Her Song

11 - Blue is the Colour

**Van**

Ultramarine. Azure. Sapphire. Navy. Periwinkle. Teal. Liberty. Cyan. Sky. Cornflower. Denim. Cobalt. Indigo. Midnight. Oxford. Prussian. Cadet. Cerulean.

Blue.

Like my balls.

It wasn't so bad. I wore my near constant state of blue balls like a badge of honour. Because if my balls were blue I hadn't yet cracked and made a move on Kim.

Of course it also meant that I hadn't yet thrown my principles to the wind and hooked up with one of the girls who seemed to be hanging around Josh, Ace and Gray. Not that they brought any of them anywhere near the studio or our flats. That would have been a bad idea. We were living in the strangely protected existence of what Lucy liked to call 'the compound', the series of adjacent flat's, home and studio that belonged to Lucy and her mega-famous parents. According to Lucy her parents had bought up the various properties next door to each other so they didn't have to live in a mega mansion. Friends, family, staff and guests would have a place to stay near by without any loss of privacy, or more importantly for staff – without the huge expense of living in central London or the hassle of a long commute. Honestly, the way Hope and Troy lived was another world. If I hadn't known them both for years I'd never have believed how down to earth they both were. As down to earth as Troy and Hope were I didn't think they appreciate the presence of random groupies so close to their private space.

With friends and family they were more than generous. You'd have thought I was in line for sainthood with the way they, and Lucy, had reacted when they'd found out that I'd offered Kim shelter and moved her in with me to what was beginning to look like my semi-permanent digs. Rich was still acting like an idiot and the tabloids had been filled with the news that Clara Brookes had moved into, and I quote, 'the glamorously bijou London residence of Tricky Williams'. My house may have been small but they would have been more accurate if they described it as 'the squalid bachelor pad owned by Van Williams and currently infested with a bad case of Tricky Williams'. Sometimes I wondered if the best answer wouldn't be to just sell it and let the new owners deal with Rich and Mike.

Anyway, blue balls aside, it was remarkably easy to share a space with Kim. Which, considering the way all of my most recent encounters with her had held more than a whiff of drama, was a significant feat but perhaps that had all been down to the asshole ex whose name, in some kind of weird initiation into girl code, I'd agreed never to mention.

She did her thing, I did my thing and occasionally we crossed paths and even enjoyed a drink together. Never so many that we were in danger of enacting the exemption clause in our rules that allowed us to share a bed in the case of extreme drunkenness. Because that would be foolhardy in the extreme and I doubted my balls would survive it. Particularly if I woke up in close proximity to the tiny scraps of fabric she insisted were sleepwear. Personally I'd have preferred if she slept covered in neck to ankle flannel and had even considered lowering the temperature on the thermostat to encourage her to consider it as a viable possibility.

One thing that helped me sleep at night was the knowledge that there was a good chance that she was as frustrated as I was. I hoped. True to our agreement she hadn't brought anyone home with her and to the best of my knowledge, other than the nights she spent at Lucy's, she spent every night in her own bed.

We'd even managed to add another welcome addendum to the rules. The 'hands off my friends' addendum. It was exactly what I needed to help maintain my sanity. I would not, could not, be answerable for the consequences if she'd used one of my buddies as a rebound boink.

One night, she'd brought a couple of work colleagues home with her for a drink. I recognised one of them, a girl Lucy had set me up with for one of my ill-fated dates. Nice girl but at the time of our date she she'd made it abundantly clear that she had no romantic interest in me whatsoever. Meh, it happens, no hard feelings. However it was a shock to see her when I ducked upstairs to the flat from the studio downstairs in search of a snack, I hadn't realised that Kim and her friends were there. Three heads had turned to look at me.