Tangerine Kisses: A Novella

Chapter Two - Sebastian

Katya likes to say "no publicity is bad publicity" but I am starting to learn she is wrong, very wrong. Since our incredibly public breakup the press will not leave me alone. They linger outside our shared apartment in LA (technically Katya's which I am now moving out of) and snap and sizzle away at us every time we appear on the balcony, by a window, or God forbid – leave. Honestly by the end of the week I am exhausted by it all but Katya seems to be in her element. She has done the Hollywood star thing a lot longer than me and since her list of exes included people like Justin Beiber, and the Jonas brothers, I'm not surprised she is as cool as a cucumber sitting on the back-facing balcony sipping a margherita at 10am.

'Do you have to leave?' she asks me coyly, peeping over the top of her Ray-Bans.

'I'm going back to London,' I say wearily. I have told her this about ten times since my agent Dave called and said he had a good opportunity waiting for me back in London. Something to help me lay low and let this bad publicity blow over. 'I've got a job there.'

'What, your play?' She sneers. I think actors like Katya, who grew up in the Hollywood hills and had famous parents, and were basically acting in films as soon as they could talk, don't understand sometimes the struggle the rest of us go through.

'Yes, a play,' I reply.

She laughs again and goes back to her margherita. 'OK, have fun,' she says, completely insincerely.

Believe it or not this is not the reason we broke up. We have been like this for a while: not quite able to see things from the other's perspective, constantly bickering, etc. But like all Hollywood couples I thought it came with the territory, perhaps we could work it out. And then the party happened. Looking back I should have seen it coming and probably broken things off with her before we could both ended up cheating very publicly and then proceeding to have an extremely heated argument about it... also in public. I can feel my face growing warm as I think about it. Or maybe that is just the LA sun. The glamour of Hollywood is starting to wear thin, and I am exhausted from promoting the three films I happened to be in that won awards this year. Two of them I was a supporting role, hardly worth mentioning, but my big break: Wicked Man's Rest meant that suddenly overnight I went from well-known British actor to A-list British actor. And I have been struggling to keep up ever since.

My mobile rings and I see it is Dave, when I answer he is asking if I received the play manuscript and if I am leaving for my plane yet. After I finish my call I collect my suitcase from the hallway (Katya's assistant will send the rest of my stuff in the next few days) and call goodbye to Katya, still on the balcony. She does not respond so I take that to mean she is either ignoring me or Facetiming The Weeknd.

** ** **

London is grey and miserable but it has a certain sense of nostalgia that takes me back to when I used to live in the city. It has not even been that long since I moved to LA, maybe a few months, but my life has done a complete U-turn since then and it feels like a hundred years ago.

Dave has managed to find me a temporary apartment close to Hyde Park ('so you can go jogging there in the morning with Harry Styles, if you like' he told me excitedly). I was tempted to revert to my old stomping ground in Wembley, where I used to live about five years ago when I first moved to London. But realistically the commute alone to the Maretto would take half my morning. And now I can afford to live in the centre of London.

On the morning I am due at the theatre for the first read through of the play I do actually go for a jog around Hyde Park. I have never done it before and underestimate how long it takes me. I pass plenty of other joggers on the way but I am so focused on getting round that I don't fully register if they are other celebrities or not.