Circo

When I woke up the next morning, I wasn’t alone. Upon opening my eyes, I realised that I wasn’t even in my own bed.

I should have been more alarmed about it, but my head was pulsing, and my eyes felt as though they were trying to escape from my skull, so I closed them again, breathing out deeply through my nose. I let out a groan, and sat up, intent on finding out who was in the bed with me.

I wasn’t really shocked when I looked over my shoulder and saw Gerard’s peacefully sleeping face on the same pillow where my head had been. When he’s not talking, it’s really a whole lot easier to take notice of the beauty that he undeniably possesses.

“It’s rude to stare.” He muttered without even opening his eyes, but a small smile grew on his face. At first I wondered how he could be so casual about waking up with someone else in his bed, but then I realised that no doubt he was used to it.

I let out a tiny delighted giggle, and turned to lie on my stomach, and staring again.

Something more than I remember must have happened last night. I was acting like a teenage girl.

For some reason, waking up with a hangover next to Gerard didn’t feel as weird as I felt it should. Instead it felt natural, it felt comfortable, which was usually the last thing I felt around Gerard.

“You were wasted last night,” he laughed, his eyes still closed. “I bet you don’t remember a thing.”

“I remember a little.” I said unconvincingly as I rolled onto my back.

His eyes opened then, and he looked at me with a smirk that read ‘like fuck you do’.

“Okay, so I don’t remember much...after dancing with you, but what else could have happened?”

He grinned, and leant over to the shelf next to his bed and grabbed his cigarettes, lighting one up and looking at me in that way that made all the comfort I was feeling fade away.

“You’re a good fuck, Frankie.” He said it so casually that I had to do a double take.

“I...We didn’t. Did we?” I chocked, letting out an angry sound when he laughed at me. “You’re a bastard.” I grunted, and then held my hand out. “Give me your cigarette.” I said, gesturing for it a second time.

“You don’t smoke.”

“I didn’t drink either.”

“What the fuck is this wild side you have going on all of a sudden?” He asked, handing me the smoke. “I think I preferred you when you were scared of everything.”

I just frowned at him, and put the cigarette between my lips, hesitating before inhaling.

The sensation then was one I didn’t think it would ever be possible to get used to.

I was taken back to the morning I talked to Gerard in the tent. The day I kissed him. I could remember the way he made smoking look like poetry, it was graceful and artist. He made it look easy.

I wasn’t sure how he did it, because as soon as the smoke entered my lungs, I sat up and started hacking and wheezing, letting out awful chocking noises that were the furthest thing from poetry that I think anyone could ever hear. Instead of being helpful, and patting me on the back or something, Gerard just sat back and laughed.

“Shit.” I chocked, handing the cigarette back to him, and lying back on the bed. . “Shit.” I repeated.

He let out another chuckle, and finished off the cigarette, grinning triumphantly as he stubbed it out on the shelf.

“You get used to it.”

“Why even bother?”

He looked thoughtful for a second then shrugged. “Get up,” he said, punching my thigh through the covers. “We’ve gotta go out.”

“Why? The first show isn't until later.” I groaned, putting my forearm over my eyes.

“We’ve still got to work. So get up.”

I stayed in bed as Gerard stood up and left the trailer, shirtless, as usual. I listened as he greeted people in the camp and then stepped into the trailer next-door which I remembered then was his fathers.

“You finished your happy little domestic moment?” A voice said from across the trailer. Sitting up quickly, I saw Mikey lounging in his bed, a smirk on his face. “I’m surprised your mouths actually separated after last night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I muttered honestly this time.

“Drunken mouths speak sober thoughts.” He muttered, climbing out of his bed and padding across the tiny space of the caravan and outside into the refreshing morning air.

I sat self consciously in Gerards bed for another moment or two, just wracking my brain for any kind of reminder of what went down last night. It was ironic that I needed the alcohol to give me a confidence that at a consequence I wouldn’t even remember in the morning.

Who the fuck invented alcohol?

* * *

No less than an hour later, Gerard and I were standing in some French town. He’d told me what it was called, but I didn’t remember. I didn’t really see it necessary to remember. We were only here for one night before we went on to Paris.

We were handing out some poorly printed flyers, the same as the one I was looking at while the thunder rumbled off in the distance back in my home in Jersey. Was that home anymore? I hadn’t been there for at least a couple of months.

I didn’t know where home was really.

“So, why the fuck are we doing this now? We’ve never had to do this?”

“We always have to do it,” Gerard sighed, pining one of the posters onto a notice board. “We just have like...a rota type thing.”

“No-one likes doing it?”

“Not so much that, it just becomes an effort for just one person to always have to do it. This makes it more fair.”

I nodded in understanding, it made sense. The people of the Circo were fairer to one another than I’d realised. I had a feeling this rota was nothing to do with Mr Way though.

Gerard and I stood in the freezing cold, handing out the posters to passers-by, keeping their eyes on them to see if they stuffed the flyer into a pocket or a bag, or if they just abandoned it on the floor. If that was the case, we had to go and pick it up. There were only so many posters.

Despite the chilly weather, Gerard was obviously not taking a page out of my book and wearing a big winter coat, one that I’d stolen off of Josie. I don’t know why she had a large mans coat, but I didn’t reject the idea when she told me to wear it into town.

Gerard however was literally in just a t-shirt and jeans.

I weirdly admired him for his ability to just simply not care. He was a free spirit. Damned if he was going to let something as petty as weather keep him from doing what he wanted.

Speaking of ‘what he wanted’, there was a man across the road from us, sitting in a coffee shop window. He’d been staring at Gerard and me for the last half hour or so, and Gerard was shamelessly staring back, arching his eyebrow and licking his lips, swaying his hips a little more than normal. And the normal amount of swaying was already beyond average.

When the man finally stood up, leaving his coffee mug on the table and approaching the door, I tensed up. Gerard looked back over his shoulder at me, grinning when he noticed that the man had his sights set firmly on Gerard.

My gut twisted as Gerard step forward and handed the man a poster, his fingers lingering on the strangers for longer than they needed to, and it firmly lodged its self in my throat when they began talking to one another, in French.

I could guess what they were talking about, I could see Gerards expression. It was the one he got on his face when he talked to me the first time. My response then wasn’t quite as calm and collected as the man Gerard was currently conversing with.

They stopped, and Gerard looked back at me, pushing his remaining posters into my hands. “You can finish this alone right, Frank?” He asked, looking at me in a way that said ‘you will finish this alone Frank.’

He pushed a chaste kiss into the corner of my mouth before I could speak, and turned back to the French man, muttering something else in the foreign language and walking away.

I felt something hot and tight in my throat as I watched his retreating back, but I forced it back down, intent on getting rid of the posters in my hands as soon as possible, so I could just go back to my caravan and mope.