Mr Barlow

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Songs for this chapter:

Westlife - Clementine

Take That - Shine

Michael Bublé - Everything

"Where the hell did you two rush off to?" Mark asked the minute we walked back into the house. Gary still had his arm securely wrapped around me because I still felt a bit limp.

"I had to talk to Chloe." He said setting me down on the sofa.

"Chloe? Why did you need to talk to her? And Katie are you alright?" Howard asked too many questions at once.

"She punched Katie in the stomach last night and there's now a big ass bruise where she did it." Gary sat down next to me and rubbed my back.

"She what? She was here?" Lauren asked standing up. "If someone had told me I would have slapped the little bitch, I've never even met her but she pisses me off, keeps trying to get in between you two." She huffed and sat back down again.

"Well the idea was to slap her but she has quick reactions and ended up punching me instead." I looked up and them all.

"Why was she even here?" Howard asked yet another question.

"Who knows," Gary shrugged, "She wasn't meant to be, she basically broke in. God knows how or how she managed to get past all of us." Gary answered rubbing his temples then running his hand through his hair.

"Katie are you okay? I've never seen you looking so drained." Jason asked.

"I'm fine." I managed to smile at them all.

"We think she possibly had a panic attack." Gary ignored me and replied anyway.

"I had to leave the car on some random street somewhere, Lauren Garys gonna drive you up there later so you can pick it up for us."

"That's fine." She smiled at me. "This is going to sound weird, but could we you know, see the bruise?" She cautiously asked. I looked around the room at everyone staring at me assuring myself I had nothing to be self conscious about.

"Sure..." I lifted Garys t-shirt up to reveal the bruise.

"Jesus," Mark said running his hand over it. "You're not doing very well recently are you, first you pass out, then you get punched, then you have a panic attack." Mark tried to sound sympathetic.

"Have you had anything to eat today?" Gary asked.

"You know I haven't, you saw me get up then chase after you." I sarcastically said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snap." I apologetically looked at him.

"It's fine," He leant over and kissed me. "I'll go make you something to eat, anyone else want anything?" He asked everyone else causing everyone to groan at him. "Come on, I'm not that bad." He put his hands up in defence.

"As long as it's not a fry up." Jason laughed referring to the last time he attempted to make that for us all.

"Fine, no fry up." He accepted walking into the kitchen. "Crap!" Be cursed when he walked in.

"What?" Lauren asked on behalf of us all.

"I forgot about my tea, it's gone cold." I could practically see him pouting in my mind as we all laughed at him.

---

"What happened to you over the weekend?" Lucy asked the minute I walked in the backroom for work on Monday.

"What?" I asked confused and unaware of what she was going on about.

"You're in so many of the papers today you know, The Sun is absolutely loving it. There's pictures of you and Gary dancing, you drinking, socialising with everyone and then there's pictures of the next day where Garys carrying you out of your car and into his. Am I completely missing something here?" She stared at me.