Page 7 of One Wild Night
‘No, they’re not,’ Kitty tells her dad, her mouth twisting into a smug little grin.
‘Then you won’t be sharing a bedroom under my roof,’ Pat points out.
‘Yeah, no worries,’ Dylan tells him.
Obviously we weren’t expecting to share a room, and we’re not a real couple, so we don’t care.
‘Dylan, we have a room for you, and the other three…’
Pat pauses, as he mentally arranges us. I glance at the “other three” who look about as livid as you would expect them to be, at the idea of the band being categorised as “Dylan” and “the other three”.
‘…the other three, you can go in the workers’ accommodation,’ Pat continues. ‘There are two sets of bunk beds in there.’
Two sets of bunk beds, so four beds – does that mean I’m going in there? It won’t be much different to sleeping on the bus with them, to be honest, although at least on the bus you have a little curtain for privacy. Anyway, it’s just for one night, I’m sure they can refrain from anything they might need a curtain shield for, like sleeping naked, orworse.
‘Me too?’ I check.
‘No, goodness, of course not,’ Pat replies. ‘I’m sure Dylan would be horrified, if his partner were to share a room with various men.’
“Various men” might actually be even more offensive than “the other three” – equally as hilarious though.
‘Oh,’ I say simply. ‘So, I’m…?’
‘You can share a bedroom with Kitty,’ Pat announces.
‘Oh, what fun,’ Trish says with a giddy clap. ‘Like a slumber party. Don’t you girls be keeping us up late having pillow fights and sharing secrets now, will you?’
Jamie opens his mouth, as if he’s about to crack a dirty joke, but we’re all expecting it. Thankfully, Mikey jabs him with an elbow before he gets the chance.
‘Oh, there’s no need, really,’ I insist, because, my God, I do not want to share a room with this random girl. ‘I’ll go in with the boys, or sleep on the sofa, I don’t mind…’
‘Nonsense,’ Pat insists. ‘You will only be in the next room from one another, there’s no need to pine or fret. Now, it is late, we should all head to bed. Trish will show you to your room, Dylan, and I’ll take the other three. Kitty, show Nicole to your room.’
‘Fine,’ she says with a huff, clearly as unimpressed as I am with the situation. ‘Come on, you.’
I glance over at Dylan. There isn’t a hint of anything on his face. His expression is blank, he’s motionless – not even his eyes are moving. I know Dylan though so, believe me when I say this, behind that stony façade his is screaming with laughter at the idea of my having to share a room with Kitty. It’s as though he’s telepathically letting me know just how funny this is, but this is a two-way communication method, so I’m silently transmitting back to him that he can piss off.
I take a deep breath before following Kitty up the stairs.
The stairway winds around in the centre of the house, meaning it has no windows, just a little light coming from electric-powered candle lights on the walls – not very bright ones at that. The brown striped wallpaper is covered with framed photos of the family, just the three of them, along with various picture of the farmhouse and the land that surrounds it. There’s something creepy about the photos – something that I can’t quite put my finger on. They have this almost dark, washy tone to them, like they weren’t developed properly, making them look like something you unearth in an attic in a horror movie. The composition is off on some of the family photos too, as though there were a fourth member, who had been erased – for goodness sake, I am creeping myself out again. This needs to stop. This is just a house. They are just a family, and there is nothing alarming, or concerning, or…
My thoughts taper off as I follow Kitty into her bedroom.
It was obvious from the moment she invited us to stay that she was a big fan of Dylan, but nothing could have prepared me for this. This isn’t a bedroom; it’s a Dylan King shrine.
Almost every inch of every wall is plastered with posters, magazine clippings, and photos, all of Dylan. Sure, some of them have “the other three” in, but that seems little more than circumstantial. One photo in particular, that Kitty has obviously printed out from Dylan’s Twitter page, catches my eye more thanany other, because it’s one that is so familiar to me. It’s a photo taken backstage at a gig of Dylan with his arm around me, except the version Kitty has is a little different. There’s Dylan, and there’s me (or my body, at least), but Kitty has stuck a picture of her own face over mine. Kitty is clearly head over heels in love with Dylan, and absolutely out of her tree.
I swallow hard, my eyes darting around the room, because the only thing even more alarming than all the photos (including the one she has removed me from) is the fact that there is only one bed in here.
No. God, no. Tell me I do not have to share a bed with this girl? Sharing a room with her is bad enough – sharing a house with her is, to be honest, pushing me way out of my comfort zone – but sharing a bed?!
‘Do you have spare blankets and pillows?’ I ask her. ‘So that I can get set up on the floor.’
I glance down at the wooden floorboards that have seen better days. They look cold and hard and they’re full of gaps – perfect for all kinds of spiders to creep up through, I’ll bet.
‘No,’ she tells me as she changes into her nightgown. ‘I guess we’ll just have to put up with each other. Here.’
Kitty throws a spare nightgown at me. It’s a long, white, old-fashioned-looking thing. The kind of thing you would wear to haunt someone, for sure.
