Ollie’s sardonic tone echoed in Shay’s head, but despite his words being right on the money, Shay pushed them aside and slid an arm around Ben’s waist. “I’m fucking starving. Can we get pizza?”
Ben grinned. “For you, superstar, anything. Ooh, I’ll text Ollie. See if he fancies it.”
He would’ve surprised Shay less if he’d punched him in the face. “You have his number?”
Engrossed in his phone, Ben didn’t look up. “Yup. I got drunk with him yesterday.”
“Did you? Where was I?”
“Sulking in your bunk with your notebook. You went straight back to the bus after the gig, remember?”
“Ollie wasn’t at the gig.”
Ben stopped walking and tapped his phone a few times before sliding it into his pocket. “No…,” he said, clearly confused by Shay’s needy reaction. “But he was smoking outside when we came out, sitting by the water all lonely and that, so I invited him for a pint. Turned into seven pints, obviously, but that’s the Irish for you.”
“He’s not Irish.”
“Nah, he’s Polish, which means he can drink me under the table.”
Shay didn’t know what to say. Ben’s apparent familiarity with Ollie burned him up inside, even though Ben was straight, and probably so was Ollie. Jealousy made Shay’s stomach ache, and suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore.
Oblivious, Ben took Shay’s arm again and hustled him forwards to catch up with the others. “There’s an Italian place round the corner,” he said. “Jog on, mate.”
The Italian place turned out not to be Italian at all. It was owned by a couple of young hipsters who happened to make the best pizza Shay had ever tasted. “This is sacrilege,” he said around a delicious mouthful. “We can’t eat Irish pizza.”
Mara flicked his ear. “Then don’t. Leave some for the rest of us.”
Shay ignored her and scarfed another slice. Despite feeling moody as fuck, his appetite had returned like a hungry bear as soon as they sat down, and now he couldn’t stop eating, much to their amusement.
“We taking you back to the bus on a wheelbarrow again?” Larry said.
“Shopping trolley, more like,” Shay retorted. “Can we get another of these sausage thin crusts?”
Larry rolled his eyes, but seeing as he absorbed Corina’s role of mother whenever she wasn’t around, he ordered more pizza.
A little while later, Shay was quite happily in a carb coma. It was so worth the manic insulin calculations he’d had to make to stop his blood sugar rising through the rooftops. He slouched back in his seat and sipped vodka and soda while the rest of the band got stuck in the beers. The restaurant had a bar below the balcony their table was on. It wasn’t long before they lost Jumbo to a group of young women who’d piled in for cocktails.
Shay leaned on Larry and watched Jumbo work his magic. He was a tempestuous, lovable moron most of the time, but he oozed charm when he wanted to, and Shay wouldn’t be surprised if he brought more than one guest back to the bus for the night.
As ever, Larry was too comfortable. Shay’s eyes got heavier and heavier, and he was half-asleep when something Larry said to someone else made him jerk upright. “What?”
“Ollie.” Larry jabbed his thumb over the balcony. “He’s down there with Jumbo and Ben.”
Shay looked out over the kicking bar below. While he’d been dozing, he’d missed a DJ setting up in the corner to play an eclectic mix of indie rock and deep house music, and also Ollie appearing in the crowd, which was unbelievable considering the thundering stampede of his heart now, the mad tingling at the back of his neck, and the flash of adrenaline that eclipsed any carb-induced sleepiness.
Ollie was wearing his standard leather-jacket-and-ripped-jeans combo, but he’d swapped his Vans for battered boots, and his jeans seemed tighter, hugging his compact frame in all the right places. Shay gulped more vodka as a flush of heat stole over his skin. Jesus.Does he have to be so fucking fine?
Shay felt Larry’s shrewd gaze on him and wished there were more pizza left to hide behind. Or more vodka in his now-empty glass.Fuck it.“I’m going to the bar.”
“’Bout fuckin’ time,” Larry muttered.
“Piss off.” Shay gathered empty glasses. “I bought the last round.”
“If you say so.”
Shay couldn’t take that phrase, even from Larry, without hearing Ollie’s voice wrapped around every syllable. He drifted through the restaurant and down the ornate staircase, all the while wondering if his obsession with Ollie was terminal. If after the tour, when everyone had gone home, he’d be left shivering over random words some random dude from a TV company had once said to him.
Random dude. Shay shook his head. Goddamn, he needed another drink.
