Ta-daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Haha! The amount of nagging I’ve got from Chlo about this (was reading through past reviews of other fics and in every single one she begs for another chappy!) it’s about time I got the next part up! Sorry it’s taken so long, but this fic is another one that takes a while to write. Lotsa thought involved, very taxing for my poor brain, lol! Hope it’s worth it anyway, and thank you so so so so so much everyone for leaving me the loveliest reviews ever – you really make it all seem worthwhile! Love ya lots! Chloe xxx

Chapter Eleven

“Chloe. Chloe?”

“Huh?” Chloe looked up from where she’d been intently staring at nothing straight into Ben’s eyes.

“You okay babe?” he asked, a concerned expression on his face, almost breaking Chloe’s heart in the process.

She forced a smile onto her face. “Yeah! I’m fine!”

“Are you sure?” Ben persisted, sitting down on the chair next to her.

Chloe nodded vehemently. “Uh-huh.”

“You’re being a bit quiet.”

“Just thinking.”

“Ben, come over here, we need you to listen to this!” Mark called from across the recording studio they’d been assembled in for the last hour and a half.

Ben looked over. “Yeah, okay, in a minute!” He turned back to Chloe. “Are you bored?”

Chloe shook her head. “Nope.”

There was a look of confusion on Ben’s face and to be honest, who could blame him? Chloe was well aware she’d been acting strangely all morning. Well, ever since Mark arrived and she lost the ability to look at anything but him. She was trying not to stare, but she found she couldn’t help it. It was as if over the course of a few hours, ever since she’d been round to his house she’d gone from being vaguely attracted to him, to wanting him so badly so felt like she might explode if she didn’t get to be near him soon. And it seemed Mark was having similar trouble keeping his eyes to himself. Every two seconds he’d glance over at her and they’d share a look so intense that it made shivers run down Chloe’s spine. She was dying for him to touch her, to kiss her, just to hold her close to him. It was an unbelievable feeling of longing, almost too strong to deal with. What made it worse was that she knew Mark was feeling exactly the same, if not even more strongly, and if it wasn’t for this room full of people they could both satisfy their urges and be together.

Chloe had well and truly given in to the feelings she had for Mark. She’d admitted them fully to herself, and to Mark, and had decided that yes, she did want Mark. Badly. It was her meeting with him that morning that had done it. She’d gone along and done exactly what she’d planned to do: minimum talking, maximum listening. And it had all suddenly become clear. The moment Mark had told her that she had to do whatever felt right, she instantly knew what she was going to choose. Being there alone with Mark, the emotion she’d felt was almost overwhelming. It felt right being there with him. She didn’t let on to the fact that she was desperate for Mark, she didn’t want to give him the upper hand straight away. If she held back just a little bit, kept some air of mystery so he couldn’t guess what she was thinking, he’d stay interested in her. That was the theory anyway. She was a little worried that if she told Mark exactly how she felt about him and that she did really want to be with him, he’d lose the excitement of wanting something he wasn’t legitimately allowed to have, and would therefore lose interest in her. That was the last thing she wanted now she’d made her decision.

The hug had been the clincher though. It had been like a test for herself, to make sure she was certain of what she thought she wanted. She didn’t want to make any hasty decisions, so if she left without really answering any of Mark’s questions properly, she hadn’t committed herself to anything. When she had hugged Mark, all her thoughts had been confirmed. The way she’d felt being that close to him told her everything she needed to know. The way she’d ended their meeting had left things in his hands and hadn’t made her look needy or desperate. The plan was to appear aloof and not too bothered whether he called her or not. That way, Mark was the needy one and the power was in Chloe’s hands.

Now the only problem was Ben. She still wanted to be with him, however bad it sounded considering the way she felt for Mark, but she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to behave towards Ben now she’d admitted she wanted to be with Mark as well. She didn’t want to annoy Mark by being too couply with Ben coz she knew it hurt him to see them like that, but if she suddenly reduced her affections towards Ben, he’d undoubtedly notice something was wrong. Like he just had done in fact. She wasn’t doing very well with this so far.

Oh god, why was she even doing this at all? What was she turning into?! This just wasn’t like her!

No, she had to do this, she had to do this for the sake of her and Ben’s relationship. If her feelings for Mark got repressed any more, they’d build up so much that she’d end up doing something really stupid. Like eloping with him or something. That would be a very bad thing to do.

“Okay, well if you’re sure you’re okay, I’m kinda needed over there.” Ben said.

He was talking uneasily, Chloe knew it was her fault. She was confusing him, and she felt bad, but how could she help that when she was confusing herself?

She felt so torn. She knew she was being greedy, wanting two people, and having two people at once, but she couldn’t help how she felt. It sounded pathetic and such a cop out excuse for cheating on her boyfriend, but that was the point: it wasn’t meant to be used as an excuse. She knew what she was doing, what she was being the instigator of, was a terrible terrible thing to do to anyone, but she just didn’t know what direction to take. She knew she wouldn’t stop feeling like this about Mark, but the fact that it had come up on her so quickly hadn’t given her any time to adjust. It was no gradual building of feelings, just BAM and suddenly she wanted Mark. As simple and as complicated as that.

But it was so hard to know what to do. What do you do in a situation like that? There’s no handbook or instruction manual telling you what to do when you feel like you want to cheat on your boyfriend, or if you suddenly find yourself being unfaithful, what to do about it. It wasn’t the kind of thing you asked other people’s advice on either. You could hardly go up to someone and say “Hi! I’m cheating on my boyfriend with one of his mates, do you have any advice for me?” could you? Chloe didn’t even think she could bear to tell Rose about it, she felt so horrible about it, so guilty, and she knew Rose would disapprove. Even your closest friends don’t have to be on your side when you’re as much in the wrong as Chloe was.

She knew she shouldn’t be, but Chloe found herself trying to think up reasonable excuses for her being alone with Mark. She had to see him, she needed to see him. But she couldn’t, not yet anyway. Deciding it would be best to find something to occupy her thoughts, Chloe wandered over to the mixing desk that Ben, Mark and Paul were standing in front of, watching the levels and listening to Christian’s vocals coming from the booth. Ben looked up as she came over and smiled at her. A lovely, genuine smile that on any other day would have turned Chloe’s insides gooey. Not today though. The effects of Mark standing on the other side of her were far overpowering the effects of Ben’s smile, so much so that she thought that maybe it would have been a good idea if she’d have stayed sitting down to avoid the whole weak-at-the-knees thing she had going on at the moment. But yet again, after a glance at Mark, she turned to Ben and smiled a lovely, fake smile, praying he wouldn’t see through it. It appeared that he was taken in by it as he slid an arm around her waist and drew her closer to him.

“What ya doing?” she asked, trying to be interested and stop thinking about how close Mark was standing to her. She was convinced he was closer than the normal friendly person standing distance. What if someone noticed?

Oh god, paranoia and guilt, this relationship was gonna be a whole lot of fun.

“Just another album track. It’s one of Christian’s.” Ben said.

“Cool. What’s it called?”

“Crazy For Leaving You.”

Chloe’s heart lurched. It was a sign. A sign that she shouldn’t be doing what she was doing. Except she already knew that and so far, knowing that hadn’t changed much.

Christian started to sing and every word of the chorus seemed to have the effect of a small knife stabbing Chloe in the heart.

“I must be crazy for leaving you, must be crazy for feeling blue, but my heart lately has been untrue, I must be crazy…”

It actually hurt to listen to Christian sing it. It was like she was living in musical. Or in a Fugees song.

“Singing my life with his words.”

What an appropriate lyric, as were the words to ‘Crazy For Leaving You’, or whatever it was called. Chloe just knew that she couldn’t stick around for the rest of the song. It was too accurate. Scarily so in fact. She didn’t want to know the rest of the words, what happened in the song. She didn’t want to know how it ended. She had a suspicion she might not like it. She had to leave.

“I’m just gonna go and get some air.” She said, pulling out of Ben’s grasp, and walking quickly towards the door.

“Clo, are you alright?” Ben asked as she left.

She wished he’d stop asking that.

“Fine. I just need some air.” Chloe said, leaving the studios.

Mark watched Chloe leave the room and tried to suppress the urge to run after her. She’d been acting strangely all afternoon; Mark wanted to make sure she was okay. Except he couldn’t because it wasn’t his job. If anyone was going to go after her, it should be Ben. But Ben seemed rather too wrapped up in his work to even notice there was something wrong with Chloe. See, he knew he’d be abetter boyfriend to Chloe than Ben was.

Mark was a bit undecided what to do now. Firstly, he wasn’t sure why Chloe had left so abruptly. She may really have needed to get some air in a totally innocent way, or she may be upset about something and in need of a shoulder to cry on. But that shoulder she needed may not be Mark’s. She’d been a bit odd since their meeting that morning. After giving him what had appeared to be the green light as far as being with her was concerned, Mark had been expecting her to show a little more interest in him, even with Ben around. She didn’t have to be all over him, obviously she couldn’t be with Ben in the room, but talking to him might be a good start. She kept looking at him, but she wasn’t exactly an open book, he never really knew what she was thinking. There was certainly something that passed between them during their brief moments of eye contact, but who knew what that something was! So she might not be too enamoured with him at the moment, and so offering her comfort might have fatal consequences.

However, there was always the possibility that Chloe leaving the room was a hint for Mark to do the same so they could see each other. That was Mark’s favourite reasoning, but was it really why Chloe had left? He so badly wanted to see her, it had been driving him mad being in the same room as her, so close to her, knowing she felt the same as he did, and not being able to do anything about it. Much as he wanted to, he knew he couldn’t go after her. It would look way too suspicious. Unless he came up with a really good excuse…

Just as he thought that, Paul unwittingly handed him the perfect one on a plate.

“Go and get us drinks will you Mark?” he said it half-heartedly, as if he didn’t really expect Mark to say yes, but Mark grabbed this opportunity with both hands.

He did his best to look casual though. “Okay, sure. What do you want?”

Paul looked surprised. “Um, I dunno, whatever. What do you want Ben?”

“Huh?” Ben looked up from where we was busy scribbling something unintelligible on a scrap piece of paper.

“Mark’s getting the drinks in. What do you want?”

“Oh cool, okay, can you get me a coffee?”

Mark nodded. “What about Chris?”

“Just get him water or something, he’s got a lot of singing to do today.”

“Okay.” Mark turned to go.

“Oh, Mark?” Ben said, stopping Mark in his tracks.

He turned round. “Yeah?”

“Get something for Chloe as well.”

“Okay.”

Things for Chloe he could do.

“If you see her, can you make sure she’s okay? She didn’t look right earlier.”

Mark smiled. “No problem.”

As he left the stuffy recording room and walked down the cool, empty corridor, Mark realised that the only flaw to this plan was that he was actually going to have to come back with some form of drinks for the guys, or they’d wonder what he’d been doing. But he could do that later, for now he had to find Chloe.

He didn’t have to look very far. As he reached the end of the long stretch of corridor, he turned the corner and almost tripped over her. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, looking very thoughtful. Until Mark broke that thoughtfulness by nearly stepping on her that was. Looking a bit startled to see him, Chloe stood up. Mark noticed that she was still leaning against the wall, almost as if she couldn’t stand up straight without some support. Maybe Ben was right, maybe she wasn’t very well.

Feeling overwhelmed with concern and love for her, Mark decided to just go for it.

“Are you okay?” he asked, gently taking both her hands in his.

She smiled at him. “I am now.” She said.

They stood and looked at each other for a second of hesitation before Mark pulled her to him and kissed her. The kiss was extremely passionate, like they’d both been waiting forever for that moment, and all their pent-up emotions were being released in one go.

Mark broke away from Chloe to catch his breath. “I’ve been thinking about you all afternoon.”

“Shut up and kiss me.” Chloe said, pulling him back to her.

This was good, this was very very good. Mark was enjoying this a lot. He was feeling so many different emotions at once, it was an incredible feeling. Chloe had instigated this kiss, that could only mean one thing. She wanted him, she really wanted him. Mark felt so relieved; even after this morning he’d still been left wondering exactly where he stood with her, but now he really knew. He felt happy, ecstatic actually at finally having something he’d wanted for so long. It was like all the worry and the stress that had come along with all this had left his head. Words couldn’t even describe how good it felt, it was just bliss.

“Can you get away some time tonight?” Mark asked when they finally broke apart. “I need to see you.”

“Tonight?” Chloe looked unsure and Mark’s hopes fell.

Please say yes. Please.

He nodded.

“I dunno…” Chloe looked at Mark. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just… I don’t know how I’d get away.”

Mark suddenly had an idea. He remembered months ago, back when all he had were thoughts of Chloe and the things they could do together, he’d had all these ideas of where he could take her and what would happen. They’d been stupid thoughts, silly little fantasies, but maybe he could start putting some of them into practise. Make them a reality. After all, now, he could.

“Is there any way you could…” he trailed off, not sure it was the kind of suggestion Chloe would take to.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about this place, it’s really beautiful and quiet at night. I thought maybe we could go there. It’d mean sneaking out of the apartment though.”

“I could do that.”

“Really? You’d do that?” Mark asked, surprised.

Chloe smiled at him and linked her hands with his once more. “If it’s the only way I can see you.”

“When could you get away?” Mark asked. He wasn’t going to let this pass.

“It depends when Ben goes to bed. And then I’d have to leave it for like half an hour after he’s fallen asleep to check he’s not gonna wake up.” Chloe paused to think. “Meet me at the end of his road at half 1 okay?”

“Okay.” Mark smiled at Chloe before wrapping his arms tightly around her and kissing her again.

Tonight was going to be their night.