ch. 7 - hustling for the good life
table of contents
if you made it to the end, thank you🥰
the way forward
Touring is absolutely insane. It’s not as crazy as some people’s like, say, Allie Gooding, but it’s still so. Much. Work. You don’t really dance, mostly hold your guitar while sitting in the middle of a stage while people twirl and leap behind you.
It’s a Blue Glass tour, technically speaking, but Mango is by far the highlight.
You’re in the city of its origin, with its muses sitting front and center.
“I’ll let you go/Because it’s best for me/I slip out the back/And turn the key,” the audience sings.
i saw u on tiktok, Jamie texts that night. fukig mint the way the crowd sang all the words.
Claire was crying, you type back. And why can’t you ever spell “fuck” correctly??
cant all be smarty pants musicians, Jamie writes. Then, been blessed to be a dumb, sexy footballer.
Ok, I have to go to sleep. Flying to some small city tomorrow afternoon. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Called something like idk, Landon? Lodan?
He asks, u still staying at mine?
Yep. Can’t wait!!
FUCKIMG M I N T, Jamie responds.
—
You’ve been in Richmond for approximately four hours, just long enough to say hi to Keeley, eat dinner, and, you know, ditch Natalie so you and Jamie can make up for time spent apart.
“That’s disgusting,” she says before hopping into the hired car.
“Ok miss ‘I fucked-‘”
“WHOA, ok,” she says, “I’m going to stop you right there. I’m out of here.”
But now you’re laying in Jamie’s bed as he runs his hand up and down your arm, tucked against his side.
“You’re bringing the team to the show tomorrow, right?” you ask.
“Hm,” Jamie agrees.
“Cool,” you say softly, “Do you think they’re going to want to meet the musical guest?”
“Yes,” Jamie says immediately. “Lads’ve been hounding me all week. Even fucking Ted’s been asking.”
You smile. “Seems no one’s immune to the charms of Allie Gooding.”
“I fucking knew it,” Jamie gasps. “Fucking knew it. You gonna do Creekside?”
“Yeah,” you say.
“You’re amazing, you know that?” he asks, twirling a strand of your hair between his fingers. “How you do all this shit, I don’t know.”
You’re silent. The truth is, you don’t even know how you do all this shit. Natalie is barely managing to keep your head on straight as it is. At first, it was fun to travel. Now, you just want a good night of sleep.
You have an especially hard time with meet and greets. It always feels too crowded and stifling, and there’s no Jamie to hold your hand or sneak you out the door so nine times out of ten, you have a panic attack while pretending that everything’s fine.
You’d be happy never touring again, just playing your guitar for Jamie in the living room. Writing songs for the people you love and only for the people you love. Mango felt important in a way that Blue Glass didn’t. It had a message and actually helped people, whether or not they knew it.
Claire sent you a small video every time her song was playing in a shop or on the radio, then end the song by clasping her thumb and index finger into a heart. She sent one of her and the other women in her new house, dancing to Kitchen Epiphany.
“We wouldn’t be here without you, babe!” she said at the end.
But she was wrong. You wouldn’t be there without her. It’s wrong, all wrong, but you only have a couple nights with Jamie so you roll on top of him and press your lips to his.
—
You’re in Greece less than a week and a half later, sporting a Tartt jersey as you pull up to your hotel.
Natalie’s been making wiggly eyes at you the whole time you’ve had it on but you don’t care because you’re almost done with this godforsaken tour and you haven’t broken up with Jamie. He still loves you, for some reason you don’t understand.
But hey, you’ve never claimed to understand the male brain.
As you make the mad dash from the car into the safety of the lobby, you hear a familiar voice call your name. You turn and see Donovan, your most recent ex. He’s smiling and holding hands with a girl you used to see around his photoshoots.
“How have you been?” he asks warmly.
“Good!” you say. “Hopping all around the world, but good!”
He’s still smiling that picture-perfect smile. “Saw you’re dating Jamie Tartt. You guys actually look happy together. Just like me and Zoe. Unless, of course, it’s show?”
“Oh,” you reply, startled. “I, uh, well,”
“It’s ok,” Donovan interjects. “Zo knows we weren’t actually dating.”
“Oh,” you say again, relieved. You never did feel the need to act around Donovan. “Yeah, no, it’s real. At least, it feels real. Wasn’t set up by a PR firm or anything and we’ve been able to keep it pretty quiet.”
Donovan nods. “You’ve always been good in staying out of trouble. Me, not so much.”
Zoe grins from her place on his arm. “Yeah, but now we get into quiet trouble. We’re getting married this week, and no one even knows that we’re dating.”
She holds out her hand to show you and Natalie the biggest ring you’ve ever seen.
“Nice,” Natalie says. “But we’ve got to check in. Great to see you, Donny.”
“God,” she says as she drags you away, “that could’ve been you. You would have made perfect plastic babies with that absolute fucking Ken.”
“Hey, Dono was nice,” you defend.
“Uh huh. What with all that… personality.”
Ok fine, so maybe he was rather one-dimensional. He and Danielle seem perfectly happy. You’re glad that he’s doing well, despite your so-called “torrid love affair.”
You’ll have to drop by their room at some point to catch up for real.
—
You end up going out to a club with him. And Natalie and Danielle of course, but as you step through the doors, you’re kicking yourself. Why did you think this was a good idea? It smells and it’s crowded, but you’re going to suck it up for Natalie, and for the sake of socialization. Your only consolation is that pretty much everyone will be too drunk to know who you are.
It’s all fine, you’ve had some water and you’re dancing with Natalie when the lights hit your eyes wrong, or maybe the beat dropped when you weren’t expecting it, but it doesn’t actually matter because your eyes go wide and you feel like you’re drowning. You push your way through the crowd out the door, barely noticing Donovan and Zoe hot on your heels.
“Hey,” he calls after you, “you alright?”
No, you want to say. No, you’re not alright because you’re with a bunch of strangers and you just want to be home with Jamie. You want to kick a football around with him on the weekends and hold his hand and be alone. You can feel tears sliding down your cheeks, and Donovan cups your face in his hands to wipe them away.
“Maybe we should go,” he says concerned. Zoe’s leaning against a wall, phone out.
“Already got an Uber,” she says. “You’ll be ok, babe.”
Donovan presses a kiss to your forehead. “C’est pas de problème,” he says. “Ne stresses pas.”
—
You can tell something’s wrong the moment you wake up. Maybe because you can’t hear Natalie in the other room or maybe it’s intuition, but the air isn’t right. You open up your phone to Instagram and find a picture of you and Donovan from last night. He’s holding your face and looking at you with what you know is concern, but to the observer looks like- love?
Oh shit.
The caption is the standard bullshit - “Forest Fire singer reignites old flame,” and you think you might be sick.
You keep scrolling and there’s another one, this time with Donovan kissing your forehead. The caption underneath is a rant to the effect of, how could you cheat on Jamie Tartt? What a greedy little bitch.
The more you go, the more you find. It’s the same set of pictures with the same set of captions.
It’s the damage to your public image that concerns you. You’ve been around long enough to know that it will blow over, especially because it’s unsubstantiated. You’re thinking of Jamie.
Oh god, what’s he going to think? You’re positive he’s seen it already, because how could he not? It’s so rare that you have a so-called scandal, that you’re trending. If he didn’t find it on his own, one of his friends definitely sent it to him.
Your phone is blowing up with news notifications and text messages. You have ten missed calls from Natalie an inbox full of voicemails. You’ll probably delete all of them without listening.
But what you really care about is Jamie because in the plethora of messages all you’ve gotten from him is a single fucking voice memo. It’s five seconds long, the exact amount of time it takes to say “fuck you,” and you don’t want to open it.
But a voice in your head compels you, the same voice that gave you the ok to fall in love with him in the first place, so before you can talk yourself out if it you press play and hold it up to your ear.
“Hey,” says Jamie’s voice. “I love you.”
And that’s it.
You don’t even try to calculate what time it is in London, you just hit the call button.
“Hey,” says Jamie’s real, actual voice.
“Hi,” you breathe. “I love you. And I hate touring. And press. I just want to make my songs and never fucking tour again. Donovan and I weren’t even doing anything. I had a goddamn panic attack and he was helping me calm down, and his literal fiancée is like three feet off camera but no one knows they’re together because fuck the press.”
Jamie chuckles. “No one’s making you do all this, love. You don’t owe people anythin’. You can just live your life without selling it. But like, if you want to sell it you can. You know?”
“Yeah,” you say.
“Oi. Look. Are you actually doing what you want? Because if it ain’t making you happy, you can stop.”
You can hear a muffled voice in the background before you have a chance to respond.
“Yeah, it’s her,” Jamie says to the voice.
There’s a chorus of your name as Jamie says, “Dani and the lads say hi.”
“Tell them I say hi,” you respond. “Wait, where are you? It’s like nine there. Are you at training?”
“Weight room,” Jamie says, “but don’t get distracted. Are you happy?”
“No,” you say. “No, I’m not I want to- I want to play my guitar in your backyard and talk to Clare and help out Christine and not give Natalie a fucking aneurism every single day. I want to be able to sleep and not worry what people think of me and I want to like singing again. I want to visit my friends and have time to listen to their music and maybe I’ll tour with them, but only for fun. And most of all, I want to be with you. I want to go to all your matches and wear so much red and blue that I look like a gremlin and then I want to go home with you. And I want, like, domestic stuff too, like grocery shopping and cooking and- and-”
“And brushing our teeth at the same time,” Jamie helpfully supplies.
“Yes,” you say. “I’m really tired of all this.”
“Well,” Jamie says, “you’ve got one more week. Then fucking come home.”
—
You tell Natalie she’s fired, just to see the look on her face.
She starts yelling when you tell her you’re kidding but only kind of and then she hits you with her purse, stringing together curses in both English and Spanish.
She’s less mad when you give her a raise and tell her she’s now in charge of managing all your shit so you don’t have to.
“I thought that’s what I was doing already,” she says, and now it’s your turn to smack her.
“First decision I’m making is switching to KJPR,” she says.
You ask, “What the fuck is that?” with a nose wrinkle.
Nat just grins. “Keeley’s PR firm.”
You let out a scream. “NO FUCKING WAY. NO FUCKING WAY! How did I miss that??”
Natalie shrugs and says, “She told me to pass on the message because she figured you were busy. I sent her a very nice gift basket from you.”
You sigh and grab Natalie for a hug. “You’re the absolute best, you know that?”
“Uh huh,” she says. “You’d be dead without me.”
—
It’s off-season, a year later. You’re on a beach in Brazil, lying in a chair next to Keeley, who’s in a hot-pink bikini.
“I never want to go back to England,” she says, sipping her drink.
You laugh. “I think your boytoy would disagree.”
She huffs and says, “Not my fault he has all that fucking hair. And anyway, he’s the one who wanted to come!”
“Fucking grandad,” Jamie grumbles good-naturedly next to you.
“You invited him,” you say. “You said, ‘Babe, Roy has to be there when we elope.’”
“How was I supposed to know he hated the sun?” Jamie asks, exasperated. “Twat never said anything!”
“He wears black all the time and never smiles, babe. He’s basically a vampire. You should’ve known.”
“I can fucking hear you,” Roy says from under the umbrella. “I’m not fucking deaf.”
You pinch the bridge of your nose and say, “I’m just glad Natalie left yesterday. Some honeymoon this is.”
Jamie gets up from his chair and flops on top of you.
“Oof,” you grunt.
“Sorry,” he says, not sorry at all. “Hey, think there’s a pitch ‘round here? I brought my boots. Think they’re under the bed, love.”
“Yeah, yeah,” you say. “‘Football is life,’ or whatever. I’m gonna write a hit song about how my husband likes a fucking ball better than me.”
“I’d pay good money to hear that,” Roy says.
Jamie props himself up on his forearms and puts on his most angelic expression. “That’s me, the adorable yet sexy trophy husband. I’m your muse.”
“You’re something,” you say. “Ooh, I think I can use that in the song!”
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