Page 11 of Ex in the City
It’s funny. When you’re younger, you tell yourself that you’ll never be the kind of person who looks back at their old photos with a strange sadness. And yet here I am, doing the exact thing I swore I’d never do, but I guess it’s inevitable. I suppose it gets us all, at some point, a snapshot of a different time, and when you look at it, all you think about is how you felt back then. It sounds silly but I wish, back then, that I’d known how happyI was, and my God, I was in the best shape of my life, and I genuinely thought I was chubby. What I would give to wind my body back ten years. They say your body changes when you have kids, which is fair enough, except I didn’t even have Archie and Ned, and yet I feel so mumsy and frumpy in comparison to how I looked back then. I wish I’d known that I looked okay, that I shouldn’t have felt so self-conscious at the time.
I suppose the funniest thing of all is that I won’t learn from this. I’m in my early thirties now, and when I’m in my forties, my fifties, my sixties and so on, I’ll probably keep looking back, thinking the same thing about my photos from ten years previous. You will never be younger than you are right now. It’s always worth remembering that. Just, you know, not right now, because right now we are dwelling. Let’s not ruin a good pity party.
Dylan was one of those men who somehow possessed endless sex appeal. He was gorgeous, sexy and seriously charming, and he did it all in a way that didn’t tick the usual boxes. He had what I guess you would call an average body, not that muscular, but not carrying much extra weight either. He loved to eat, drink and enjoy himself. Like any rock star, he loved women, but I always appreciated that he didn’t just go for the same young, skinny thing all the other celebrities were after – Dylan certainly didn’t have a type, or care all that much about the superficial things. The tabloids always used to pitch him as the kind of guy who could make any woman weak at the knees, and the kind of lad any fella would love to go to the pub with. He had some tattoos back then, getting more and more as the years went on, which only added to his rough-and-ready bad-boy good looks. There was no denying that he was attractive.
I fancied him before I met him, because of course I did, I’m only human. Surprisingly, I didn’t encounter him through work, though. I actually won a competition to meet his band, TheBurnouts, backstage before one of their gigs. I was so nervous, and so excited, and then so, so disappointed when I found myself in a room with the man himself. Mikey, his brother/the guitarist in the band, seemed nice and down to earth, and the other band members seemed fine too, but when Dylan came in, giving it the big I-am, so obviously trying to impress me, I decided that I would be anything but impressed, because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I acted completely unbothered by his presence and, when he played me a sneak preview of their new album, I made out like I thought it was trash (even though it was really good). Dylan was shocked, then amused, and then his barriers were down. Suddenly we were getting on like a house on fire and, just like that, we became instant best friends – and we completely friend-zoned one another in the process, because that was just the way it had to be. Sleeping with Dylan wasn’t the way to stick around in his life, not sleeping with him was the key to that.
In a way, I always felt special, being a constant female presence in Dylan’s life, but one who wasn’t there to hook up with him. We fell in this sort of strange, deep platonic love with each other, and being best friends with Dylan King not only helped my career, but he could always count on me to give him a bit of good press when the rest of the media were piling on him for something. We were always there for each other, come rain or shine, through thick and thin, whether we were in different countries or relationships – none of it mattered. Until it all went wrong, obviously.
I try not to think about it, day to day, but I miss it, I miss us, I miss him. And while I’m usually pretty good at batting away the feeling and getting on with my life, tonight I just can’t seem to do it. Suddenly a few stolen glances, or even a long, lingering look at a photo, aren’t hitting the spot. I need more.
I grab my laptop and set it down on my lap on top of the duvet, and then I grab my phone, because this is a two-screen military operation. One of the downsides to being friends with musicians, or even meeting them and seeing what they are really like, is that it really shapes what you listen to. Genuinely, the bands I met when I was a journalist, seeing how awful most of them were, it did what I like to refer to as ‘morally curate’ my playlists. Similarly, when Dylan and I fell out, I suddenly found it impossible to listen to his music any more, listening to that sexy, beautiful voice just felt too much like hanging out with him, being on tour with him, the way he would always sing me to sleep on the tour bus. Tonight, though, I don’t know, something has shifted. I need to hear him, to look him up, to see how he’s doing.
I fire up Instagram on my phone and look him up – something I’ve always been able to stop myself from doing – and see that he abandoned it, along with his other socials, years ago. He doesn’t look much different in the most recent ones, a little older, with a lot more tattoos, but he’s still my Dylan. From the latest photos it looks like he’s still partying hard, even though it’s been a long time since he was touring. I suppose, for a while, he was just famous for being famous, after he and his brother, Mikey, fell out and The Burnouts subsequently disbanded. I remember at first he did a few naff celebrity reality TV shows, and the tabloids carried on hounding him, reporting on his exploits, and I guess I just found it too hard to watch him going off the rails so I just pretended he didn’t exist.
Seeing him basically drop off the face of the earth makes me feel guilty, like I should have stayed in touch, because who knows where he is now, or what he’s doing?
I switch to my laptop, opening YouTube, and typing in his name. One of the first things I spot is that about six years agohe did an episode ofStep Inside, which was a sort ofCribs-type show that took you inside celebrities’ houses.
I chew my thumbnail as I think about opening it. It’s fine, right? It’s not like I’m actually going inside his house, and it’s not like he’s going to know. I guess it just feels kind of voyeuristic, and weirdly intrusive, like I’m breaching his privacy, because it’s not like he’s going to get to see inside my house, is it? It feels unfair.
I click it and the first thing I see is a familiar front door. It’s Dylan’s house – obviously – the one in Primrose Hill, that I’ve been to countless times. It’s a big, white, double-fronted detached house tucked away behind electronic gates. I watch the black front door open about an inch before I hit pause. Why am I being such a baby about this? Perhaps stepping into his house, even via an old clip of a TV show, feels too much like retreading my own steps.
In the related videos, I notice a live performance of one of their big hits, ‘In the Night’, from the height of their fame, so I click that. A music video feels like a better place to start.
I see Taz, the drummer, and then Jamie, who played bass. Then the camera pans to Mikey King, the quiet but super-talented guitarist – well, he was quiet back then, but after the band broke up he managed to forge himself a career as a TV presenter, so he’s not all that shy these days from what I’ve seen on the TV now and then. Then Dylan runs out onto the stage, a blur of charisma and confidence, grabbing the mic stand as he begins belting out the lyrics. He smiles and his eyes twinkle as an arena of adoring fans sing his lyrics loudly back at him. Watching him strutting around, his shirt unbuttoned enough for his body to peek out at the crowd, his skinny jeans so tight and riding so low his boxers are pretty much the only thing keeping his bum covered up – God, it all feels like it was only yesterday.
A bra appears out of nowhere, obviously launched by someone in the crowd. Dylan picks it up, his vocals briefly interrupted by his dirty laugh as his slips his arms through the straps – much to the delight of the audience. I know, I’m probably biased because I was his friend, but they were the best band to go see live. So much fun, so much energy, such infectiously catchy songs that seemed to transcend genre. Everyone loved The Burnouts.
Watching Dylan running around on stage, doing what he does best, is like seeing a ghost, or watching an old episode of a TV show you used to love. It feels like it happened to someone else, or like it was a dream – not at all like I was there, and I was quite literally there, watching from the wings on that particular night. The memories are so vivid, but they are just so far removed from the life I have now that it all feels like it couldn’t possibly have happened to me. I feel like that teenage girl again, the one who used to fantasise about running away with her favourite bands, just in a sort of strange, reversed way. Rather than thinking it will never happen, it feels like it never did, and like it certainly never will again.
I laugh quietly to myself as I watch Dylan having the time of his life, working the crowd, and the more I watch, the more I relax, the more I find myself enjoying it – and the more videos I want to watch. Perhaps this is what I need, to watch a bunch of clips, get it all out of my system, and then go back to my quiet little life – or what’s left of it, anyway.
I sigh. It’s hard to say, because who knows what might have happened if things had played out differently – I might have still quit the business, Dylan might still be making music, and the two of us might still be friends. But we ruined it. How? With sex, obviously. Nothing ruins a friendship like sex – no matter how good it was.
9
‘Stop it,’ I whisper in a breathy voice, not meaning it for a second. There’s no way I want him to stop.
I squirm in my bed, making myself more comfortable on my side as he presses his body up against the back of mine, teasing me with kisses on my shoulder.
‘Mmm,’ I groan.
‘You want me to stop doing this?’ he asks playfully as his hand runs over my hip, then onto my stomach, then slowly further down my body.
‘You heard me, Dylan King,’ I flirtatiously tick him off – again, in no way wanting him to stop.
‘Okay, I’ll stop,’ he says simply.
As he pulls away, taking his hand with him, his lips no longer lightly brushing across my skin, it feels like someone has taken oxygen away from me.
I jolt up in my bed, gasping for breath, eventually realising where I am. I’m in my own bed, alone – unless you count my laptop. I must have fallen asleep, watching videos of Dylan, and then had a sex dream about him which is just, wow, an extra-special, extra-torturous way of teasing myself.
All of a sudden, I notice the doorbell ringing, which must be what woke me up, given that I turned my alarm off last night because Rowan offered to take the boys to school for a change.
I grab my phone but it’s dead so, still half asleep and totally disorientated, I grab my fluffy bright-pink dressing gown, throw it on over the underwear I slept in, and hurry down to answer the door.
‘Okay, okay,’ I call out moodily as I fuss with the lock. I know that it’s going to sound pathetic but, whoever it is, I’m actually annoyed with them for waking me up from my dream, because not only was it shaping up to be a good one, but it meant that I actually got to spend time – even imagined time – with…
