*gasp* Ben makes a revelation to Chloe! Duh duh duhhhhh!! How am I doing at making this chapter sound interesting and important?! Well in this chapter we get Rose’s entire life story, lol! Is all real, did my research, haha, she is a REAL PERSON, believe it or not, so after you’ve read this you’ll know Rose! Haha! Is all true… probably *Chloe has not read for a while* Well, just read!! (and thankies again for reviews!) xxx

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“Well if you don’t tell me where we’re going, how am I supposed to know what to wear?” Rose asked Mark.

They had finished watching ‘Toy Story’, had then proceeded to watch ‘Toy Story 2’ and were now getting ready to go out, wherever they were going!

“I can’t tell you, it’s a surprise!” Mark said, getting some clothes out of his wardrobe.

“What are you wearing?” Rose asked.

“These trousers,” Mark said, holding up a pair of nearly black jeans. “my leather jacket, and this shirt.” He finished, showing Rose a dark coloured short sleeved shirt.

“If you’re wearing that, I don’t think it’s really gonna matter where we go because seriously, I’ll just be staring at you all night.”

Mark smiled. “I can put up with that.” He said. “As long as I can stare back.”

“If you really want to. Although I’m probably gonna be so wrongly dressed coz YOU WON’T TELL ME WHERE WE’RE GOING!!!!” Rose said exasperatedly.

“I’m not telling you, however much you shout at me.”

"Can you at least give me a clue so I don’t turn up looking totally stupid?”

That’s not possible.” Mark said, walking behind Rose and putting his arms around her waist. “Just wear the same kind of stuff that I’m wearing. Not too smart but not too casual.”

Rose looked at Mark over her shoulder. “Hmmm, okay.” She said, rummaging through her bag of stuff that was on Mark’s bed. “How about this?” she asked, pulling out her knee-length denim skirt and a light blue shirt.

Mark smiled. “Perfect.”

“Really?”

“Yep. That’s exactly what you should be wearing. You’ll look gorgeous in it.”

“Okay. I’ll go and get ready then.” Rose said, grabbing her clothes, make-up bag and hairbrush and going across the landing to the bathroom. She put her clothes on and looked at herself in the mirror.

“Not too bad…” she said to herself, quite pleased with her reflection.

She brushed her hair and tried to decide what to do with it.

“Up? Or down…” she pondered, putting her hair in a ponytail and pulling some of the front bits out. Deciding that looked too casual, she twisted it up and put a clip in it but because her hair was so short nearly all of it almost immediately fell out of the clip so she looked completely ridiculous. Trying not to get stressed about looking bad, she took the clip out and smoothed her hair back down so it lay flat against her head. That looked much better so she settled on leaving it down and moved on to the next stage: make-up. She didn’t need too much, just a little bit of eye shadow, some mascara, a touch of lip gloss and… voila! She was done. As a finishing touch, she put in the earrings Chloe had given her for her birthday one year and a silver necklace. Giving her hair another quick brush and taking one last look in the mirror, Rose unlocked the bathroom door and went back into Mark’s room.

As she opened the door, the first thing that Rose noticed was how completely gorgeous Mark looked. He was fully changed and he’d done his hair and he looked more amazing than Rose had ever seen him look before. The second thing she noticed was the look on his face when she walked in.

“Wow.” Mark said, clearly stunned. “You look…” He laughed. “I’m lost for words! You look incredible.”

Rose smiled. “Thank you. I was just thinking the same about you.”

She went over where Mark was standing and he put his hands on her waist.

“We’re gonna have such a good time tonight.” He said.

“We will.” Rose said, looking into Mark’s eyes.

She tried not to go all goosepimply as Mark gently ran a hand down the side of her face and round to the back of her neck. He smiled before kissing her.

“Are you about ready to go?” Mark asked when they broke apart.

“I think so. I don’t need to take anything do I?” Rose asked.

“No, you won’t need anything.”

“Then I’m completely ready to go. Oh, apart from shoes.”

“Yeah me too. Mine are down stairs.” Mark said, letting go of Rose and picking up his wallet and mobile phone from his bedside table and putting them in his jacket pocket.

Rose got her strappy sandal type shoes out of her bag and sat down on Mark’s bed to put them on.

“Are you taking a jacket?” Mark asked her.

“Uuuumm… no. I don’t think so.”

“Sure you won’t be cold?” Mark asked concernedly.

“Nah I’ll be fine. And if I do get cold, you’ll just have to give me lots of hugs to warm me up.”

Mark smiled. “Okay. Let’s go then.” He said, taking Rose’s hand.

“Let’s see what’s on.” Ben said, picking up the remote control and turning the television on.

“I bet there’s nothing.” Chloe said, sitting down on the sofa next to him.

“Ooh, Blind Date!”

Chloe looked at Ben. “Blind Date? Please tell me you’re joking.”

“No. Why?”

“Ben. Blind Date? Come on!”

“What’s wrong with Blind Date?”

“It’s rubbish!” Chloe said, surprised that her boyfriend had such appalling taste in television.

“It’s not rubbish. It’s very good.”

“We’re not watching Blind Date.”

“Why? I like it!” Ben protested. He raised his eyebrows as the first girl walked onto the screen. “She’s bit of alright.”

Chloe couldn’t quite believe he’d just said that. “Uh hello? Girlfriend in the room.”

Ben looked at her and grinned. “You’ve got to admit, she is quite nice to look at…”

“Ben!”

“I’m only joking, you know no-one compares to you.”

“Well sometimes I wonder.”

“If I could look at you every day for the rest of my life, I’d be quite happy to never look at another girl as long as I live.” Ben said.

“Aw, that’s really sweet.” Chloe said, cuddling closer to Ben as he put his arm around her.

“That’s me.”

“I think you’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my whole life.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“This morning, before you woke up…”

“Before you woke me up.” Chloe corrected him.

“I had to! We’d have been late otherwise. I didn’t want to.”

“I know. Carry on.”

“Well I was just gonna say that, don’t you think it’s weird that we know so little about each other? I already feel so close to you, like I’ve known you forever.”

Chloe nodded. “Me too. I feel totally comfortable around you. Like, I trust you, completely, and I don’t really have any reason to feel that way. But I do.”

“You trust me?” Ben asked.

“Yeah. I do. Shouldn’t I?”

“No, you should. And I’m glad you do. Because we have to trust each other coz we’ll be apart so much.”

“I know.” Chloe was quiet for a minute. “Do you trust me?”

“You’ve given me no reason not to. In fact, you’ve actually given me a hundred reasons why I can trust you.”

“Have I? Like what?” Chloe asked, surprised.

“Well nothing huge, just little things you say, the way you act. It’s hard sometimes, for me to trust people coz of…” Ben hesitated, unsure if he wanted to tell Chloe about Katrina.

“What?” Chloe asked, wondering if he was going to tell her about Katrina.

“A while ago, well quite a long time ago actually, I was going out with this girl, called Katrina. We’d been going out for ages, two years, and then things really started to take off with a1 so I was away a lot. We didn’t get to see each other as often as we were used to and it was hard, but I thought it’d be okay coz we were really strong together after going out for so long. But… well she started getting fed up with me being away so much, started saying that I wasn’t paying her enough attention, that she was worried I’d go off with someone else. She said that I loved a1 more than I loved her.”

“Did you?” Chloe asked.

Ben thought before answering. “It was new, the success thing, exciting, and something that I’d always wanted. And I wanted Kat to share that with me, be happy about how well things were going. I thought she would, because she knew how much it meant to me, but she didn’t see it like that and…” Ben paused.

Chloe could see that it still hurt him to talk about it and she suddenly felt overwhelmed with hate for Katrina and affection for Ben.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She said, squeezing his arm.

Ben smiled. “No it’s okay. You should know.” He took a deep breath. “I’d been away for a while, touring Asia with the band and when I got back, people, my friends, were being weird around me. Like they weren’t sure what to say to me. Well I had no idea what was going on, but I found out from Toby, my best mate, that while I’d been out of the country, Kat had hooked up with someone else, I dunno, just some guy she’d met in a club or something. I don’t know whether it was just a one night thing or if it lasted longer than that, but when I asked her about it, it was like she didn’t see what the problem was. She said that maybe it would make me pay her a bit more attention. Well I couldn’t believe it, the things she was saying, coz from where I was standing, what she’d done was a huge thing, not just something you brush off.

So I finished with her. Which obviously wasn’t the reaction she was hoping for coz she didn’t seem to understand why. I was devastated, I mean, I really loved her and I’d been with her for so long that it was strange not having her there. But I knew that I’d done the right thing, I could never be with someone who thought like that.”

Ben knew that now was the ideal time to tell Chloe about the one night stands and he knew full well that he might not get another chance like this, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to overload her brain with information. And even though he felt an odd sense of relief after telling Chloe about Katrina, he just couldn’t bring himself to tell her what happened next.

“So that’s pretty much it. My sordid past.” He finished.

“ I really really don’t know what to say.” Chloe said.

“You don’t have to say anything. It’s in the past, I’ve moved on. I’ve got you now, I don’t need anyone else.” He said, smiling at Chloe.

“I’m glad you told me.”

Ben nodded. “So am I. You’re the only one of my girlfriends, since Katrina, that knows about her.”

“Really? Why?”

Because most of them didn’t last more than one night. Ben thought.

“I just didn’t think they needed to know. It never got far enough for me to want to tell them. I don’t really like talking about it, it’s still a bit painful, and I never felt that any of the girls I met were special enough to know that about me.”

Chloe looked at him like she was going to say something but instead she just smiled and gave him a hug.

“This is really lovely Mark, but you didn’t have to do this.” Rose said.

Her and Mark had arrived at their destination which was a small restaurant, just the other side of London. It consisted of two separate rooms, each containing several tables of various sizes and decorated with candles. The lights were dimmed and there was romantic music playing quietly in the background. There were twinkling fairy lights strung round the corners of the walls, not enough to be tacky but just enough to create the right atmosphere and the décor was very classy; authentic wood, teamed with creams and light pastel colours, but it wasn’t too posh and had a very relaxed, casual feeling about it. Mark had booked a cosy corner table where him and Rose were hidden from view from most of the restaurant behind a wall, ornamented with intricate lattice framework.

“I know, but I wanted to take you somewhere nice.”

Rose smiled at him. “Well it’s perfect, thank you.”

“I hoped you’d like it.” Mark said, linking hands with her across the table. “I came down here a few days ago to check it out and book the table and I thought it looked quite nice.”

“It’s amazing! It’s really really great.”

“What about the food? Is there something you like?”

Rose grinned. “Mark, I’ll eat anything! And yes, there’s plenty so stop worrying if I’m okay and enjoy yourself.”

“I am. Just being here with you good enough for me. Even if they made us eat slugs.”

“Slugs? Really?”

“Well okay, I probably wouldn’t be having such a great time if they made us eat slugs, but you know what I mean.” Mark said. “What do you want to drink?”

“Uuuuuum…” Rose scanned the menu. “I’ll just have water please.”

“Okay.”

As if by magic, a waiter appeared at their table. If he recognised Mark, he didn’t let on and was totally professional.

“Would you like to order drinks?” the waiter asked.

“Yeah. We’ll have a water and a Coke please.”

“Would you like ice in them?”

Mark looked at Rose.

“Yes please, but no lemon.” She said to the waiter.

“I will as well thanks.”

“Certainly sir, I’ll just get them for you.”

“Thank you.” Mark said. He turned back to Rose. “So, this evenings task, for me at least, is to find out everything there is to know about you.”

“Okay, same for me then.” Rose agreed.

“You first though.”

“Okay, what do you want to know?”

“Everything. Um, start at the beginning.”

“You want the entire Rose life story?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not very interesting.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Mark said.

Rose grinned. “Right, well, my name is Rose Stewart and I’m sixteen years old.”

“When’s your birthday?” Mark asked.

“20^th of June.”

“Oh, so you’ve just had one.”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do for it?”

“Nothing much. Chloe came up to stay for a few days and we just went shopping and stuff. It was really fun though. Anything with Chloe’s really fun.”

“How long have you known Chloe?”

“14^th November 1997.” Rose said proudly. “I used to live in the same village that she does now and we went to the same secondary school. But we didn’t know each other until she moved to Blakeney in year eight and started going on the same school bus. We were pretty much the only girls our age from Denmark Road, my old school, and so we became friends.”

“So you’ve known her for…nearly four years?”

“Yeah, about that I think. We were just starting to be really good friends and then my dad got a job offer in Slough and so I moved at the end of February 1999. I think that was one of the saddest days of my whole life. I can remember when I told Chloe that I was moving and she thought I was joking. She just didn’t believe me.” Rose went quiet as she thought back to that day and the day she moved.

Mark could see that it was an upsetting subject for her.

He smiled kindly at her. “She means a lot to you doesn’t she?” he asked, squeezing Rose’s hand.

Rose nodded. “Everything. It’s just so unfair that I had to move. We’re best friends in the whole world and we hardly ever get to see each other coz we live so far away.”

“Change of subject?”

“Yes please.” Rose said gratefully.

“Okay, so before you knew Chloe, what about when you were a kid?”

“Well I was born in Tempsford in Bedfordshire and we lived there until I was about one I think. Then we moved to Broom and then in March 1987, we moved to America.”

“America? Wow, that’s cool. Why did you move there?” Mark asked.

“Coz of dad’s job I think. We only lived there for about six months though and then we went back to Broom.”

“Where abouts did you live in America?”

“Webster in New York.”

“You’re a very cool person.” Mark said with a grin. “I mean, I’ve travelled all over the place but I’ve never lived in more than one place in my whole life!”

“But I haven’t been to even half the places you’ve been to.” Rose said.

“Yeah but you lived in America, which is way cooler. Anyway carry on.”

“Okay. Um… well we lived in Broom until I was five and then we moved back out to America in April.”

“Did you live in the same place?”

“Yeah, we went back to Webster but then a year later we moved to Ontario. The house there was much nicer, I preferred living there. The house was blue and it had this barn in the field behind it with loads of old carriages in, like the kind horses pull and people go in. and they were all dusty and spider webby coz they were so old.”

“So did you start school in America?” Mark asked, genuinely interested.

“Yeah, I think so. And the first time we lived out there, I went to kindergarten.”

“Cool.”

“Yeah, it was. Apparently I came back with a really strong American accent but I don’t remember that.”

“Was it weird leaving England?”

“Um… it was, but I was only little so it seemed more exciting than weird. You have less to worry about when you’re five.”

“That’s definitely true!”

“But I did miss my gran and grandad a lot so it was nice when we came back. But it was a lot of fun living in America.”

“So was it very different, living in America?”

“It was different because it was a whole different country and they have different cultures and stuff over there. Like Thanksgiving. Which was really cool. We should have it over here I think.”

“I don’t think that’d really fit in with English history somehow.” Mark pointed out.

“That’s so not the point. We should have it anyway.”

“So which do you prefer, America or England?”

Rose smiled. “England.” She said. “Coz if I lived in America, I probably wouldn’t even know who you were and that’d be very sad.”

“It would be very sad.” Mark agreed, smiling back at her.

“You alright babe?” Ben asked Chloe.

They had been talking but she’d suddenly gone a bit quiet.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’ve just got a really bad headache. I think I’m probably just tired.” She said, putting a hand to her head.

“Aw, do you want to go to bed?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Sure?”

Chloe smiled at Ben. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s just my head.”

“Okay, lean back against me.” Ben said.

Chloe looked at Ben suspiciously. “Why?” she asked.

“Just lean back against me and relax.”

“Okay.”

“Comfy?” Ben asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay…”

Ben put a finger gently on each side of her face, in line with her eyebrows.

“What are you doing?” Chloe asked.

“Getting rid of your headache. Hopefully. Just relax and tell me if it hurts or if I’m pressing too hard.”

“Okay.” Chloe said, still a bit puzzled.

Ben started moving his fingers slowly in a circular motion. He felt her tense up but then she relaxed against him.

“That’s… really nice.” She said.

“Is it helping?”

“Mmm, yeah. Keep going…”

Ben smiled. “Okay. So what about getting married then?” Ben asked, continuing their conversation from earlier.

“Oh yeah, I’d love to get married! Everyone dreams about that don’t they?” Chloe said enthusiastically. “I used to want to get married in a church but I’m not really a very religious person, so I think that I’d actually like to get married in one of those big National Trust buildings, a really nice one, with huge gardens and ponds and fountains and stuff.”

“Would you want to have an outside wedding then?” Ben asked.

“Uuuuum… I don’t think so. Outside weddings always remind me of Neighbours.”

Ben laughed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. They always look a little bit tacky don’t they?”

“Yeah. But the reception could be outside. There could be a huge garden party thing. That’d be so cool.”

“How about kids?” Ben asked.

“Uh-huh, definitely. I love kids.” Chloe said.

“Are you one of those people who’ve got their entire future planned out?”

“No! God no, can you imagine how many lists I’d have to make if I wanted to do that?” Chloe laughed. “Plus, I like taking stuff as it comes. Some things you can’t plan for.”

“True. You haven’t even idly thought about kids names?” Ben asked.

“Oh I’ve done that! Hasn’t everyone? Only sorta vaguely though.”

“Go on then, what are your sorta vague ideas?”

“Um, well…” Chloe hesitated, wondering if Ben would laugh if she told him that Mark was her favourite boys name ever and definitely what her first boy was going to be called. “I like stuff like Elery and Rachel for girls…”

Ben nodded. “How about boys names? Or are you not planning to have any male children?”

Chloe smiled at him. “No that’s right, no male children for Chloe.”

“So you don’t have any ideas for boys names?”

“Nope, not really. Guess I just haven’t thought about it.” Chloe said breezily. So, what about you? Do you want to get married and have children?”

“Yeah I’d love to… one day.” Ben said.

Chloe looked up at him. “One day?” she asked.

Ben smiled and nodded slowly. “One day.” He said, putting his arms round her.