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Hair Design by Elle, began as a small backstreet shop offering cheap cut and blows to old ladies. It didn’t take long for her to make a name for herself once the trickle of younger clients started coming to her. They spread the word, telling their friends who told their friends who told their friends… you get the idea. Six months later she moved to bigger premises on the high street, and six months after that, she was booked a month in advance at a time.
She’s cut my hair since before she even qualified – I was her ‘dummy’. So naturally when the band took off, so did Elle. Suddenly everyone wanted their hair styling by the same woman who dressed the hair of Sawyer Knight, and within weeks Elle Wilson was a prominent name in the world of fashion and beauty. Of course, some people challenged her, accused her living off the success of the band, but her work speaks for itself.
She’s worked her way up in the industry by working her tiny ass off. She attends, and even co-organises some, fashion and beauty events, and is now a well respected and admired member of her profession. That has nothing to do with the band, that’s all on her.
“What’s up with my muscle man, huh?”
An involuntary smile crept onto my face. She began calling me muscle man when I started hitting the gym when I turned eighteen. Elle is the only person who can get away with calling me shit like that and she knows it, too.
“I met our new head of security today,” I confessed, getting straight to the point. There was no point trying to lie to Elle. Sometimes I think she knows me better than I know myself. Fuck that, she definitely knows me better than I know myself.
“Aaaaand?” She drew out the word, clearly failing to see the importance.
“It’s Jake.”
“Jaaaake?” she pressed, confusion forcing her eyebrows together. Then it hit – the realisation. “Wait, Jake? Jake Reed? Jake, best friend until you kissed him, Jake?”
“I didn’t kiss him,” I snapped. “He kissed me.”
“Whatever. Let’s not go over the specifics again,” she said with a teasing smile. “So how do you feel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do. Tell me.”
“Pleased. Confused. Angry.”
“Angry?”
“He seems to want to pick up exactly where we left off. He… he told me I would be his. Can you believe that shit?”
“Wow. Ego much?”
“Exactly. I don’t know why he even thinks I’m… that way.”
“You can say the word, you know. It’s not contagious.”
Ignoring her, I continued. “I’ve never given him any reason to think I’m, I dunno, into him. Why does he have to keep fucking everything up? I didn’t think I’d ever see him again and now I feel like I’m seven-fucking-teen again.”
“Sawyer,” she said quietly, seriously, and I knew what speech was coming. “Why are you so against being who you are?”
“Please don’t start this bollocks, Elle.” Why does everyone seem to know ‘who I am’ when ‘I’ have no fucking idea?
“Don’t you dare get pissed off with me. It’s the truth and you know it. When we left sixth form, when you started-”
“That was a mistake. I don’t want to rake over that crap.”
The truth is, Jake does affect me – just like he did all those years ago. I’d had ‘thoughts’ about other guys before that day, but I put it down to haywire teenage hormones. A phase. I convinced myself it was normal. Then, when he kissed me… and my body responded in a way it had never done before with a girl, it confirmed what I’d always suspected but refused to admit.
I thought I was gay. ‘Thought’ being the operative word. So, after leaving sixth form, I experimented a little. It wasn’t hard to meet willing guys in some of the clubs we gigged in, and I needed to prove my suspicions wrong. So I did. Over the course of a few months I accepted the odd blowjob from a couple of guys I barely knew. While they were the best orgasms of my life, I also realised if I closed my eyes it was really no different to fucking a girls mouth. Therefore, decision made. I wasn’t gay. I’m not gay. I can get whatever I need from a woman and that has served me okay this far.
“You were happy then, Saw.”
“I’m happy now,” I countered.
“Bullshit. You’re afraid.”
“DAMMIT, ELLE!” I yelled, jumping from the couch and stomping over to the minibar. Plucking out a full-sized bottle of whiskey, I took an eager glug straight from the bottle. “People need to quit making out like they fucking know me!”
“You’re saying I don’t know you? You’re my best friend, Sawyer. I do know you.”
After another swig of my medicine of choice, I twisted the cap back on sighed heavily.
“I’m going to have to see him every damn day and I don’t know how to deal with it. If he keeps it up, I’m going to have to get him fired.”
“You won’t do that.”
“Stop it, Elle! I mean it. You don’t know how far I’d go and neither does he.”
“Have you told him where to go? That you’re not interested?”
“Of course I have.”
“Then he’ll get the message and back off. Don’t worry about this, Saw. If you’re not interested then it’s really no different to the hundreds of groupies who lust after you every day. Just ignore him, and he’ll give up.”
“I don’t have to see the same groupies every day. I don’t have to talk to them. They don’t get to come into my personal space. This is different.”
“Only if you let it be. If he keeps harassing you when you’ve told him he’s out of line, that’s just creepy. Thinking about it, he always was a weirdo in school. No one ever hung around with him. I always thought he would turn out to be a murderer or a paedo or something.”
“Don’t say shit like that,” I snapped. “He’s nothing like…” I trailed off when I saw her plump red lips turn up into a smirk. She only said those things to get a reaction out of me and I stupidly fell for it. “You barely knew him at school. I don’t think you guys ever even spoke to one another.”
