Sad_Girl
Blue Crack Supplier
**The following is a work of fiction. Not real.
Chapter Five
Larry opened the door, scowling at Edge for the way he’d been pounding on it to get their attention. His scowl softened as soon as he saw the emotion storming in his friends eyes, though.
“Hey.” He greeted him shortly, unsure of just what to say. Edge entered the room without a word, stalking across the floor to stare out the window. Bono was already sleeping soundly on his bed, the silence in the room broken only by the monotonous sound of his irregular snoring. After several long moments of tense silence, Edge turned back to the bed and glared at Bono, focusing all of his aggression and irritation on his friend.
He took one of the bed pillows in both hands and placed it firmly over Bono’s face, pressing down as hard as he could. Before Larry could even ask him what the hell he was thinking, Bono swung his arms and legs, instinctively defending himself from the unforeseen attack.
“What the…?” He managed to gasp as he rolled off the bed and stumbled to his feet.
“You were snoring.” Edge explained, and Larry laughed in shock and disbelief.
“Oh, well pardon me. Excuse me for breathing, by all means suffocate me for my horrible manners!”
“I wouldn’t let you stop breathing completely.” Edge told him, rolling his eyes at his friend irritably.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Bono asked, picking up the pillow off the floor and pitching at his friend as hard as he could.
“Nothing.” Edge replied sourly, his arms crossed over his chest as he sat back against the headboard of the bed. Bono slid into his pants and slipped a T-shirt on over his head, raking his fingers through his mop of reddish brown hair.
“”Where are you going?” Larry asked, arching an eyebrow.
“For a walk.” Bono grumbled, slamming the door behind himself as he left.
“Look, I’ve seen the way you look at Holly. I knew when Adam asked if you could stay here tonight…” Larry started, letting his voice drift off with a sigh. “Is she really worth it?” he eventually asked, obviously already of the opinion that she wasn’t. “I mean, she’s a girl. She’s just some random girl you have a thing for, and look at how upset you are.”
“You’re made of stone, Mullen.” Edge grumbled, running a hand over his face to hide the fact that his eyes were welling up with tears.
“I know it isn’t a popular opinion, but I just don’t think it’s worth it. Love. That kind of love isn’t real, anyway. It doesn’t make any sense, it drives people crazy and it just destroys people.” Larry told his friend. It was nothing new, Edge had heard it several times already. “I just don’t see fucking up your entire world for… for what?”
“I know you don’t. Ok? I don’t fucking need you to sit here and tell me that I am, and the rest of the civilized world is, stupid. It doesn’t exactly make me feel any better. I just… I thought… there was something special about her.” Edge replied, rolling over onto his side and burying his face in the pillow. He didn’t want to talk anymore.
His words struck Larry like a slap in the face. He had heard them recently, from someone else. He absently rubbed the bridge of his nose as it occurred to him that his views on love were not exactly popular. That didn’t mean they were wrong, but it did mean he had to remember that most people approached the subject from a different perspective. Sometimes, that made him seem hard, or just plain mean.
The truth of it was, he had suffered enough of a broken heart with the loss of his sister and mother, that he didn’t think he could stand to be particularly close to someone and then lose them. The emotions that were involved in romantic love, dating, sex, relationships… it was all just too much. It made people do stupid things, things which made no sense.
Some people could move from partner to partner with ease, like trying on new shoes. All that ever seemed to come of it was pain and failure.
Larry believed the kind of love that worked came from somewhere else entirely. You made rational choices, formed a partnership with someone you respected and worked together to build a life. That was what made a family work. It wasn’t about who made your heart race and palms sweat, it was about shared beliefs and commitment. That was where real love came from.
No matter how strongly he believed that, it didn’t make it any easier when an attractive woman showed interest in him, if only for a night or two. He understood desire and temptation as well as anyone. The other guys didn’t seem to think he did, because of how good he’d gotten at resisting temptation, but he struggled. He just kept it all on the inside.
He and Adam were about as directly opposite as he could imagine two people being. Although he respected Adam in so many ways, he knew he made terrible decisions based on the desire of the moment. Adam lived in today, and Larry was working toward tomorrow.
It was probably one of the things that made the group work. The ‘balance’ Edge and Bono were always talking about. Where one of them fell short, the others compensated, and where they excelled they were allowed to see just how far they could go. The others were always there to reel them back in or catch them, to cheer them on or help them find their way back.
The problem was that, this time, Edge had one less friend to turn to. The fact that it had been a friend from inside their group added to the hurt, for Edge. Larry was certain Adam hadn’t known how Edge felt for Holly. He wasn’t selfish to that extent. He had been self involved and blind not to see it though.
He turned off the bedside lamp and slid back into the sleeping bag he always brought with him to sleep in. He wasn’t willing to trust the hotels they stayed at to wash the bedding thoroughly. It just didn’t seem likely.
“I thought I saw something special.” The words echoed in his mind, turning from Edge’s voice into that of the girl who had said the same thing about Larry. He’d been drunk and stupid, his defenses making him say something he had come to regret. He sighed and rolled over, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, but his mind was racing.
“Who was it?” she had asked. Larry had spent the better part of the evening drinking and talking to a small group of people. The reporter from ‘the Beat’ in particular. Alyx. She was a good example of the sort of temptation he found it hard to resist. She was beautiful, though he could tell she didn’t want people to see it. That was at least part of the reason she dressed the way she did, why she had her hair bleached nearly white and cut short and uneven. To draw attention away from her face, her body.
She didn’t like being stared at any more than Larry did. She was smart, too. She’d kept him laughing and talking, and the hours had flown by. She had lived in Ballymun, too, when she was younger. She was just four years older than Larry, but they hadn’t been close enough in age to run in the same circles.
The others had started to clear out of the party, and he found himself alone with her on the couch. He had felt the natural urge to make a pass, but he wasn’t quite so drunk that he did. Maybe it was because he was thinking about it when she asked him, that he failed to understand her or react the way she had expected. He wasn’t certain, even though he’d gone over it in his mind again and again.
“Who was it?”
He had blinked at her, his eyes vacant of understanding.
“Who was it… what?” he asked, and suddenly it was like a curtain had been drawn between them. The connection was gone. She drew back into herself, finishing her drink and rising to go.
“Nevermind.” She told him. “I had fun tonight. Thanks.”
“Alyx?” He’d called after her, stumbling unevenly to his feet and rushing to catch up to her in the lift.
“You were going to ask me something.” He said, looking her squarely in the eyes and letting her know he expected an answer. An honest one.
“I… you know I was telling you earlier that I was only working with the magazine because I needed the money?” She asked, and he nodded silently and waited for her to continue. “I… really, I’m no journalist. I hate it, most of the time. I feel like a vulture or a phony. I got the job because I can take a decent photo. I’m … or I want to be, more like, and artist.”
The lift jerked to a halt and the doors groaned open. They were on the first floor, but no one was waiting there, so they simply stood in the elevator for another long silent moment.
“I was… part of what I wanted… I was going to ask if I could paint you.”
“But now you don’t?” he asked, frowning at her and wondering what he’d done. Not that he would’ve said yes, if she had simply come out and asked. He was almost certain he would’ve told her to piss off.
“I made a mistake. I thought I saw something in you. Something special.”
She had turned and walked away without another word or a glance back over her shoulder. Larry hadn’t been able to get her out of his thoughts in the weeks since. The disappointment in her eyes.
“I thought I saw something special in you.”
What had she thought she’d seen? Why did she think she’d been wrong? He usually could not care less what someone thought of him. There were a select few people about whom he cared, and who he didn’t want to let down. She had been a stranger to him, but her words had gotten under his skin. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
*************************************************************
Natalie folded the corner of the page over to mark where she had left off and set her paperback aside. She wasn’t concentrating on it, anyway. If anyone asked her what it had been about, she would have to go back and re-read it before she had an answer for them. She didn’t know who she was more irritated with, Holly or herself.
So what if she was out ridiculously late? She was nineteen and on tour with a rock band, she was allowed to party. She had to learn by making her own decisions, good and bad alike. Natalie saw a little too much of herself at nineteen when she looked at Holly. She had been through her share of mistakes and bad decisions, and she could see some serious heartache in Holly’s future.
Still, she wasn’t the girls mother. She wasn’t even her boss, technically. She was her boss’s boss. It shouldn’t matter to her if the girl spent the night somewhere else. She stood and stretched her tired limbs, tied the belt of her silk robe around her waist and began to pace. She felt old, suddenly. She was barely thirty and she felt as if all of the fun in her life was long past.
Was she really worried about Holly? Maybe she was more jealous than worried. What if it was Bono’s bed she was warming, while Natalie went sleepless, pacing the floor? The possibility hit her like a ton of bricks. She had purposely done her best to avoid any knowledge of what he did after the concerts were over, and who he did it with.
Panic gripped her heart, her stomach twisting inside out at the possibility.
Every muscle in her body jerked in surprise when she heard someone knocking on the glass door which led to the balcony. Her heart began to race as quickly as her mind as she tried to tell herself she was hearing wrong. There was no way someone was on the tiny ledge which the hotel had thought made the room worth twice as much. The only way out to it was through the very door which she was now standing in front of, and no one had gone through that door all night.
She had considered it, herself, but between the rainy weather and the dodgy condition of the balcony itself she had opted to stay safely inside. She felt foolish for having wasted the money on something she did not use, but she couldn’t have known when she made the reservation. They were in Paris, France! She had never been there, and when she made the reservations, she had romantic images of standing on her balcony and seeing the Eiffel tower.
The knock sounded again, the vibration echoing through her body. She considered going to her phone and calling Paul or one of the security officers. Then she heard him.
“Natalie? Fuck, it’s cold and wet out here! Natalie!?” She let out a short burst of laughter in shock and relief. She pulled back the curtain to see Bono standing on the balcony, his hair and clothing thoroughly drenched. His hair was plastered to his cheeks and forehead, but when he saw her, his blue eyes shone with excitement. He grinned at her, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“How the hell did you get out there?” She asked, throwing open the door and gesturing for him to come inside quickly.
“I climbed.” He told her, as if it were an obvious answer. She stared at him, her mouth agape, and her mind racing too quickly to turn any thoughts into words. The stone faced walls on the outside of the building were not smooth, but never would she have imagined someone using the decorative design as hand and footholds.
He tossed his hair back, smoothing it away from his face with one hand while thrusting the other hand out to her, proffering a mangled, mistreated rose of the palest pink she had ever seen. She looked back and forth between Bono’s blue eyes and that wretchedly beautiful flower in shock. Finally she took the flower from his thick fingers gently and carried it to the bathroom, putting it in the drinking glass and running some water for it.
“What are you doing here?” She asked as she did what she could for the poor little rose. She heard the squeak and groan of bed springs from the other room as Bono flopped down onto one of the beds.
“I thought you might be lonely.” He replied playfully. She rolled her eyes at him as she came back into the room, tossing him a towel to dry off with. “And my room was getting a little crowded.” He added.
*Larry?* she wondered, frowning as she tried to think of any time she’d seen Holly and Larry interact. They had never even seemed to know the other one existed, let alone close enough to spend the night together.
As if reading her mind, Bono chuckled and continued to explain.
“Edge found himself locked out of his room. He needed someplace to sleep.”
“Ah.” She replied, her frown disappearing. That made more sense. Though she had expected it to happen a long time ago, she had seen the sexual tension between Adam and Holly first hand.
“That doesn’t explain how you ended up outside, on my balcony.” She told him, sitting on the corner of her own bed once she’d gently placed the rose on the night table.
“I went out for a walk, and realized that I had not taken my room key with me. I figured if I woke Larry up again I might end up with a drumstick somewhere it didn’t belong.” He informed her with his little boy smile as he stretched out on the bed opposite her, folding his hands behind his head. He had several different smiles, Natalie had noticed over the months she’d known him. She had realized she was inappropriately attached to him when she had identified and labeled them.
There was a smile which made him seem like a little boy, along with one which made him look like he should have horns sprouting from his head. There was a polite smile, which reminded her that he was an entertainer; a man building a public image, despite the fact that he never really seemed like it. There was an intimate smile, which she had only glimpsed, but even that glimpse of it had made her knees tremble. That was his bedroom smile, to go with those bedroom eyes.
“I thought about waking Paul, but then I saw your lights on and just… climbed up to see you.”
“You’re insane.” She told him. “How did you even know this was my room?”
“I counted the windows, did the math and kept my fingers crossed.” He replied, his laughter contagious. Natalie covered her mouth to muffle the sound of her laughter but could not quite keep it from spilling out.
When he leaned forward to tug his soaking wet shirt off over his head, revealing a broad, bare chest, her laughter drifted off. He wiped his chest and stomach dry, then wrapped the towel around his shoulders.
She’d seen him this way after several shows. She’d seen him in less, even. Never had the setting been so private. So… intimate. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she was staring. She averted her eyes quickly, nervously smoothing out the wrinkles in her silk robe.
“So, did you want me to call the front desk and get another key?” She asked.
“Why?”
“What? Why? So you can get back into your room.” She replied, frowning at him, her chest tightening with apprehension. He was planning on going back to his own room, wasn’t he?
“No, I’m fine here.” He told her nonchalantly, kicking off his shoes. She blinked at him in disbelief as he stood and unfastened his trousers.
“Here?” She asked, shaking her head as she stood and gestured for him to stop. “No, no, you can’t…”
“Why not? Holly isn’t using the second bed.” He told her, stepping forward to put him far too close to her for her mind to work properly. “I promise I’ll behave meself. No wandering hands.” He told her with a devilish smirk, reaching up to brush a lock of hair away from her face before chastely kissing her on the forehead.
She stood there, completely dumbstruck for a moment as he stepped out of his jeans, tossed them aside and crawled into bed casually. She couldn’t think of any good reason to tell him to go, not any which she dared voice at least. Finally she climbed into her own bed, drawing the covers up around her and turning off the bedside lamp. As if she were going to be able to sleep, with him less then four feet away. Her mind was racing nearly as fast as her heart.
Chapter Five
Larry opened the door, scowling at Edge for the way he’d been pounding on it to get their attention. His scowl softened as soon as he saw the emotion storming in his friends eyes, though.
“Hey.” He greeted him shortly, unsure of just what to say. Edge entered the room without a word, stalking across the floor to stare out the window. Bono was already sleeping soundly on his bed, the silence in the room broken only by the monotonous sound of his irregular snoring. After several long moments of tense silence, Edge turned back to the bed and glared at Bono, focusing all of his aggression and irritation on his friend.
He took one of the bed pillows in both hands and placed it firmly over Bono’s face, pressing down as hard as he could. Before Larry could even ask him what the hell he was thinking, Bono swung his arms and legs, instinctively defending himself from the unforeseen attack.
“What the…?” He managed to gasp as he rolled off the bed and stumbled to his feet.
“You were snoring.” Edge explained, and Larry laughed in shock and disbelief.
“Oh, well pardon me. Excuse me for breathing, by all means suffocate me for my horrible manners!”
“I wouldn’t let you stop breathing completely.” Edge told him, rolling his eyes at his friend irritably.
“What the fuck is your problem?” Bono asked, picking up the pillow off the floor and pitching at his friend as hard as he could.
“Nothing.” Edge replied sourly, his arms crossed over his chest as he sat back against the headboard of the bed. Bono slid into his pants and slipped a T-shirt on over his head, raking his fingers through his mop of reddish brown hair.
“”Where are you going?” Larry asked, arching an eyebrow.
“For a walk.” Bono grumbled, slamming the door behind himself as he left.
“Look, I’ve seen the way you look at Holly. I knew when Adam asked if you could stay here tonight…” Larry started, letting his voice drift off with a sigh. “Is she really worth it?” he eventually asked, obviously already of the opinion that she wasn’t. “I mean, she’s a girl. She’s just some random girl you have a thing for, and look at how upset you are.”
“You’re made of stone, Mullen.” Edge grumbled, running a hand over his face to hide the fact that his eyes were welling up with tears.
“I know it isn’t a popular opinion, but I just don’t think it’s worth it. Love. That kind of love isn’t real, anyway. It doesn’t make any sense, it drives people crazy and it just destroys people.” Larry told his friend. It was nothing new, Edge had heard it several times already. “I just don’t see fucking up your entire world for… for what?”
“I know you don’t. Ok? I don’t fucking need you to sit here and tell me that I am, and the rest of the civilized world is, stupid. It doesn’t exactly make me feel any better. I just… I thought… there was something special about her.” Edge replied, rolling over onto his side and burying his face in the pillow. He didn’t want to talk anymore.
His words struck Larry like a slap in the face. He had heard them recently, from someone else. He absently rubbed the bridge of his nose as it occurred to him that his views on love were not exactly popular. That didn’t mean they were wrong, but it did mean he had to remember that most people approached the subject from a different perspective. Sometimes, that made him seem hard, or just plain mean.
The truth of it was, he had suffered enough of a broken heart with the loss of his sister and mother, that he didn’t think he could stand to be particularly close to someone and then lose them. The emotions that were involved in romantic love, dating, sex, relationships… it was all just too much. It made people do stupid things, things which made no sense.
Some people could move from partner to partner with ease, like trying on new shoes. All that ever seemed to come of it was pain and failure.
Larry believed the kind of love that worked came from somewhere else entirely. You made rational choices, formed a partnership with someone you respected and worked together to build a life. That was what made a family work. It wasn’t about who made your heart race and palms sweat, it was about shared beliefs and commitment. That was where real love came from.
No matter how strongly he believed that, it didn’t make it any easier when an attractive woman showed interest in him, if only for a night or two. He understood desire and temptation as well as anyone. The other guys didn’t seem to think he did, because of how good he’d gotten at resisting temptation, but he struggled. He just kept it all on the inside.
He and Adam were about as directly opposite as he could imagine two people being. Although he respected Adam in so many ways, he knew he made terrible decisions based on the desire of the moment. Adam lived in today, and Larry was working toward tomorrow.
It was probably one of the things that made the group work. The ‘balance’ Edge and Bono were always talking about. Where one of them fell short, the others compensated, and where they excelled they were allowed to see just how far they could go. The others were always there to reel them back in or catch them, to cheer them on or help them find their way back.
The problem was that, this time, Edge had one less friend to turn to. The fact that it had been a friend from inside their group added to the hurt, for Edge. Larry was certain Adam hadn’t known how Edge felt for Holly. He wasn’t selfish to that extent. He had been self involved and blind not to see it though.
He turned off the bedside lamp and slid back into the sleeping bag he always brought with him to sleep in. He wasn’t willing to trust the hotels they stayed at to wash the bedding thoroughly. It just didn’t seem likely.
“I thought I saw something special.” The words echoed in his mind, turning from Edge’s voice into that of the girl who had said the same thing about Larry. He’d been drunk and stupid, his defenses making him say something he had come to regret. He sighed and rolled over, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep, but his mind was racing.
“Who was it?” she had asked. Larry had spent the better part of the evening drinking and talking to a small group of people. The reporter from ‘the Beat’ in particular. Alyx. She was a good example of the sort of temptation he found it hard to resist. She was beautiful, though he could tell she didn’t want people to see it. That was at least part of the reason she dressed the way she did, why she had her hair bleached nearly white and cut short and uneven. To draw attention away from her face, her body.
She didn’t like being stared at any more than Larry did. She was smart, too. She’d kept him laughing and talking, and the hours had flown by. She had lived in Ballymun, too, when she was younger. She was just four years older than Larry, but they hadn’t been close enough in age to run in the same circles.
The others had started to clear out of the party, and he found himself alone with her on the couch. He had felt the natural urge to make a pass, but he wasn’t quite so drunk that he did. Maybe it was because he was thinking about it when she asked him, that he failed to understand her or react the way she had expected. He wasn’t certain, even though he’d gone over it in his mind again and again.
“Who was it?”
He had blinked at her, his eyes vacant of understanding.
“Who was it… what?” he asked, and suddenly it was like a curtain had been drawn between them. The connection was gone. She drew back into herself, finishing her drink and rising to go.
“Nevermind.” She told him. “I had fun tonight. Thanks.”
“Alyx?” He’d called after her, stumbling unevenly to his feet and rushing to catch up to her in the lift.
“You were going to ask me something.” He said, looking her squarely in the eyes and letting her know he expected an answer. An honest one.
“I… you know I was telling you earlier that I was only working with the magazine because I needed the money?” She asked, and he nodded silently and waited for her to continue. “I… really, I’m no journalist. I hate it, most of the time. I feel like a vulture or a phony. I got the job because I can take a decent photo. I’m … or I want to be, more like, and artist.”
The lift jerked to a halt and the doors groaned open. They were on the first floor, but no one was waiting there, so they simply stood in the elevator for another long silent moment.
“I was… part of what I wanted… I was going to ask if I could paint you.”
“But now you don’t?” he asked, frowning at her and wondering what he’d done. Not that he would’ve said yes, if she had simply come out and asked. He was almost certain he would’ve told her to piss off.
“I made a mistake. I thought I saw something in you. Something special.”
She had turned and walked away without another word or a glance back over her shoulder. Larry hadn’t been able to get her out of his thoughts in the weeks since. The disappointment in her eyes.
“I thought I saw something special in you.”
What had she thought she’d seen? Why did she think she’d been wrong? He usually could not care less what someone thought of him. There were a select few people about whom he cared, and who he didn’t want to let down. She had been a stranger to him, but her words had gotten under his skin. He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
*************************************************************
Natalie folded the corner of the page over to mark where she had left off and set her paperback aside. She wasn’t concentrating on it, anyway. If anyone asked her what it had been about, she would have to go back and re-read it before she had an answer for them. She didn’t know who she was more irritated with, Holly or herself.
So what if she was out ridiculously late? She was nineteen and on tour with a rock band, she was allowed to party. She had to learn by making her own decisions, good and bad alike. Natalie saw a little too much of herself at nineteen when she looked at Holly. She had been through her share of mistakes and bad decisions, and she could see some serious heartache in Holly’s future.
Still, she wasn’t the girls mother. She wasn’t even her boss, technically. She was her boss’s boss. It shouldn’t matter to her if the girl spent the night somewhere else. She stood and stretched her tired limbs, tied the belt of her silk robe around her waist and began to pace. She felt old, suddenly. She was barely thirty and she felt as if all of the fun in her life was long past.
Was she really worried about Holly? Maybe she was more jealous than worried. What if it was Bono’s bed she was warming, while Natalie went sleepless, pacing the floor? The possibility hit her like a ton of bricks. She had purposely done her best to avoid any knowledge of what he did after the concerts were over, and who he did it with.
Panic gripped her heart, her stomach twisting inside out at the possibility.
Every muscle in her body jerked in surprise when she heard someone knocking on the glass door which led to the balcony. Her heart began to race as quickly as her mind as she tried to tell herself she was hearing wrong. There was no way someone was on the tiny ledge which the hotel had thought made the room worth twice as much. The only way out to it was through the very door which she was now standing in front of, and no one had gone through that door all night.
She had considered it, herself, but between the rainy weather and the dodgy condition of the balcony itself she had opted to stay safely inside. She felt foolish for having wasted the money on something she did not use, but she couldn’t have known when she made the reservation. They were in Paris, France! She had never been there, and when she made the reservations, she had romantic images of standing on her balcony and seeing the Eiffel tower.
The knock sounded again, the vibration echoing through her body. She considered going to her phone and calling Paul or one of the security officers. Then she heard him.
“Natalie? Fuck, it’s cold and wet out here! Natalie!?” She let out a short burst of laughter in shock and relief. She pulled back the curtain to see Bono standing on the balcony, his hair and clothing thoroughly drenched. His hair was plastered to his cheeks and forehead, but when he saw her, his blue eyes shone with excitement. He grinned at her, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“How the hell did you get out there?” She asked, throwing open the door and gesturing for him to come inside quickly.
“I climbed.” He told her, as if it were an obvious answer. She stared at him, her mouth agape, and her mind racing too quickly to turn any thoughts into words. The stone faced walls on the outside of the building were not smooth, but never would she have imagined someone using the decorative design as hand and footholds.
He tossed his hair back, smoothing it away from his face with one hand while thrusting the other hand out to her, proffering a mangled, mistreated rose of the palest pink she had ever seen. She looked back and forth between Bono’s blue eyes and that wretchedly beautiful flower in shock. Finally she took the flower from his thick fingers gently and carried it to the bathroom, putting it in the drinking glass and running some water for it.
“What are you doing here?” She asked as she did what she could for the poor little rose. She heard the squeak and groan of bed springs from the other room as Bono flopped down onto one of the beds.
“I thought you might be lonely.” He replied playfully. She rolled her eyes at him as she came back into the room, tossing him a towel to dry off with. “And my room was getting a little crowded.” He added.
*Larry?* she wondered, frowning as she tried to think of any time she’d seen Holly and Larry interact. They had never even seemed to know the other one existed, let alone close enough to spend the night together.
As if reading her mind, Bono chuckled and continued to explain.
“Edge found himself locked out of his room. He needed someplace to sleep.”
“Ah.” She replied, her frown disappearing. That made more sense. Though she had expected it to happen a long time ago, she had seen the sexual tension between Adam and Holly first hand.
“That doesn’t explain how you ended up outside, on my balcony.” She told him, sitting on the corner of her own bed once she’d gently placed the rose on the night table.
“I went out for a walk, and realized that I had not taken my room key with me. I figured if I woke Larry up again I might end up with a drumstick somewhere it didn’t belong.” He informed her with his little boy smile as he stretched out on the bed opposite her, folding his hands behind his head. He had several different smiles, Natalie had noticed over the months she’d known him. She had realized she was inappropriately attached to him when she had identified and labeled them.
There was a smile which made him seem like a little boy, along with one which made him look like he should have horns sprouting from his head. There was a polite smile, which reminded her that he was an entertainer; a man building a public image, despite the fact that he never really seemed like it. There was an intimate smile, which she had only glimpsed, but even that glimpse of it had made her knees tremble. That was his bedroom smile, to go with those bedroom eyes.
“I thought about waking Paul, but then I saw your lights on and just… climbed up to see you.”
“You’re insane.” She told him. “How did you even know this was my room?”
“I counted the windows, did the math and kept my fingers crossed.” He replied, his laughter contagious. Natalie covered her mouth to muffle the sound of her laughter but could not quite keep it from spilling out.
When he leaned forward to tug his soaking wet shirt off over his head, revealing a broad, bare chest, her laughter drifted off. He wiped his chest and stomach dry, then wrapped the towel around his shoulders.
She’d seen him this way after several shows. She’d seen him in less, even. Never had the setting been so private. So… intimate. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized she was staring. She averted her eyes quickly, nervously smoothing out the wrinkles in her silk robe.
“So, did you want me to call the front desk and get another key?” She asked.
“Why?”
“What? Why? So you can get back into your room.” She replied, frowning at him, her chest tightening with apprehension. He was planning on going back to his own room, wasn’t he?
“No, I’m fine here.” He told her nonchalantly, kicking off his shoes. She blinked at him in disbelief as he stood and unfastened his trousers.
“Here?” She asked, shaking her head as she stood and gestured for him to stop. “No, no, you can’t…”
“Why not? Holly isn’t using the second bed.” He told her, stepping forward to put him far too close to her for her mind to work properly. “I promise I’ll behave meself. No wandering hands.” He told her with a devilish smirk, reaching up to brush a lock of hair away from her face before chastely kissing her on the forehead.
She stood there, completely dumbstruck for a moment as he stepped out of his jeans, tossed them aside and crawled into bed casually. She couldn’t think of any good reason to tell him to go, not any which she dared voice at least. Finally she climbed into her own bed, drawing the covers up around her and turning off the bedside lamp. As if she were going to be able to sleep, with him less then four feet away. Her mind was racing nearly as fast as her heart.
sounds just like our boys!
)
SG...style, it is so real. I am in awe at the way you portray the guys too.. I can see them saying and behaving in the manner you describe.
I feel like something big is gonna happen with Holly... 
