Page 22 of Cherry Beats

My eyes fell to the leather jacket hanging loosely around his shoulders—like he couldn’t be bothered to push his arms through the sleeves. He was so broad that the jacket hooked itself in place, not moving an inch.

Someone in the crowd soon realised it could be removed too easily, and the second the super fan reached out and ripped the jacket from Presley’s shoulders, all hell broke loose.

The bad side of the good boy was revealed to the world.

Presley froze instantly, as though someone had just stolen his heart, ripped it from his chest and tossed it aside. His head slowly turned to the thief who was now waving the jacket around like it was a victory flag—smiley, happy, and gloating, while Presley’s face hardened, and his eyes narrowed.

My fingertips closed over my mouth the second I saw him launch himself at his fan: uninhibited, crazy, and unforgiving. The crowd screamed in shock, but over the noise of the chaos, Presley’s words were clear.

“That’s all I have left, you motherfucker!”

The person videoing must have been knocked in the crowd then because the footage rattled around like it was caught up in the aftershocks of an earthquake right after Presley’s fist took down his opponent.

“Presley West, the drumming, hard-hitting sensation of the decade, and poster boy of the world-conquering rock band Youth Gone Wild, was arrested this morning in SoHo, London after an eager fan grabbed a feel of Presley’s famous, unchanging leather jacket.”

“A feel?” I scoffed at the screen, raising my arm and pointing at the footage they were showing. “That arsehole tried to steal it. How would you feel if someone tried to steal those chicken fillets from your bra, huh, Winona Ryder wannabe?”

I hurled abuse at every news reporter that dared to suggest Presley was out of line. Okay, so physical violence was never the answer, but could I honestly say that that kind of invasion of privacy wouldn’t get to me, too? I was human. Presley was human. It was a crying shame that so many humans on this goddamn hypocritical, judgemental planet forgot that they were, in fact, human.

“London Metropolitan Police have yet to issue a statement, but after Youth Gone Wild’s management rushed Presley into a waiting vehicle immediately after the incident, it is believed that an arrest was made when Presley had the car stop by a small police station just a few miles down the road, where he turned himself in, with the band’s manager Dicky Bennett shouting wildly behind him.”

I tried so, so hard not to focus on the fact that the band were now back in London, only a short car ride away from me because in my mind it was always better for me to imagine Presley was a million miles away.

“A group of fans have already started to promote a blog called West Gone Wild, with the site having over 700,000 hits in the last few hours alone.”

“Fans, my arse,” I growled. “Opportunistic rat bastards.”

I continued with my own commentary, convincing myself I didn’t really care all that much one minute, only for me to see his action replay again the next minute and hear my heart pining for him like a newborn puppy pines for the nipple.

My phone rang several times, Molly’s name popping up over and over, but I ignored the calls for now. She knew what I would be doing. She knew how addicted I was to him.

I think she referred to it as ‘poetically pathetic.’

After gnawing my thumbnail down to a sore, swollen, sorry mess, my phone rang again. It was a blocked caller, and I never answered those. Never, ever, ever.

I let it ring out, and when the vibrating stopped on the sofa, I glanced at it and frowned. A bad feeling swept over me. It was a slow tingle up the spine that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

A warning, almost.

The phone began to ring again. Another blocked call.

And then again.

And Again. And again.

That’s when I knew it could be the press trying to contact me. Presley was all over the news, and they were trying to get any scoop on him they could. I managed BB’s, the one place he spoke publicly about like it was his church. They could get hold of my number easily.

They can go fuck themselves,I thought.

I began to pace when the calls wouldn’t stop, and for a split second, I contemplated switching the bloody thing off, but I had this fear of switching my phone off completely and not being contactable. I’d lived enough to know that Murphy’s Law meant that that would be the exact time when a family emergency would occur, making you live with regret for the rest of your life.

Just as I blew out a breath and pushed my hands through the unruly strands of my hair, there was a knock at the door.

My head snapped in that direction, and I froze, eyes wide.

Another three knocks. Slow. Controlled. Firm.

My heart galloped, and I made a step towards it, trying to rehearse aGo Fuck Yourselfspeech that would make it clear to them that I wasn’t an option as a snitch.

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