Heart over Head over Heels Read online

Heart over Head over Heels

  James Eddy

  Copyright 2012 James Eddy

  Bewilder

  Bonfire Blues

  Lily Green

  The Devil eats Coleslaw

  Fading Polaroids in Reverse

  The Graveyard

  Hello, Emptiness

  Revelations

  The Ghosts Are Out Tonight

  In Dreams

  Diamonds

  Cover by Christoph Hildebrand, Lauren Bathurst

  Publishers Notes

  Disclaimer

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the United Kingdom.

  Heart over Head over Heels

  Standing between the bar and the stage, Rebecca felt her stomach turn over on itself. She wasn't sure if it was worry or excitement, although the excitement in the room was certainly hard to ignore. She heard a shrill cheer from the barrier nearest the stage, and, she was bumped by people running for a closer look. Her breathing quickened at this and the sight of the band. At that moment though, she knew it wasn’t only music on her mind. Her eyes found him, appearing from out of the shadows into the spotlight on the left side of the stage. She was about twenty metres away when the light shone down on him. From there, she thought his bedraggled mess of hair looked like a halo.

  He looked a lot like she remembered. Five years had hardly aged him and that was a relief and a surprise. There were so many stories about his self-destructive behaviour that she'd sometimes wondered if the man she'd known still existed. She rarely wondered for long though. There was always something in a memory or a lyric that convinced her he was more than he was made out to be. That's why she was at the gig that night. Too much time had passed. She missed him and that was all that mattered.

  That was also why her evening wasn't well planned. By following her heart, she hadn't worked out how she would actually get to meet up with him. All she could do was watch him almost spinning out of control on stage. The music constantly on a knife-edge; like it was about to fall off at any moment but always pulling back just in time. Whispers, sighs and screams sitting next to pretty sounds ripped from a battered black guitar. She found it as heart-stopping as ever.

  Rebecca obviously knew he liked a drink but this was different to what she remembered. Even at his lowest, when Scott drank to forget, he always remembered to take some pleasure in it. That wasn't what she saw that night. It looked more like he'd forgotten what pleasure was. She only hoped that wouldn't be permanent.

  And then, the music came crashing to a sudden halt and the room went dark. A solitary spotlight shone down onto Scott. He walked to the microphone one last time. He spoke and she listened. Noticing that despite spending half his life trying to hide it, the East Anglia of his childhood was still there in the odd word.

  “Thanks very much for coming to see us. I hope I get to see you all again soon.”

  There was a half-formed smile that accompanied his words, followed by a turn and return to the shadows. Rebecca knew she had to get backstage.

  Her heart won over her head again. No planning. She'd just wing it. After all, she did know him and she'd followed his career closely enough to know a bit about his inner circle too. She just hoped it'd be enough.

  She weaved her way through the rapidly clearing crowd and approached one of the security guards at the barrier.

  “Could you let me through please,” she asked, “I have an interview with Mister Drake.”

  The reply came in a distinctively cockney twang and with barely a glance in her direction.

  “No press, love.”

  “What?”

  “There’s no press allowed through here. I've got my instructions.”

  “Are those instructions from Mr Cale? Because he’s arranged a one to one thing between Scott and me. It’s all pretty short notice, so it might not have got round to everyone... If I were you I’d go and tell him Rebecca Blake is here waiting for his man.”

  It was a pretty decent lie. Quite artful and polite but hiding a little truth too. The security guard weighed up his options, then nodded to her and walked off into the backstage area. Rebecca was right to assume he'd know Louis Cale, Scott’s manager, wasn't someone you messed with. She'd known about his reputation in the industry for some time and she was glad he was working for her friend rather than against him.

  It was that hardnosed reputation which caused the first doubts to enter her mind though. This time her head was winning over her heart. There was an ache in the pit of her stomach and she wondered what chance she really had of meeting Scott that night.

  She suddenly felt stupid. Of course, Cale would know there wasn't any interview. She decided she'd been wasting her time. That she was waiting at the barrier to the only place she wanted to be, for a security guard to come back and tell her Cale had never heard of her.

  She felt down and wondered what her options were. It was either walking away or jumping the barrier. She didn't get the chance to do either. The security guard came over to her.

  “Please follow me Miss Blake. Mr Cale is this way.”

  She hid her shock as well as she could. Her heart thumped strongly from her chest up to her throat. Her head was spinning. It couldn’t have been an oversight. That wasn't how Cale worked. There had to be a reason for him to let her inside and she could only think of one possibility.

  In the five years since she last saw Scott, she'd only done one thing that showed she cared about what he was doing. That had been three years earlier, after reading a particularly horrible review of one of his gigs. She'd leaped to his defence and let the writer know how pointless his review had been. At the time, part of her hoped Scott hadn’t read the letter when it got reprinted in a variety of music magazines. There was also a much larger part of her that desperately hoped he had and that her words showed she still cared about him.

  It was only after several months passed without any response that she'd let herself get on with things. With her life and with writing her book. She'd met a nice man called David, who even her mum liked. He was lovely and things could've been great but he was only what she needed and not what she wanted. That ate away at what they had together and by the end, he wasn’t even what she needed anymore. Just a six month footnote. He deserved better but she wanted and needed to be amazed again.

  She found it odd to think that Scott might've known after all. But there wasn't time to even try to work out how she felt about that. The security guard had come to an abrupt stop in front of a short, sharp featured man.

  Louis Cale was flash, intelligent and as tough as he needed to be. A man of infinite bluster, he was sharp enough to avoid conversations where he wasn't prepared for all possibilities in advance. He always tried to be at least one step ahead.

  “So you’re Rebecca Blake,” he said to her.

  She felt defensive and couldn't hide it from her voice.

  “Yes.”

  He stared into her face, furrowing his brow a little as he did so.

  “Yeah I can see that... But, I don’t think you’re here to interview Scotty.”

  He smiled. A surprisingly warm, hearty smile for a man who probably wasn’t all that used to doing it. It softened his stern, dark eyes to reveal a little of what Rebecca assumed was the real man underneath. She shifted a little where she stood:

  “I just wanted to see him.”

  “Good... Well, my boy’s right over there,” he informed her with a gentle gesture towards the other end of t
he corridor.

  He carried on talking about something else but Rebecca didn’t hear him. Her eyes were on Scott. Cale understood. He stopped talking and took a single step to the side to let her through.

  The light in the corridor was much brighter than when he was on stage, so she got a more detailed view of him as she approached. Scott was busy talking to a tall, chubby cheeked and doe-eyed man in a shirt, tie and hat. He took a swig from a bottle of beer in his right hand and laughed at something the other man said to him. As he did so, Rebecca realised there was still hardly any difference in how he looked. In fact, he looked almost as lost as he did when they first met.

  Somewhere below her looks and thoughts, Rebecca’s heart was in charge. Beating out a primal rhythm with a quickening tempo. The nerves in her belly seemed to jangle in noisy accompaniment. Then Scott looked directly at her, freezing her heart as the feeling in her stomach rose and fell in an instant. He removed himself from his friend without removing his gaze from her. Each of them stepped in the direction of the other, sharing the same silent thought that had repeatedly occurred to them in the five years that had led them to that moment:

  ‘I hope I haven’t changed too much.’

  Learn About The Author

  A writer of multiple genres, James Eddy began writing film and television scripts before moving into Short Stories, Novels and Novellas. Heart over Head over Heels is his second short story. For more information, please visit www.jameseddy.co.uk.

  ABOUT YOUNGBLOOD BOOKS

  Founded in 2012, Youngblood Books is owned and operated by James Eddy. We publish a diverse range of genres, including Comedy, Drama, Children's Stories, Romance, Fantasy, Literary Fiction and Comics. Visit us at www.youngbloodbooks.co.uk to keep up to date with all our new releases.

  Bewilder

  Bonfire Blues

  Lily Green

  The Devil eats Coleslaw

  Fading Polaroids in Reverse

  The Graveyard

  Hello, Emptiness

  Revelations

  The Ghosts Are Out Tonight

  In Dreams

  Diamonds