Page 28 of Wish You Knew
“I can tell my management, the model bookers I work with, the people in the industry. Warn them off using him, you know? But then how does that make me look?” Rosie reached for her glass again. “Suddenly, I’m high maintenance and difficult to work with. You have no idea what the industry can be like.”
“So he gets away with it because you’ll be seen as the troublemaker? That’s not fair.” My brows knotted together. “Surely after the Me Too movement that’s changed?”
Rosie shook her head. “I wish it had. I mean, I’ve never been subjected to any of the casting couch experiences, thankfully.”
“You have friends who have?”
“A few, yeah. Although it was for TV and film parts, not model shoots. But it shouldn’t happen.”
Her eyes darkened and I wondered whether she was telling the truth. If someone had tried something, I would kill them. My hands balled into fists beneath the table. Seriously, I should have punched that Mark guy out when I had the chance.
“Thank you for this.” Rosie gestured around the kitchen with her glass. “It really is good to be away from London for a while. I needed to get away. How long are you staying for?”
“Only until the end of the week. I promised the guys we’d go back in the studio and record some new material.” I took a long pull of my beer. “Which gives me precisely four days to come up with a bunch of songs.”
“Tell me how it works? Do you come up with the words and someone else does the music? Or do you do it all?”
I wished I could tell her it was all me. That every Trash Gun song was the fruits of my creative endeavours. But I couldn’t lie to Rosie. She brought out the goodness in me.
“It depends. Sometimes I’ll write something with a definite tune in mind, then Declan and Mat will weave their magic on it. Other times, it’s just a collection of words, which they’ll work on to make sense of the ideas.”
“What inspires you?”
You do, Rosie Tatton, you inspire me.
The words almost slipped from my lips, but I kept them back.
“People, places, moods, feelings.”
“Ah, so you do have feelings then.” A smile threatened her lips.
“You have no idea.”
I hadn’t realised I’d spoken the words aloud until I saw Rosie’s lips part and she gave a small gasp.
Shit.
Hastily, I backtracked. “I mean, when we’ve had a brilliant gig, the adrenaline is buzzing, you don’t want to come down off that legal high, the sensations, seeing how you’re making others react. Sometimes it can be overwhelming. I’ll never get tired of it. Ever.” I twirled my almost empty beer bottle around in my hand.
“There are times during a gig when you seem to zone out, and get lost in whatever’s going on around you,” Rosie said, quietly.
It meant something to me that she’d noticed. That she’d taken the time to seeme, and not just the guy at the front with a mic.
“It still means so much. I know how lucky I am to do a job I absolutely fucking love. I’d hate to get up every morning loathing what I have to do.” It was the undeniable truth. Every morning I woke up, grateful as fuck not to have to go to a bank or a shop or whatever. To know I could be creative and lose myself in a world which wasn’t always real.
I hadn’t opened up to anyone like this before. What had started out with me trying to make sure Rosie was okay had ended up in an almost full confessional.
Yeah, I really did have feelings.
14
Rosie
Sunlight streamed through the curtains, and I blinked at the brightness, taking a couple of moments to realise where I was. Again, apart from the birdsong, everything was quiet. It was an absolute delight.
Scott and I had ended up talking until the small hours. He shared tour stories, no doubt censoring them for my apparently delicate sensibilities, and I told him about the more glamorous shoots I’d done abroad. Throughout the whole night, he didn’t make one move on me, except to kiss my cheek when we’d called time on our evening.
The devilish part of me was disappointed he hadn’t. The sensible side of my brain told me he was respecting what I’d gone through with Mark. To pounce on me wasn’t something a good friend would do.
