Trust (London Love #5)

“I believe you requested the room service department to deliver your meals. Anything else, you can call me directly—”

“Nah,” I interrupted, grabbing a pen off the table. Because…no. Eddie didn’t need the stress, and I could handle things. Also…

“You text me and I’ll make sure things get done,” I said, grabbing a scrap piece of paper off the table and writing my number on it. I thought about adding my Instagram handle but didn’t. I was not going to be that person, even though I wanted to. I mean, he was The Dieter.

“Thank you, Reuben,” Eddie said with a definite hint of relief in his voice. Good. We were all on the same page. It was like we had our own little secret service department, right here.

Then we all…just stared. Eddie stared at the computer screen, Dieter stared at Eddie, and I stared at Dieter standing there. He was pale and looked as tired as Eddie did and I felt. The pissed-off-tired gang.

I got where Dieter was coming from, I really did. Sometimes I just wanted to get out of my own head. Out of my own life. Peace and quiet. A dark room with a bed where I could just exist and block everything out.

I liked my own company. I liked being alone.

“Come on, mate,” I said, trying to muster up some cheer. “Let me take you up and get you settled then.”

I grabbed the key out of Eddie’s hand, the one for the King George Suite. Easy. Private entrance right by the lifts. Dieter would be okay there for a few days. I opened the door and nodded for him to get moving.

I’d take him up in the staff lift, deposit him safely where he belonged, then I was taking my break early because I really needed a cup of coffee and a nap. Preferably a long one.

Got your number

GRAHAM

Okay. Deep breath. I needed to close the curtains, make the world quiet and dark around me so I would feel safe. Safe was actually the wrong word. Safe was what my management said all the time. More security. The safety of the client is paramount here. Ensure that security is set up. Human beings were vetted within an inch of their lives so they could transport me from A to B without me getting lost. Sometimes I still got lost. Really lost.

None of them were really human. I had a robot-like bodyguard sitting in my kitchen all the time. A rotating team of people who barely spoke to me. Another team in a car circling the block three times a day. I was never alone.

Serves you right, you might have said, but no. It didn’t. I hadn’t asked for this. I’d wanted to sing and make music and all that shite that came with the naivety of youth, but in reality, I had no say in anything. Not anymore. I was told what to eat, what socks to wear, when to sleep, where to live. I couldn’t even go down into my own kitchen without being questioned and judged. I kept a small supply in my rucksack so I didn’t have to even leave my room—snacks I stole from hotel rooms and green rooms and hospitality hampers—all stuff that shouldn’t go anywhere near my temple of a body.

It was no life. I knew that now, and I was at breaking point.

I laughed and flopped down onto the plush hotel bed, then got up again to remove the rucksack from my back.

The bed was soft, the room cool. Rooms actually. Three of them, all mine for the next seventy-two hours for the extraordinary price I’d coughed up.

Not that I would be safe here for long. No doubt Lauren, my manager, would check my credit card balance and find out where a chunk of my royalties had disappeared to. Then she’d turn up here with some other band of other robots masquerading as people and force me to get back into the swing of things.

The security guards and all the other crap were at the insistence of my insurance company, as there was some kind of policy on my head that wouldn’t pay out unless I was supervised twenty-four seven.

Which was…no fucking life.

I had a couple of days off until I was supposed to be back in the studio.

I had a photoshoot on Sunday. A heavily scripted interview to complete on camera afterwards. Clothes to wear in a certain way. My stylist would be throwing a complete fit at the state of my skin and my greasy hair.

Then I was expected to swan back into the Blitz offices on Monday, reacquaint myself with a bunch of lads who probably would rather swallow razor blades than speak to me again. We weren’t exactly close and hadn’t come off that last tour with any kind of affection for one another.

To be more truthful, we’d been sick of it all. Most of us had been really unwell, exhausted and drained and munching on too many synthetic substances so we could go on stage upright and look half alive.

I never wanted to do that again. And this new album I was expected to magically produce?

Wasn’t happening.

I wasn’t going to turn up. I may have been a child…well, I wasn’t, but I felt like a spoilt, horrible toddler tottering around in an existence where I had no say in anything. I couldn’t even take a shit without hearing the night security guard move around downstairs. And now I was expected to write lyrics?

I needed to be on my fucking own. Just for a little while so I could rest.

Properly rest.