Page 73 of Going Solo

ChapterTwenty-Nine

The next day, I was in my happy place, Chloe’s Hair and Beauty in the Colchester high street, making the most of my time off in lieu. Mum had given me a trim, and I was waiting for Aunty Cheryl to give me one of her Lad’s Deluxe Manicures. I hadn’t heard from Cole since that kiss. Not a phone call, not a text.

“Wonderwall” came on the radio.

“Tune!” Aunty Cheryl called out across the salon. Someone pumped up the volume, and everyone started to sing the opening lyrics.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I shagged one of the Gallaghers backstage after an Oasis concert?” Aunty Cheryl said.

“Yes,” everyone said. We’d all heard the story a hundred times before—all of us except a woman who was getting her hair foiled.

“You never! Which one was it, babes?”

“Well, I thought it was Noel, because he was quite sweet and cerebral in the way he fished around in my knickers,” Aunty Cheryl said. “But halfway through he opened a fridge and cracked a can of Carlsberg, and I thought, no, this is Liam.”

The woman was absolutely living for the gossip. “So, which one was it?”

“Neither!” the whole salon said, in chorus.

“Turned out he was a crafty drunk who’d managed to get his hands on a backstage pass. But, in my defence, he did have a northern accent and a mod cut.”

My phone rang, and I almost jumped out of my skin. Who calls people? Withheld numbers, that’s who calls people. I thought about letting it go to voicemail, but when you work in the media, you never know when a withheld number might be a life-changing opportunity. The call fromCelebrity Dorm Roomhad come exactly like this. I pressed the green button.

“I can’t stop thinking about that kiss.”

My heart stopped. “Cole?”

“Not sure I like the question mark on the end of that. Who else have you been kissing?”

I looked around the salon, making sure no one had heard me say his name, and ducked behind the curtain into the back room.

“Why are you calling me?”

“I just told you. Listen, it’s about to get quite noisy here. Can you stay on the phone with me? I might not be able to hear you, but please, keep talking.”

“What are you on about?” I heard a heavy door open, then there were screams and shouting coming down the phone line, like Cole was calling from inside one of his own concerts.

“I’m not sure if you can hear me,” he said. “I’ve been on breakfast TV, and it seems while I was on air, half of New York made its way down to the studio.”

Apparently, Sunny’s technique for dealing with an unwanted media scrum was well known. Was that the real reason for the call? The excitement at hearing his voice left me. In the background, I could hear Mitch asking the photographers to clear a path.

“So, you thought you’d call the ex you recently assaulted in a lift?”

Cole laughed. “Yeah. First person I thought of. Truthfully, you’re the only thing I’ve thought about in days.”

Aunty Cheryl screeched across the salon that she was ready for me. I popped my head through the curtains and waved that I was on the phone. She huffed.

“They’ve got mopeds,” Cole said. “Damn, with the traffic in this city, they’re going to be impossible to shake.”

“Fall over,” I said. “But make it sexy. And laugh at your clumsiness.”

“What?”

I explained the second part of Sunny’s technique: Give them a good photo, and they’ll leave you alone. Five seconds later, I heard a thud, followed by another thud, followed by a thousand shutters clicking, followed by Cole’s deep throaty laugh. Then the call dropped out.

It’s His Royal Heinie!

He might be British rock royalty, but the Prince of Pop Cole Kennedy has come crashing down to earth!

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