Chapter Three

“Mmm… oh, ow.”

The first thing that hit Chloe when she woke up was her headache. The second thing that hit her was the fact that she wasn’t waking up in her bed. She wasn’t even in Ben’s bed. So where was she? It wasn’t a comfortable place and there was… okay, it was alive! Chloe decided that, regardless of the small man hitting her on the head with a shovel, she was actually going to have to open her eyes to see where she was before her imagination completely took over an made her think she was lying on a monster, or worse.

“Mmm, bright…”

The sunlight streaming in through the window facing Chloe almost made her decide that it wasn’t worth it, and that she should just go back to sleep and not worry where she was as long as it was dark, but she forced herself to open her eyes.

“Ohhh…”

As she took in the scene around her, the memories of the night before all came flooding back. Christian was snoring quietly, slumped in the chair to her right and it turned out she was stretched across the sofa, head on Ben’s chest, feet on Paul’s lap. Mark was… where was Mark? Chloe’s question was almost immediately answered by the sound of a cupboard banging in the kitchen behind where she was lying. She began weighing up the pros and cons of getting up and going to the kitchen. She could do with a drink… with lots of aspirin in, everyone else was asleep and it could get boring just lying there, she was hungry… actually she was really really hungry, how long had it been since she’d eaten? What time was it?

Chloe couldn’t see a clock but it had to be quite late. There was a ridiculous amount of sunlight for a start. So that was another reason for getting up. Plus, she was anything but comfortable in her current state. However, there was the fact that she was seriously worried about moving in case her head actually fell off, and she didn’t want to wake Ben up as his arm was wrapped around her and he looked so peaceful sleeping.

Okay, she needed one, two, three, at least four more cons to justify staying where she was and pretending that she hadn’t woken up. Um…

After about 10 minutes of trying to think up vaguely plausible reasons why getting up was a bad idea, Chloe gave up and hauled herself off the sofa.

“Okay, head, hurts…” she mumbled to no-one in particular.

She walked carefully towards the kitchen where Mark was standing with his back to her.

“How’s your head this morning?”

Mark stiffened when he heard her voice. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He took a deep breath as he turned round to face her. This was all he needed. He felt terrible, his head was pounding and he really couldn’t handle a one on one conversation with the one person he’d spent most of last night trying to avoid.

“Are you alright Mark?” Chloe asked.

“What?”

“Well it’s just, you look a bit fed up.”

Fed up is not the word, thought Mark.

It wasn’t enough that he’d had to spend the last 10 hours with Chloe, now she was being concerned for him? God, this was too much. He had to get out of this situation before he did something he would probably regret for the rest of his life.

“No, I’m fine. I’m just a bit… tired.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Coz if you needed to…”

“Look, there’s nothing wrong okay Chloe? Just leave it will you?” Mark snapped.

He instantly regretted saying it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her and he could see from her eyes that he had, but he had to keep her at arms length. He couldn’t afford to get too close otherwise… well, put it this way, there’d be a lot of broken hearts, probably his own and if not, his best friend’s and Mark didn’t want…

To be honest, he didn’t know what he wanted. He felt well and truly messed up and he really didn’t know what to do. In any other circumstances, he’d go to Ben for advice, or at least a reassuring chat, and it usually turned out okay. Only this wasn’t any other circumstances and Mark was pretty sure that this wasn’t going to turn out okay. Someone was going to end up unhappy and Mark wasn’t even sure who he’d rather it was. He wanted the girl, of course he did, but the question was did he want the girl so much that he was prepared to jeopardise not only his friendship with Ben, but possibly the future of the band? He couldn’t risk that… could he? Mark just didn’t know.

As he walked out of the kitchen, Chloe was left wondering what she’d done wrong.

Paul woke up feeling happy. That had been a good night. They hadn’t actually done much, they had drunk a lot, but they’d just stayed up and talked. He’d spent most of the night talking to Chloe. It was weird, but they’d become really close even though he’d only known her for about eleven months. That was how long Ben and Chloe had been going out. About that anyway, Paul couldn’t remember exactly. Paul thought it was nice that Ben had finally found someone. Since they’d been going out, Ben had been so happy and it was blatantly obvious that they were totally in love. And Chloe was special, he couldn’t really say why and he wasn’t sure there was even a specific reason, she just was. What was even better was that she was staying in London with Ben for a couple of weeks which meant he’d be in a permanent good mood and they’d all get to spend some time with her.

It had been hard for Ben and Chloe to keep the relationship up these last through months as Ben had been away with the band doing promotion all over the world and Chloe had been busy with A Levels and stuff, so they hadn’t been able to see each other for weeks on end. It had put a strain on everyone; Ben missed Chloe and blamed a1 for the fact he didn’t see her as much as he wanted to, which meant he was unusually snappy and there’d been a few conflicts within the band as a result, but now Chloe had finished school forever, they were together again and it was all good.

The second Paul thought that, a little nagging doubt reminded him that it wasn’t all good, not for everyone anyway, and depending on certain people’s actions, pretty soon it might not be good for anyone. Paul stopped himself. He couldn’t be secretive in his thoughts. His thoughts were his and no-one could get at them. He was taking this privacy thing too far now. So to be clear, he was worried about Mark. But he wasn’t exactly worried for Mark. Paul realised guiltily that he was actually worried about what Mark could do to Ben and Chloe. He could ruin everything, just when it was going so well. And there wasn’t really anything Paul could do about it expect prepare himself for the worst and be ready to pick up the pieces when it all ended in tears.

But hang on, Mark wasn’t the bad guy here. To be fair, he couldn’t help how he felt and he was generally a sensible and rational type of guy. He wouldn’t do anything stupid… would he? Paul wasn’t sure. Talking to Mark yesterday at the shoot made him realise just how painful it was for him to see Chloe and Ben together and how much in love with Chloe he really was. It must be terrible for him, Paul thought sadly.

He wished this had never happened. Or at least, he wished he didn’t know about it. It put him in a very difficult position and he wasn’t sure where his loyalties were supposed to lie. Did he tell Ben or just keep giving Mark support? It was so confusing.

“Congratulations Paul, you’ve just managed to completely reverse your mood.” He muttered crossly to himself.

Paul suddenly realised with horror that neither Chloe nor Mark were in the sitting room. With a terrible sinking feeling in his stomach and dread slowly creeping over him, Paul looked over his shoulder into the small kitchen. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Chloe was alone in the kitchen, which quickly turned to concern as he noticed her dejected expression where she sat on the work surface.

It’s okay, she could just be upset about something completely unrelated. Paul tried to reassure himself.

“Oh who am I kidding?”

As he made his way to the kitchen, Paul braced himself. He had to be ready for the worst. Okay, deep breaths.

“What’s up?”

Of course, he didn’t really want to know but it was probably better he knew than Ben. In fact, it was definitely better he knew than Ben.

“Mmm?”

Chloe looked up and smiled a smile that told Paul there was definitely something wrong. He could read her like a book.

“What’s wrong?” Paul asked again.

“Oh nothing. It’s just…” Chloe paused. “Does Mark hate me?”

For the second time in minutes, relief washed over Paul. Okay, so it wasn’t totally unrelated to Mark but he couldn’t have told her. Or if he had, he’d gone about it totally the wrong way. So now Paul was intrigued. Mark certainly didn’t hate Chloe. He might hate her situation, but he didn’t hate her so what could he have possibly done to give her that impression?”

“No, why?”

“Well I was talking to him a minute ago. He looked a bit down y’know, so I asked him what was wrong and he practically bit my head off.” Chloe said.

Maybe I was relieved a bit too quickly, thought Paul in annoyance. How the hell am I going to explain this one?

“Well? Does he hate me?”

Chloe looked like she was on the verge of tears and Paul couldn’t bear her to be upset.

“Clo,” he said, pulling her down from the side so she stood facing him. She looked so small and vulnerable, and Paul suddenly got the overwhelming urge to protect her from everything. Sometimes all this… stuff, got a bit too much for her. She wouldn’t admit that of course, but Paul could tell when she felt a bit overwhelmed by things going on around her. “Mark doesn’t hate you sweetheart. He’s just got a lot on his mind at the moment, that’s all. Personal stuff.”

That much was the truth at least.

“I just thought he looked like he needed someone to talk to.”

“Maybe he does…” Paul mused, more to himself than anyone else.

“Huh?”

“Maybe it’s something he doesn’t feel he can talked to you about. I mean, you haven’t known him that long and you’re not as close as you and Ben, or me and you are.”

“Exactly! Out of all of you, Mark’s the one I feel least close to. I feel like we’re still acquaintances rather than friends, and it’s not like I haven’t tried. It just always feels like he’s keeping his distance from me. It might just be my imagination but it seems like as soon as I walk into a room, he walks out. I haven’t spent enough time with him to know if we get on because I never get the chance. It’s like he’s permanently avoiding me and I can’t work out why. Have I said something to upset him or done something really badly wrong, or does he just not like me? I just can’t think of any reason he could have to dislike me so much that he can’t even bear to be in the same room as me.”

Okay, so maybe I can’t red her like a book. Or maybe I can, but some of the pages got stuck together or ripped out.

Paul had no idea Chloe felt like this. Maybe things weren’t quite as good as he thought they were. He knew he was tempting fate thinking that. There was no way he could explain Mark’s behaviour because everything Chloe had just said was true. He was keeping his distance, he did walk out of a room when she walked in, he was trying to avoid her and he couldn’t bear to be in the same room as her, but it wasn’t because he hated her, it was because he loved her so much. Looking at Chloe’s distraught face, Paul decided her was going to have to do some serious improvisation and then quite possibly literally knock some sense into Mark.

“Chloe look,” Paul said, putting his hands on her shoulders, more to steady himself than to comfort Chloe, but it worked both ways. “I think… just give him some time. Like I said, Mark’s under a lot of pressure at the moment. He’s got some issues, things he’s finding difficult to sort out. The walking out of the room thing’s probably just a coincidence, he doesn’t hate you, he’s just a bit preoccupied at the moment. It’s not just you, he’s ignoring all of us!”

Chloe didn’t look too convinced as she looked at the floor.

“Okay?” Paul asked gently, lifting her chin to meet his eyes. “Trust me, I’m a pop star!” he said with a grin.

I can’t believe how good I am at this! Thought Paul, as Chloe smiled. I really should consider being a therapist or something.

“Now give me a hug.” He said.

As they embraced, Ben got up from where he’d been watching them. He couldn’t hear what they were saying but he could tell from their facial expressions that it was kind of serious. He wasn’t going to interfere, if Chloe wanted to tell him she would, and he didn’t mind all the touchy feely stuff with Paul, Ben trusted Chloe one hundred percent. More than that even. He trusted Paul as well; Ben knew Paul knew how much Chloe meant to him and wouldn’t even consider doing anything to hurt him. As a matter of fact, he trusted all of them, except maybe Christian. He did have a weakness for girls!!

Ben couldn’t remember ever being so happy. He had the job of his dreams, a1 were currently one of the biggest bands in Britain, he had four amazing best friends and the most wonderful girlfriend imaginable. He didn’t think it could get much better than this. Although strictly speaking, that meant things could only get worse, which wasn’t such a nice thought. Another thing that wasn’t such a nice thought was the management and record company meeting scheduled for 3 o’ clock that afternoon. He didn’t understand why they had to go seeing as it was a MANAGEMENT AND RECORD COMPANY meeting, management and record company being the operative words. It wasn’t a management, record company and the actual band meeting, just management and record company. They never discussed anything interesting, it was all stuff with big words that Ben didn’t understand, finance stuff etc. That was more Mark’s area. He seemed to know what was going on at these things and spent most of his time there translating what the big bosses were saying into proper English that Ben could understand. And even if they did, on rare occasions, discuss interesting stuff like singles, they weren’t actually allowed to put their opinion across until all the “important” people had finished deciding it anyway, so it wasn’t like there was much point in them being there. They might as well do it over the phone.

But most of all, it was so boring! And Chloe wasn’t allowed to come, which Ben thought was very unfair seeing as he told her everything anyway. But according to their manager, who was actually generally very nice, it was “confidential”. Or something like that. All Ben knew was that he was missing out on valuable hours with Chloe and he wasn’t happy about it.

He looked back over to the kitchen. Chloe and Paul still looked deep in conversation and Ben wasn’t about to go rushing in there and break any bonds that were forming between them. This was what Ben wanted, for his friends to include Chloe as one of them, coz they came as a package now, Chloe and Ben. Or Ben and Chloe. They both sounded perfect. Ben glanced down at Christian who was still asleep, slumped on the chair. Ben debated for a few seconds whether or not to wake him up but then, catching sight of his reflection in the mirror, decided that his face definitely needed some attention before he could go out into the world. A quick trip to the bathroom was in order, right now! Before someone mistook him for a mutant and either a) took him away to perform experiments on him, or b) just plain shot him dead. So, the bathroom. Yep.

It was a good job Ben hadn’t woken Chris up. He was just about find out the meaning of life. That was what the big pink rabbit had told him anyway. At that moment they were walking up a waterfall, which was, incidentally, made up entirely of small green men. The rabbit had told Chris that he was taking him to the Hoojam Strip where the sacred boot would tell him everything he needed to know. Chris knew he was lying of course, that’s why there were so many in jail, but he didn’t like to question him because he was actually handcuffed to a walking lamppost which was, at present, holding him at gunpoint. But it was okay because at any minute, Britney and Beyonce the vampire slayers would come and rescue him. That was, if they could find him, because being invisible he was kinda difficult to see, but Chris was pretty confident they’d find him anyway.

Chris was finding it rather difficult to understand when the rabbit and the lamppost were saying as they were talking in Wingdings, but he decided to stick to the ‘smile and nod’ policy, just as long as it took for him to grow his wings. They were gonna be purple and Chris was quite excited about them. He’d traded them for all his clothes with this tall woman dressed all in black with a pointy hat and crooked nose he’d met walking in the opposite direction. Chris thought it was a pretty good deal. He struck a hard bargain.

“Like chocolate?” said the rabbit.

It stared intently at Chris for a few minutes before hitting him on the head with a haddock. Everything went black.