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I miss you, Kitty Cat.
Tucked behind it was a ticket for their final show tonight.
I stared at the pieces of paper, unsure of what pissed me off more. That he thought I’d come running to him with just a simple note or that he’d sent me a standing-room-only ticket.
I slapped the two pieces together and lifted them to tear them in half.
“Woah! Woah! Wait a sec, hang on!” The delivery boy jumped forward and grabbed my hand, stopping me. He froze for a second, blushing furiously as he looked at his hand on mine. He quickly let go and stumbled backwards, chattering, “Look, look, okay, he told me to drag this out, but I’m not gonna do it. I’ve got, like, five more of these tickets here, and it’s Clutch’s last show in London, and these things are like gold dust, I swear. I know who you are, and I’m not gonna judge you for it, but if you’re gonna tear up the ticket, you might as well give it to me because Sasha, my girl, see, she’s been dying to go and see them and we missed out getting tickets right when they came out, and she’ll love me forever if I bring her back a pair.” He got it all out in one breath, panting and blinking at me hopefully. He pulled five more envelopes out of his red messenger bag and offered them to me.
“He said if you tore them up or burned them or whatever, I just had to keep giving you them until I ran out. It’s dead sweet and all that, but seriously, if you don’t want them, you’d be doing me a solid if I could have a few.”
I was left standing at my front door, holding four envelopes as the delivery boy, Freddie, skipped away to the elevator. I didn’t know if the two tickets I gave away had messages, but when I opened the other envelopes, they all said the same thing.
What a cheap bastard he was. Even though a thrill ran through me. He hadn’t given up. It still pissed me off that he thought he could summon me so easily, but he still wanted me, even after all the crap I’d put him through.
I sighed as I looked down at them. I didn’t know how he was or what he was thinking, or even if we would see each other again. I’d pressed my back against my front door after I forced him out and felt him pounding against it, begging me to let him back in, back through the door and back into my life. I had been so numb I’d decided then that I was done. I wasn’t giving him anything more. He would only hurt me again.
That was two weeks ago. I’d had time to stew, to think about what it meant to have someone love you so deeply that they would let you strangle them just to bring you some relief. He kept giving and giving, and all I did was beat him back, keep him away from me, try to control his heart with my harsh demands. Despite all that, he still loved me.
That was his question, wasn’t it? Will I try? Will I turn up, face him, show him that maybe, just maybe, the idea of being with him wasn’t as revolting as I’d made it seem? I kept using my pride as an excuse, but I’d fallen apart in his arms as he made me come while he whispered how much he loved me. I’d let him hold me and thrust into me until I could barely say his name. He’d breezed past every one of my defences and revelled in my hate, and he still wanted to be with me.
He was mad. We both were. The moment I let him get under my skin, he’d taken root, and part of me knew this thing — this attraction, obsession, whatever constantly pulled me towards him —it would never stop growing. It had never stopped, not since the moment I first laid eyes on him in that dingy pub in North Oxford and thought he was the sexiest man I’d ever seen.
How far had we both come since then? How much had we changed? I wanted to say we still barely knew each other, that we’d never talked or spent any real time together, but it didn’t matter. Because we’d find the time. If I said yes to this, it wasn’t just me waiting on the sidelines while he played his concerts and toured. I wanted more. I wanted something that would last us a lifetime, even if it drove me crazy.
Could I do it though? Could I really go to this infuriating man and tell him that after all this, after everything we had put each other through, I really wanted to try?
Cat
The first thing that hit me was the noise. Lucy insisted we had to be as close to the barrier as possible, so we arrived three hours early to wait in the queue. I absolutely did not want to be part of the hundreds of sweaty, writhing bodies crushed together in the space below the stage, but they outvoted me three to one. Harry and Kate had never met Max before, and I’d invited them, thinking they, like me, would rather stand at the back and watch, but they were as eager as Lucy. I would have invited Dom, but since our last conversation about Max involved Dom swearing he would get some of Harry’s friends from the hospital mortuary to disembowel him if he ever came near me again, I thought Lucy would be the better choice.
I thought it had been loud outside the stadium, crushed among the thousands of people excitedly queuing for hours, but the inner stadium amplified the noise to deafening levels. I’d been to concerts before, but nothing so insanely huge as this.
After seeing the massive skeleton at the back of the stadium, the giant screens playing Clutch’s music videos, and the sheer number of people surrounding the stage that ran out into the middle of the pit they thrust us into, it finally sank home that Clutch was famous. The band I’d hung out with in Steve’s mum’s garage, the guys who’d been my friends and family in Oxford, they’d really done it. The seats were filling up quickly, and people were already beginning to cheer, shout, and scream their names into the echoing space of Wembley Stadium.
I was dreading this, terrified that if Max caught sight of me, he might do something stupid like point me out in the crowd or pull me up on stage. There was no hiding the fact we’d been together, not with all the articles and posts floating around. I’d rather not be the focus of a mob of angry haters or jealous fans.
Harry had his arms wrapped around Kate, nuzzling her ear, and keeping her warm as the night drew in. Lucy was watching them enviously. A string of failed relationships had had her on the back foot for almost a year. We’d been encouraging her to put herself back out there, but she was happier with wine and her book boyfriends.
Freddie had found us in the queue and introduced us to Sasha, who was quickly becoming Kate’s new best friend. Freddie and Sasha were already dancing to the music blasting out of the speakers.
A deafening boom crashed out across the stadium, and the crowd exploded as the opening act ran onto the stage from underneath the skeleton. The five of them bounced around the stage, introducing themselves. They all looked like kids, and when they started playing, it took me back to when Max, Steve, and Luc were still young and excited about life. I pushed myself up against the barrier next to Harry, mainly to avoid Sasha as she started wildly dancing around, pulling Freddie, Lucy, and Kate into her mad dance.
I could feel the ground vibrating under my feet, the sounds of the band’s drums and guitars pounding through my body, setting my teeth on edge. Through all the noise, the flashing lights, and the smell of smoke and sweaty bodies, I was trying to remember why I was here.
I was only here to see him. Nothing else. Even if I had dressed specifically for him, with ripped skinny jeans and a fleeced brown leather jacket done up to hide my electric green bra. I was here to see him play, look at how Clutch had grown, and maybe, just maybe, I would dance.
After half an hour of watching the Pegalo Sticks prance around on stage, I was ready to go. Too many people and sweat, too much noise, and too many flashing lights. I thought I’d stopped going to concerts because of Max, but apparently, I just didn’t want to be surrounded by so many people.
Pegalo Sticks finally left, and the crowd settled for five minutes before another cannon boom ricocheted around the stadium, and Max’s delicious voice rolled out from the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, rockers and lovers, are you ready?”
And the screaming began. It was far beyond the enthusiastic shouts for the opening act. These were genuine screams of passion and love. People were shouting so hard I knew they would be hoarse the next morning. Even so, they screamed, the entire stadium welling until all I could hear was thousands and thousands of voices chanting, “Clutch! Clutch! Clutch!”
It was insane. All this was for them, for those nutty guys who spent weekends getting wasted on beer and pizza and playing the same chords over and over again until they came up with something good — guys who loved their music so much they were happy to play in absolute shithole pubs as long as people listened. They rose onto the stage to flashing lights and hordes of screaming fans. I’d never met the man who replaced Goss, but he looked deadly serious as he played, his attention fixed on his bass guitar, not looking at the crowd once.
Thunder rumbled, the strobe lights swung, and a crash of guitars announced Max’s arrival as he rose onto the stage in a gorgeous cage decorated with chains and roses. It suited him perfectly. I loved the idea of him being behind bars, especially if the bars were wide enough for me to reach through. It would be so much fun to chain him up and keep him trapped in a hanging cage to toy with him.
I was still too far away to see his face, but the giant screens had zeroed in on him. My heart, that faithless organ that had brought me nothing but trouble, shook as another canon blasted, and Max’s cage fell away, revealing his face. Close up, in front of thousands of people, he wore those gold rings proudly, with nothing else apart from kohled eyes and a knowing smile.
