Page 36 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

first flight

Seren

The private jet has a name. Serendipity.

I stand on the tarmac at some exclusive part of Heathrow I never knew existed, staring at a sleek white fuselage with my name painted in elegant script along the side, and wonder if Harrison planned this or if the universe has developed a twisted sense of humour.

“Coincidence,” Harrison appears at my elbow with our bags, though his smile suggests otherwise. “Had it for two years. Seemed like fate when I met you.”

The aircraft gleams in the London drizzle, all clean lines and expensive curves.

There’s a red carpet leading up to the stairs—an actual red carpet, because apparently my life has become the kind of absurd fairy tale where private jets have my name on them and red carpets appear for Tuesday morning flights to Japan.

Three weeks ago I was alphabetising reggae albums and arguing with Simon about whether Pink Floyd belongs in Progressive Rock or its own special section.

Now I’m boarding a plane that probably costs more than most people see in a lifetime, following a man who looks completely at home in this world of casual impossibility .

“You coming?” Harrison asks, and there’s a gentleness in his voice that tells me he understands exactly how overwhelming this is.

I nod and take his offered hand, partly because I want to and partly because I’m not entirely sure my legs will carry me up those stairs without support.

The interior is ridiculous. Cream leather seats, gleaming wood panels, a proper sofa area with a glass coffee table. The bathroom—and I know it’s a bathroom because the flight attendant gives us a tour—is bigger than the staff toilet at Vespa Records.

“Can I get you anything before take-off, Ms Rogers?” the flight attendant asks.

“I’m fine, thank you,” I manage, though I’m clearly not fine. I’m sitting on a leather seat, staring at a champagne menu written in what might as well be hieroglyphics.

Harrison settles beside me with complete ease. He kicks off his shoes, accepts the champagne the attendant offers, makes small talk about flight time and weather conditions. This is his world—jets and staff and champagne before noon.

Dad’s famous—headlined Glastonbury, went platinum multiple times. But he still gets recognised in Waitrose, not whisked through private terminals by security teams. Hailey’s probably done this since she was twelve. The thought stings.

“You okay?” Harrison’s voice cuts through my spiral of resentment. “You look far away.”

“Just thinking,” I force a smile that feels more genuine than expected. “About how different this is from Ryanair.”

He laughs, the sound rich and unguarded. “Christ, when’s the last time you flew Ryanair?”

“University. Easter holiday trip to Barcelona that ended with me sleeping in the airport because our return flight got cancelled and they rebooked us for three days later.”

“Horror story. ”

“Character building,” I correct. “Though I admit this is a significant upgrade.”

He stares at me for a moment, searching. “I didn’t know you went to uni.”

I side-eye him whilst watching the tarmac disappear beneath us. “I’ll send you life crib notes. Get you up to speed.”

“Want to know mine?”

I shake my head, biting down on a smile that threatens to announce itself to the world. “No need. I read the three paragraphs necessary in a Hello four-page spread. Heavy on the photos, light on the writing.”

“You wound me.” He settles back, plucking my hand from my lap and studying my palm as if he can read our futures in the creases of my skin.

I’m voluntarily leaving everything I know to follow a man to the other side of the planet. Three months ago, if someone had told me I’d be doing this, I’d have suggested they check themselves into a psychiatric facility.

“Take-off’s the best part,” Harrison reaches for my hand as the engines roar to life. “That moment when you leave the ground and everything just... opens up.”

His fingers are warm around mine, steady and sure, and I focus on that contact as the plane accelerates down the runway. The moment of lift—that stomach-dropping second when physics takes over and the world falls away beneath us—makes me grip his hand tighter.

Then we’re airborne, London shrinking to a patchwork of grey and green below. The world shrinks beneath us. Everything I’m leaving behind—the shop, the flat, my small safe life—disappears into miniature fields and toy houses.

“Look,” Harrison points out the window as we climb through the clouds. The sun breaks through, turning everything gold and infinite. Above the cloud layer, the world is nothing but light and possibility, endless blue sky stretching in every direction.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathe, and mean it.

“Wait until you see Bangkok.”

The flight attendant returns with lunch that looks as if it came from a Michelin-starred restaurant instead of an aeroplane galley. Proper plates, actual cutlery, food that’s been clearly prepared by someone who understands the difference between nourishment and survival.

“Is this how you always travel?”

“For the past few years, yeah. Before that, it was commercial first class, which sounds luxurious until you’ve experienced this.” He gestures around the cabin. “I know how it sounds?—”

“Obscenely privileged?”

“I was going to say surreal, but that works too.” His smile is rueful. “I still sometimes can’t believe this is my life.”

“But you like it.”

“I like the freedom. I like not having to queue or deal with crowds or worry about being photographed looking miserable in airport security.” He pauses. “I like being able to bring the people I care about with me.”

The people I care about. Plural, but his eyes are on me when he says it, and the warmth in his voice makes something flutter behind my ribs.

“What about you? How are you feeling about all this?”

I consider the question whilst chewing thoughtfully on salmon.

“Terrified. This is so far outside my experience that I don’t even have a reference point. But also...” I search for the right words. “Excited. As if maybe I’ve been living smaller than I needed to.”

“You haven’t been living small. You’ve been living safely.”

“Same thing, sometimes. ”

“Not the same.” He cuts into his salmon. “Safe means you think before you jump. Small means you don’t jump at all.”

“Yeah. I’m here.”

Harrison opens his laptop and starts typing. “Sorry, just need to sort a few things out. Sound checks, press schedules.” He glances up. “You’ll love David when you meet him—he’s our tour manager. Solid kind of guy, keeps us all in line.”

“Did you ever tour with your dad?” he asks, fingers still moving across the keyboard.

“Yeah, when I was small. All I remember is the maze of corridors backstage and feeling pretty special because I had a plastic wallet hanging on a rope around my neck covered in glitter stickers, those cushion ones that smelled of strawberries.”

Harrison grins and shoots off another email. I doze to the sound of him typing.

Lifting my head at one point, I watch him scrolling through what looks like spreadsheets. “You know this isn’t very rockstar. More business bore and a board meeting.”

He shuts the laptop. “Have you ever considered the mile high club?”

When we begin our descent into Bangkok, the city spreads below us, endless lights and geometric patterns stretching to every horizon. It’s nothing like London, nothing I’ve ever seen, and the scale of it makes my chest tight with a mixture of anticipation and panic.

“Welcome to Thailand,” Harrison’s hand finds mine again as the wheels touch down.

The airport is a revelation of efficiency and politeness.

We’re whisked through immigration and customs with a level of deference that makes it clear Harrison Carter doesn’t wait in queues in Tokyo any more than he does in London.

The entourage appears—tour manager, local coordinators, security personnel who blend into the background whilst remaining obviously present.

“Ms Rogers,” the tour manager approaches with professional warmth. “I’m David Chen. Welcome to Bangkok. I hope the flight was comfortable.”

“Thank you,” I manage, though comfortable feels inadequate for what I’ve just experienced.

David pulls out a laminated pass on a lanyard. “Your backstage access.” He grins. “Harrison mentioned you might appreciate the decoration.”

The pass has been covered in glitter stickers. Little stars and music notes scattered across the plastic, exactly the kind of thing that would have made eight-year-old me feel like the most important person in the world.

I look at Harrison. Fuck. I’ve just totally fallen in love with him.

“The cars are waiting outside. We’ll get you to the hotel so you can rest before tonight’s sound check.”

Cars, plural. A convoy of black vehicles with tinted windows, the kind you see in films about important people who need protecting from the world.

The drive through Bangkok is sensory overload. Neon signs in characters I can’t read, crowds that make London look sparsely populated, sounds and smells and visual chaos that shouldn’t work together but somehow creates something magnificent.

“First time in Thailand?” David asks from the front seat.

“First time anywhere this,” I admit, and immediately feel provincial.

“Bangkok can be overwhelming. But you’ll love it. The audiences here are incredible—they really listen to music, you know? They don’t just consume it.”

Audiences. Right. Because I’m not just here as Harrison’s girlfriend. I’m here as a musician, even if I don’t feel one yet.

The hotel is the kind of place that exists in a realm beyond normal hospitality.

The lobby alone is bigger than most buildings I’ve been in, all marble and flowers and staff who move with the precision of ballet dancers.

We’re escorted to a private lift that opens directly into our suite, because apparently Harrison Carter doesn’t share hallways with civilians.

The suite is ridiculous. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Bangkok skyline, a sitting area that could comfortably host a small concert, a bedroom with a bed roughly the size of my entire flat. The bathroom has a soaking tub that looks carved from a single piece of stone.

“This is insane,” I stand in the middle of the sitting room, trying to process the scale of luxury.

“Wait until you see the view at night,” Harrison drops our bags and moves to stand behind me, his arms circling my waist. “All those lights... the whole city putting on a show just for us.”

I lean back against his chest and let myself feel the solid warmth of him, the steadiness that’s kept me grounded through every overwhelming moment of this day.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For bringing me. For showing me this. For...” I gesture around the suite, at the view, at the impossibility of where I’m standing. “For making me brave enough to say yes.”

His arms tighten around me. “You were already brave. I just gave you somewhere to aim it.”

Through the windows, Bangkok stretches endlessly in every direction, a city of millions going about their lives whilst I stand in a hotel suite, wrapped in the arms of a man who’s just given me access to a world I never imagined I could be part of.

Tomorrow, I’ll meet his tour crew. I’ll probably embarrass myself with my ignorance of how these things work. I’ll have to prove that I belong here, that I’m more than just the famous girlfriend along for the ride .

But tonight, I’m exactly where I want to be.

“What time is sound check?”

“Seven. We should leave here around six.”

I check the bedside clock. It’s just past two in the afternoon. “What should we do until then?”

He turns me in his arms, and his smile is wicked.

“I can think of a few things.”