A Mighty Need

Sunday afternoon was warm and balmy when Austin had picked Audrey up from the airport. She had staggered through Terminal A-East and on through Customs where she showed her passport to prove her American citizenship and then made her way onward toward baggage claim where Austin had been waiting for her. Noting how tired she looked, he offered to her carry both her suitcases for her while she carried only her laptop case and purse; both of which had been her carry-ons during her nonstop flight home. It was almost four by the time they were on the road headed back to her condo in the city and Audrey barely spoke. Austin looked over at her from time to time, trying to make small talk but all he got out of her was that Noel’s surprise party had been a success but the days that followed had been shitty and she wouldn’t go into detail. He figured she just partied so hard she was still nursing a hangover. All she wanted to do, she claimed, was go home and sleep the rest of the day away.

And that’s exactly what she did.

Austin had been staying in her condo while she was away to take care of her cat and the place in general, and so he was closer to his city friends and didn’t have far to go after a night out. He watched Audrey set her laptop case and purse on the dining room table and how she didn’t seem to give any shits about the mess Austin had left lying around and forgotten to clean up before she got home. She picked Rhiannon up and cuddled her for a while until the cat got antsy and wanted down, and then Audrey wandered into the kitchen rather zombie-like and opened the fridge to just stare inside; either looking for something to drink or trying to get accustomed to being back home again. After a few moments she smiled limply at Austin and said she was going to lie down for a while.

It made sense to Austin. If she really had such a crazy weekend and since she was still on London time, which was just after nine-thirty at night there, it seemed not unreasonable that she would turn in early. She looked drained and just needed a good sleep. The next day was Memorial Day, a national holiday, and hopefully she would be up to par to head to their parents’ house for a barbecue with their extended family and neighbors. Austin was still staying the night again, so he made himself some dinner and watched some TV in the living room when he heard it.

He wasn’t sure at first, so he lowered the volume to the TV on the remote and turned his head in the direction of Audrey’s bedroom, but he was sure he’d definitely heard it. It was faint and muffled, but Audrey was definitely crying.

It continued periodically through the night and into the following morning. When Austin found Audrey crying by herself in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her hands, he tread carefully when he approached her and asked if everything was okay. She shook it off almost immediately, as if no tears were streaking her face. She wiped the errant ones away and held back the rest that had been about to continue falling. She shrugged and put on as brave a face as she could muster and stated she was fine and just having a rough time of things. When Austin asked what was rough, she said it was personal at the moment and didn’t want to go into it.

But Austin wasn’t stupid. He could do the math.

Whatever was eating at his sister happened prior to her leaving London because she returned looking like a hot mess. Maybe she was that upset about having to leave Noel again. If that was the case, though, she could’ve easily stayed on a bit longer if she wanted to. Could it be something happened between the transatlantic couple? If it was enough to cause Audrey to look and feel like shit, walking around like a zombie in the days that followed, Austin feared it had to have been something negative. Perhaps the traveling back and forth had taken its toll and they couldn’t do it anymore and decided to call it quits? Austin was curious for some answers but for the sake of his male appendage, he wasn’t going to risk fishing any answers out of Audrey at the moment.

When she was good and ready, she’d eventually open up.

Then again, it took her about five months or so to open up about the break-up with her last boyfriend from a few years ago.

Only time would tell.



On the other side of the Atlantic, Noel spent the entire weekend holed up inside his house. He never left and he refused to answer any phone calls or texts unless they came from his mother. He knew that if he avoided her she would be on his doorstep quicker than lightning, demanding answers. He didn’t need that at the moment. He turned to painting as his only solace, trying to mentally joke with himself that maybe he’d enter a blue period like Picasso did. But instead of his paintings being monochromatically blue, they would just reflect how blue he felt.

His cats helped, too. They followed him around a bit more and kept him company and offered the only light into his dark mood. Petting them and listening to them purr and crackle when they sat all over him calmed his spirit. But it was merely a temporary fix. He went to bed early on Thursday and Friday, shutting the curtains to his bedroom windows and closing out all the light that might try to seep in. Saturday he checked his phone to see if maybe Audrey would’ve called or texted, but there was nothing. He didn’t call or text her either, so it wasn’t all on her. He was being just as stubborn. Saturday was also when he returned to painting.

By Sunday, however, he turned to drinking a bit by himself. At the moment he knew Audrey’s flight would’ve taken off from Heathrow, that’s when the tears began to fall. She had left with a goodbye on Thursday but it was a terrible goodbye because it was not a happy one and it was so open-ended. He hadn’t and still didn’t know what to make of it.

Was it for good? Was it a simple goodbye for now? Had they just broken up? Were they on a simple break? He had his flight already book for visiting her at the end of June. Did she still expect him to visit, even after the fight they’d had? Should he cancel the trip?

Noel hated not knowing where they stood but he was too stubborn as well as too scared to message her to find out.

If he messaged her, she might ignore him and not reply. Or maybe she did reply and she officially broke up with him. And maybe that wouldn’t be the case, but he wasn’t prepared to find out just yet. So, instead, he wallowed in the limbo that was their relationship status just like the dark clouds rolling over London that may or may not open and downpour all over the city.

When his mother called and asked how he was, he lied and said fine, but that he had to get going because he wasn’t feeling well. When she asked if he was feeling sick, he said not really; it was just a little bug and not for her to get overly mothering with him about it. That seemed to satisfy her for the time being but he knew eventually she would ask on Audrey. She always did because his mother liked Audrey and ever since meeting at Christmas, she had considered Noel’s American gal as part of the family already. Ever since Noel turned thirty many a moon ago, Diane had mentioned every so often about how she wondered what her grandbabies would look like. Around that time, Noel had been dating Dee, so Diane had a visual to pool her ideas of what those grandbabies would look like. Then came Lliana and Diane thought if Noel were to have had one or more kids with her that at least one would have Lliana’s warm brown eyes.

Diane started dropping hints about the same thing to Noel in regard to Audrey, but this time she went into more detail, saying she could totally picture a gaggle of grandbabies that would probably have Noel’s eyes, Audrey’s nose (which Noel agreed would be best for any child he might have) and would have dark blonde hair, which was both Noel and Audrey’s natural hair color. Diane continued, picturing a granddaughter wearing an adorable dress with ribbons in her hair and or a grandson rolling around in the dirt and playing pirates in the back garden just like her sons had. Mostly, though, Diane went on and on about granddaughters. She’d had her boys and was outnumbered. She wanted little girls to play with and help look after because it would be the closest thing she’d ever have to daughters of her own. And it would have the added benefit that, as a grandparent, she could hand the children back at the end of the day and get a lovely night’s rest.

Noel often thought on these things as well, and now with Audrey having gone, those thoughts seemed like distant dreams. It was as if someone had been dangling a Fab lolly in front of his face on a hot summer day and just as he was about to grab for it, it was taken away.

The dark thoughts continued to cloud his mind all Sunday, with no help from the alcohol he began to consume. He started feeling like any chances of ever having kids of his own was getting slimmer by the day. He was finally at a good place in his life, unlike ten year’s prior when he would not have been best suited for fatherhood. But now that he was, he appeared to be alone again and didn’t feel like being with anyone else if he could be with Audrey. He was prepared to reserve himself to being alone the rest of his life as the alcohol ignited the melodrama in his head.

When he woke up on Monday morning with his second hangover within a week, he looked at his bedside clock and frowned, wishing he could just sleep through the coming days because he didn’t want to live his life like the weekend had gone, but he couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed. He was too depressed and too angry, so he stayed like that for a while. The only time he got up was to use the toilet. He returned to the confines of his bed and buried himself under the covers. He didn’t feel like doing anything really. Despite the sun and its brightness for the day, his world was dark and gray at the moment.



Audrey hadn’t gone to her parents’ house for Memorial Day. She stayed home and Austin went without her. In the week that followed after returning home, she called her sister and made plans to visit her and her family for a few days and insisting they needed a girl’s night while she visited as they hadn’t had one together in years. After her visit to Columbus, she planned to see her brother Eddie for a few days. She hadn’t seen him in almost eleven months, when he came home to Philadelphia to get married. When her visits were done, Audrey had to continue on to Los Angeles. What Girls Do would be starting to film its first season and she had been asked to assist in writing a script for at least one more episode. The pilot episode, which she had written, had already been filmed and shown to the network executives who gave the go-ahead for a full season of twelve more episodes to be filmed; with the pilot it would be thirteen in total.

Audrey booked a flight to Columbus for that following Monday and she stayed until Friday; crashing in the extra bedroom instead. She loved playing with her niece and nephew. It brought much needed smiles to her face and momentarily made her not think of how sad she was. School was already out of session for the summer months for her nephew so, while Crystal and Jeremy were away at work during the day, instead of being stuck with babysitters or daycare, Audrey looked after the kids. Tuesday day she took them to the Columbus Zoo, Wednesday to COSI (Center of Science and Industry) and Thursday they went to the movies and then to the store to each pick out a toy and a new outfit. Thursday evening, all five of them had a lovely family dinner together and then afterward the sisters got ready to head out for a few hours of drinking and dancing at a club in the city. Audrey paid for the cab ride so Jeremy could stay home with the kids and neither Audrey nor Crystal had to determine how they were getting home. When Crystal finally asked about Noel, Audrey opened up, unable to keep it from her sister, partly because she needed to tell someone about it but also because the alcohol made her chattier. Crystal offered her sympathies but suggested that Audrey not give up on her relationship with Noel and find a way to work past the latest bump.

When she flew to Sioux Falls the next day, Audrey remembered the Rolling Stones tickets she had bought for her and Noel for when he was supposed to visit her during June. She hadn’t told him about the tickets and had been planning to surprise him with them, but now she assumed he wouldn’t show up and would’ve canceled his flight to Philadelphia. She would have to fly home from LA for a few days and find someone else to go with her. Mostly likely it would be Austin. Thinking on all this put her back into a funk with nothing to do but stare out the window as the wing to the plane cut through the clouds while she listened to her iPod.

She got in to Sioux Falls just after five. Her brother Eddie picked her up and brought her back to his house and after she set her bags down in the extra bedroom she’d be staying in, Audrey went out dinner with him and Stephanie to a Japanese restaurant and afterward they took in a show at a local comedy club, which only served to make Audrey think of Noel. The next afternoon, Eddie was busy coaching a youth league baseball team so Audrey and Stephanie went to get manicures and pedicures and hang out together at the Starbucks across the street before grabbing a late lunch at Pizza Hut. It had been a while since either had enjoyed Pizza Hut pizza and both cooed at it. That evening, they had some friends over and they all played several rounds of Cards Against Humanity while nursing beers or glasses of wine. One of Eddie’s single friends kept flirting with Audrey but Steph had shot him down on Audrey’s behalf, informing the poor guy that Audrey was seeing a British guy back in London. Audrey didn’t bother to say anything about Noel to Eddie or Steph since she wasn’t as close to either to feel bringing up all that drama again.

Sunday was spent more lazily; lounging around in their pajamas and watching movies and Eddie cooking barbecue chicken on the grill for dinner. Audrey packed her bags again that night to be prepared for leaving the next morning. Eddie would be driving her back to the airport on his way to work. She checked in early and killed time on Monday morning by writing on her laptop in SkyDine, the restaurant inside the airport just past security. The novel she had started working on last December she had put aside for the time being. After the fight with Noel, she just didn’t have the inspiration to write anything more on it and instead chose to write random entries of dark humor that she pictured maybe someday adding to a third book of humorous essays and short stories. Or maybe elements could be put into the script she’d be writing out in LA. She hadn’t started the latter yet until she sat down with the other writers to see the direction they were thinking of going with the show.

Audrey’s flight boarded just before eleven-thirty and was a nonstop trip back home, arriving just before five in the evening, local time. She had driven home to her condominium, having driven to the airport before originally leaving for Columbus and leaving the car in the extended stay parking garage. She hadn’t felt like bothering anyone to drive her or taking a cab. She barely seemed to drive her car anyway, so it was an excuse to use it, too.

Once home, she did a few loads of laundry and began to pack her suitcases again to prepare for her multi week stay in LA. She was heading to west coast early because she was still safely assuming Noel wasn’t visiting her. Neither had spoken to each other since she left his house. Austin showed back up to the condo a few hours later. He’d be taking her to the airport the next day and would be staying at the condo while she was gone again to take care of her cat.

“Austin?” she called out to him, while folding a few pair of pants to place into her main suitcase.

“Yeah?” he ducked his head into her bedroom, holding a bottle of Mountain Dew while Rhiannon curled around his feet.

“I was just thinking,” she began, looking at her baby brother. “Why don’t you just live here permanently? You stay here most of the time anyway and it’s closer to your friends who live here in the city, plus it’s nice to have company.” She watched as he considered and began to nod in agreement. “I wouldn’t charge you rent. I can get you a permanent parking space in the condo’s garage so you don’t have to worry about that either. You can save your money that way.”

“Yeah, I guess I could do that,” he said. “You don’t mind me living with you?”

“Like I said, you’re here most of the time anyway. How would you being here officially be any different?”

“Point taken.”

“Also, there was something more pressing I needed to talk to you about.”

Austin moved further into her bedroom and took a seat on the other side of the bed where she had her suitcase open and some clothes strewn about. “Uh oh, sounds serious. Is it about Noel and why you won’t talk about what happened? I haven’t seen you talk to him and he hasn’t called. Did you break up?” The last of his line of questions sounded rather sad, like a child asking if their parents were divorcing.

“I’m…no, I’m not talking about that,” Audrey bypassed. “It’s about you and your future.”

“You sound like mom and dad.”

She shot him a withering look. “Seriously, though, Austin. That lawn care service…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not permanent. I mean, you got your associate’s degree in auto body repair but you’re not working at any body shops or even car parts stores anymore. You’re wasting your talents. Trust me; I know a thing or two about wasting my talents. I don’t want you to spend this decade of your life like I did. Be more assertive and do what you love, unlike what I did; wallowing in a part-time dead end job and living off the goodness of family.”

“Hey, mom and dad aren’t kicking me out anytime soon and you just offered to have me move in here.”

“I’m not saying you’re a burden if that’s what you’re thinking. I just mean, the way your life is right now, you can’t afford a place of your own or the bills you’d have if you did. You need something to get you on your feet. Part of why I want you to live here. I know mom and dad charge you a nominal fee for living with them now. They did the same to me after I graduated college and came home. A trifling weekly rent I gave them, but when I barely made any money because it was all going toward paying student loans, I couldn’t save anything. You can save this way and it can give you the time to find something better to do with your life.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you should quit the lawn care service.”

“And exactly how am I supposed to save my money if I have none coming in?”

“By working a better job.”

“Because those are just lying around,” Austin snarkily responded.

“What if a job fell into your lap, that paid well and gave you opportunities to travel from time to time and all you basically had to do was keep appointments and do trivial errands for someone and help manage their life as if gets professionally complicated?”

“Like a maid?”

“No, like a personal assistant.”

Austin shrugged. “If such a job fell into my lap, I guess it would be something better.”

“Well, look down because it’s there.”

“What?”

“Are you dumb?”

Austin stared at her for a moment. “Wait, are you asking me to be your personal assistant?”

Audrey widened her eyes and nodded. “Yes, dumbass,” she smirked. “I’ve been thinking about asking you do be mine since around Christmas. I think it’d be a nice change of pace for you and, who knows, maybe it’ll open up some doors and you’ll get to meet people in need of your auto body talents.”

Austin smirked as well. “When do I start?”

Throwing the rest of her clothes at him, she made a face. “Now,” she said. “Pack the rest of my shit. I’m hungry and getting something to eat.”

As she headed out of her room Austin just stared down at the pile of clothes now draped over his legs and frowned. Then he craned his head and peered out her bedroom door.

“Wait…how much you paying me?”

“Let’s start at five hundred a week and see how it goes from there,” she called back at him.

Austin beamed like a fucking idiot and glanced at Rhiannon who had followed him into the room. “Fuckin’ sweet.”



The next day, Audrey had arrived to LAX around three-thirty local time and was met with a chauffeur picking her up curbside at the Arrivals pick-up and drop-off area. The driver took her straight to Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood where she checked in at the reservation desk. The studio producing the What Girls Do was footing the bill for her and putting her up in one of the garden cottages for her entire stay; even while she returned home for a couple days to Philadelphia to attend the Rolling Stones concert, now with Austin who had agreed to go with her.

Once she was in the cottage, and tipped the bell boy who helped bring her belongings on a luggage trolley, the first thing she did was take her laptop out of its carrying case and set it down on the desk in the living room and open it up. She pulled the power chord out as well and plugged one end into the laptop and the other into the wall socket. She very rarely used her laptop without it being plugged in at the same time. It was just a minor thing she did. She then began to settle in by unpacking her clothes and putting some items in the bedroom dresser or into the closet, then setting her empty suitcases upright in the closet as well. She wasn’t expected at the studio until the next day so she planned to get some food shopping in because she didn’t want to eat out all the time.

So, Audrey called the front desk to arrange for a driver to take her to out to the store. A half hour later, one was available and she arrived sometime after that to the Pavillions grocery store on Santa Monica Boulevard. She picked up the essentials; fresh fruits and vegetables, a loaf of whole wheat bread, Cheerios, a gallon of whole milk, a carton of eggs, a package of bacon, a carton of strawberry ice cream and cranberry juice. Most of it was for her breakfasts in the morning and snacks at night before bed. The in between time she knew she’d usually be at the studio, out to lunch or dinner or eating through a meal or two while working. When she returned from Philadelphia to LA after the Rolling Stones concert, Austin would be flying back with her and then she would buy more foods. Since she wasn’t paying for her own stay at Chateau Marmont, and the couch in the living room of the cottage wasn’t built for sleeping on (it was more like wicker patio furniture, really), she chose to book a room for Austin to stay in for the eight nights he’d be in LA with her.

The rest of the night she spent in the cottage. She’d received a call from the show’s producer, welcoming her back out to LA and that a driver from the studio would be sent to pick her up at eight the next morning for meetings with the other writers. They wanted her input, first and foremost, on how she envisioned the series panning out in its first season and how, taken from the bits and pieces from her book Girls Fart, Too, what exactly she would like to see incorporated into storylines and which of the stories from the book she would prefer to see associated with a particular character.

The show was turning out to be a less glamorous and more real version of Sex And The City, with the main character being the narrator of the entire series and was based mostly off of Audrey; which, in itself, was weird for the Philly native. She had been there when the actress had been cast; a virtual unknown. Audrey was adamant from the get-go that the lead actress represented the average American woman. She wanted her to be more fuller figured, healthy-looking and funny. Those were the main things and that’s what Audrey got. The actress was named Heather Douglas, twenty-five years old, originally from Delta, Pennsylvania and had plenty of stars in her eyes. She’d done work in commercials and walk-on rolls on sitcoms and soap operas, but this was her big break. Audrey was happy to be part of giving it to the girl. Plus, the fact that she was also from Pennsylvania endeared her to Audrey all the more.

To balance out the cast of other relative unknowns, Juliette Lewis had come in and read for the role of one of the second lead characters, Erica Mills; a woman in her late thirties to early forties who had went and got herself a boob job and dyed her hair blonde to entice her husband and help save her marriage, only to find her husband in bed with a twenty-something big-breasted blonde. The pilot episode picked up with Erica already going through the initial divorce proceedings when she befriends the lead character, Sadie Winston, and the other supporting leads who are like-minded twenty- and thirty-somethings with equally dirty minds and foul mouths.

Even though the character of Sadie was meant to be the main character and the central figure in the show, Audrey had a feeling the character of Erica would quickly steal the show; much like Samantha on Sex And The City. Also, Juliette Lewis was hilarious and a big name and Audrey didn’t want to admit that she would be okay if the focus shifted away from Sadie most of the time and moved to Erica.

While Audrey thought about what it would be like to see her book come to life in the form of a television show and eventually aired on television, she turned to her laptop to write, thinking up scenarios she planned to pull from the book. But her inspiration for any of that didn’t last too long.

The desktop picture on her laptop was of her and Noel’s kiss in front of the Love sculpture from last November and looking at it made her heart heavy and put her into a funk. She ended up checking her phone a few times, tempted to send a text his way. She would even start typing it out but before she could finish, she would delete it all and place her phone back down. She would go through the same emotions again; sadness, anger and worry. Sadness, because she missed him; anger because she was still mad at him, and worry; because she was scared about losing him for good but also scared to make the first move to talk to him.

It was a horrible ping pong of emotions she couldn’t wrap her mind around, when she found her inspiration again. She focused on the sadness and the anger and put it into helping to flesh out the character of Erica, who was dealing with those same feelings upon the end of her marriage.



The next day, while Audrey was getting set up in a conference room with the other writers at Paramount Studios’ Stage 5, Noel was leaving Teddington Studios in Teddington where he had just finished filming a one-off appearance on the seventh series of his mate Lee Mack’s show Not Going Out. He was playing a flamboyantly dressed bloke called Vince who was having a drink at the bar Lee’s character frequents. Noel’s character was a tongue-in-cheek nod to his Boosh character Vince Noir and whether or not he was supposed to be the same character is something they planned to leave up to the viewer to assume when the episode eventually aired.

He was sharing a hired car back into the city with regular cast member Katy Wix and they chatted amiably about nothing in particular. The car dropped her off at home first and continued on to take him home to Highgate, where he was greeted by his cats and no messages on his cell phone which he had accidentally left at home that morning.

Originally he had planned on meeting up with Dave for dinner and drinks that night but something came up for Dave and asked to reschedule so Noel set about finding something in his kitchen to prepare for his growling stomach.

He settled on macaroni and cheese and while he waited for the water to boil on the stove top, he found himself staring at the key to Audrey’s condo he had left sitting on the table ever since she left. As he let his eyes focus on the jagged contours of the key’s teeth, he felt his chest ache and any high spirits he’d felt from earlier in the day, being around his mate and the cast of the show, were now gone. He wondered what Audrey was doing and how she was doing and it caused tears to sting at his eyes. He had been supposed to fly out to Philadelphia the following week but two days ago he canceled the flight. Having not heard from her and having not contacted her either, he figured it was best until he knew where they stood.

Of course, he wouldn’t know until one of them made that first move.

When he heard the water bubbling in the sauce pan, he dumped in the macaroni noodles from the box and turned the flame down a bit. Grabbing a bottle of beer from the fridge, Noel sank down into one of the chairs at the kitchen table and took an initial swig as his heart pounded the more he thought about what might happen to his relationship with Audrey.

It was utter torment thinking about it. He had to bite his lips together and close his eyes to keep the tears at bay.

All he wanted to do was call her up and chat with her like nothing was any different.

But he was too stubborn, and he didn’t know the right words to say to her just yet.



By the following week, Audrey was having a rather decent time in LA. While sitting in on the taping of the second episode, she befriended Juliette Lewis while the older female was in between filming scenes. They grabbed lunch together at the commissary that Monday and by Wednesday they had driven down together to Anaheim for the U2 concert at Angel Stadium where Lenny Kravitz was the special guest. Being celebrities in their own right, Audrey and Juliette got backstage before the show to see the band and Lenny and just hang out, which was a bit more normal for Juliette than it was for Audrey. Instead of finding their seats during the concert, Bono suggested they watch the show from the wings of the stage which the ladies were more than happy to do.

It turned out to be a great concert and they wound up hanging out with the U2 and Kravitz afterward as well before they had to head back to LA because Juliette was needed on set the next day. And hanging out didn’t just end there. When Audrey wasn’t writing or plotting with the other writers and when Juliette wasn’t filming, both women where spending time going to lunch or dinner at hip restaurants in the city. When Audrey mentioned she was flying back to Philly on Friday night for the Rolling Stones concert, Juliette expressed her jealousy and joked that she wanted Audrey to pinch Mick’s ass for her, but to give her a call when she returned to LA.

Audrey got in late on Friday night and the next day, with Austin, they headed to the Wells Fargo Center with their VIP passes in hand and got backstage to meet the band. Meeting Mick and Keith was like walking on cloud nine. She couldn’t believe her eyes or ears. All her senses betrayed her. And it was Ronnie Wood, of all people, who seemed to know who she was because he was familiar with Noel and had apparently seen her in the entertainment section of some London papers with Noel in recent months. So, conversation went from there; only awkward because Audrey had to play it off that everything was fine and dandy between her and Noel, when it in fact was on thin ice but it wasn’t the time or place to go into it or even hint to it. It was her business anyway; no one else’s place to stick their nose in, even if they were a Stone.

Audrey and Austin where shown to their seats afterward before the show began and, like the U2 concert had been for her days before, the Stones concert was just as amazing, if not better. Even though she was distracted from life during the two hour gig, in the back of her mind, a nagging voice was yelling at her that Noel should be there with her. It should’ve been Noel and her backstage meeting the band and during the lulls in the concert, when the voice in her head spoke up, all she could do was look away from the stage and pull out her phone, tempted to text him a message of wish you were here with me now with a picture of the band playing on stage.

Instead, she took a selfie with Austin and tweeted it with the caption: Stones concert. Met the band. Legendary night.

Feeling a bit bold, she posted another tweet: “Let's spend the night together, now I need you more than ever.”

It was one of the lyrics to the song playing at the moment and if Noel still received alerts when she tweeted, he would see this.

It wasn’t a first move, but it was something.