Page 82 of Cherry Beats

I looked down at my clothes. Same black jeans as I’d arrived at the hotel in. Same cherry-coloured Docs. Same T-shirt, only with a black and red chequered shirt over the top, left open and tied in a knot at the waist.

“Don’t doubt yourself. It’s cute,” she said genuinely. When I looked back up at her, she was smiling right at me. “I’m glad he’s latched onto someone normal.”

“You mean someone unlike Harriet Cole?”

“You have nothing to worry about with her. That didn’t last more than half a night. Presley talks to me. Probably more than he talks to the guys.”

I was desperate to ask what he’d said about me along the way, or if he’d said anything at all, but I figured if he had, she’d share that information if and when she was ever good and ready to.

“He never asked to look the way he looks, you know. It’s almost like it’s a curse to him some days.” She narrowed her eyes and turned her attention back to Presley. “I’ve never known anyone like him.”

“He’s pretty special,” I said with a soft sigh, letting my heart begin to race a little harder as I stared at him, full of lust and that other four-letter word I was trying so hard to keep to myself.

“Now we’ve just got to get him out of his own head a little bit more.”

Julia turned to face me fully, her arms folding over her chest, even though her face was light and somewhat understanding. She rubbed her bright red lips together before she popped them and tilted her head to the side.

“He’s a deep thinker, Tessa. I’m sure you know that about him already. But that leads to him being a big drinker, too, and if he lets that take control, he’s going to mess things up for everyone.” She took a step closer to me, her eyes narrowing slightly, and her voice dropping to a whisper. “I can see how he looks at you. How he holds you in his hands when he kisses you. The very fact that you’re standing right here must mean something. Whether it’s just another phase of his, I don’t know, but all I have to do is look in your eyes to know you’re not like the others. You don’t want to beseenwith Presley, do you? You want him to yourself behind closed doors.”

“I don’t—”

“And that’s okay,” she interrupted, not letting me speak. “But if you do get him to yourself, try and make him see that the drink isn’t the answer to all his problems.”

“He has problems?”

“Don’t all rock stars? It’s why they turn to the music. The noise takes them away. The energy, the pulse, the beats, and the fact that they can shout, scream, and hit things and then get praised for it. You can’t write the lyrics if you don’t know what it means to feel every word you write about.”

She wasn’t the first person to allude to the fact that Presley had problems I wasn’t aware of, which just went to show how little I actually knew him, even though he felt so ingrained in my soul some days, I was sure his name was tattooed on my heart.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I have a feeling you’re not going away anytime soon.”

The DJ started laughing, and the band members soon followed his lead, making me blink and look back in their direction. Each one was high on life, but it was Presley I was focused on, and when I saw him wink at me, I couldn’t help but smile in return.

“I hope not,” I said to Julia quietly. “Not this time.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

After the radio interview, we were heading to another hotel across London, where they were meeting a bunch of media people to give some press interviews. Riding in the car with the blacked-out windows, watching the people in the vehicles beside us trying to get a good look inside… it was all so…crazy.

Presley’s knee was bouncing, the two of us on the back seat, his face solemn and lost as he peered out of his window, looking tired again. In all the time he’d been away from me, I’d assumed he had been loving this life. It was every musician’s dream. It was what every acne-riddled teenager would think about when banging on their new drum kit or plucking the strings of an old guitar in their parents’ garage. I’d seen his face a thousand times, never once thinking he might need a friend.

That he might need me.

I’d been the one to walk away from him, and then I’d turned him into the villain in my mind to make it easier on myself somehow. Realising I’d been so selfish suddenly hit me in the gut and left an acidic feeling floating through me.

Regret. It tasted like shit.

I had so much to make right.

“Hey,” I said, interrupting both our thoughts by sliding my fingers over his hand resting in the space between us. He turned to look at me, his face unmoving. “Hi.” I smiled.

His head fell about against the seat, eyes locked on mine. “Hey.”

“You look tired.” Presley stared at me, the striking blue hypnotising me. “You doing okay?”

“Better now you’re here.”

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