.”

“Can you blame me?”

“Not really, I think you’re perfectly entitled to go mad.”

“And I shall be exercising that right regularly.”

“Good for you.” Colin smiled. “Seriously though Mark, tell mum.”

“I’ve gotta tell Rose first. I think when I’ve done that, even telling dad’ll be easy.”

“Oh yeah, god, I don’t envy you.”

“Well I wasn’t going to tell her yet but I think I should really. I wouldn’t want her to find out some other way. I feel sorry for her though. Getting dragged into my mess. I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t want to be with me any more.”

“Do you thinks she won’t?"

“Hard to tell. I don’t really know her well enough to predict how she’ll react. I do know that I’ve been a totally rubbish boyfriend to her this week though. Ben’s been on the phone to Chloe practically every hour and I haven’t spoken to Rose since Wednesday! I’m gonna make it up to her this weekend though, if she’ll let me after I’ve told her.”

Chris was sitting in the comfy chair in the recording studio wondering why he was always the first one there. Okay, so he was generally a few minutes early but when had he missed the memo that said everyone had to turn up at least 15 minutes late, if at all? Ben was always late, that was no surprise but where was Mark? Mark was never ever late and if he was, not only would he ring someone and tell them why, but there was always a really good reason for it. Ben just seemed to be allergic to getting out of bed. Which was very annoying but you got used to it.

The door opened and Chris looked round as Mark came into the room.

“Hiya.” He said.

“Hi. How are you this morning?”

“Not too bad. You?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Where are the others?” Mark asked.

“No idea.”

“I expect Ben’ll be late.” Mark said.

“Why?”

Mark showed him the text Ben had sent him earlier.

“In the wrong cupboards?” Chris asked, puzzled.

“Yeah. I went round yesterday to help him tidy up before Chloe got there. No wonder he was having trouble, had you seen the state of his place?”

“No, I haven’t been round there recently.”

“Lucky you. It was awful, really really untidy. Untidy even for Ben!”

“God that bad?”

“Worse. It took us practically all afternoon to clean up and then I discovered that Ben had literally no food so we had to go shopping and I helped put it away. I guess I put it where I thought it would go, logically y’know, forgetting that Ben isn’t the world’s most logically minded person.”

Chris laughed. “Understatement.”

“Yeah, so I would imagine he’ll spend most of the morning trying to find something to eat for breakfast.” Mark said.

“What about Paul? Do you know where he is?” Chris asked.

“No, I haven’t heard from him.”

“Shall I give him a ring?”

“Nah, give it a few more minutes. He’s only 10 minutes late.”

“Speaking of being late, what happened to you this morning? You’re always on time, I was surprised!”

“I was telling Colin about Sam.”

“Oh.”

“Dunno why I didn’t just tell him to start with. He sorted it all out for me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he say?” Chris asked.

“He told me I wasn’t allowed to get back with Sam.”

“Why not?”

“Coz she’s not good enough for me apparently, and he said that he wouldn’t let her put me through what she did last time again.”

“Oh. Well I guess it sounds sensible enough. And are you okay with that?”

Mark nodded. “Yeah. It’s a relief to have someone make the decision for me to be honest. If I’m not allowed to do one thing, I have to do the other.”

“Which is…?”

“Not get back with Sam but help her with the baby.”

Chris smiled. “It’s what we said all along.”

“I know. Good advice. I should learn to listen to it a bit more often.”

“But what about what you said yesterday?” Chris asked.

“About Sam?”

“Yeah.”

“I dunno. I don’t think I really meant it, it was just what made sense at the time.”

“Well I’m glad and I hope this doesn’t muck up things with Rose.”

“Yeah, me too. I’m so worried about telling her though. I’m scared she’ll say she doesn’t want to be with me any more. All I want her to say is that she doesn’t care and that it doesn’t matter. I don’t wanna lose her.”

Chris looked sympathetic. “If she’s worth anything she’ll understand.”

Mark nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

“Oh I am.” Chris said, smiling.

Mark laughed as Ben opened the studio door and came into the room.

“Hiya.”

“What are you doing here?” Mark asked, looking at his watch.

Ben looked confused. “What?”

“It’s only 15 minutes after we’re meant to be here, I wasn’t expecting you for at least another hour!”

Ben shook his head. “So rude.” He said grinning. “Well I finally found some food, you’ll be pleased to know. No thanks to your weird system.”

“It’s called logic Ben.”

“Whatever. And I left the place tidy, thank you.”

“Just thought a little reminder wouldn’t go amiss that’s all.” Mark said.

“No I’m glad you texted me actually coz otherwise I’d have never found my phone.”

Mark laughed. “You are so hopeless.”

“I know. But everything’s sorted now. I can’t wait for Chloe to get here!”

“Have you heard from Paul this morning?” Mark asked Ben.

“No, why, isn’t he here yet?”

“Nope.”

“Have you rung him?”

“No, I was going to earlier but we thought we’d give him a bit longer.” Chris said.

“I’ll give him a call now if you want.” Ben offered.

“Okay, yeah.”

Ben rang Paul’s mobile but he didn’t answer and it diverted to voicemail so Ben hung up. He then tried Paul’s home number but after 20 rings, Ben put the phone down.

“No answer.” He said.

“And his mobile’s switched off?”

“No, it was ringing but he just didn’t pick it up.”

“That’s really weird. I wonder where he is.”

“Alright lads, let’s get started then shall we?” Del asked, walking into the studio with a producer and sound technician.

“Um, Paul’s not here yet.” Ben said.

“Where is he?” Del asked.

Ben shrugged

“We don’t know.” Mark said. “He’s not answering the phone.”

“Have you rung his mobile?”

“Yeah, just tried it. He didn’t answer that either.”

“We’ll just have to start without him then. Ben, are you warned up? Let’s do your vocals fist.”

“Um yeah, okay.” Ben said, going through the door into the booth. “Are we just doing the one song today?”

“Yeah, Do You Remember. You know which bits you’re singing?”

“Yeah, they’re marked on here.” Ben said, holding up his sheet with the words on.

“Good, let’s get started then.”