Me and You

evening/morning

I got out of the van at the boys' temporary house and followed Van upstairs. We sat on the bed and he picked up his guitar. He looked at me with a smile and started telling me about how he wants to write a song as big as Sex on Fire or Live Forever.

"How long does it take you to write then, if you're saying you write about three songs a night?" I asked, furrowing my eyebrows and resting my head on my fists.

"Not long, it takes as long as it does to listen to for me to write," he said, which impressed me. There are good writers but then there are good writers.

He started strumming and singing about some 26 year old he was lusting after. The song was played at the gig, and it sounded almost exactly the same in his bedroom as in a gig with massive amplifiers and speakers - except acoustic, of course.

I sat against the headboard of the bed, listening to Van. He knew the song inside out, and I could see how much time and effort and passion he put into the band. When he stopped playing, he looked up at me with a grin waiting for my response.

"That was class," I said, impressed by him, "What's the story of that, then?"

"Well when I was like 17, there was this girl who used to go to all of the same parties as me and my mates and that. And she was 26, but she didn't look 26 and I kept trying to get with her. I was always like; 'oh I know I'm young but I'm the best man you'll ever have.'" He said, laughing at himself in slight embarrassment.

It also cracked me up, "you genuinely thought you had a chance with a 26 year old?" I laughed, holding my side, "Van, you are something else."

He blushed in increasing embarrassment as I laughed, before tapping my arm as if to tell me to behave. I composed myself and turned to look at him and found him whipping out a notebook from under his pillow.

"What's that?" I asked, peeking over the cover to look at what was on the pages.

"Songs," He replied, barely glancing up at me as he turned to an empty page and picked up his guitar again, playing different chords and humming a melody. However, he stopped abruptly and looked at me with a grin.

"Sorry," he said, scratching the back of his head.

"No it's fine, I don't mind," I replied, "play me something else."

Van placed his fingers on the neck of his guitar to start playing, but he stopped himself and looked at me.

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" He asked. It was dark and getting late and the wind of these March nights was still vicious, but the mischievous look in Van's eyes had me agreeing before I could think about saying no.

We were out of the front door and on the streets in seconds, a cigarette was lit between Van's teeth and was happily mumbling the words to 5ive's Keep on Moving. It had gotten more bitter since we set off for the bar and I was pissed off at myself for not bringing a jacket.

Within half an hour, we were sat on a bench in the park overlooking the duck pond, the same park where Van gave me a heart attack little over a month ago. I dug my lighter out of my back pocket and held my hand over the flame. Van dug around in his pocket and held in front of me a lighter on his own. He seemed pretty proud of it, so I took it from his hands and took a closer look; across the side it had 'Catfish and the Bottlemen' and had a bottle opener on the bottom.

"We've got some proper merch now," He said as I placed the lighter back in his hands, and gave me a grin. I smiled back at him brought my feet up onto the bench and wrapped my arms around them.