Right Now, I'm Anyone's

“I-I,” I stammered again, my breath caught in my throat. I didn’t trust myself to give him an answer that was both honest and void of anything that could condemn me. “Dean-”

The loud, abrupt ringing of my phone broke my voice off completely. I quickly took my arms away from Dean’s body and shrugged out of his grasp, reaching for my phone from my handbag on the floor. The next second, Dean was grabbed hold of both of my hands, gently pulling me back up to look at him.

“Leave it,” he demanded softly, stroking my wrists with his thumbs to soothe me. His bright blue eyes pleaded shamelessly with me, a desperate sadness curved around the edges of the irises that made my chest tighten and ache slightly. I shook my head and jerked my hands away from his grasp. I picked up my phone and answered it, just before it stopped ringing entirely.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Leila?” Levi’s voice responded, sounding very far away and slurred. His clumsy uttering of my name was followed by a very loud hiccough.

I kept my head bowed down, just so that I didn’t have to look at Dean for the moment, and asked, “Is everything alright?”

“I feel really bad for what happened on Monday, babe,” he hiccoughed. “And I want to come to you and make everything okay again.”

“It really isn’t that easy,” I sighed, feeling the alcohol in my system dissipate gradually. “It’s late, you need to go to bed and we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“Leila, I can’t do that,” he said, his voice sounding a little more distant again. “I’ve got no money for a cab and I walked all the way here.”

“What?” I asked, my eyebrows pulling together in confusion. “What are you talking about? Where are you?”

“I-I’m outside your” – hiccough – “front door.”

I froze and felt every last bit of heat and colour drain from my cheeks, leaving them cold. I lifted my head and glanced to the side at Dean, who was watching me very intently, his eyes questioning – which hadn’t hurt half as much as the sadness he had in them earlier. I sighed and said, “Didn’t you think I wouldn’t want to see you?”

“Please, Leila, I’m begging, just let me inside,” he slurred. “Pretty please. I just want to make everything up to you; I can’t stand not speaking to you, baby.”

I groaned internally and felt my heart sink, right down through my stomach. If I went and let Levi inside of my home, then he would probably find another man – Dean – lounging around in my bedroom after said man almost kissed me – again. If I didn’t answer the door, I’d still be as unclear on where I stood with my boyfriend, and we would never actually get past what happened. Maybe I should’ve factored in that he was drunk, and that we probably wouldn’t get a lot solved. But, he might’ve gotten himself killed if he tried walking home. Finally – exasperatedly – I agreed to let him inside and hung up.

“Your boyfriend,” Dean said. There wasn’t a hint of a question in his statement, but I nodded in response anyway. He remained sitting quietly on my bed, fiddling with the torn fabric at the knees of his jeans and keeping his eyes trained on his shoes. Soon, he looked up at me and gave me a half-hearted smile.

“I’ll just wait here, and leave when I can, okay?” he said, collecting his jacket from where it lay on the floor and pulling it on. I nodded in acceptance – nothing I could say would convince him to stay with me that night, and there was more than likely nothing I could do to convince Levi to go home once I let him inside.

I walked slowly, reluctantly to the front door – I almost wished I had told him that I wasn’t at home. I looked through the peep hole embedded into the wood of the door and saw him, his hand planted against the doorframe and his body slumped over, his head dangling forward like his neck was broken. I sighed and unlocked the door, pulling the latch to open it wide. He looked up at me and smiled clumsily, lifting his hands to cup both of my cheeks. He tilted my head up and pushed his lips sloppily against my own in a greeting, before wrapped his long arms around my body and bringing his lips to my ear.

“Hey,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t say anything; I just put my arms back around him and shut the door once he had detached himself from me. I left it unlocked so that Dean would be able to leave once I had distracted Levi enough. I acted completely on edge, and if Levi weren’t as drunk as he was, he would most definitely be onto the fact that I was trying to hide something. He waltzed as gracefully as he could manage – i.e. not very – through my living room, walking in the direction of the door leading to my bedroom.

I quickly skirted around him, standing in front of the door. He gave me an odd look before saying, “Let’s go talk in your room.”

“No,” I said, my voice reacting faster than I’d intended. “It’s too messy right now; I don’t want you to see it.”

“I don’t care,” he said, laughing quietly as he tried to walk past me again. “I’ve seen your room messy anyway.”

I planted my hands firmly – yet gently – on his chest and shook my head again, doing my best to muster up my best, most convincing smile. “I do. Let’s just talk in the living room.”

He gave me another odd look – his right eyebrow arching very slightly and his lips curving down into a partial frown – but shrugged his shoulders. He sat down on the couch, pulling me down beside him. I felt far too edgy to keep still, but I did my best not to fidget too much. I kept my eyes trained down on my knees and felt the warmth of his hand curl around my own after a couple of minutes of silence. The fingers on his free hands gently trapped my chin and turned my head clumsily to look at him full on.

“You know I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he whispered, deep lines set in his forehead from the frown he wore on his face. “I was angry and I reacted badly and I’m sorry.”

“I know,” I answered, casting my eyes back downwards after I briefly looked into his. I was tense, all over, just in case Dean made some accidental noise or did something that might draw Levi’s attention to his presence. Maybe I would try and pass it off as being Georgia or Dimitri. That was kind of hopeless, because he’d probably want to check – I wasn’t willing to risk that.

“I was just angry...” he repeated, his eyes slipping closed for a second. “I love you, y’know?”

“I know,” I said again, trying to carefully pry my chin away from his fingers.

“No,” he said, shaking his head at me. “You don’t know.”

“Help me understand,” I responded. His heavy sigh ruffled the small pieces of hair that hung down in my face, and he took his hand away from my chin at last. He hadn’t needed to hold my face to keep my eyes on him – he had my full attention now. He rubbed his face hard – nearly taking an eye out with one of his fingers – and pushed all of his hair back from his face. It flopped back into its natural place when he looked up at me again.

“I was angry that you said no to marrying me,” he grumbled bitterly. “That you don’t love me enough to say yes.”

“Levi, don’t be ridiculous! I do love yo-”

“Shut up, okay?” he growled. “Don’t lie to me.”

I stared at him, taken aback by the sudden anger. I shifted along to the very edge of the couch, trying to keep at least a small amount of distance between us. I whispered, “I’m not lying...I do love you, it’s just too soon for me.”

“If you loved me – really loved me – time wouldn’t be an issue.”

I inhaled sharply and stared, incredulous. He slumped forward; his back curved and his face in his hands again. I said, “That isn’t fair, Levi.”

“What’s unfair about it?” he snapped angrily, the slur making another appearance at the end of his question. He jack hammered up out of his seat and started to pace around the living room in front of me, breathing heavily and clenching his hands into fists every couple of seconds. I kept speaking, trying to convince him that this was not the right time to have a conversation of this calibre, and that he should go home and we’d discuss it in the morning. When he kept ignoring me, I lost my temper and stood up too, grabbing his arm and shaking it hard.

“You’ve got something else going, haven’t you? Somebody else behind my back,” he snarled, grabbing my hand and wrenching it as hard as he could from his arm. “That’s why you said no to my proposal!”

“Levi, no-”

He held his hand up, before grabbing my shoulder and pulling me so that his face was mere inches from my own. “You’ve been a whore, haven’t you?”

“No!”

“What did I say about lying to me?!” he near-roared, his slur vanishing and his face filling with nothing but fury. “Why the hell wouldn’t you marry me if you weren’t?!”

“Because of things like this!” I admitted, pulling my shoulder from his hand and shoving him away from me. “Because you throw tantrums when you don’t get your way, and you always start things with me that don’t mean anything!”

Levi glared angrily at me, before he started walking towards me, backing me up into one of the four walls of the living room. His face filled with rage and his eyes were still glassy from his intake of alcohol that night. I felt myself cringe away from him, but I repeatedly told myself that I had to be strong – or at least act like I was – and not let him see that he was scaring me. Bullies fed off of fear; I wasn’t going to let him have that so easily. I felt the plaster of the wall against my back, then Levi’s hot breath on my face, coming fast and short with his anger. I knew I couldn’t run.

“You should learn to keep your mouth shut more often, Leila,” Levi snarled menacingly. “You had to know that it would get you into trouble at some point.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, my voice betraying my emotions and cracking halfway through.

“Your denial, how defensive you are,” he growled, gripping my shoulder hard enough to make me wince in pain. I didn’t fail to notice that his hand raised, the back of it facing me – like he was going to hit me. “It shows me that I’m right about everything and you’re a two-timing, double-crossing-”

“You might not want to do that, mate,” another voice, coming from the doorway to my bedroom, spoke calmly. I was beyond terrified, far too terrified to take my eyes away from the hot glare of pure rage that Levi was giving me, but I recognised the voice easily. I realised that Dean had more than likely been listening in on our conversation; I felt both relieved and horrified.

I watched fearfully as Levi lowered his hand slowly, turning his hard, darkerned eyes onto Dean – who was standing with both hands balled into fists at his sides, glaring back at Levi. Other than his hands and the hard glare, Dean was radiating calmness, which kind of helped to put me at ease a little bit more.

Levi turned his eyes back to me, his smile full of malice and self-satisfaction. “I told you, you’re nothing but a whore.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean growled, walking across the room to stand three feet from where Levi and I stood near the wall. Levi turned his smile onto Dean, whose face remained set, in his calm mask – contrasting with the anger in his voice.

“You have five seconds to get away from her and leave in one piece,” Dean warned his voice smooth and level as he tensed the impressive muscle of his shoulders. Levi noticed and laughed coldly, his eyes glazing over Dean’s entire build, as if he were sizing him up.

“Who are you to tell me what my options are?” he said, the slur returning to his voice. “This is my”-hiccough-“girlfriend, and she can decide who she wants to stay.”

“And she’s my friend,” Dean countered. “And with all due respect, I can guarantee you won’t be here much longer if that’s the case.”

Levi’s eyes turned back to me. “Leila?”

I stuttered unintelligibly for what seemed like forever, looking between Levi and Dean and dithering in my mind. I could feel Dean looking at me, but it was just a little bit too scary to tear my eyes away from Levi’s – the silent warning, swimming in their depths, telling me that the only way he’d stop trying to hurt me was to let him stay, and tell Dean to go home. Despite that Dean was the only thing keeping me sane, I made my mind up. I breathed deep, trying to get as much oxygen as I could to my brain – more for the shock, since the alcohol had exited my system immediately after Levi’s first outburst.

“Dean,” I said, glancing carefully to my left and catching his eye. “I-I think you should leave.”

“What?” he asked, his jaw dropping slightly in disbelief. He nudged Levi out of the way and put both of his hands gently onto my shoulders. “What are you talking about?”

“Please,” I said. “Just leave.”

Dean stared at me for a very long time, while Levi just kept complaining that he hadn’t left yet. I pleaded with my eyes, staring deep into his bright blue ones to let him know that I was sorry for that I had to do, that I had no choice in who stayed and who went. Even if I had told Levi to leave, he wouldn’t have gone without a fight, and I wasn’t willing to let Dean get into that and possibly get hurt over me. Sure, Levi was only skinny, but he got nasty pretty fast.

Dean’s eyes had darkened, and it was like he was no longer looking at me. His eyebrows pulled together and he frowned, before his face evened out into a straight, hard mask of indifference. Each and every angle and plane became harder, harsher and he let his arms drop from my shoulders.

Without a word, or a second glance, Dean turned and walked calmly out of my front door.

*****

I woke up to an empty bed – I wasn’t in the least bit surprised that it was that way. I had forced Levi to sleep on our couch after Dean had left – and after we took part in another blazing domestic minus the almost-violence. It took the best part of three hours – making it around six o’clock in the morning before I actually got to bed – to convince Levi that Dean and I were nothing more than two friends. Even though it was unlikely that we were even that anymore.

Upon waking, I felt more exhausted than when I had gone to bed. I didn’t manage to drop off to sleep until about an hour after I got under the covers. The clock on my phone told me that it was eleven in the morning. I sighed and pushed my hair away from my face, running my fingers through it and fighting against the desperate urge to break down completely. I didn’t know what I could’ve done, who I could’ve gone to or how I could’ve gotten myself out of all the mess that I’d caused, in the space of one week.

I shook my head and got out of bed. Wandering through the living room, yawning wide and stretching my arms over my head, I vaguely wondered why Levi wasn’t still asleep on the couch. I listened, but the rest of the flat was quiet. There was nothing but a folded up piece of paper, resting on the couch cushion, folded in half with my name written in a scruffy hand that I recognised. I opened it and read:

Leila,

I know you’re probably sick of me apologising to you, but I am really sorry about what I did. I had to get up early to get to work on time, but I’ll call around there tonight or tomorrow – or I’ll just ring you. That’s if you want me to.
Again, I want you to know that I’m so sorry for losing my temper, I wish I hadn’t.

All my love, Levi xxx

I sighed heavily and screwed up the paper in my hand, creasing it and throwing it straight into the bin in the kitchen when I got in there. I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about the situation between Levi and I – I was a little bit too busy thinking about what I was going to say to Dean. I wasn’t even sure if I still loved my boyfriend because he’d managed to scare me so much. I didn’t know if I still wanted him; I just didn’t know how I felt. The shock he had forced upon me had punched a small hole somewhere below my chest, making it harder to breathe whenever I thought about it.

“Morning,” I heard Georgia yawn cheerily as she walked into the kitchen. She stood beside me where I was, staring at the washing basin and gave me a peculiar look, before saying, “Is everything okay?”

I nodded as enthusiastically as I could. “Yeah, I’m just tired.”

“You sure?” she asked. “I’m not surprised you didn’t get much sleep, I could hear you and Levi last night.”

“I’m sure,” I confirmed, shrugging my shoulders. “We didn’t keep you awake did we?”

“Nah, I only heard a little of it.” She smiled. “What was it about? What I heard sounded really bad.”

“He was just drunk and acting weird, I made him sleep on the couch,” I said, faking a small laugh like it didn’t bother me. “Nothing to worry about.”

Georgia watched my face carefully; all the while I was trying to avoid her eyes. I could feel her eyes boring into the side of my face and I feared that she saw through my pale facade. “If he hurt you again Leila, you have to tell me.”

I sighed and shook my head, offering a small smile. “He didn’t hit me; we were just arguing again.”

Georgia sighed and seemed to give up. For the time being anyway. She went about making the two of us a breakfast of scrambled egg and toast – since I was thinking too much to decide what I wanted, she decided for me. I asked her mindlessly if she was going to Liverpool with everybody from Flux later on as I sat down on one of the stools at the side counter. I saw her shake her head and she sighed happily, a dreamy look crossing her face for an instant.

“Jakes bringing Edie around and we’re going to have a night-in,” she smiled. “Dimitri’s going out, and he’s going back to London tomorrow.”

I half-smiled at the slight disappointment in her voice and gave her an encouraging look. “That sounds like fun, Gee. I’m sure he’ll come back to see you – he’s crazy over you.”

She smiled and blushed, taking a huge bite of her toast to hide it. She mumbled, through a mouthful of food, “Shut up.”

“I’m serious!” I laughed. “He seems to be really into you, and Edie loves you.”

She blushed again but stopped arguing with me. Her eyes got all far-away and her face went dreamy again, that’s how I knew I’d lost her; she was day-dreaming, picturing her and Jake together in years to come – we all knew it’d happen. I finished my breakfast quickly, not tasting the food as it passed down my throat, before heading back to my bedroom to mope without getting the twenty questions.

I lay back on my bed and closed my eyes, pushing the shuffle button on my iPod almost simultaneously. Lying this way let me see a couple of other perspectives, other than the initial ones of my own. I grimaced when I thought about Dean; how his face had changed and how he had charged away from me without a glance.

I suppose I did deserve that. He was trying to help me, protect me from the potential danger Levi was putting me in – however unknowingly. I’d told him to leave, and the look on his face just before he did near enough shattered my chest and almost stopped me breathing. I hoped that he would understand why I had to do that, why I had no choice. I never knew before, but Levi could get nasty, especially after he’d been drinking. I didn’t want to put Dean anywhere near that.

Then I started feeling too guilty for what happened, so I started thinking Dean into the role of the bad guy. Only a little bit, of course, but enough to make me feel better. It was his fault that I had been unfaithful to begin with – if he hadn’t kissed me, my feelings for him would still be platonic. Maybe. If he hadn’t kissed me, I wouldn’t be as indecisive as I was being as of late, and it was his fault that I was lying, and keeping things from people I loved.

Then again, it’s always easy to play the blame game.

I nearly jumped out of my skin when my phone vibrating near my hand broke my thoughts off. I scrambled for my phone, yanking my earphones sharply out of my head and ignoring the slight pain it brought on. I stared at the buzzing phone in my hand for a moment before I checked the caller ID; not Dean, or Levi.

“Hi, James,” I said, lying back onto my pillow with a huge sigh.

“You sound proper happy that I rang you, y’know,” he chuckled. “I didn’t have to.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I mumbled, putting my palm on my forehead. “Just constant drama, that’s all.”

“Fair do’s,” he laughed, then paused for a minute or two. “Anyway, back to business. Are you coming Liverpool tonight? Owen and Pat want definite numbers before we go, so they know if anybody gets left there or something.”

“Yeah, I think so,” I answered, nodding my head even though he couldn’t see me. “I’ve got nothing to do but be miserable. Who’s going?”

“Well, so far it’s,” he said, stopping to think for a moment. “All of Carcer, Abrogation’s Crown, Ryan, Lee, me, Chris, maybe Tom, Johnny and Dean Owens, Daniel, The Blackout, some of Asking Alexandria, Gallows and – I think – Sam and them.” – he paused again – “Sound good?”

“That sounds great,” I said, my heart sinking very slightly when he said Dean’s name – part of me hoped he’d changed his mind. “Small problem, I don’t have a costume.”

“Oh, we can fix you up on that!” I could hear the smirk in James’ voice when he said that. “Alright, get yourself down here for about half one; me and Lee will sort you out.”

“I’m not sure I’m all that comfortable with you planning something, but why not,” I sighed. “And before you tell me what you’re planning, don’t.”

James laughed. “Alright, you lunatic. I’ll see you later.”

I smiled and said goodbye to James, before we both hung our phones up. The time on my phone now read that it was half past twelve in the afternoon; that gave me just about an hour to get ready and get to Flux on time. I jumped up off of my bed and left my phone and iPod where they were before I started getting ready, calling to Georgia that I would be going out soon if she wanted to come.

She didn’t.

*****

“It feels like I haven’t talked to you in days!” Lee exclaimed as he walked towards me, wrapping his arms tight around me when we came closer. He and James had been standing, leaning against the side of their van. I smiled, hugging him back just as tight as he hugged me – it was nice having somebody outside the loop for once, since James seemed to know everything that was going on inside of it. He was a good friend, of course, but he just knew everything that had happened over the past week, every reason why I was so edgy lately.

“That’s because we haven’t!” I said, smiling as we pulled away from each other. Lee smiled back, as he, James and I walked together along the narrow back streets that lead towards the main road. We made our way along the high street – mostly, James and Lee dragged me into various clothes shops, only one of which being a fancy dress shop. James and Lee picked out random pieces of outfit for themselves and refused to tell me what they were going as.

After refusing to buy a full length, black velvet cape, James and Lee dragged me further into the shop we were currently in. It was an alternative clothing store, and most of the things in there were – I guessed – made for casual wear, not fancy dress. A creepy-looking Goth boy working on the till – surrounded by a strong stench of patchouli oil – kept eyeing James and Lee sceptically, and shooting me toothless grins whenever I caught him at it.

I heard James laugh and watched as he held something up. “How about this? You could work the devil look!”

“Er, James, I don’t think the devil would wear an extremely small, red sequined corset,” I laughed as I shook my head at the piece of clothing he held up. I had to admit, it was pretty; it made the lights above glitter off in different directions.

“I don’t know, Leila,” Lee shrugged, moving over to take the corset from James’ hands. “I could picture Mrs. Lucifer wearing something like this.”

I flushed bright red. “No, I am not buying that thing.”

Lee shifted the garment from hand to hand, before throwing it at me. I caught it reflexively and he laughed, “Just try it on, what harm can it do?”

Before I could get another objection out, James dragged me over to the changing rooms – two cubicles placed side by side, with a leopard print curtain acting as a door – and shoved me inside, wrenching the curtain over while I grumbled. He snickered and banged his palm against the side of the cubicle telling me to hurry up.

I huffed and hung the offensive corset up on the peg, before removing my Christmas cardigan and the loose-fitting, charcoal gray shirt I had on underneath. I struggled; pulling the corset over my head and trying to lace it up properly, turning my back to the mirror and twisting my neck to see. I think I spent twenty minutes to get into it, and when I had it on, I could hardly breathe because I laced it too tight.

“Fucking hell, are you finished yet?” James shouted through the curtain. “We’re falling asleep out here!”

I looked in the mirror and flushed – almost the exact shade of crimson as the corset – and groaned quietly. The corset looked even smaller on me, and made my awkwardly skinny hipbones jut out even more, so much so that I looked really ill. It revealed a little bit too much boob for my liking too. So, hitching it up only to pull it back down again, I reluctantly pushed the curtain out of my way.

James and Lee stared at me, their jaws practically on the floor. Once they had managed to pick them up again – and James had managed to tear his eyes away from my exposed stomach and chest – Lee gave me a very reassuring nod of his head. I folded my arms loosely over my stomach to block it from view and shifted in my self-consciousness.

“I feel ridiculous,” I grumbled, preparing myself to bolt straight back into the dressing cubicle again.

“No,” James said, shaking his head. “It looks amazing! You should get it.”

Lee nodded his head enthusiastically and smiled at me, still looking me up and down now and again. I scowled at the both of them and pouted, turning back to the mirror in the cubicle. Okay, maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was – I mean, I got their approval. I had a flat stomach, so that wasn’t really an issue, and my chest really wasn’t big enough to actually risk any boob-popping-out scenarios. I liked the way it made my hips look narrower, too.

I sighed and changed back into my street clothes, deliberating for another two minutes before I decided that I may as well; I didn’t have anything else to go on, and it seemed James and Lee were willing to help me find the rest of my costume.

Once I was changed, I approached the counter and handed the corset over to the Goth boy. I was shocked when I realise that it was only £15, which was really cheap considering that it was a good quality piece of clothing for a place like this. The boy at the counter leered at me in a way that made my skin crawl in discomfort. I could hear James and Lee stifling huge fits of laughter all the way into the street.

“What’s funny?” I asked, trying not to laugh myself. They had to hold onto each other to stop themselves from falling over, which was just funny in itself.

“You definitely gave that sweaty bastard a stiffy,” James gasped once his laughter had calmed down a little more. I elbowed him hard in the ribs and stood while they both calmed down, before I allowed them to drag me around more shops, and further into central Leeds.

Lee and I managed to hunt down a short red pencil skirt – almost the exact same colour as the corset – in the sale racks of a small vintage shop near the alternative clothing place. James then popped up with a pair of four inch red stiletto heels – putting his best impression of Gok Wan on, even pushing his hair back into a quiff.

“If you didn’t have a girlfriend,” I laughed, after he shoved the shoes into my hands and told me to ‘go, girlfriend’. “I’d swear you were gay.”

He looked offended. “I can be gay and have a girlfriend” – he turned his eyes to Lee and smirked – “isn’t that right babe?”

Lee looked horrified and backed away from James, out into the street. I heard the two of them laughing and play-fighting while I paid for my items. The aged woman behind the till clicked her tongue in disapproval and gave me a couple of weary looks, before shoving the plastic bag into my hand, hard enough to let me know she wanted me to leave.

When I got outside, Lee was still laughing and James was leaning back against the wall, taking pulls off a cigarette. We walked along the high street, towards Claire’s Accessories, where James snagged a pair of devil horns and paid for them before I could even get my purse out of my bag. I think he only bought them so that he would have an excuse to wear them all the way back to Flux.

“And I can steal them whenever I want later?” he asked, as we walked at a leisurely pace.

“Of course,” I laughed. “You look funny in them, anyway.”

“In a nutshell,” he said. “Fuck you, Leila.”

I laughed and stumbled slightly when he shoved his shoulder lightly into my own. Lee steadied me and slapped James around his head, before saying, “Today was decent then, we’ve managed to get you a half-fantastic costume, I reckon.”

“And it cost you less than £30,” James added, taking the devil horns off of his head and putting them in one of my shopping bags.

“I know,” I smiled. “Thank you for the help, both of you.”

“Not a problem,” Lee laughed. “You’ve got no chance at beating our costumes anyway.”

“What are you two going as?”

“Ah, top secret,” James winked. “You’ll find out later, when everybody else does.”

I just rolled my eyes and laughed. Spending the day with people as easy to get on with as James and Lee helped me a lot; I hadn’t thought about Dean or Levi all day. That was, until the vans came back into view, and I knew that we had to pass Eye Witness’ van to get to Deaf Havana’s. What if he came outside just as we walked past? Or James wanted to drop in and talk to him? My stomach knotted at the possibilities.

“Hey!” Tom said happily, when I climbed into the back of the van where he sat with Ryan and Chris, James and Lee following behind me. “I’m coming tonight!”

I smiled and offered him an awkward one armed hug. “What changed your mind?”

“My family’s away until this Friday, so I’m free to make a mess of myself, then recover,” he laughed.

“That’s great,” I smiled again. I leaned over and gave Ryan and Chris a hug each, leaving my bags balanced by the door. As soon as I let Chris go, he jumped and tried to snag one of the bags and look inside it. James caught him by the collar of his black and white button up shirt, before slapping him around the head.

“’Ey! None of that,” James laughed, before shooting me a wink. “You won’t be disappointed, swear.”

I laughed, but slapped him on the bicep anyway. “Shut up! I have a boyfriend.”

“Obviously kidding,” he rolled his eyes. “Brunette’s aren’t my type anyway.”

I laughed and leaned back against the van wall, after shooting James another mock-reproachful look. I sat around with Deaf Havana for about half an hour before we all said our goodbyes. James caught me just before I left the van and told me that everybody who was coming had to be at Flux for about four, so we could just get a train to Liverpool and sort out hotel rooms for the night before we set out. I nodded my head and glanced at the time on my phone; 2.30PM

Just about enough time to get home, shower and pack my overnight bag.