Mark Means Tested (Deff Book 3) Page 5

  "Why did you think this was a good idea?"

  Chris seems to consider. "Because you're his friends and they're my friends and it seemed odd that you hadn't met one another yet. Thought it might be fun for our birthdays."

  "Right."

  "Clearly I was wrong," Chris says. Simon forces himself to stay quiet. "You seem pretty angry about it."

  "Why do you care? You don't know me. You barely know him."

  "How long have you known Mike?"

  "Long enough to know he's called Mark."

  Chris's gaze slides to the Audi. "It's a nice car."

  "Yeah. Did you already know his real name? Why didn't you say anything?"

  "He asked me to call him Mike, why wouldn't I respect that?"

  "Because it's not even his name."

  "Have you seen his ID? Perhaps his name isn't Mark or Michael."

  "This is ridiculous," Simon mutters to himself.

  "Just a thought. I'm not trying to start anything."

  "Good, cause I'd finish it."

  Chris's smile fades. "He's said your real name is Pratt. Unlucky."

  "Maybe that's not my real name," Simon says sarcastically. "Have you ever seen my ID?"

  "I'm sorry you don't like the artwork."

  "I didn't say that."

  "I heard you didn't like how I broke you down and scattered you around."

  Simon toys with his car keys, jaw clenched. "You said the album cover was gonna be a photo of me."

  "It is."

  "Not properly, it's not. Just stick my photo on the cover, it's not hard."

  "I was inspired by you and Mike," Chris says and Simon grips his keys harder. "By how you've disassembled and reassembled yourselves into these strange new shapes."

  "That's great, but it still looks like crap."

  Chris looks unfazed. "Perhaps that's because I don't know what you're trying to achieve, either of you. Maybe if I understood why you're doing all this, I could do a better job."

  "Maybe if you actually knew him."

  "You know him, do you?"

  "I know he used to have arse length hair. I know he had a terrible metal band and fucked the lead guitarist. I know he's got a drugs problem. I know he's a thief, and a criminal, and he just finished community service, and his mum's dead-"

  "You shouldn't."

  "You asked me, so I'm answering."

  "I'm not trying to have a fight with you, Simon."

  "That's smart."

  Simon feels Chris's attention on him like a laser.

  "Have you and Mark," Chris begins.

  He follows Chris's gaze and sees Mark walking up the street. "No. Did he say we had?"

  Chris's expression is impossible to read. After Mark spots them, Chris finishes his cigarette and offers Simon a smile.

  "Paid the bill with minimal bloodshed," Mark announces as he draws closer. He shoots Simon a grin. "You owe Zoe for your bit, she'll take cash or a pound of flesh in lieu."

  "I'm giving her a ride in the Audi, that'll cover it."

  "Your lot pissed off to the club," Mark tells Chris. "Said to say you should get a shift on and join 'em. You going dancing as well, Si? Got your gold suit with you?"

  "I told you, one gig at Comptons was plenty for me," Simon mutters as he climbs in the car. "See you Friday. Happy late birthday, Mike."

  "Ta muchly. Come on Christian," Mark says. "I'll walk with you, I'm heading the same way for the tube."

  Simon closes the door and watches as they retreat in his rear view mirror. Once they're out of sight, he reaches in the glove compartment for his pills.

  Chapter 6

  Simon

  "You've got to be kidding."

  Simon's eyes snap open. Zoe is sat in the passenger seat, staring at him in apparent disbelief.

  "I was just resting my eyes," he says.

  "How much have you taken?"

  He rubs a hand down his face to wake himself up. "Two, what it says on the bottle."

  "And when did you last take them before that?"

  "What's with the intervention? I just had my eyes closed, I'm not ODing. We heading back then?" he asks, putting the key in the ignition.

  She leans over and grabs his arm. "Not a chance."

  "I took some prescription tablets, I didn't even have wine."

  "Whose prescription is it?"

  "Mine!"

  "You must be refilling it every week."

  Simon glowers at her. "D'you want a lift or not?"

  "I want to get home," she agrees. "I'll drive."

  "You're not on my insurance."

  "I agree it's not ideal, but if our options are someone who's munted and someone who's not on the insurance, I think I'll risk the latter."

  "Weren't you drinking the wine?"

  "I had half a glass, Mark had the rest."

  Simon drags himself out of his seat and swaps with Zoe. To his annoyance, she adjusts the driver's seat and mirrors.

  "You done?" he grumbles.

  "Can it." She starts the engine, eyes widening when it roars.

  "Good right?"

  "How much did this cost?"

  "Seven thousand."

  "Bloody hell," Zoe winces. "Think I'll stick with the Bongo."

  "The suspension on the Bongo feels like you're sat on a concrete mixer."

  "It's still got four wheels and gets you from A to B."

  "Yeah but it doesn't go from zero to sixty in six seconds, does it?"

  "Oh, I'll bet you're doing that all the time on the Southend autobahn."

  "It looks and sounds good," he says, leaning back in his seat. "It's like me, if I was a car."

  "Give me strength," she mutters.

  He looks at the lights on the Thames as they make their way east. When it becomes obvious Zoe intends to stay silent, he clears his throat.

  "Shit night," he says.

  She snorts, looking suddenly conspiratorial. "Really? I had a great time."

  "Seriously?"

  "Course not seriously. It was awful, fucking awful. Joe said he could do it again, provided we had fewer courses next time. Not me, that was a one time deal."

  "They were..."

  "Yeah," she agrees.

  "Chris is..."

  "Chris looked like he wanted to be beamed up as badly as we did. That's his bloody fault for being friends with those arseholes."

  "I was gonna slap the tall one if he called me pretty again."

  "Mark calls you pretty all the time. You are a bit pretty."

  "I'm handsome, I'm classically good looking." He ignores her laughter. "It's different when your friends take the piss."

  "Hold on, did you just call Mark your friend?"

  "My bandmate, my dickhead bandmate. Whatever he is, you get what I mean."

  "For once, I actually do."

  He takes to chewing his lip as he watches the road. "I thought he was a twat."

  "Who, Andy? He was the tall one."

  "No, Chris."

  "Did he find you?" Zoe asks. "He said he was going to help you look for another parking space."

  "I made that stuff up about my ticket running out."

  "No shit, Sharp. So did he find you?"

  "Yeah."

  "What did you talk about?" she asks.

  "Nothing."

  "You must have talked about something."

  "I said I didn't like the artwork," he admits.

  "And how did Chris take that?"

  "Dunno. Didn't seem that upset."

  "Probably for the best."

  "You'd care if Chris was cut up about it?"

  "Joe wants to be nice," Zoe says with a wrinkled nose.

  "Why does he? Chris is just some bloke."

  "Hardly, he's with Mark. That's unheard of, Mark's never dated anyone."

  "Never? Really?"

  "Not that I've ever heard about."

  "Him and Chris aren't in a relationship, they're just fucking," he mutters.

  "They're fucking on an exclusive b
asis, that's practically married by Mark's standards."

  "Can we stop talking about Mark fucking?"

  "Gladly."

  "D'you agree, though?" Simon asks despite himself. "D'you think we should be nice about Chris?"

  Zoe pulls a face. "What Mark gets up to is his own business. It's good that he's happier but..."

  "Go on."

  "It sounds awful to say."

  "Say it, I won't tell anyone," he insists.

  "You've not got a great record when it comes to keeping promises."

  "I won't say anything. It won't do me any good to tell anyone what you've said, will it?"

  "Mark's less productive now. He's always late getting back to Southend for practices because he's coming from Bermondsey. At least when you were dating Amy you were only down the road."

  "Least we've got that bet going about the next single."

  "I still don't get the point of that."

  "What? We're each writing a song, that's double the output."

  "Yeah and half the quality. You write your best music when you're working together. When he's working solo, Mark's stuff gets all mopey and your stuff... I don't even know that I've heard anything you've written by yourself."

  Simon sags at her assessment. "Mark'll be closer to the studio if he spends the night at Chris's. That's good, I guess."

  "True. And Chris is helpful, even if his friends are awful."

  "You mean cause of his art?"

  "His art and the video stuff, yeah. Doing all of that for free is a plus."

  "I bet Amy would've given us free makeovers and hairdos if we'd asked," he says, tapping a beat on the passenger door.

  "This isn't some competition about who's got the best boyfriend or girlfriend. If it was, you're losing. You got thoroughly dumped, remember? Are you still not seeing anyone?"

  "Not my style. I'm too young for it, I just wanna have fun."

  "Don't quote me, but I think that's smart," Zoe says. "If we're gonna be busy touring and recording, you want as few things holding you back as possible."

  Simon's throat tightens when he realises he doesn't recognise the rhythm he's tapping. He cycles through ABC's back catalogue in his head to be sure then stares at his own hand, stunned at what it's doing.

  "Did you and Chris really just talk about the artwork?" Zoe asks.

  He thinks of polite ways to shut Zoe up while trying to commit his ideas to memory.

  "Hello? Earth to Simon?"

  "What was that?"

  "Did you really only talk about the artwork with Chris? I wondered if you talked about anything else, since you called him an arsehole."

  "We talked about Mark," he says distractedly.

  "What about Mark?"

  "Are you always this nosy?"

  "It's an hour to HQ," she says. "It's this or play I Spy."

  "It's less if you put your foot down."

  "I'm not speeding. Did Chris say something bad about Mark?"

  "Who's ever said anything good about him?"

  "He's good at sex," she says.

  Simon considers jumping out of the car. "I'll tell him you said that."

  "Yeah, like you'd strike up a conversation about shagging around Mark. Credit where it's due, he is good at sex. He's seen a diagram, he gets where everything is."

  "Zo, stop. I get it, there's some positive things you can say about Mark. I don't need to hear them."

  "What bad stuff was Chris saying?"

  "He said he didn't know who Mark was."

  "Well he's not wrong, is he?" she says. "Though Mark's shit at being undercover, he's always forgetting to call himself Mike."

  Simon hums and feels increasingly short of breath as his ideas develop.

  Zoe glances at him. "Are you okay?"

  He keeps humming quietly as he adds in the beat from before. His breath catches when the two slot together.

  "What's that you're tapping?"

  "Nothing," he garbles out between humming verses. He fudges the link to the chorus then mutters "who are ya, who are ya".

  "You'll tell me if you're having a funny turn, won't you?"

  Heart racing, Simon weighs his options. He considers driving to Ryan's, but knows Ryan owns nothing resembling recording equipment. He thinks about how far away Southend is and how he'll probably forget his ideas before they're back at HQ. Unprompted, he remembers Will saying how Deff needed a song so catchy they'd get sick of playing it as an encore one day. He swallows hard against a wave of nausea.

  "Simon, you're worrying me. Are you feeling alright?"

  "I've got an idea."

  "I can see how that'd be a scary experience for you," Zoe teases.

  "A song idea. Shit, I'm gonna forget it."

  "Why do you want to forget it?"

  "I don't want to! I mean cause we're miles from home, I'm gonna forget it before we get back."

  "Is it a secret, this idea?"

  "Why would it be secret?"

  "Then why don't you just hum it for me? If you hum it, we can both try and remember. We could even work on it together if you'd like."

  "Isn't that cheating? It's a competition between me and Mark."

  "I won't tell if you won't. Hum it, it could be crap for all the fuss you're making."

  Simon stumbles over his ideas for the verse while Zoe nods along.

  "Something like that," he explains lamely.

  "That's not a bad start. Got anything else?"

  "Yeah, the chorus goes like." He hums again as he drums on the glove compartment. Zoe turns to stare at him.

  "Look at the road!" he says. "Don't go crashing my beautiful car!"

  "Stop whinging. Sing that again."

  He obeys, interrupting himself to explain "then there'll be chanting."

  "Chanting?"

  "Yeah, like football chanting." He senses Zoe's buy-in waiver. "You know, like who are ya, who are ya, who are ya?"

  "Put it all together."

  He awkwardly sings nonsense words along to the verse. To his surprise, Zoe joins in with the chorus, impressively in tune.

  He gives her a panicked look. "Did I nick the melody?"

  "Why are you asking me if you've nicked your ideas? Have you? Who from?"

  "Well, how can you sing along if you've never heard it before?"

  Her expression softens into a smile. "Simon, I can sing along because it's catchy."

  "Oh. Right." He blinks hard and stares out the window, trying to steady his voice. "That's good."

  "That's an understatement." She spots him blinking rapidly. "Are you crying? What've you got to cry about?"

  "I'd stand there, all day, at P&Ts," he says, then pauses to collect himself. "I'd daydream about playing Wembley and signing record deals but then I'd try and think up some melody or a beat and every time, without fail, I'd be remembering an ABC song or Heaven 17 or something."

  "But this isn't that."

  "You're sure? You're sure it's not ABC?"

  "Well, I don't know their stuff like you do, but it's not ringing any bells. Maybe writing music with Mark has helped, his song writing skills are rubbing off on you."

  "Don't tell him that."

  "You're going to forget your ideas if you keep prattling on."

  "Right."

  He starts up again, ad-libbing lyrics and singing nonsense when he runs out of words. Zoe sings snatches of melody back at him and they tweak and change the song as they go until they're both grinning at the road ahead.

  "You smiling cause you'll be able to trade in your Clio when this goes platinum?" Simon asks. "What colour Audi you gonna get?"

  "I'm not smiling because I'm getting a car," she says. "I'm smiling because I can't wait to see the look on Mark's face when you beat him at his own game. This is good."

  "No, it's great. This is a number one with a bullet."

  Another wave of nausea hits him. As a precaution, he winds down the window and leans his head out.

  "Don't go getting your head knocked off by a
road sign," Zoe warns.

  "Just feeling sick. I don't wanna get it on the upholstery."

  "Delightful."

  "No, it's a good thing. I feel good sick, like how you feel on a roller-coaster."

  "Then buckle up, Sharp. If we're right about this song, Deff's about to go from zero to sixty."

  He grins out at the empty, industrial landscape, breeze whipping at his fringe. He makes a noise somewhere between a yell and a laugh, before pulling back his shoulders and going back to singing.

  Chapter 7

  Mark

  "You two bezzie mates now?" Mark asks Chris as they make their way through Soho.

  He senses Chris's smile without looking at him. "Something like that."

  "What d'you talk about? How impressive yet humble I am?"

  "We talked about your hair."

  Mark tries to hide his bafflement. "And how lustrous it is? Groupies are always saying how gorgeous my eyelashes are 'n' all."

  Chris gives them a thoughtful look before glancing down at Mark's waist. "Simon said your hair used to be down to your arse."

  "Running low on conversation topics, weren't you? Yeah, it was long 'n' luscious, like a horse's mane. Impressive Simon talked about something besides himself."

  "You and Simon have slept together, right?"

  Mark schools his expression. "Why're you asking?"

  "I got the impression you had."

  "Have you slept with Andy?" Mark doesn't give Chris chance to answer. "Or Paul? Or Other Mark?"

  "Other Mark?" Chris asks with a smirk.

  "Well? Had a go on any or all of them?"

  "Why are you interested?"

  They come level with the entrance to the tube station. Mark gives it a brief, longing look but resists disappearing down the stairs.

  "Thought it was open season, since you're asking about me and Simon. Not about me and Joe, though. Did you not get the impression me and Joseph have buggered one another?"

  "Sorry if I've touched a nerve."

  Mark smiles meanly. "Don't be daft. I'm just confused why you're asking nonsense questions. Me and Sharp have done nowt cause he's as straight as the day is long."

  "I see."

  "How about you and your lot? I get a vibe from Andy you've," Mark mimes jerking off, "at the very least."

  "Like you and your old guitarist?"

  "Christ, right sordid little chat you and Laddo had, wunnit?"

  "It wasn't. Your reaction to my questions is extreme."

  "Cobblers. My reaction is totally normal, given how nuts your questions are. What's your door code again?"