Evie | H.S |

114. The payout

"Well thanks for making time for us." Remi smirked as she sucked on the straw that poked out the top of her cocktail. Her glittery, smokey knowing eyes narrowed further and I could read the sarcasm clearly. "First Italy, then Morocco and France and then you fuck off home for two weeks? So rude man" she continued with a laugh.

"Ten days in Australia" I corrected with a snide chuckle. I'd messaged the two of them here and there while I was away, like I did with Annie, but this was the first proper catch up in a while.

"You're just salty it wasn't you on a yacht with Alex" Aisha bit back, coming to my defence. I stifled a laugh. I hadn't seen the girls in a little while and all teasing aside, it was nice to be back in London, back to recording and back to some semblance of normality after the whirlwind of travel and chaos.

"Tell us everything" she pressed, her long pink finger nails reaching for the bowl of fries sat in the middle of the small table we sat at in a Camden pub.

"Jesus, where do I start" I laughed dryly.

I decided to start with my time away with Alex, and to be honest, so much had happened before and then after that I hadn't really been thinking too much about it.

The trip was nice, fiery at moments but that was to be expected. Alex's family were very welcoming and kind of proper too, which was a little confusing given his behaviour at the best of times. But I kind of began to realise why he was the way he was. He had a hard to please Father and a Mother who seemed to be too wrapped up in her husband to pay too much close attention to their kids.

I'd thought we were simply going to go see his Dads work with the orchestra but there was a whole fancy gala event that went along with it - step and repeat and all. From Morocco, we'd then joined his family on a yacht around Corsica - a French island I literally never knew existed. I'd truly stepped into an alternate universe.

We had semi-behaved in the company of his family but the minute we were in Paris it was back to red-wine and cocaine induced bickering, but I didn't mind. I was writing more music than I had since I'd arrived in London and I hadn't even finished with the album I'd moved here for. If I was to take a silver lining from every small argument and every poem he would scribble on the hotel room mirror with my lipliner, it was the lyrical content. If I was to suffer, it'd be for my art. Cathartic songwriting had always been what I did best.

I was enjoying living the high-life. Maybe I was romanticising it, but there was an essence of grandiose rock and roll glamour to my adventure with Alex that was easy to get carried away with. Outside of all that, stripping it back, I did love his company. He was exciting, intelligent and witty and best of all, he didn't care for breaking down my walls.

"I still can't read you very well, you know" he'd mused while we sat outside at a boulangerie in Paris sharing a pastry alongside a coffee and a cigarette each. All I could respond with was a smile. If I was a book, he seemed ok with looking at the pictures and ignoring the words and I think that was fine by me.

"You two are fucked" Aisha chuckled into the salted rim of her margarita.

She was right. But I kind of enjoyed it.

"You wanna know who's even more fucked?"

Both of my friends put their drinks down and looked to me with expectantly raise brows.

"Harry " I almost whispered with the knowledge we were in public. We were sat in a quiet corner of a beer garden but I was trying to be in the habit of being aware of my surroundings a whole lot more than I used to be.

"Oh yeah" Aisha spoke breathily, dragging out the words dramatically. "I was waiting for this."

Both girls sat up straight, attentive and ready. I dove into the cliff-note rundown of the final show, the car jacking, the few days in Bagnoregio, the apology, the day trip and then how we'd left things via text.