I bit the inside of my cheek, trying my best not to project my rampant feelings outward, lest any of the guys or our staff realised. What the hell was I watching? Who the hell thought this had been a good idea? I thought, convincingly regretful of having been actually relieved I wouldn’t have to appear on the Princess of China video.
Except for a handful of occasions, I had never been keen on acting on our videos, you needed to spend long hours to get just a four minute snippet and I wasn’t an actor, I honestly felt quite stupid and out of place there, pretending to play my guitar or doing random things the directors asked us to do. I was rather shy. Chris, on the other hand, he had always loved doing crazy things. It worked quite well with his type of personality. That was probably why he had been really enthusiastic when it had been decided he would perform on the video with Rihanna. He absolutely adored her. A fact I wasn’t too happy about.
It had all started quite innocently, a few years back when he caught one of her live performances while flipping through the channels late one night at a hotel during the first leg of the Viva La Vida Tour. He had always loved her songs, and that night, her performance captivated him. I did not think much of it at the moment, after years of being first his friend, and then his partner; I was by then used to his eccentric music preferences. We had countless artists we both loved and admired, U2, The Pixies, Bob Dylan, to name a few, but then, he also genuinely loved artists like Shakira, Beyoncé and well, Rihanna, not just because they were smoking hot, he honestly liked their music.
So when writing for our last album, the guys and I weren’t surprised when he came one day with the idea for a song he had written with the young singer from Barbados in mind. We quite liked it, it fitted our project and so after he got up the courage to call her and our staff managed to get the label’s permission and all that legal procedures one did not always have in mind when creating music, she came to record her vocals at the Bakery. Her music nor her overall attitude were appealing to me to be honest, but Chris was so eager and he had worked so hard on that song, that I truly did not mind. I had to admit she was talented and brilliant at what she did, despite not being my cup of tea. What irked me was how focused on her Chris had become during the time she spent in London, she quickly became close to him, not so with the rest of us, but I never thought twice of it, I attributed it to a matter of personalities. That was until I started perceiving something that made the hair on my arm rise and not in pleasure, something that made me uneasy. I couldn’t put my finger into it, but I sensed a tension, something I did not like.
One day, while she was recording the final take of the song at the studio, I glanced over at Chris and it hit me, he had a crush on her, I instantly knew it. His eyes, his whole face beaming in admiration. Innocent as it might have been, it made my gut twist with jealousy. The curious thing was that if confronted about it, Chris would probably have not realised about it. He was intensely passionate when he liked something and he generally took little or no time to analise it, he was just swept away in an ocean of feeling and emotion. Not that he had ever done anything out of line or inappropriate then, it was just this funny feeling in the air. Fortunately, she left and we did not see her again. Chris went back to being the same Chris he had always been and the only time she was brought up in conversation was when talking about Princess of China. That song was always meant to be a single and so it made perfect sense to have her appear on the video for it, Chris was not going to miss the opportunity and so the story for the video was thought including the two of them and their characters.
Oh, he looked Goddamned sexy in the video and I also had to admit he looked rather cute doing all those ninja moves. I still remembered how excited he had been that night when he came home after the first day of shooting. He had not filmed his scenes with her yet.
*flashback*
“Hey, Jon,” he said a huge smile on his gorgeous face while he approached the bed, where I was sitting.
“Hey, babe, how did it go?”
“Awesome!” my heart lifted at seeing him so genuinely happy. “I met these guys, they’re stunt actors and they taught me some ninja moves. They’re great!” He grinned and sat down on the hotel bed in front of me.
“That’s fantastic!” I told him. He looked like a small child who had just come from the amusement park, brimming with excitement.
For a moment I felt guilty we had got away with not appearing on the video, it was our band after all, and Chris would have to do all the work, but he was ecstatic about it.
“You should have accepted a role as my ninja counselor or something, I would have loved seeing you dressed like that,” he teased, “Mmm sexy,” he said with a sly expression.
“I don’t think so!” I laughed, “I would just look like a fool! I still wonder how you got us all to dress like elephants for the Paradise video!”
“Oh yeah, that was cool!”
“Yeah,” I agreed, putting my legs across his.
“What have you been up to while I was out making a living?” he said wrapping his hand on my calf.
“Mmm, you know I….just…was here,” I said. Truth be told, I had not done anything productive, besides booking a reservation at a restaurant for our dinner. Guilt settled in again.
“Fair enough,” he laughed, “I’ll have my scenes with Rihanna tomorrow! I saw the sketches and it looks amazing!”
“Really?”
“Yeah, her wardrobe is really sexy I must admit,” he said with a cheeky smile. I was not particularly thrilled about it, but I did not feel in a position to comment on it.
“Are you two having some sexy scenes then?” I asked nonchalantly, trying my best to conceal my disappointment.
“Well, I don’t know about sexy, rather loving scenes, I’d say,” he casually answered, not concerned in the sightless about them.
“No kissing, right?” I couldn’t help asking, staring at him with a serious expression.
He chuckled, “No, no kissing.”
My heart started beating again; the idea of seeing him kiss someone else was appalling. Those were my lips. Those lovely pretty lips of his, I thought eying them intensely. In no time, I leaned in and kissed him. It did not last long, for he broke apart soon, excited about telling me everything that had happened on set. He had even snapped some pictures on his iPhone to show me, even though he wasn’t supposed to. I shook my head and listened to his stories. He was utterly adorable.
*End of Flashback*
