Emma Heatherington - Rewrite the Stars

‘Would you like to go somewhere else to talk more?’ he asks, looking around him, as if for inspiration. ‘Like you said, it’s hardly our type of place, is it? Plus, we mightn’t get back inside again since the door is well shut.’

Oh my good Lord … did I just hear him correctly? He wants us to go somewhere to talk? Just the two of us? This must be a dream.

I can’t think of anyone else I’d like to talk to right now but then my heart sinks. I can’t really just abandon Emily, Kevin and Kirsty inside even if I do want to run away with him more than anything in the whole world. Could I? And what if I don’t go? Will it be something I’ll regret the rest of my life? Will I never see him again?

‘We could walk around to the front and knock the door to get back in?’ I suggest as a compromise. ‘I really should go back in to my friends. They’ll be wondering where I am.’

He looks deflated now. He licks his lips lightly in defeat.

‘No problem, Charlie. Respect to that. I’ll walk you round to the door.’

I so want to change my mind. What the hell am I thinking? Maybe I’m becoming sensible at long last.

‘Thank you,’ I say to him, but I don’t make a move to go. Maybe I’m not so sensible after all.

He is looking at my lips now, then my chest, then my hair. He is looking at me like he did that day in our student living room in our matching boots when the air was filled with awe and song and music. I feel the blood fizz through my veins, warming me up.

I can almost read his mind through the hunger in his eyes, and my stomach has now joined in on the ‘Boom Boom Pow’ dance. In fact, everything is a little bit dizzy on the inside when I’m standing so close to him.

I gulp. I don’t want him to go. I don’t want to miss this ‘one in a million’ chance again.

‘I’d like to get to know you better this time, Charlie,’ he says. ‘If tonight won’t work, could we meet up some time soon? No pressure, but just see what happens? See if it really is serendipity that we met again tonight?’

The dancing inside me comes to an almighty stop. My heart is thumping. I look up at him. He’s very sexy, especially up this close. He’s Tom Farley. I’ve spent so much time for the past few years fantasizing about this very moment and putting him in my songs.

I breathe.

He breathes too.

The snow is really pelting down now and seeping into where we’re standing under the half shelter.

I think of Emily, Kevin and Kirsty again inside. Kirsty is probably still talking to that group of strangers at the bar, and the nice-looking guy who bought me a drink just before I came outside might be still waiting for me at our table. Emily might be wondering where I am, but Kirsty will already be planning on a hot night with one of the doctors, not giving a shit that they’ve all only just met. So, if she can do it, why shouldn’t I have some fun too?

It is my third resolution after all, even if it’s not New Year for another couple of weeks. My mind swings like a pendulum – what should I do? Should I go? Should I go?

‘I think we could get into trouble, Tom Farley,’ I tell him. ‘A lot of trouble.’

‘I think you said that to me before,’ he whispers.

That’s it. I’m going.

‘Let’s get out of here then.’

He offers me his arm and I take a deep breath, laughing in nervous disbelief as we walk away, slipping and sliding on the white snow, giggling like two love-struck teenagers who are hiding from their parents. Or, in this case, my big brother who might not be so impressed that I’ve taken a chance with his ex-band-member.

‘I have to warn you though, you might have to listen to more of my country songs,’ I tease him as we plod through the cold winter night. ‘I’ve quite a few now for you to catch up on.’

He stops and looks at me. He turns me towards him.

‘I’ve wanted to do that for years,’ he says, and something tells me he’s serious. His thumb wipes a snowflake from my cheek. ‘I still know the melody to that one you sang for me, believe it or not.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I laugh in response but then he hums it, filling in the gaps with words he remembers, and I gasp at his recollection.

All of me, all by myself, longing for you, nobody else.

‘I can’t tell you how much you impressed me that day,’ he tells me, and we walk through the empty streets, the sounds from the bar fading into the distance and the cold biting our smiling faces.

‘I can’t believe you remembered my song,’ I say to him. ‘Wow.’

He takes my hand and the touch of his skin rushes through my veins, making my head spin a little. I can’t decide if I’m more terrified or excited with the decision I just made, but I’ve got a feeling, or so I keep telling myself, that this really is going to be a good, good night in a way that I would never have expected. That, or else I’m going to be in a whole lot of trouble for something I know nothing about.

The box-sized bedroom I wake up in the next morning is so tiny that I can reach out and touch the wall from anywhere in the single bed. Navy curtains hang loosely on a long narrow window as condensation drips down on the inside, and a radiator below is lined with multi-coloured socks and white boxers that sit in a zig-zag row. I can smell burnt toast and hear muffled voices downstairs.

Where the hell am I?

I peep under the covers, afraid of what I might see, but I know by the heat in my body that I must be fully clothed. I’m wearing a Ramones T-shirt that is definitely not mine, a pair of old-school tracksuit bottoms and a pair of mismatched fluffy men’s bed socks, which explains why I’m so cosy and toasty. I check the time on my phone. It’s just gone ten in the morning. Gosh, I slept like a baby.

‘Knock, knock. Can I come in?’

Tom pops his head round the door, enters the room and sits on the edge of the single bed as I run my hands through my hair, trying to recollect coming in here in the first place last night. Everything about this room, everything about him, is so new yet so familiar.

‘Tom?’ I say.

‘Still me, Charlie,’ he replies. ‘You sleep OK? Were you warm enough?’

I go to speak but I can’t. He keeps calling me Charlie even though I’ve warned him it could get him a slap on the wrists if he ever meets my parents again.

‘Where the hell are we?’ I ask. He laughs a little, and then leans over beside me. I can smell his aftershave. It’s very … oh God, he looks even better in daylight.

‘You told me last night you’d wake up and ask me that,’ he says, resting his hand on top of mine. I want to move it, but I can’t. ‘Don’t look so scared, babe. We had fun, but nothing more happened. Well, lots of good stuff happened actually, now that I think of it.’

I take a moment and have a good long look at him, feeling myself relax a little now as the night before unfolds in my hazy hungover memory.

‘I remember,’ I whisper and close my eyes, recalling now his muscular strong arms and the musky smell of his soft skin, almost feeling again now the way he touched me so tenderly.