How to Catch a (Rock) Star (The Dead Hour #1) (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Kate pulled up outside the bar at five minutes past seven and Lillie put her hand to her stomach. She felt sick. She turned to Kate, panicked.

‘I don’t think I can do this. Do you think he’s seen us?’

Kate rolled her eyes,

‘He’s looking right at us and smiling,’ she said, waving at Jed. ‘Go on, get out. Have a good time and be safe,’ she added, putting the car into first gear.

‘Okay,’ Lillie took a deep breath and smoothed her short purple dress over her legs. ‘Thanks for the lift, see you later.’

She leant over and kissed Kate’s cheek before getting out. Jed was waiting, looking ridiculously hot in black everything. Her stomach full of hyperactive butterflies, Lillie smiled nervously and walked towards him.

‘Hey. You look amazing,’ he said. ‘Shall we go inside?’ he asked, his crooked grin in place as he held out his hand. Lillie mumbled an agreement and took his hand, hoping that her hands weren’t as clammy and hot as she suspected they were.

Once inside and sitting down with a gin and tonic, she thought she would relax, but she couldn’t concentrate on a thing he was saying. Watching his mouth whilst he talked and grinned at her, she couldn’t stop thinking of his mouth on her skin, his tongue on her…

‘Excuse me a minute,’ she blurted, interrupting him mid-story, as she got up to go and hide out in the ladies. She could feel him watching her walk away and her face was burning, probably betraying all the sexual thoughts she’d been having.

Safely ensconced in the ladies room, she desperately phoned Kate.

‘I can’t do this, Kate,’ she hissed down the phone. ‘I can’t concentrate on what he’s saying to me, I just keep thinking about having sex with him. You need to come and pick me up. I’m going to make a complete idiot of myself,’ she babbled, staring at her red cheeks in the mirror and willing the traitorous blood away from her face.

‘Lil, calm down,’ Kate said. ‘What’s that thing people do when they’re nervous in front of people?’ There was a small pause. ‘Oh yeah, just imagine him naked, it’ll be less scary,’ she suggested.

‘Kate, are you joking? If I imagine him naked, I’ll have multiple orgasms right on the sofa! Help me out here. Please?’ Lillie exclaimed.

‘Oh right, yes, sorry. Okay, so, deep breaths, have another drink, do not look at his mouth, concentrate on what he’s saying to you and answer appropriately. If all else fails, forget dinner and get yourselves to a bed. That’s all I’ve got for you,’ she said. Lillie frowned at her reflection in the mirror.

‘Okay, you’re right. I just need to forget about having sex with him, which is impossible because he is hot beyond belief. Plus, he just keeps looking at me. I wish he wouldn’t look at me.’ Kate sighed heavily down the phone. ‘Right, I can do this. Thank you. Have a nice evening. Kisses.’ Lillie hung up with a sigh of her own.

Running her wrists under the cold tap to cool herself down, she tried to think of the most unsexy thing she could when inspiration hit her. She would just pretend he was her GCSE Physics teacher, the repulsive, greasy haired, bad-breathed Mr. Brown. Hah! Problem solved. Walking back to Jed, she felt pretty confident that she could stop thinking about being in bed with him. Sitting down, Lillie smiled and picked up the new drink Jed had got her.

‘Are you okay? That was quite the sudden departure,’ he asked and Lillie was touched at the obvious concern in his eyes.

‘Oh, no, I’m fine. I just remembered that I forgot to remind Kate of something important. Sorry.’ she said, smiling and thinking of Mr. Brown’s greasy comb over.

Leaning back in his chair, Jed grinned slowly at her and drawled,

‘Nothing to apologise for. Actually, I was wondering if you’ve ever been a dancer?’

Think of Mr. Brown’s monotonous voice, Lillie instructed herself, don’t look at Jed’s mouth, stop thinking about sex, take a drink and stop blushing. Answer the question. What question? The one about you being a dancer, dummy…

‘I mean, not an exotic dancer or anything, just like ballet or something. You walk like one, you know, slightly turned out feet, good posture…you’re very graceful in the way you move,’ Jed clarified, his own slight blush betraying his desire for Lillie not to think he was a creep.

‘Well, I used to do a lot of ballet up until about five or six years ago but I don’t do any dancing now except for clubbing.’

‘What made you stop?’ he said, leaning towards her.

Lillie was distracted by a hint of woody aftershave and smiled at the thought of Jed making an effort for her. It made her relax a little and she leant back into the squashy sofa whilst she told him about her dancing and how university life hadn’t seemed compatible with it. Too much partying, too many lectures, not enough money for classes and a hate for pointe shoes had conspired to put an end to her ballet.

‘Have you ever thought of getting back into it? It sounds like you loved it and you said you hate your job now.’

Lillie looked into her glass. There was no way she was telling him that she had once harboured a dream of being a singer and that dancing was the only creative outlet she had been allowed to pursue and, even then, that had been on a strictly recreational level. Her parents had encouraged her to concentrate on her academic studies when she went to uni and had pretty much bribed her to give up her dance classes for a bit of extra cash each month. Cash she had been in sore need of. That, plus her mum’s spectacular failure as a professional singer had sealed her fate for her. If Lillie’s mum, with her strong, power-ballad voice and charismatic stage presence, couldn’t make it, then no way did she think her daughter, all lilting tones and serious stage fright, would.

She sighed and drained her glass, feeling the familiar regret washing over her, threatening to spill over into a rant against her controlling parents. She was sure Jed would find that really attractive.

‘Too late now,’ she said, putting her glass on the table. ‘I’m way too old to begin a career in dance unless I wanted to teach it.’

She looked at her watch and stood up.

‘It’s nearly eight, we should probably go.’

She noticed Jed’s look of surprise at her abrupt ending of their conversation and was about to apologise but he had stood up too, throwing back the last of his beer, already reaching for his jacket.

Outside on the street, Jed was quiet but reached for her hand and Lillie desperately tried to think of something amusing or intriguing to say to blast away the gloom she had brought to their date.

‘So. Do you like Japanese food?’ she said, her brain having failed to come up with anything even remotely interesting.

‘Oh, sure. There’s a great sushi restaurant in New York called Sosumi,’ he paused and looked at her. ‘It’s full of lawyers though…’ he grinned and Lillie laughed.

‘That is so bad!’ She giggled again. ‘I’ve got one too. There’s a Japanese guy, a Mexican guy and a blonde guy. At lunch one day, the Japanese guy says, “What? Sushi again? If I have to eat sushi for lunch again, I’m gonna jump off a building!” The Mexican guy opens his lunchbox and says, “Oh man, tacos again? If I have to eat tacos for lunch one more time, I’m gonna jump off a building too!” Finally, the blonde guy looks in his bag and says, “Oh, jeez, a sandwich again? If I have to eat a sandwich for lunch again, I’m gonna jump off a building too!” At the funeral, the wife of the Japanese guy says, “If I’d known he didn’t like sushi, I wouldn’t have made it for him anymore!” Then the wife of the Mexican guy says, “If I’d have known he didn’t like tacos, I wouldn’t have made them for him again!” Everyone looks at the blonde guy’s wife and she says, “What? HE MADE HIS OWN LUNCH.”’

Jed shook his head, laughing.

‘That is way worse than mine. And blondist too. Does Kate know you tell that joke?’ Lillie laughed. ‘Okay, this is my all time favourite. You ready?’

Lillie nodded, feeling the laughter rise in her throat in anticipation.

‘Okay, what do you call somebody with no body and just a nose?’ Lillie raised her eyebrows.

‘I don’t know.’

Jed grinned and shrugged his shoulders as he said, ‘Nobody knows!’

Lillie dropped his hand and had to stop walking she was laughing so much.

‘That is the worst joke I’ve ever heard,’ she gasped out, standing up straight and walking on, Jed reaching for her hand again.

‘This is the worst joke in the world,’ Jed said. ‘What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?’ he paused theatrically and waited for Lillie to look at him. ‘A carrot.’ Lillie groaned and came to a stop.

‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Are the bad jokes over?

‘Maybe, depends how much sake I have,’ he replied, opening the door for her.

As they stepped inside, Lillie was glad to see it was everything she had heard it was. Modern, clean lines, sparkling surfaces, beautiful, bright oriental flower arrangements and strings of delicate patterned origami birds hanging down from the ceiling.

Jed regaled Lillie with stories from the road and some rather disturbing incidences with what he called ‘super’ fans, although he admitted that Johnny called them psycho fans which was probably more apt.

After sharing a wasabi ice cream, Jed asked her what she wanted to do next.

‘There’s a really nice little pub I know but it’s a bit of a way,’ she said, looking down at her heeled boots.

‘We’ll get a cab,’ Jed said, signaling for the bill and Lillie took her wallet out of her bag. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked, staring at the red wallet in her hands as if it were a Justin Bieber CD.

Lillie, flustered, started to say she would like to pay half but he cut her off with an emphatic no.

‘I asked you on a date, so I pay. Isn’t that how it works here?’

‘Sometimes,’ Lillie said, thinking about how Married Matt always paid in cash and calculated exactly how much Lillie owed with a special app on his phone, including half the tip which was always ten percent to the penny, never over. How he had ever managed to get someone to marry him was a complete mystery.

Jed settled the bill with crumpled up notes, commenting on how much easier it was to distinguish the denominations with English notes than American ones.

‘I like how the twenties are purple because it hurts more to spend those than the tens or fives,’ he said, holding out her cardigan for her to put her arms into.

‘I guess the fifties are red because that’s the colour you see when you have to spend that much,’ Lillie quipped and Jed laughed, even though it wasn’t that funny, which made her fancy him even more, if that was even possible.

Outside, Jed hailed a taxi in the inimitable New York style and Lillie slid across the seats, wondering if he would leave a space between them or slide all the way over to sit next to her. She gave the name of the pub to the driver and felt both nervous and gratified when she felt Jed’s thigh touch hers.

As the car pulled off, she turned to thank him for dinner, the words never reaching her lips as Jed’s own lips pressed against them.

The butterflies in Lillie’s stomach woke up with a start and her heart stuttered as everything but Jed disappeared from around her. She felt his hands on either side of her face as his mouth softly touched hers and his tongue gently parted her lips, a low groan escaping from his throat.

Lillie couldn’t think, didn’t want to think, as she surrendered herself to the most perfect kiss she’d ever experienced. The smell of him filled her head as she pushed her fingers into his thick hair. Underneath his aftershave was that spicy, lemony scent that was just him. She pushed her body into his as he kissed her harder. She had to stop herself from straddling him right there in the back of the taxi. Her skin was alive with his touch, her senses overwhelmed with a fierce desire she had never felt before. She didn’t ever want it to stop but, just as her head started spinning from the intensity, he pulled away, gently catching her bottom lip between his teeth, his eyes half closed.

Clearing his throat, he asked her in a low, thick voice if she still wanted to go for a drink. Rendered speechless by his kiss, Lillie shook her head and Jed asked the taxi driver to go to his hotel, looking at her to check that was okay. Lillie’s quick nod confirmed it and he gently pushed her fringe from her eyes before trailing feather-light fingers down her face, brushing them over her lips. His fingers tipped her chin up and he moved even closer to her to bestow a lingering kiss on her mouth before sitting back and staring at her with his intense dark green eyes. He picked up her hand to play with her fingers and then turned away to stare out of the window.

Lillie sat back, confused. She had thought that kiss had been the most incredible kiss she had ever experienced. She had felt it throughout her entire body, Christ, it had damn near made her come and all she wanted now was for him to kiss her again. She glared at him, watching the houses go by like it hadn’t affected him at all. She felt disconcerted, anxious and, worst of all, incredibly turned on.

As the taxi pulled up to the hotel, she was tempted to tell the driver to take her home, but her body wouldn’t let her brain function fast enough for the words to come out, and she was out of the car before she knew it.

As Jed led her to the lifts, Lillie had the sudden horrible thought that she was just going to be another slutty groupie going up to his room for casual sex. Going up in the lift, she was seriously doubting herself and him, and halfway down the corridor, she suddenly stopped.

‘I don’t think I want to do this.’ Jed stopped in his tracks and stared at her askance, key in hand as they continued to look at each other, faces mirroring their mutual confusion and paranoia.

‘What? I thought… that kiss… it was so amazing, didn’t you think…’ Jed’s voice trailed off as he fiddled with his key card.

‘I don’t want to be some groupie you sleep with and then laugh about tomorrow with Johnny,’ Lillie blurted out, blushing, her eyes fixed on the floor, not daring to look him in the eyes in order not to lose all her resolution. When she finally managed to look up, Jed was staring at her in horror.

‘Is that what you think? Oh God, Lil, I can’t believe you would think that. That’s so not me. We’re not the kind of band who give girls back stage passes for blow jobs and I don’t sleep with fans. Ever.’