“All right, then.” He nodded, smiling. “That seems like a fair trade.”
In the morning, I went on a long run and convinced Charlotte to join me. We were evenly paced, despite the fact that she was barely half my age, and I enjoyed her company. She shared that she was about to enter her third year at Oxford, where she was studying philosophy. She’d met Oliver through mutual friends who had attended Westminster with the boys, and they’d been dating for the better part of a year.
“I imagine you’ve seen a lot,” I said, alluding to life with the band.
She shrugged her shoulders, noncommittal. We were heading up Ocean Road, one tremendous lot after another. And passing each $15 to $20 million manse, I could not help but wonder what they had on their walls.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I probably don’t want to know…”
“He’s a good guy, Hayes. He’s really sweet and respectful and responsible and… kind.”
I let that sink in for a bit.
“He’s different,” she continued. “I mean, the others are all lovely in their own way, and Oliver is Oliver. But Hayes is… different. He’s a little more mature and serious, which, you know, you’ve seen him, so that says a lot about the rest of them.” She laughed at that. I hadn’t seen her laugh much. It was beautiful on her.
“I think they all take the group seriously, but Hayes has this added pressure, because it was his idea, and he put the band together, and it was his mum who was longtime friends with their managers.”
“Really?” That I did not know. Outside of our first lunch at the Hotel Bel-Air, we had not discussed the nuts and bolts of how August Moon had come to be. “Hayes’s mother was friends with their managers?”
“Yes, the Lawrences. Alistair and Jane. You’ll meet them eventually. They’re verydaunting,” she emphasized with a clenched jaw. She sounded to me like Emma Thompson.
“He doesn’t really talk about them. I know Raj and Graham.”
“Graham,blech,” she scoffed. “Graham is not particularly fond of girlfriends. Or girls at all, I presume. He and Raj are associates—or, as I prefer to call them, glorified minders. But Alistair and Jane own the company. Jane and Hayes’s mum, Victoria, grew up together. And when Hayes was seventeen, he came up with this idea and made a video and a PowerPoint presentation and sold Jane and Alistair on it. They did a search to find Rory, and it went from there. It was pretty brilliant on his part, because no one had ever thought of a posh boy band.”
“No. And why would you?” I laughed. It seemed far-fetched. Butthere was no denying the way it had caught on. The genius of it. Like bottling the appeal of a young roguish Prince Harry, multiplying it, and distributing it to the masses. With some infectious melodies, strong vocals, and clever lyrics thrown in. And just the right amount of edge.
“Yes, well, I think they all thought it would be amusing. They’d have lots of fun and there’d be lots of girls and it would be a cool way to see the world. I mean they certainly weren’t doing it for the money… But it was Hayes’s brainchild, so things tend to weigh more on him. Plus he’s serious about his music.”
I sat with that for a while. Replaying all our conversations about the group and the things that made him unhappy, the relentless touring and promotion, the idea of being crammed down people’s throats.
When we reached Route 27, we turned around and headed back toward the ocean. It wasn’t until we were bypassing our turnoff and continuing on to the beach that she spoke again.
“Ihaveseen a lot.” She picked up our conversation with no lead-in, as if she’d been mulling it over for the past four miles. “You are his quintessential type. You’re just better at it than the others.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re smarter, you’re wittier, you’re more sophisticated, and you don’t seem to get caught up in all the bullshit…”
“Oh.”
“You’re also older, and for some reason he likes that.” She’d said it plainly, but there was something there. “And, you know, your face is perfect.”
The boys were lounging by the pool when we got back to the house. They’d finished playing tennis and were sitting out in shorts and not much else soaking up the sun.
“How was your run?” Hayes pulled me onto his lap, nuzzling my neck. “Mm, you’re all sweaty.”
“So are you. Shower?”
He nodded. “Just a second.”
“What are you doing?”
He had his iPhone, poised down by his knees. “I’m Instagramming a picture of my feet.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“No. They love this rubbish. Watch… and ‘share.’”
