Chapter Two
I hung out in the green room with Nina and Jenny, watching the interview on a flat screen. Robbie did the majority of the chatting and after a few minutes announced his engagement to Jenny. The result was a scream of excitement and wild clapping from the live audience.
When the frenzy calmed, the show’s host, Claudia folded her arms. “So,” she said, stretching her ruby-red lips wide. “If that’s two members of the hottest band on the planet taken, girls will be worrying about their chances of bagging a Manic Machine. Tell me, Dean, Tim, is there anyone special in your lives?”
Tim sat with his ankle over his knee and his arm stretched along the back of the couch behind Dean. “Might be,” he said with a grin. It was the first time he’d spoken.
“Go on,” Claudia said, leaning forward with encouraging eyes.
“You’ll just have to watch this space,” he said with a slow bob of his head, and tugging his bottom lip with his teeth.
“Oh, very coy.” Claudia laughed. “And Dean, what about you?”
Dean looked at Tim. His eyes narrowed and a muscle flexed in his stubbled cheek. “Mmm,” he said, his focus not leaving his brother’s face. “Yeah, there’s someone I have my eye on too.”
“Tell us more,” Claudia said, raising her perfectly arched eyebrows.
“Well, obviously I can’t go into detail.” He poked at a cigarette packet shoved up the hacked-off arm of his t-shirt. “But I will say Tim and I have amazingly similar taste in women.”
Tim cocked a dark eyebrow at Dean. There was a moment of heavy silence.
“Oh, goody,” Claudia said, rubbing her hands together and bouncing up and down on her seat. “A battle of the brothers, who will get the girl? And I must say…” She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead in a dramatic swoon. “She’s the luckiest girl on the planet.”
My heart fluttered and a flush of heat spread across my chest and up my neck. Oh my God, were they talking about me? They’d just announced on national prime time TV that they both liked the same girl. Unless my antenna for spotting serious flirting was well off track, that girl had to be me.
I caught Jenny and Nina swapping meaningful looks.
“What?” I asked, swallowing down a lump the size of Santa’s sack.
“You don’t stand a chance,” Jenny said.
“No,” Nina agreed. “You have two of the most determined guys in the world after you. It’s gonna get real messy.”
I poured another glass of warm, fragrant wine and gulped it down in two swallows.
“And it’s going to be so much fun to watch,” Jenny said on a giggle, reaching for the remote.
She turned up the sound on the TV as the guys took to the stage and began to hammer out “Slip Knot”, their Christmas number one.
A wave of excitement washed through me that had nothing to do with Christmas and everything to do with the two hot brothers I couldn’t stop imagining getting naked, sweaty and knotting my limbs with.
* * * *
The band rolled back into the green room on a high. Robbie swept Jenny into his arms and kissed her until the others shouted at them to get a room.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said laughing, “We will en route to the cottage. We’ve got both sets of families waiting for us so it’s not going to be our usual sanctuary.” He helped Jenny into a long red coat. “See you all after the holidays, have fun.”
Ian slapped him on the back as he walked past to the door. “Our fate’s worse than that,” he said on a groan.
“Hey!” Nina poked at his ribs. “You love going to visit Dee and Matt.”
“Dee and Matt, yeah, it’s the little ankle biter, he makes so much noise and jeez, the smell from those nappies.” He wafted his hand in front of his face.
“Be nice.” Nina frowned.
“I am going to be nice.” He grinned suddenly. “Anyway it’s good practice for, you know...”
Nina looked up at him.