back into the old flat, just for a while, just as friends; I could sleep on the sofa. But even as the plan begins to take shape in my head I know this idea is hopeless. I could never sleep near Adam without sleeping with him. We’d never have managed a chastity vow. My limbs are stiff with the cold now and my eyes are stinging from lack of sleep and the constant drip of tears but I know that sooner or later I’m going to have to pick myself up and brush myself down.
I’m going to have to start all over again.
Alone.
Adam coughs. I think he’s thinking the same thing. He’s probably cold too and suffering from pins and needles because he’s scrunched down next to me. I wait for him to tell me I have to get on with it.
‘You know yesterday, when I was talking about my band and I said that they’ll never make number one because that stuff doesn’t happen to me, I’m not a number one sort of guy?’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘The thing is, Fern, that sort of stuff doesn’t happen to me because, truthfully, I don’t want it enough. I don’t want it at the cost of everything else and that’s how much you have to want it in this business. That’s how much Scott wants it. He deserves his success and all that comes with it.’ His tone is slightly scathing. I don’t think there is any love lost between Adam and Scott. ‘But you know, maybe they might get into the top forty. Maybe number twenty-six or something around that mark.’
‘Yeah, you said.’
‘I’m just saying it again, so that you are clear. I’m not going to be a stonking, raving, unequivocal success. I’m more average than that.’
‘I know, Adam.’
And that’s why we could have a chance, if he’d allow it. I look at him and try to understand exactly what he’s saying. I listen very, very carefully. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Is he managing my expectations? That would mean he is at least allowing me to have expectations. How far away is starting again? Millions of miles or just around the corner?
I lean closer and closer towards him. He stops talking and I stay silent. My mouth is just inches away from his. I can feel his warm breath heat my being. Just an inch apart now. His delicious lips are right there, a nose length away.
He pulls back. The space he leaves between us is a world. Or should I say, the space I put between us is a world. He doesn’t want me. If he did, that was his moment. He could have kissed me here, among the buckets of flowers. I’ve blown it. I start to cry again. I wish I wouldn’t. It’s girly and weak and messy but I can’t stop myself. I don’t know how I’ll make it through this.
‘Why are you crying now?’ he asks with a touch of impatience. It’s agony that even his impatience thrills me; everything about him is familiar and straightforward.
‘Because I’ve lost everything. I’ve thrown away everything.’ I give in to the big, ugly sobbing once again.
‘You don’t know what the future holds, Fern. You never know, in a year’s time you might look back at all of this and, well, laugh about it.’
I stare at him as though he’s insane.
‘OK, maybe not laugh exactly,’ he concedes. ‘But it might not seem like the end of the world if you were sitting in your lovely two, maybe even three, bedroom home in – I don’t know – let’s be realistic, the wrong end of Clapham. Not a bad place for a starter home.’
‘Not at all.’ I sniff, momentarily giving in to this fantasy he’s describing.
‘And you might be pregnant and my band will have made a bit of cash, maybe I’ll have more than one group to manage by then.’
Pregnant? How? That’s stupid. How could I have met and fallen in love with someone and decided to have a child with them in that short time? Looking at Adam right now, I can’t imagine doing even the first part of that scenario. How could I meet anyone else when I’m in love with Adam? And I am in love with Adam. What I feel for him is not a three-day infatuation, ignited behind closed doors in Wembley, already cooling as I flew across the Atlantic. What I feel for Adam is not a fairytale, it’s a love