Page 41 of Time of Your Life

Twenty-eight

Ysolde

I’m very restrained the entire car ride to the hotel.

Like, sure, it’s only about a three-minute drive, but I’m in the back of the car with the hottest boy in the world who accidentally just declared to an entire hallway of people that I’m the love of his life—and I don’t snog him once the whole three-minute drive.

I sat as near the car door as humanly possibly because if I sit too close to him, I’ll smell him and if I smell him, I’ll be all over him.

Joah doesn’t smell like anything you could buy in a bottle—as though he’d ever wear anything like that anyway.

He just smells like him—which is kind of hard to describe.

Maybe a little bit leathery, even though he really doesn’t wear leather all that often.

I suppose, truthfully, the thing he smells most of is—ever so faintly—cigarettes and probably less faintly, alcohol.

Always beer, sometimes scotch. And I think something else—it’s harder to place though—I don’t know—maybe a bit how the ground smells after it rains—? Clean but rough at the edges.

Breathing him in is like taking in a breath near a fire—it makes you warm. The smell of him makes me warm down to my fingers.

He stares over at me, mouth pressed together. “Why you sittin’ so far away?”

I shrug demurely. “Just am.”

He nods his head towards himself. “Don’t wanna come over here?”

I shake my head, resolute. “No.”

(Yes.)

Joah’s eyes pinch. “So am I gettin’ you your own room at this hotel?”

I take a couple of breaths, watching him. It makes him nervous. I like making him nervous. “No,” I say eventually, and don’t tell him I noticed, but he breathes out a little relieved breath—that completely adorable man.

And then—listen, what happens next—it’s not our fault.

The car pulls up at the hotel—Joah looks out the window and sighs. “Fuck.”

There’s a crowd waiting for him. Thick, too. His fans are mental. Mostly women, but some men.

“Ready?” he asks me, but he looks over it already.

I nod and the doorman opens it for us.

Security from the hotel wait for us to emerge. Joah exits first and screaming erupts loud enough that it startles me.

Joah reaches back into the car, takes my hand, and pulls me out—security leads us though the crowd, but that crowd—god—they sort of fold in on us—?

Grabbing him, grabbing me—a man grabs me at one point and Joah shoves him off so much more roughly than he should have.

You stop becoming a person when you’re a celebrity, you see?

You become public property. We’re just… things right now, we’re not people.

We get into the lobby, every single eye in the place is on us but not in a way that feels nice or cool or has any level of cache, more—either they’re sorry for us or they’re irritated by our presence and the scene we just inadvertently caused.

Jo doesn’t let go of my hand until we’re in the lift and the doors close.

As soon as they do, he glances down at our hands still in one another’s, and—bam!—it must look choreographed, but actually, we’re just insanely in sync. He rushes me, bangs me back into the lift wall at the same time that I climb his waist like a tree house.

His mouth drags across mine, down my neck, across my chest—the lift doors open—we don’t stop.

He just carries me out of there, me on his waist, kissing the absolute shit out of me, stumbling towards the door—one hand still around me, the other fishing in his pocket to find the room key.

He bangs me against the door again, then he opens it and we fall through it—nearly hit the ground but he’s quite strong and I’m fairly light, so he catches me—kicks that door shut, then he tosses me down onto his bed, takes his own shirt off, then hovers over me, waiting.

I grab him by the neck and pull him down on top of me. His hands start to wander and his kisses grow to more, and right as I think we’re probably about to get to the good stuff—he pulls back, shaking his head.

“No, no, no, no—we should talk.”

“Really?” I stare at him in disbelief.

“Aye.”

“Now?” I blink.

He gives me a look. “Trouble…”

I press my hands into my cheeks as I sit up.

“Yeah, okay.” I tug my little Vivienne Westwood miniskirt back down where it belongs.

And then we just stare at each other. I’m waiting for him to say something, and it probably takes me a full fifteen seconds to realise I think he’s waiting for me to say something back.

“Well?”

“Well what?” He shrugs.

I shake my head at him. “You’re the one that wanted to talk…”

“Yeah.” He shrugs, helpless. “I dunno what to say but—”

I give him a look. “I don’t know—? Perhaps that you’re sorry?”

His head pulls back. “For what?”

“For hooking up with your rancid ex!” I yell, and Jo starts shaking his head again.

I feel mean calling her that. She’s really quite pretty, but I really don’t like her.

“You don’t understand—”

“I think I do,” I tell him.

“No—” He sighs. “I was just making a point.”

“Were you?” I lift up an eyebrow. “Which?”

Joah’s face freezes, then it scrunches up.

“Nah, we don’t needa talk anymore.” Gives me a smile.

I press my lips together, pinch my eyes at him. “Which point might that be, Joah?”

He swallows, then sighs. “I was tryna prove that I ain’t…” He takes a breath, then says it quickly, “—under your thumb like.”

I blink at him several times.

“Sorry—you kissed your ex-girlfriend to prove that you’re not”—I pause, raising my eyebrows to make sure he knows that nothing he’s said alleviates any of the responsibility I feel he should be bearing—“ under my thumb ?” I blink a few more times. “You were trying to prove that?”

He nods, just owning it now. “Yeah.”

I give him a look. “Because it would be so bad if you were?”

“Yes.” He nods firmly.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because I’m me!” he shouts.

“And I’m me!” I yell back. “You realise men adore me, yes? The world over—I am beloved by men—close your eyes and point to a man, Joah, and I swear to god, he’ll trade places with you—”

Joah looks at me incredibly serious and shakes his head. “I don’t wanna be under no thumbs, Ys.”

“Okay.” I shrug, and then I don’t know what to say after that, because what can I say?

I didn’t actually do anything, I don’t think?

It’s not like I actually put him under my thumb, it’s just how he feels, and I can’t control how he feels.

I don’t think I’m terribly bossy or demanding, do you—?

Am I? I don’t feel as though I have been.

So then we just sit there—lie there?—for a few agonising seconds in complete and total silence.

“Oi—” He looks over at me. “Did ya fuck him?”

I pause. Uh-oh. I mean, yes—obviously . I can’t imagine he’s going to be all too pleased to hear that though. So I pivot.

I lift an eyebrow. “Did you fuck her ?”

Joah and I have a standoff with our eyes and then his hands fly to his face, and he groans.

“Oh, fuckin’ hell—I can’t believe you fucked my favourite player.”

I roll my eyes at him. “I had already fucked your favourite player!”

“Christ—!” he grumbles. “Don’t remind me.”

“ You asked —!” I stare at him, wide-eyed. “I didn’t just volunteer the information—it’s not like I was like, oh, we did it on the floor —”

“Argh!” Jo yells to make me stop talking. “Don’t fuckin’—like, you say it and then I see it in me head, Ys—!” He’s a bit frantic, honestly… “I’m bang on at fuckin’ visualising things, you get me—? And I don’t fuckin’ wanna see that.”

I nod. “Okay.”

He swallows. Eyes pinch. “…How many times did you do it?”

My head rolls back. “You just said—”

“How many times!”

“I don’t know—” I shrug. “Like, four?”

His face goes still, eyes wide. He may actually even pale a bit. “ Four? ” He blinks. “Four! Fuck on off.”

“I was really cross at you—” I shake my head. “And…he’s really good at it.”

He points a finger at me, like— that’s a warning. I roll my eyes.

“Why—?” I look at him nervously. “How many times did you sleep with Poppy?”

He gives me a look. “ Pippa, ” he says.

I obviously already knew that. Fun to pretend I didn’t though, so I shrug. “If you say so.”

He rolls his eyes at me, then breathes loudly out his nose, jaw tight now.

“Once.”

“Once!” I repeat in disbelief, staring at him with boggly eyes. “ Actually? ”

He runs his tongue over his teeth. “Yeah.”

“No!” I breathe in, confused—shake my head a lot.

He gives me a look. “Stop.”

“That’s mad.” I tuck my chin at him. Genuinely, I’m shocked—

“Oh my god”—I let out a little laugh. “You must like me so much.”

He nods, serious again, eyes locked on me. “I do, aye.”

He rolls back, staring up at the ceiling.

“And I dunno what the fuck to do about it.”

I’m still watching him, though. I frown. “Why do you need to do anything about it?”

“Because I fuckin’ hate this, Ys—” He shoves his hands through his hair, then glances over at me. “I don’t like how I feel when I love ya.”

“Oh—” My head pulls back. I’m blinking a lot—am I blinking a lot? “Okay.” I swallow—my mouth feels really dry. I think I’m nervous. “Well— How… do you feel when you love me?”

“I dunno—” He shakes his head. “Just…don’t like that you’re the thing that matters most to me.”

I breathe out a breath that sounds like a laugh. I wonder if it makes me sound more okay than I feel? I feel like he just ploughed into me with a bin lorry. “Right.”

He knows he’s upset me, I can tell. He’s looking for my eyes straight away and he sort of finds them. They’re dimmed, though. How could they not be?

“But you do—” he tells me, eyes all locked on mine. “You are that thing. But—” He shoves his hands through his hair, looks stressed about everything. “I don’t want you to be that thing.” He covers his face with a pillow. “Feel like a right fuckin’ soft-arse muppet—”

I roll in towards him and peel his hands off his face. “No one thinks you’re soft—”

He raises a brow. “Just a muppet?”

“Sometimes—” I tell him with a look.

“I was in me head, Ys.” He shakes his head at himself—looks embarrassed or something—and it’s then that I think I spot it—for the very first time, I think I see it in him—maybe he doesn’t actually believe that he’s all that and a bag of chips.

“Everyone kept sayin’ you had me on a fuckin’ leash, that I was your lapdog and all that shite. I don’t wanna be under no one’s thumb, you get me? I’m a fuckin’ rock star, Ys—”

“Right.” I nod once and give him a cautious look. “You know none of it’s real though…”

He scratches his neck. “What’s not?”

“Fame,” I say, though I’m quite sure it’s quite obvious. “Everything we do… None of it’s real—”

His chin tucks. I’ve offended him—or he’s angry, or…I can’t quite tell.

“My music’s real,” he says.

“Joah!” I roll into his body, groaning into the place between his shoulder and his neck that I love so much. “You’re so insufferable, sometimes! That’s such a twatty thing to say!”

“No, it is—” He pushes me back a little, making sure I’m looking at him. “It fuckin’ is.”

I roll my eyes, which doesn’t remotely stop him.

“People might forget my name, might mix me up with me brother for the next thirty fuckin’ years, but—” He leans in, his voice incredibly, positively sure. “Fuckin’ hear me when I say, they’ll be playin’ my songs till I’m dead, Ys.” Proud glint in his eye. “I know they will.”

And there was something in the way he said all that, something in the way he needed me to be sure of what he was saying, which that told me actually , he himself didn’t even know it to be all the way true—just that he very much needs it to be.

To be remembered, to be significant matters to Joah in a way that goes beyond the way we all want to be more than nothing—his desire to be known and properly adored and esteemed—I think he wants it in this genuinely fundamental way.

How we all need air and water and food, I think he needs to matter.

I nod a couple of times, try to mentally prepare myself as best I can to ask a question I know I probably shouldn’t, because the answer—I know it’s probably going to crush me.

“Is there a world where you could be okay if no one remembered your songs or your name except for me?”

“No,” he says without even a thought. And I was right. Crushed.

He gives me a sorry look, touches my face ever. “Know I should say yes, Trouble, but no—Sorry.” There’s an urgent desperation in the eyes of the man I love who looks so very much right now like just a boy. “They need to remember me.”

I don’t know why, but something about that feels like such a death sentence. I’m not sure for who. Him? Me? Us? Someone’s not making it out of this thing alive, I fear.

“They will,” I tell him with a smile, but I don’t think the smile’s all that convincing.

He tilts his head, looking frustrated. “Fuck, I made you sad again.”

“No—” I keep trying to look more okay than the soggy, stepped-on pudding I feel like right now. “It’s just—” I wave a finger between us. “Fire and water.” I give him another smile that’s trying (but failing) to be brave. “Still doesn’t bode well for us, really.”

He holds my cheek in his hand. “We work.”

“Do we?” I’m not so sure.

“Ys.” He props himself up a bit. “I love you more than owt I’ve ever fuckin’ loved—”

“Yeah—” I roll my eyes. “And you just told me you don’t want to.”

“Still fuckin’ do, don’t I!”

“How do you think that makes me feel, Jo?” I shake my head.

“I mean, fuck —!” He lets out a sharp laugh.

“Should make you feel fuckin’ incredible, Ys.

Cos I can’t not love you, can I?” He gives me a look.

“Even when I fuckin’ hate ya… Even—” Lifts his eyebrows, nearly completely right off his forehead.

“ Even when you’ve just fucked my favourite midfielder—”

I pause. I think I would like the upper hand again. I don’t know when quite he took it from me, but I should like it back.

“Four times,” I remind him, and Jo wrestles this annoyed smile off his face, drags his tongue over his teeth.

“Fuck you.”

I laugh and he grabs me by my waist, pulling me in towards him.

“Come here.”