The Kind of Hoax That Leaves a Lump in Your Throat

We walked into the studio reception and josh just nodded at he guy behind the desk before pulling me into the lift and hitting the button for the top floor.

As soon as the doors shut my back was against the wall and his lips were on mine. I could feel my legs turning to jelly, but josh’s strong hands on my waist kept me up right. The door pinged and his lips left mine before he pulled me from the lift and into the hallway.

“Have I told you how gorgeous you look today?” josh said into my hair as we walked along. I shook my head, not trusting my own voice and I heard him chuckle. “Well you do”

“Thanks” I smiled and reached up to kiss his cheek.

Josh then suddenly stopped and knocked on a door. Not waiting for a reply he barged right in, dragging me along behind. He suddenly let go of my hand to give the standard “bro hug” to the two boys already inside before turning to me.

“Vi this is oli” he said motioning to a gorgeous tall, skinny guy covered in tattoos, “and tom” who was the other guy standing next to him. He wasn’t as conventionally good looking as oli, but he was cute in that I wanna pinch your cheeks way. Well I say cute, he was adorable. His eyes were the biggest bluest things I’d ever seen before in my life. Bluer than josh’s and that was saying something. “Guys this is my girlfriend violet” josh finished, looking at me with a proud smile on his face.

“It’s nice to meet you both” I said, trying to sound confident. Truth is I suck at meeting new people; I always manage to make a dick out of myself.

They were about to reply when the door burst open from behind me. Another guy walked in and smiled widely at everyone.

“Ah o’grady, how kind of you to grace us with your presence” Josh said as he took a seat.

“Oh fuck off franny. Right lets get down to business” he said sitting at the control desk and oli went into the booth. Josh sat next to the guy he called “o’grady” and I spotted a sofa just to the right of me and plonked myself down on it.

“You know what your doing?” josh said and oli nodded from inside. “Right then, let a rip”

And that’s exactly what he did. To say it was a little scary would be an understatement. Oli seemed harmless enough normally, but when he screamed it was like he changed into another being entirely. I pulled my legs up, hugging them to my chest and hid my eyes. I then felt someone sit next to me, and I looked to my side to see tom with a slightly amused look on his face.

“You alright there love?” he spoke, his strong accent causing me to smile.

“I fine, I just want expecting it”

“Yeah, I guess you could say it’s an acquired taste” he said, nodding is head to where his brother was literally screaming his lungs out. As he turned his head, that tattoos that littered his shoulder came more into view. I couldn’t help but look and I didn’t realise that he caught me staring until he began to speak again. “Is there something on me?” he laughed brushing his shoulder.

“No, no sorry” I fumbled and felt my face began to heat up. “I was just um, you have really cool tattoo’s”

“Thanks” he smiled looking proud. “You got any?”

“No not yet. I really want one but I just cant decide what to have done or where to have it”

“Yeah its always a problem knowing where to start, plus you need to find an artist you can trust”

“Yeah, well my best friend is a tattoo artist so I got that one covered”

“Seriously? Is she any good? Its just I need some work doing on my sleeve and I was gonna have it done whilst we were down here”

“Yeah she’s amazing, you want me to call her and see when she’s free?”

“If that’s alright love”

“Awesome, I’ll be back in just a sec” I said leaving the room and quickly calling liana. She picked up on the second ring.

“Hey li, I was wondering if you could do me a favour.”

“Shoot and I’ll see”

“Do you know who tom Sykes is?”

“He’s oli Sykes’s little brother I do believe, why?”

“Well oli is tracing vocals with josh and ive been sat with tom and he’s saying he needs some work doing on his sleeve. You up for it?”

“Are you being serious? Of course I am, bring him now” she squealed excitedly. I pulled the phone from my ear before poking my head back round the door.

“Hey tom, she said she’s free now”

“Awesome, lets do it” he said jumping up, “we’ll be back later” he called to the rest of them and shut the door before they had a chance to respond.

The shop liana worked in was only a few minutes away so we were there pretty soon. We walked in to find liana sitting waiting for us. She jumped up when we were inside and rushed over to us.

“Li this is tom, tom this is liana”

“Nice to meet you” liana said sticking her hand out, which tom shook lightly. “So what can I do for you?”

Tom started to tell her what he wanted, pointing to the appropriate spots, when my phone began to buzz. I pulled it out to see josh was calling.

“Hey, where have you and tom gone?”

“Oh he wanted some work done on his sleeve so we’ve gone to see liana”

“Oh alright, well we shouldn’t be to much longer now, we got it done quicker than I thought so we’ll meet you there”

“Ok, see you in bit then”

“Yup, love you” he said and I could hear oli taking the piss out of him in the back ground.

“Love you, too” I giggled and ended the call.

Liana and tom had no gone into a room off the side and I followed the buzz into her room. Tom was now lying down as liana was working on him and he smiled at me when I walked in.

“Josh says there nearly done and they’ll meet us here”

“Awesome” he smiled and then laid his head back down. From what I could see he was in no pain at all. The only thing that gave it away was the fact his eyebrows sometime furrowed a tad, but other than that it looked as if he could fall asleep.

“You gonna get anything done?” liana asked, looking up from toms arm with and eyebrow raised.

“Not today, I still haven’t figured out what I want” I sighed and she stopped working completely before standing up and getting a book. She threw it in my lap and then continued working on tom.

“Look through that, it might help” she said and I flicked through the book. The thing with tattoos was it was permanent, obviously, and I didn’t want to get sick and tired of the sight of it, plus I didn’t want it just to be some random thing. As sappy as it sounds, I wanted something with a little meaning to it.

“Yo, anyone here?” I heard josh call from the reception.

“In here” liana shouted back and then josh and oli wandered in. “I’ll be about another 5 minutes so grab a chair” she spoke, here eyes never leaving toms arm. Oli quickly stole the spot next to me before josh could and the he childishly stuck his tongue out him making me laugh.

“Oh you think that’s funny yeah?” josh taunted before picking me up out of the seat and sitting there himself before placing me on his lap. “What’s this?” he asked looking at the book of designs in my hand.

“Im just looking” I smiled when his eyes caught mine.

“You gonna get one?” oli piped up from next to josh and I shrugged my shoulders.

“Im not sure yet, I cant seem to decide what I want”

“Just don’t get anything stupid and girly like hearts or stars” he said making a disgusted face.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on it” I chuckled and continued looking through until the buzzing stopped.

“Right all done” she smiled and then began to wrap him up. When she was done with that we all went out into the reception and waited until tom had paid before we all said out goodbyes and left.

“God, she’s well fit” oli said as soon as we were outside.

“Yeah well she has a boyfriend” josh laughed and oli just shrugged. “oli don’t man, her boyfriend’s a boss”

“Plus she’s so in love with him I’m sure she wouldn’t even give you a second glance. No offence” I smiled and josh laughed again before grabbing my hand land threading his fingers though mine. “Speaking of her boyfriend” I smiled as I noticed Freddy walking towards us. I quickly let go of josh’s hand and launched myself into Freddy’s arms.

“Aha, hey vi” he said as he caught me.

“hey” I said and he sat me to my feet and then ruffled my hair. By this point the rest of the guys had caught up. “guys this is Freddy, liana’s boyfriend” I said and then I moved to face the Freddy. “you know josh, and this is oli and tom. Liana was just tattooing tom” I smiled.

“ah, well I hope she didn’t bite your ear off. The amount of talking that girl can do is astronomical” he said I a hit his arm playfully. “oh you know im joking. Anyway, I better be getting off, im kind of late, I t was nice to meet you” he smiled before looking down at me. “I’ll see you later” he smiled and then kissed my cheek quickly before rushing off.

I looked back to josh who’s eyebrows were scrunched slightly, but they went back to normal a second later.

“alright, our rides here, we’ll see you around yeah?” oli said as a car pulled up.

“yeah ok, I’ll um catch you later” josh smiled and nodded his head lightly.

“it was nice meeting you violet”

“yeah, thanks for today violet, see you later?” tom asked

“you too, and yeah I’ll see you later” I smiled and they both got in the car, leaving josh and I alone. “sooooooooo” I sung and josh giggled before wrapping his arms around me.

“so we gonna go get some of my stuff?” he whispered into my hair and I nodded before he grabbed my hand and pulled me along to his flat.