Chapter Six

There was at least another hour until Ben would be back. Chloe didn’t feel that was enough time. She didn’t want to see Ben. She couldn’t. She felt so incredibly guilty and confused. Most of all, she still felt shocked. Shocked at what Mark had said, shocked at what he’d done. What she’d let him do. Chloe didn’t think that Mark was the type of person to do something like that though. Not that she knew personally, but Ben talked about him all the time; how talented he was, how wonderful he was, what a good friend he was. Yeah, what a great friend he was, and what a great girlfriend she was. She thought for a moment about telling Ben what had happened. She wanted to, she wanted to be honest, but more than anything, she didn’t want to lose him. Not now, when things were so good. He might forgive her, but he might not. And he wouldn’t forgive Mark, Chloe knew him well enough to know that. So could she really handle being responsible for more bad feeling within the band or worse, being the reason they split up? No, there was no way she could tell Ben.

Chloe felt an overwhelming pang of guilt as she remembered how she’d reacted to Mark kissing her. He was right, she could have stopped it if she’d have wanted to but she didn’t. Not straight away anyway. She could try and pretend that the reason she’d reacted so slowly was because she was so shocked, but she knew that wasn’t true. The truth was, she had enjoyed it. She liked the way Mark had made her feel when he kissed her, and the only reason she’d stopped it at all was because of the thought of Ben. God, she was a horrible horrible person.

What Chloe didn’t understand though was why all this had happened now. It must have been hard for Mark, having to sit back and watch her and Ben together, knowing he couldn’t do anything about it, and the fact that up ‘til now he hadn’t done anything about it, showed how much he cared about Ben, in a slightly twisted way. So what had changed? If Mark had always loved her like he’d said, why had he chosen now to tell her how he felt? Why not two months ago, or two weeks ago, or any time? What was so different about now?

The fight.

In all the shock, Chloe had completely forgotten about Paul and Mark’s fight. That must have been what it was about! Chloe gasped. Paul knew! He knew all along about Mark’s feelings for her! The whole time he was talking to her, reassuring her that Mark didn’t hate her, he was feeding her lies. Chloe felt totally betrayed. Why hadn’t he told her? She thought they were close.

This was getting more and more confusing, and Chloe really needed someone to talk to. Someone who wasn’t Ben, or Paul because who knows whether he’d be lying or not. She picked up the phone and dialled the number she knew so well. It started to ring.

“Hello?”

“Rose?”

“Yeah.”

Chloe instantly felt better for hearing Rose’s voice. She always managed to make her feel better. It was one of those best friend things.

“Hiya, it’s me.”

“Hi! How are you? Are you at Ben’s?”

“Yeah, he’s not here at the moment though. He’s at a meeting.”

“Are you alright? You sound a bit… upset.” Rose said.

“Something really kinda big has happened.”

Chloe didn’t know how to introduce the subject of Mark to the conversation. It wasn’t like she could just talk about it like it happened every day.

“What? Is it to do with you and Ben?” Rose sounded worried.

“No, no, everything’s fine with me and Ben.”

For now anyway.

“It’s Mark.”

“What about Mark?”

“Don’t worry, he hasn’t died or anything!” Chloe reassured Rose.

Rose had always had a soft spot for Mark. They’d met quite a few times, but only in passing and not properly.

“You know how I was telling you about how weird he’s been acting recently?”

“Yeah, and that’s why you won’t set us up. And coz you’re really mean.” Rose added.

Chloe laughed. “I am not mean! Anyway, listen, this is important. I need your advice.”

“Okay.” Rose said.

“Right, well, um, last night everyone stayed over at Ben’s and this morning I was talking to Paul about Mark. He said that he was being weird because he’s got a lot of things on his mind at the moment and that he doesn’t hate me, he’s just pre-occupied.” Chloe paused.

“That’s what I said.”

“I know, but don’t congratulate yourself too soon. There’s more.”

“Okay,” Rose sounded a bit puzzled.

She obviously had no idea what was coming next. Chloe certainly hadn’t guessed.

“Well Paul and Mark had a big fight and Paul punched Mark…”

“Oh my god!”

“I know! And I thought it must be about what I told Paul. I dunno, I got a bit upset, I thought maybe Paul was angry at Mark for making me sad.”

“Yeah.”

“Well I felt really guilty then coz I thought it was all my fault, so I decided I needed to sort things out with Mark by myself. I needed to get him on his own so we could talk properly and I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but then Paul said Mark wasn’t going to the meeting they’re all at at the moment coz he’s got a black eye…”

“Oh my god!!! Is he okay? Is it really bad? Did he have to have stitches or anything?” came the flurry of concerned questions form Rose’s end.

“Yes, not really no.” Chloe answered quickly before continuing what she’d been saying. “And so anyway I thought, ‘great! Everyone else’ll be out so I can talk to him without being interrupted.’”

Chloe waited for a comment.

“Are you listening to me?" she asked.

“Yeah, I am, I’m just a bit shocked about Mark.”

“He’s fine, believe me. Anyway, I started talking to him, except it didn’t go quite how I meant it to go and we ended up shouting at each other. Then he suddenly went all quiet and he said that the reason he’s been keeping his distance from me was because… he loves me. And then… he… I… he kissed me.”

There was a stunned silence on the other end of the phone.

“And… I didn’t stop him coz I’m a bad person and I should be shot and I hate myself. Oh my god, what have I done?” Chloe started to cry.

“Chloe calm down. Oh god, um… I dunno what to say. You’re not a bad person.”

“But I shouldn’t have kissed him back! I’m evil, and selfish, and greedy, and a cheat! What am I gonna do?”

The reality of the situation suddenly hit Chloe. She’d cheated on Ben. She felt devastated.

“It didn’t mean anything to you though did it?” Rose asked.

Chloe was silent.

“I mean, you didn’t want him to kiss you.”

There was a pause.

“Did you?”

“I don’t know.” Chloe said quietly.

That was the honest truth. She really didn’t know.

“Well, did you encourage him? Could you tell he was going to kiss you?” Rose asked.

“I can’t remember.” Chloe confessed. “It all happened so fast! All I can remember is this feeling of, I dunno, excitement. Like when you’re little and you steal sweets from the cupboard. And you know it’s wrong and if you get found out you’ll be in big trouble, but that’s part of the excitement about it. And the sweets taste so good when you eat them that part of you doesn’t even care how much trouble you get into coz it’d be worth it. But you always feel a bit guilty…” Chloe trailed off, startled at how accurate her analogy was.

“But you only feel guilty right?” Rose asked hopefully.

“No…” Chloe answered.

She might as well face up to it and stop trying to justify what she’d done. She had enjoyed it and she had wanted it to happen. Did she want Mark? Instead of Ben? No. She did love Ben. So did she want Mark and Ben? Maybe…

Chloe felt like she was being pulled in two opposite directions. This wasn’t right, was it?

Mark was sitting in his room in the dark. His mum and dad were out at some kind of fête thing so the house was empty.

This was not good. That was not the way it was meant to happen. He hadn’t even planned on telling her then, it had just kinda happened. To start with it was great. Everything went how it was meant to go. Chloe reacted how Mark had always dreamed she would, and when he’d kissed her, she’d kissed him back, he knew she had. No matter what she said, she’d wanted that kiss as much as he did. And when they’d kissed it was such a relief to be able to do what he’d wanted to do for so long. It had felt so right, like it was always supposed to be like that, with them both together.

But then there was the not so encouraging end part when she stopped the kiss and told him to leave. He regretted saying what he had because he could see that it had hurt her, but he was angry because he could tell that the only thing that had stopped her was the thought of Ben, which meant that if she wasn’t with Ben, she’d be with him and he’d be happy. Mark, not Ben.

Well then surely it was quite good, because now she knew and he knew how she felt about him… kind of. Mark could see the obvious plan forming but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to carry it out. He knew that if he was going to be totally selfish, he should do everything he could to convince Chloe that he was better than Ben because now he knew that he had everything to gain. But ultimately, he would never know if Chloe was willing to leave Ben to be with him until he took the chance, because he didn’t know her well enough to be able to second guess her reaction. So should he now do what he wanted when there was a good chance it would have a positive outcome, or should he just forget it ever happened. Yeah, like that was possible. But then again, if he did go for Chloe, would he lose Ben? He’d already done a pretty good job at falling out with Paul. Mark carefully touched his swollen eye. He didn’t deserve that. Mark knew Ben well enough to know he wasn’t a physical violence person, more a quietly hurt person. Would he ever forgive Mark? In all honesty, Mark knew the answer was no. But then again, if Mark had Chloe would he care about how Ben was feeling?

Thinking about how Ben reacted to things like this gave Mark a strange feeling of déjà vu he couldn’t quite place. Then he remembered the last time he’d seen Ben badly hurt. It had been around the end of 2000 when he’d split with his long-term girlfriend Sophie. Why? Because she cheated on him. Was he that bad a boyfriend that all his girlfriends cheated on him?! Or maybe he was too nice so they thought they could get away with it. Whatever, Mark couldn’t put Ben through that again. His break up with Sophie had affected him so much that he said he’d never fall in love again. He said it just wasn’t worth it. And for almost a whole year, he didn’t. He just stayed away from girls in general, and if he did date anyone it was never more than once. Then he found Chloe. Someone he could trust and rely on, someone he could fall in love with again. If all that changed now, it would be Mark’s fault and he wasn’t strong enough to cope with the responsibility of that.

But the problem was that he still wanted Chloe, and the kiss had reinforced that fact. So although he didn’t want Chloe to cheat on Ben, if they split before anything really happened between Mark and her, that wouldn’t be as bad would it? It would still look like cheating though wouldn’t it? It was hardly going to go:

Ben – “Why are you leaving me?”

Chloe – “Because I want to be with Mark instead.”

Ben – “Oh right. Fair enough then.”

But if it was going to happen anyway, surely Ben would appreciate honesty? Then again, what if they did get together and it turned out to be rubbish? At least if they did it secretly, if things didn’t work out they could go back to normal again with minimal heartbreak. That was the best option surely?

Mark didn’t have time to consider this further as the phone rang.

“Hello?” he said absently, picking it up as a reflex reaction. He didn’t expect to hear Ben’s voice at the other end and immediately felt guilty about contemplating the best way to steal his girlfriend.

“Hi, Mark?”

“Ben, hi!”

“We thought you might want to know what went on at the meeting today.”

“Oh, okay, thanks.”

“Well, I don’t actually know much but Chris seems to get it so I’ll put him on in a minute, I just wanted to check you’re okay; your eye and well, you in general. I didn’t get a chance to talk to you before, Paul won’t tell me much, I just wanna know why you two fell out.” Ben sounded uncomfortable and he was rambling which meant he was nervous too.

“What did he tell you?” Mark asked, realising for the first time that he’d been so wrapped up in thinking about Chloe that he hadn’t even considered that Paul might have told Ben what they were really fighting about. But still, he didn’t want to make things worse by telling Ben something totally different to Paul’s story.

“Basically nothing! He just said it was stupid and it got out of hand.”

“He’s right, it was just pointless. Not even anything specific really.”

“But you’re alright, yeah?” Ben asked.

“I’m fine mate. A bit bruised but yeah, I’m okay.”

Good. Um, are you coming over to mine tomorrow before we go to the studios?”

a1 were doing ‘Caught In The Middle’ on Top Of The Pops and they were recording the next day. Ben’s house was in a useful location so it had become a sort of base for the band and was where they usually met before they went anywhere.

Mark was momentarily thrown by Ben’s question. Did he want to see Chloe? Would it be awkward? Would he be able to control himself?!

“Uh, yeah, I’ll come over about 8?”

Ahhh! Where did that come from?! Mark had clearly switched onto autopilot.

“Yeah that’s fine… what?”

Mark could hear muffled voices on the end of the phone

“Oh right, okay, Paul and Chris have to do something… what is it? Oh yeah, it’s this interview thing with Capital FM, I didn’t even know about this, can’t me and Mark do it as well?” Ben asked someone.

Mark didn’t know who he was talking to.

“Anyway, they need to leave straight after we’ve finished recording so they’re gonna go in a separate car. That means it’ll just be me, you and Chloe.”

Mark’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of her name. That meant there was very good chance they’d get to be alone at some point, and they did need to discuss what had happened, even though a part of Mark just wanted to avoid her even more now.

“Yeah, great!”

Was that a bit too enthusiastic?

“Okay, well I’ll hand you over to Chris now, he can fill you in about the meeting. See you tomorrow.”

“Thanks Ben.” Mark said.

He felt terrible that Ben was being so nice when only a few hours ago he’d been kissing his girlfriend.

“No problem, here’s Chris.”

Ben handed the phone to Chris and tried to control the butterflies in his stomach. Just before they’d left for the meeting, Ben had had a really good idea. At least, he thought it was a good idea but the more he thought about it (which had been throughout the whole meeting hence he didn’t have a clue what they’d been talking about, not that he ever did normally), the less convinced he became by it all. Not about the idea itself because it was a great idea in theory, he just wasn’t entirely sure that it would happen. It was kind of a big thing, maybe a bit too big, but he’d never know unless he asked.

“Right, well we’ll be off then.” Paul announced. “Give you two some time alone.” He added, winking subtly at Ben.

“Thanks Paul.”

Ben had discussed his idea with Paul and Chris and they’d agreed that it was a good idea, but they had also warned him of the negative side as well. He walked them to the door.

“Good luck mate.” Paul said.

“Yeah it’ll be fine. She loves you, she won’t say no.” Chris reassured him.

“Do I really look that worried?” Ben asked.

“You look terrified!” Paul said helpfully.

“And I feel it!” Ben managed to smile despite his nerves.

“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s not like you’re asking her to marry you.”

“I know, but it’s still pretty big isn’t it? I’ve never asked anyone this before but it just feels right. I’m really sure about this, I just hope she feels the same.”

“She will. Stop being a wimp and go ask her!”

“Alright, see you tomorrow.”

Paul and Chris left and Ben closed the door behind them. He took a deep breath and walked up the hallway to the sitting room where Chloe was, oddly enough, sitting in a chair, reading a magazine. She looked up as he came in.

“Alright?” she asked with a smile that quickly faded when she saw Ben’s serious expression. “You look kinda serious, is something wrong?”

Ben took another deep breath. That always seemed to work in films so why wasn’t it helping now?

“Okay, Chloe, come and sit next to me.” he said, taking her hand and sitting on the blue sofa. “And don’t look so worried! It’s nothing bad, I hope!”

Chloe still looked a bit apprehensive.

“I want to ask you something. And it’s not marriage so you can relax!” Ben smiled at her, his hands still on hers.

“Okay…” Chloe prompted.

“I know this is kind of a big thing, probably more so for you, and if you don’t want to, just say so okay? I won’t be offended, I promise. And you can think about it for as long as you need to, I don’t want to force you into anything.”

“You’re making me feel scared now.” Chloe said.

“Not as scared as I am.” Ben confessed. “I’ve been thinking about this all day and I almost bottled out from asking you.”

“Is it a yes or no question?”

Ben smiled. “It is.”

“Do you think I’ll say no?” Chloe asked.

“I hope not! But I don’t know. I realise it’s a lot to ask but I love you so much. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

“You know I feel exactly the same so why not be brave and ask me?” Chloe said with a smile. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You leave me coz you think things are going too fast.” Ben said honestly.

“I would never leave you just like that! I couldn’t, I love you far too much.”

This was looking quite promising, thought Ben as he squeezed Chloe’s hand. But he hadn’t asked her yet so there was still time for things to go horribly wrong. He actually felt quite sick now which definitely wasn’t good. Maybe it was a sign, maybe he shouldn’t ask her. No, he had to, it was too late to back out now.

“Chloe…”

“Yes Ben.”

Now Chloe looked slightly amused.

“Don’t laugh at me, this is serious!”

“I’m sorry, it’s just funny, I’ve never seen you so serious before! Sorry, carry on.” Chloe said, trying hard to keep a straight face.

Ben couldn’t help smiling. All of a sudden he didn’t know what he was so worried about. This was Chloe, he could ask her anything, and she was right, the worst she could say was no!

“Just ask me Ben!”

“Oh okay, will you move in with me?”

There was a big silence. Chloe looked gobsmacked.

Oh please say something, Ben said silently.

“Wow… um… oh my god.” Was apparently all Chloe could manage.

“I know it’s a bit sudden and probably not practical and scary and I shouldn’t have asked and I know you have plans and…”

Ben didn’t get a chance to finish his rambling as Chloe put a hand over his mouth.

“Shut up!” she said with a huge grin. “Finished?” she asked, removing her hand.

Does a smile that big mean yes?

“Ben, I would love to move in with you, but I will have to think about it.”

Ben nodded. “Take as long as you need.”

That was much better than a straight no.

“To be honest, the only thing stopping me from saying yes right now is the fact that you’ll be away so much and I’ll be here all on my own, away from all my friends and family.”

“I know, that was one of the reasons I wasn’t sure about asking you.”

“But I would love to live with you. Sometimes I wish you weren’t in a1…”

Please don’t ask me to choose, you know I can’t.

That was Ben’s worst nightmare; to find the girl he loved more than anything and then to have her make him choose between her and the band.

“But then we’d probably never have met, so all in all it’s definitely worth it!” Chloe said, giving Ben a big hug.

No, she’d never do that to me. She knows how much being in a1 means to me.

“So I’ll think about it, and when I’ve made my decision I promise you’ll be the first to know. I’ll get back to you.” Chloe said, grinning and kissing Ben.