Starstruck (39 page)

‘I’m
not feeling very Christmassy.’

‘But
you did your Christmas shopping.’ She nods towards my bags.

‘Yeah,
but if my life was a film I’d be carrying them down the street, through a
blizzard, all alone, tears freezing on my cheeks, to the tune of Have Yourself
A Merry Little Christmas.’

She
laughs. ‘Oh, I can tell you’re a writer. I hear you though.’ She places an arm
around me and rubs my shoulder. ‘Well I’ll miss you, Nicole Wilde. We could
have been great friends. You’ll keep in touch won’t you?’

I’d
always read interviews with Kelly - I’d even written news articles about her -
and jumped to the conclusion that she was probably a stuck up cow. I couldn’t
have been more wrong, and I absolutely will keep in touch with her. I’d love
nothing more than to stick around, playing with my famous friends and getting
paid for talking about Dylan, but how long would it last? I can’t force people
to believe me and they’re going to lose interest if I don’t bang another
celebrity soon. I don’t have much choice, I have to go to France and the sooner
the better.

Arriving
back at the flat, I can hear lots of noise before I even put my key in the
door. Finally managing to get it open with all my bags in my hands, I stumble
through and come face to face with the last thing I need right now... happy
people. Luke, Eddie, Mark, Ben, Carla – a few other people I recognise, and
then a whole bunch of people I don’t know.

‘Nicole
Wilde!’ Eddie calls out enthusiastically, he’s clearly wasted. ‘We’re having a
jam, come and join us.’

Whenever
you party with bands – even when you’re not on tour – you can guarantee that
someone will break out a musical instrument at some point.

 ‘I’ll
pass,’ I say, a little blunter than I had intended.

‘Aww,
Nicole, come on. Join in.’ He counts Ben in and they launch into a beautiful
rendition of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, the last song I needed to
hear right now. Maybe it’s just the way I’m feeling, but it annoys me that
Eddie can be so smashed and still sing this song so beautifully. These guys
really do deserve the success they’re getting, and things are only going to get
bigger and better for them. I couldn’t feel more tragic and out of place if I
tried.

‘Hey,’
Luke greets me with a kiss on the cheek and glass of something.

‘I
didn’t know you were having a party.’ I take the drink anyway.

‘It
was a last minute thing, I thought I’d surprise you.’ He gives me that grin
I’ve always been a sucker for, but all it does is remind me of how things were.

‘I’m
not really in the partying mood. I actually need some air, I’ll be on the
balcony if you need me.’ I don’t give him chance to say anything, I just push
my way through the happy people and once I’m outside I close the door behind
me. It isn’t long before Luke joins me.

‘What’s
the matter? Has something happened? You’ll freeze out here, Nic. Can we go
inside and talk?’

‘I
don’t want to go back in there,’ I sob, turning to face away from him so that
he can’t see me crying, although it’s probably a bit late for that.

‘Hey,
don’t cry.’ Standing behind me, he wraps his arms around me to keep me warm.
‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘I’m
beat.’

‘You’re
tired? I can clear this lot out in no time, you can go to bed. Things won’t
seem so bad in the morning.’

‘No,
Luke, I’m well and truly beat. I give up. I appreciate you letting me stay here
so much.’ I wipe my eyes and turn to face him.

‘You’re
leaving? Don’t go. I’ve got used to having you around. Don’t go back to Leeds.’

‘I’m
not going back to Leeds, I’m going to France to live with my parents for a while.’

‘What?
Why?’

Of
all the things I could have told him, I actually think that was the last thing
he was expecting me to say.

‘I
need a fresh start, somewhere where I don’t have such a bad reputation. And to
be honest, you’re better off not associating me with. You guys are still quite
new, you don’t want my bad rep rubbing off on you. You’re harbouring a homewrecker.’
I laugh through my tears.

‘Nicole,
I don’t care about that. You can’t go, you’re winning people over, more and
more people every day, don’t give up now,’ he pleads.

‘I
was, until this new story. I can’t beat them and I’ve run out of energy to keep
trying. My mind is made up, I’m going to France.’

‘When?’
he asks, unable to hide his disappointment.

‘Tomorrow,
if I can get a flight. My mum is going to try and sort me one out. If not
tomorrow, then the day after that.’

‘Your
mind is made up?’ Luke asks me. I’ve only just realised that he isn’t drunk or
high like most of the people at the party. Maybe his accident did knock some
sense into him after all.

‘My
mind is made up.’ I don’t want to go, but I really have no choice now.

‘I’ll
be absolutely devastated if you go, Nicole.’ He squeezes me tightly, so tightly
it causes him pain in his ribs. As soon as he is alone in his flat again he’ll
soon be glad to have a bit of privacy back, I’m sure of it.

‘Will
you sleep on it, before you arrange anything final?’ he asks.

‘Ok,
I’ll sleep on it,’ I lie. I’m out of here as soon as possible.

I
woke up in Luke’s spare room, freezing cold. He is almost as useless at playing
house as I am. Right on cue he barges through the door (without knocking,
although it is his flat and he has seen it all before) with a parcel in one
hand and a coffee in the other.

‘Before
you complain, the heating is on now. I have a coffee for you, to speed up the
process, and a package arrived this morning.’ He drops the big, brown envelope
down on the bed. It must be from Jake, he told me he was going to send me my
post from the past few weeks. I rip it open and begin sorting through it all,
separating it into two piles – “I don’t care” and “I really don’t care”. As I
near the end of the pile, a hand written, padded envelope catches my eye.
Curiosity gets the better of me and I rip it open. It didn’t occur to me until
after I opened it that it might have been something horrible, like a dead rat
or something even more disgusting from a disgruntled Dylan fan. Luckily it’s
nothing grizzly, just a letter and one of those little USB memory sticks.

‘So,
have you thought anymore about staying?’ Luke asks, but I’m too caught up to
pay any attention.

‘Oi,
Nicole,’ he says loudly, and I snap out of my trance.

‘Sorry,
it’s this letter. It’s from Scott Hale.’

‘Who’s
that?’ Luke asks, confused.

‘Scott
Hale. He’s that horrible blogger, the one that put up a story about me and you
guys on tour, remember?’

‘Oh
yeah, the bloke with the fantastic imagination. Well, what does he want?’

‘I
can’t read it.’ I set the letter down on the bed and stare at it like I would
have done if it really was a dead rat.

‘I’ll
read it,’ Luke says, snatching it up and reading it out loud.

‘Dear
Nicole, just like you I have been played by Vicky Mason.’

We
stare at each other for a second. ‘Keep reading,’ I rush him.

‘It
was your so-called friend Vicky who gave me the story about you and Two For The
Road. She told me that she got the info from your best friend and I don’t know
how much she exaggerated, but I certainly put my own spin on the story to make
it juicer. I promised her that I would buy her stories if she got me one big
scoop, and she did. Plastic Rap, the sexual predators. Information she also got
from your best friend, you might want to investigate this leak of information. It
is my understanding that she also leaked this story to the Daily Scoop, who put
it up before me, taking all of the credit. Anyway, that story was great, so I
started paying her for more. She promised me something huge, something to do
with Dylan King, but we couldn’t get anything. You didn’t come back with any
stories from his wedding, and he seemed to really clean up his act. Then he
turned up at your door, and so Vicky came to me. She told me where he was
staying and I had one of my spies at The Châtaigne plant a camera in his room.’

Luke
pauses again, and stares at me in disbelief. I laugh, almost hysterically.

‘You
mean he taped us? He has a tape of me and Dylan in his hotel room? The hotel
room where nothing happened!’ I say excitedly. ‘Keep reading, keep reading!’

Luke
continues reading as instructed, although now he has a huge smile plastered
across his face. ‘We’d hoped to catch him drinking, or doing drugs or something
– anything to get him in trouble with his wife. As you know, nothing remotely
interesting happened that night, but Vicky got lucky with those photos of you
outside. Very lucky. So lucky that she realised she could get much more money
for them if she went to a tabloid, and so she stabbed me in the back. Just like
she did with you. After that e-mail you sent me, I didn’t see why I should help
you, but then I saw you on TV and I felt sorry for you. You have done nothing
but tell the truth, and have remained classy when story after story came out
about you. I am not being selfless, I want to bring Vicky down and discredit
her as a journalist. I have included a memory stick, on there is the video of
that night, dated. I ask you don’t mention that you got it from me, but feel
free to use it to clear your name, and dirty Vicky’s. Thanks, Scott.’

I
grab my laptop and plug in the memory stick. You know what they say, a watched
laptop never starts up. Or maybe that’s just my laptop because there’s so much
rubbish on it.

‘Do
you want me to leave you to watch this alone?’ Luke asks.

‘Nothing
happened!’ I protest, hopefully for the final time. ‘Stay. Share in my moment
of victory.’

Scott
was telling the truth, I recognise that beautiful room. The video is in black
and white, and the date on the screen matches up with the night it all kicked
off. He must have edited the video for me (or, most likely, to preserve the
anonymity of the person who planted it) because almost straight away I see
Dylan throw himself onto the bed. Then there’s me, stumbling towards the mini
bar, emptying it and dumping the contents on the bed. I wasn’t expecting to be
embarrassed, but I can feel my cheeks flushing. Sitting down on the bed next to
Dylan I try and work the control for the TV as he breaks open a packet of
biscuits.

‘Can
we make this go a bit faster?’ I ask Luke, and he obliges.

The
rest of the video shows me and Dylan eating almost everything from the mini bar
before starting on the little bottles of booze. We eat, we drink, we laugh at
the TV, but we don’t lay a finger on each other. Eventually Dylan rolls off the
bed and onto the floor, and I lay back and pull the covers over myself. Neither
of us moves until the morning, when I get up, go to the bathroom, say goodbye
and leave.

‘Nicole,
this is amazing. It proves that nothing happened, and if nothing happened then
people will start to question the rest of it. You owe this Scott guy.’

‘He
was such an arsehole to me.’

‘From
that letter, it sounds like he still is an arsehole. But an arsehole that needs
you to get revenge on Vicky.’

I
can’t believe Scott has decided to help me - whatever his reasons are.
Sometimes it’s the bad guys who make the best good guys, whether they intend to
or not.

‘Get
Frank on the phone, and get him over here,’ I tell Luke as I jump out of bed.
‘I’m off to get myself tarted up, and then we’re off to clear my name.’

‘So
you’re staying?’ Luke asks.

‘It
looks like I am.’

‘I
always believed you,’ Frank assures me as we sit in the reception at The Daily
Scoop.

‘Sure
you did,’ I say, fairly sure that he didn’t believe me, but I don’t think he
cared really. Guilty or innocent, he would have represented me anyway.

I
feel like a child waiting to see the dentist – actually, I’m still scared of
the dentist, so really I just feel like I’m waiting for a filling. Sure, you’re
seeing him for your own good but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be pleasant.

There’s
plenty of reading material laid out, but only copies of The Daily Scoop, or the
supplements you get with it. It’s strange seeing my face on a few of the
covers, they’ve sure got their money’s worth out of me.

I
am so relieved, although I feel even sicker than I did when I thought I was
screwed. Just imagine if Scott Hale hadn’t decided to help me, I’d be packing
my bags for France right now. It would have been nice to see my family for
Christmas, but I’ve got to clear this mess up while I still can.

‘Mr
Boyes will see you now,’ a pretty young blonde with an iPad in her hand informs
us.

‘Here
we go.’ I take a deep breath and follow iPad lady. This is it.