Ello guys

Ello guys!! I can’t believe how long it’s been – I’m sooooooooooooo sorry!! I’ve just been really really really lazy! Hopefully I’ll keep up with my updating now, but if I don’t I just want you all to know that I will be writing this fic right thru to the very very end, its 263 pages in now so I’m hardly going to give up on it now!

Hugge thanks to people coming on MSN to nag me to write – this chapter is dedicated to all of you

Chapter 56

“Come on!” he said, pulling at her arm in an attempt to get her off the bed.

Mel buried her head right into the duvet and ignored him, she wasn’t moving for all the gold in the world. She was warm and comfortable, lying flat on Christian’s double bed with her eyes tight shut.

“Pllllllllllllllease” he begged in a childish voice.

“I’m comfy,” she grumbled, taking her arms and stretching them out above her head.

Christian sat down at the foot of the bed and grabbing hold of her hand linked his fingers in between hers.

“Please sweetie.”

He stroked his thumb gently along her hand and gave her a look that always managed to make her feel hot all over. Now she was in a dilemma, should she stay here or give in to the man whose eyes ruled her heart.

“You could go without me,” she suggested, not willing to give in quite yet.

“I want you to come.”

“But it’s a band dinner, I’m not in the band.”

“As good as”

“Yeah Chris,” she replied sarcastically, “I really should be in the boyband”

He rolled his eyes at her, “come on it’ll be fun.”

Taking one last look at his face she sighed and hauled herself up and off the bed, he thanked her by giving her a quick kiss and throwing a bundle of clothes at her.

He sat down on the bed and watched as she got ready, his eyes never leaving her.

“Do you know how hard it is to put on mascara when someone is watching you?” she muttered, meeting his reflection in the mirror and glaring.

“Yep”

“Something you want to tell me about hun?” she smirked.

“Pardon?”

“You have a secret fetish for woman’s makeup?”

“Eh?”

She rolled her eyes and carried on, Christian now looked completely confused and was looking at her with his eyebrows raised and a worried expression on his face. Now she knew she couldn’t resist him, he always looked so sweet when he was puzzled.

Flicking the brush over her lashes one last time she got up and gave him a long kiss before taking his arms and pulling him up to his feet.

“Don’t worry about it sweetie,” she laughed, putting her hand into his.

An hour later and they were meeting the other members of the band in the bar area of an exclusive restaurant in London’s West End. It was a beautiful place, and unlike other places wasn’t surrounded by the tabloid press, it was exclusive yet elegant, it was full of a traditional ambience far from the bright glare of celebrity.

“I love this place,” Mel enthused, taking a sip from her orange juice.

“Me too,” Mark smiled, as usual he had taken a chair right next to her and as the only non alcoholics of the group they were sharing an orange juice.

“I cannot believe that you have a straw in my drink,” Mel commented, watching Mark take a huge slurp out of her glass, “can’t you rich popstars afford your own drinks?”

“But yours tastes so much better.”

“My Mum always used to do this,” Mel remarked.

“She did?”

“Yep, I’d have a contest with my best friend, to see who could drink their coke the slowest and then Mum would stick a straw in and slurp half of mine, I’d get so annoyed” she smiled as she reminisced.

“You seen your Mum recently?”

“Nope, not since I left”

“You miss her? Mark asked gently, resting a hand on her arm.

“Sometimes,” she said, trying desperately hard to keep her voice steady.

“Well you know that if …”

“WHAT YOU GUYS UP TO?” Paul came crashing into them, slurring his words.

The moment was broken, Mel quickly ran a finger over her eyes and grinned back at Paul, while Mark took another sip from his drink and glared hard at his band mate.

“How drunk are you?” Mel smirked.

“Veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy” Paul said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Oi” Chris suddenly appeared by her side, “what you doing with my girl?”

Mel smiled widely, she would never ever get fed up of hearing Christian talk about her in that way, it made her feel so warm and happy.

“First I have Mark leering all over her and now there’s Paul!”

Mel smirked, “you jealous baby?”

“Yes,” Chris replied pouting.

Mel reached up towards him and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

“You have no need to be, Mark’s my best friend, and Paul’s just a drunk!”

Christian smiled and then bent down so that his lips gently touched hers.

“You’re definitely the best,” she said when he had finished, “no competition.”

He disappeared back to Ben, a slight spring in his step, chuckling to herself Mel turned herself back to Mark who was still drinking enthusiastically out of the glass.

“Whoa there!” she exclaimed, “you’ve drunk nearly all of that now!”

“So!” he snapped and leaping out of his stool moved away from the bar and off to the toilet.

Mel was about to follow him, but at that moment their table was called and so they made their way into the restaurant. Mel was sure it was nothing to worry about, she could always ask him if he was okay later.

The talk turned to the band pretty soon after they had sat down, which was fine by Mel because she could then turn all of her concentration to working out how to eat her crab, she wasn’t entirely sure if she was supposed to crunch her way through all of it, or simply eat the squishy stuff inside. She sighed to herself as she ran her fork over it for the last time before deciding to turn her attention to the vegetables instead.

“The last track was too base heavy,” Ben was saying enthusiastically, banging his fork down hard on the table.

“It wasn’t, it sounded better like that,” Paul argued back.

“But it’s not pop if you do it like that,” Ben commented, “you can’t have a heavy base line on a pop song.”

Mel rolled her eyes, band talk could be so boring. Was this how her life was going to be from now on, a little pop star wife, spending her whole time in posh restaurants trying to eat crab whilst listening to boring music biz talk?

She began to hum a little tune in her head, anything to keep herself away from the music talk, as she hummed to herself she looked round the room, taking in the amazing décor and then marking the waiters out of 10.

Once she had done a full visual lap of the place her attentions turned back to the table and her eyes met Chrisitians. He smiled and winked, and she smiled back, he knew she was bored. He lowered his eyes slightly towards the table and then glanced back at her to smile again. She had no idea what he was trying to say, he was probably trying to tell her that she was eating her crab wrong. She looked down at it, it did look rather messy, it was now spread all over her plate in a big massacre.

When she glanced back in his direction he was still grinning at her, his eyebrows slightly raised. She looked back down at her plate, refusing to play his weird Norwegian game anymore.

Then she felt something touch her ankle and looking under the table she could see that Christians foot was now rubbing gently against her leg. She looked back up at him and he was still smiling. He was so cute, he was obviously bored by the band talk as well. He continued to look at her as he ran his foot up her leg and she felt herself fill up with warmth, this was just like something out of a dream, Christian a1 was playing footsie with her under the table.

A sudden grating of a chair made her look away from him for a moment, it was Mark again, stomping off towards the toilet. This time she would have to go and check on him. Reluctantly moving away from Christian she made her way into the male toilet.

“Mark?” she asked, as she peered cautiously round the wall.

“What you doing in here?” he grunted.

“Checking you are OK” she commented.

“Am fine.”

“Don’t think you are,” she replied.

“I am”

“So you didn’t want me to follow you into here then?” she asked.

“No!”

“Then why the sudden dramatic departure?”

He grunted, “OK, maybe I do have a problem”

“With?”

“You and Chris?”

Mel leant her head against the wall in exasperation, “not this again.”

“It’s never going to go away,” Mark retorted, “I’m always going to feel the same.”

“Come on then, spill,”

“It’s not right, you aren’t supposed to be together and you are going to get hurt.”

“Mark you are like a broken record,” Mel insisted, “you have to give it a rest.”

“But he doesn’t love you,”

“Things have changed.”

“Says who?”

“Says me,” she argued, “things have happened now that I can’t even explain, everything is going to be fine so you don’t need to stick your nose in it anymore.”

“That’s what you think I’m doing?” he asked.

“Yep, sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Mel replied, feeling herself getting angry.

“But we’re mates,” Mark said, “I’m just looking out for you.”

“Yes Mark we’re mates, in fact you’re my best mate, but that doesn’t give you the right to keep doing this to me, you have to accept that I’m happy.”

She gave him a quick hug and then left the room.

Mark gave the wall a hefty kick, was she never going to see sense?