In My Life - George Harrison/The Beatles

Chapter Seventeen: Normal

October 1962

Despite her reluctance to leave London, Connie couldn't help but admit that it was good it be back in Liverpool.

Paul met Connie outside the train station leaning against his dad's old car. He kept his eyes down, his coat collar up and hoped that no one would recognise him, even though it was getting harder to walk down the streets of Liverpool and go unnoticed. He and the band had been local celebrities for a while at that point, but with the release of their first record things were getting trickier for them all. Even so, he wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to see his best friend for the first time in two years.

He watched her skip out of the train station, suitcase in hand, wearing her battered looking leather jacket over a light blue dress that came to her knees. That was a surprise, considering he'd never seen her wear a dress before, especially not one of that style. It was a style all the rich girls in magazines were wearing, the sort of girls Connie used to sneer at. Her hair was shorter too, or it was straighter than it's usual frizz, he wasn't really sure which it was but either way it looked different from the wild mane he was used to seeing her with. Maybe London had changed her after all, despite all her protests against that possibility.

"Alright, Macca!" she cheered excitedly with a grin, running down the last few steps and throwing herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly.

"Bloody hell, Lennie!" he exclaimed, taken back by how tightly she was hugging him. "You can't have missed me that much!"

"You have no idea," she told him as she pulled out of their hug, rolling her eyes as she threw her suitcase over to him. "I can't believe I'm actually here,"

"I can't believe you're here either, I thought you'd never return, but here you are!" he teased, putting her suitcase on the backseat as she got into the passenger side of the car. Paul followed her, sitting behind the wheel, glancing over at her with a pleased smirk. "It's good to see you though, Con,"

"Don't be soppy Paul," she told him, rolling her eyes and she did her seatbelt, watching nervously as Paul began to drive, pulling away from the station. "So how come you're the one picking me up?"

"It wasn't a big debate or anything, it was your dad actually who asked me to come get you," Paul shrugged, making Connie sigh sarcastically considering she had been imagining the arguments between the boys as to who would be meeting her off the train, but at the mention of her dad she grinned enthusiastically.

"How is he?" She asked, though her eyes didn't drift from the window, watching the sights as they drove by.

"He's alright, handling our fame quite well," Paul told her, and upon catching her slight frown in his mirror, he continued, "Fan's'll literally turn up at my door at all hours, and y'know what me dad's like. He'll let 'em in, offer 'em tea and biscuits, the whole works, so your dad offered me the spare key for us to rehearse in the back room of your house. He said it was no trouble and that he missed us constantly over there making racket and cluttering the place up,"

"Same old dad then," Connie nodded with a small smile, her gaze fixed out of the window still. "I bet Dot is thrilled by all the female attention you're getting at the minute,"

"Erm, yeah, about that..." Paul drifted off, scratching the back of his neck nervously and as Connie realised what he was insinuating she turned to him with a dramatic gasp before bursting into laughter.

"Bloody typical! You finally find a bird I like and you bloody dump her!" She shook her head, hitting his arm though he flinched dramatically, making the car jerk slightly. "Shit, sorry, better focus on the road,"