Sad_Girl
Blue Crack Supplier
**The following is a work of fiction. No offense intended to anyone, it’s all meant in good fun. Strong language, semi-adult themes
Chapter Thirteen
Natalie scolded herself sternly; trying to keep in mind the promise she had made to herself. “I will not fall in love with this boy.” Yes, she had given into the desire she felt for him physically. They had spent the night exploring each other’s bodies; sometimes they had been playful. Sometimes it had been full of hunger and need the likes of which she had denied for a long, long time.
She slipped into the slightly too hot bath and felt the water caress skin which was sore from more attention than it had known in years. It stung, but she relished the feeling. It reminded her that there were consequences to her actions. The night might seem to be all that mattered, but that never lasted once the morning after arrived pounding on the door and demanding her attention.
Still, she smiled at the memory of his touch. She lifted her fingertips to her mouth, barely touching her swollen lips and thought of all the passion wrapped up in him. Her heart felt light and a chuckle escaped her throat. She was acting like a fool, a teenager who had been kissed for the very first time. She needed to get herself back together, she thought, before facing the others. It was a secret she would cherish; one she was glad to have, but a secret all the same.
Suddenly aware of a chill, Natalie opened her eyes as the door swung open and Bono let himself in. If anyone else on earth had done such a thing, she would have screamed bloody murder and chased them away until they were unlikely to ever come back. Bono smirked at her from the doorway, those blue eyes full of life and mirth; she could not help but grin back at him.
“What are you doing still here?” She asked, not entirely unhappy to see him.
“No one but you and God gets up this early.” He told her, stripping out of his underwear casually and stepping into the tub as if he’d been invited.
“There isn’t room for both of us!” Natalie objected with a shriek of laughter as the water rose up to spill over the side of the tub and drench the floor of the tiny hotel bathroom.
“sure there is.” He told her, ‘We just had to get rid of some of the extra water.” His crooked grin made her heart swell as he guided her to sit up closer to the drain so that he could sit behind her, his legs on either side of her. She leaned back against his broad chest, her hands resting on top of his bended knees.
“I don’t think there’s enough water left to call this a bath.” She told him, her eyes drifting shut as he stroked her hair with one of his pleasantly large hands, his other hand idly caressing her belly and breasts.
“Mebbe we should turn the shower on.” He suggested, sucking her earlobe into his mouth, feeling his breath hot and damp inside her ear. He stretched one leg out to turn the water on with his foot and then fumbled with the switch for the shower.
“You’re trying to destroy the hotel room, aren’t you?” She laughed, and within second the water came rushing down at them from the shower head far above. She shrieked at the initial blast of cold water, relaxing only slightly as the water warmed. “You have to go, now, Bono.” She told him, trying to climb out of the tub with as much grace as possible.
“Have breakfast with me” He suggested suddenly, climbing out of the tub after her.
“What? No, you know I can’t.” She replied, beginning to get irritated with his persistence.
“I thought you might have changed your mind after last night.” He told her, sitting on the bed and watching her as she dressed.
“What? You think I want to throw open the window and scream out to everyone ‘I had sex with Bono!’?” She replied as she dragged a brush through her wet hair. “Maybe I should have a T-shirt made. Or better yet, have it tattooed across my forehead.”
“I was thinking more of a tattoo on your bum.” He teased, still rebelliously naked and playful. She choked back a chuckle and tried to scowl at him.
“You have way too much self-confidence.” She told him.
“Nat…” He said, his voice dropping to an intimate whisper as he came to stand behind her, wrapping damp arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. They stood there for a moment, looking at themselves in the mirror. “You really want to keep this a secret?”
“No.” She replied, and she could see the surprise in his blue eyes. “But Bono, we have to. There just isn’t any other way.” She told him firmly. This time, he finally seemed to believe her. He nodded, kissed her on the cheek and pulled away. His silent acceptance reminded her of a puppy who’d just been kicked by it’s owner for being too excited to see them and dirtying their clothes with it’s paws.
She fought back the guilt by reminding herself that he had agreed with her, before. He had come into her bed knowing that it had to be a secret. She wasn’t doing anything he had not been forewarned about. Besides, she thought, it’s just sex. We’re just having fun. It’s not like we’re in love.
She searched through her suitcase for her clothes for the day as he dressed himself in silence. When he left, she hugged him as she would an old friend, not a lover. She told him she’d see him soon, accepted a chaste kiss and then locked the door behind him. She had been unable to look into his eyes, because she was scared. She knew those eyes had the ability to make her see the truth. She didn’t know, but she suspected if she looked into them she would see that there was already far more to it than just sex.
Just as it had been since the day she’d met him, she knew when it came to Bono, she had gotten far more than she bargained for.
**************************************************************
“It’s not about God or religion or anything of the sort! It’s about winning a fight that’s been going on so long that people have taught their children loyalty to a cause without question. People are dying because neither side is willing to budge, and why? What does either side really win? Death and destruction.” Edge was saying to Paul when Holly finally managed to join them after the show.
“I’m not arguing with you, Edge. All I’m saying is what happens if one side or the other does give up? After all the years of bombings and terrorist tactics, if the British government gives in, they’re condoning violent rebellion.” Paul replied as Holly sank down into the soft couch beside Edge.
“What are you talking about?” She asked as Edge wrapped an arm around her in welcome.
“The hunger strikes. Ten men starved themselves to death, riots erupted this past summer over it.” He replied grimly, and Holly frowned, her green eyes darkening at his words.
“Where was this?”
“In Northern Ireland.”
“Why?”
“Nothing new.”
“I don’t understand.”
“People who’ve been arrested in the IRA’s paramilitary campaign used to be treated as prisoners of war. That was taken away from them and they became common prisoners who were forced to work, to wear prison uniforms and had certain other rights of things such as telephone calls taken away. After this batch of hunger strikes this summer and the riots and everything, it looks as if they’ve earned their prisoner of war status back.”
Edge could tell from the look on Holly’s face that she still had no clue just what he was talking about.
“You know about the troubles in Northern Ireland, right?” He asked, the possibility that not everyone knew what was going on making him sick to his stomach.
“A little, I guess. I mean I know I’ve heard of the IRA on the news, always involved with some sort of fighting or another. I never associated it with anywhere I might go or anyone I would meet, really. It’s like the fighting in the Middle East, I suppose. You hear it so often you don’t really listen.” She told him, chewing her lower lip nervously, wishing she had paid more attention now.
Edge’s eyes grew distant as he thought about her words, his mouth pursed into a thin, straight line. For a frightening moment, Holly thought he was angry with her for her ignorance.
“I never realized you didn’t know. If you don’t know, then how many other people have no clue? It’s everywhere back home, you can’t turn around without being slapped in the face with it.” He told her, his eyes still distant and thoughtful.
“How did you not hear anything about it on the first leg of the tour?” Paul wondered aloud.
“I remember hearing ‘IRA’ mentioned occasionally. I guess I just had too much other stuff on my mind to bother wondering what it was.” She replied, wincing at the frown her statement caused Edge. She knew he would interpret ‘other stuff’ as Adam. Perhaps the worst part was the fact that he was right.
“Well, I think it’s time for me to call it a night.” Paul announced, sensing the tension in the room and wanting none of it. He wished them both sweet dreams and vanished as quickly as his feet would take him.
“Can I ask you something?” Holly asked Edge, sighing and turning to face him, hugging her knees to her chest.
“Of course.”
“Why do you like me?”
“What?”
“I don’t understand what you see in me. What do I have to offer you? I’m not as deep as you are, obviously I’m pretty out of touch with things that are important to you. You’re obviously uncomfortable with the history I have with Adam. Why did you … what do you want with me?” The words spilled out before she even realized she had been thinking them. Something had been bothering her, nagging at the back of her consciousness about Edge and his feelings for her, but this was the first moment she saw it in full light.
“Are you serious?” Edge asked, his beautiful green eyes full of genuine concern at her words. He reached out to her and she let him gather her up in his slender arms. “Holly, I like who you are. We’re friends, aren’t we? You didn’t doubt that before, did you?”
“No, I never doubted that.” She admitted, feeling a bit silly for her concerns. The heat of his body against her, the rhythm of his heartbeat, the caress of his hands all told her that he wasn’t so different from her as she feared.
“I don’t expect you to know all the things I know, or be interested in everything I am. I like it that you’re from California. I like your accent, your view of the world.” He told her, making her chuckle slightly. He had told her once that she was like a child; always discovering something new and exciting where he only saw the old and familiar.
“And what about Adam?” She asked as the silence came, doubt creeping back into her heart with each second that went wordless. Edge sighed, pressing his mouth against the top of her head as he thought about what to say.
“I can’t say that I like the thought of any other man being with you. But Adam is my mate, and that is still true despite your relationship to him. We’re on new ground here, and I guess we just have to take it one day at a time. I don’t think it’s anything worth losing you over.” He told her softly, and tears sprang to her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to cause trouble between the men.
“The only thing I want to know is, are you in love with him?” His words hit her like a ton of bricks. Somewhere deep inside of her, a voice cried out ‘yes!’. She chewed on her lower lip nervously as she listened, instead, to the voice of reason. There was no future in loving Adam. He didn’t want her love. She didn’t even really know what love was.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. With anyone. It seems like the sort of thing you would know, doesn’t it?” She laughed gently. Edge seemed to accept that answer, and Holly wondered which voice inside of her was the wisest, which the most honest.
She felt him loosen his grip around her shoulders, and shift his weight away from her. She turned to look up in his eyes and her breath rushed out of her lungs in surprise at the intensity there. He leaned in close and kissed her slowly, with the sort of white hot intensity she’d only read about in romance novels.
She hadn’t thought Edge would get her blood boiling like that. She had expected him to be sweeter, more tender, and he was. She had never expected him to incite this sort of sudden, desperate lust in her. She whimpered into his mouth as his tongue penetrated her mouth with no hint of indecision or doubt. Her hands slid up over slender hips to caress the sinewy muscles in his back as he guided her to lay back.
She buried her hands in his hair and leaned upward, deepening the kiss, trying to drive him beyond the point of no return. She was already there. She didn’t just like him, but she wanted him. She mashed her breasts against his chest forcefully, slipping her legs apart to let him settle between them. Her teeth caught his lip and he pulled back, smiling at her. He caught her hands in his own and pinned them above her head, against the arm of the couch.
The confidence in his smirk surprised her. He knew what he was doing to her. She would have stumbled backward in surprise, had she been standing. There was more to this man than she had imagined.
“Edge…” She whispered, her voice pleading for more.
**Ahhhh-hhehh-hemm!** the sound broke through the intimate cloud his kisses had created and Holly remembered that they were not alone. Paul had left, but Larry and Alyx remained. So did several of the people from the club and the hotel who had joined them in their post-concert gathering.
Not certain his throat-clearing had gotten the message through to the two would be lovers, Larry pitched a pillow across the room, hitting Edge and surprising him with it’s heaviness. Edge cursed and slung the pillow back, missing his friend by a mile but toppling a lamp and breaking it.
“Nice.” Larry laughed in surprise before kneeling to pick up the pieces. Holly could feel Edge’s body shake with embarrassed laughter. She loved the way his eyes turned up at the corners when he laughed, she thought, gazing up at him. Maybe love wasn’t something you fell into all at once, but something which developed. She thought she could definitely learn to love this man.
***********************************************************************
“You look far too cheery this morning.” Adam told Bono as he joined them on the bus. Larry was close behind, his usually neat hair still damp and clinging awkwardly to his forehead and cheeks. He was frowning so hard it looked like it might actually hurt.
“He ought to be, he spent the whole bloody night out and come back just in time to steal the shower.” Larry grumbled.
“Really?” Adam asked, sitting up to look at Bono with interest in his eyes. “Who was she?”
“None of your business.” Bono replied, settling into the seat behind Edge.
“Oh, c’mon, let a guy live vicariously. All I had to help me sleep was Edge strumming a few notes and then scratching something down on paper, scribbling it out and then playing some more.”
“You working on something new?” Bono asked, and Adam sighed, knowing he had lost any chance of getting Bono to talk about women.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Edge replied, turning sideways to look Bono in the eye and tell him about his conversation with Holly about Northern Ireland. “I know it’s in the news but for people who don’t have it happening in their own back yards, it just doesn’t reach them. There needs to be some other way to get them to listen.”
“Well, they’re listening to us.” Bono replied. “We’ve got their attention, now let’s say something worth saying. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Edge smiled at his friend and passed his notebook back to him.
“There’s many lost, but tell me who has won? That’s a great line, The Edge.” Bono mumbled as he read. “and it’s true we are immune This is really good.”
“Is anyone going to actually produce this, though?” Adam asked, frowning as he listened in on the conversation.
“Why not?” Larry asked. “We’ve already done a lot of things other bands aren’t doing and we’re making money for the record company. We have the chance to really say something. It goes along with the theme we were tossing around for the next record perfectly, anyway.”
“Adam has a good point.” Paul piped in. “This is the sort of thing people get very worked up over. And Bono’s right, people are listening. It’s wise to really think about what you say from now on. Keep working on it. I promised you when we got our first contract that I wouldn’t try and make you sell out, and I won’t do that now.” Bono smiled at Paul gratefully and turned his attention back to the music.
Paul sat back down beside Natalie and they watched as all four of the young men began working together on this new song which, they suspected, had the potential to change everything.
Chapter Thirteen
Natalie scolded herself sternly; trying to keep in mind the promise she had made to herself. “I will not fall in love with this boy.” Yes, she had given into the desire she felt for him physically. They had spent the night exploring each other’s bodies; sometimes they had been playful. Sometimes it had been full of hunger and need the likes of which she had denied for a long, long time.
She slipped into the slightly too hot bath and felt the water caress skin which was sore from more attention than it had known in years. It stung, but she relished the feeling. It reminded her that there were consequences to her actions. The night might seem to be all that mattered, but that never lasted once the morning after arrived pounding on the door and demanding her attention.
Still, she smiled at the memory of his touch. She lifted her fingertips to her mouth, barely touching her swollen lips and thought of all the passion wrapped up in him. Her heart felt light and a chuckle escaped her throat. She was acting like a fool, a teenager who had been kissed for the very first time. She needed to get herself back together, she thought, before facing the others. It was a secret she would cherish; one she was glad to have, but a secret all the same.
Suddenly aware of a chill, Natalie opened her eyes as the door swung open and Bono let himself in. If anyone else on earth had done such a thing, she would have screamed bloody murder and chased them away until they were unlikely to ever come back. Bono smirked at her from the doorway, those blue eyes full of life and mirth; she could not help but grin back at him.
“What are you doing still here?” She asked, not entirely unhappy to see him.
“No one but you and God gets up this early.” He told her, stripping out of his underwear casually and stepping into the tub as if he’d been invited.
“There isn’t room for both of us!” Natalie objected with a shriek of laughter as the water rose up to spill over the side of the tub and drench the floor of the tiny hotel bathroom.
“sure there is.” He told her, ‘We just had to get rid of some of the extra water.” His crooked grin made her heart swell as he guided her to sit up closer to the drain so that he could sit behind her, his legs on either side of her. She leaned back against his broad chest, her hands resting on top of his bended knees.
“I don’t think there’s enough water left to call this a bath.” She told him, her eyes drifting shut as he stroked her hair with one of his pleasantly large hands, his other hand idly caressing her belly and breasts.
“Mebbe we should turn the shower on.” He suggested, sucking her earlobe into his mouth, feeling his breath hot and damp inside her ear. He stretched one leg out to turn the water on with his foot and then fumbled with the switch for the shower.
“You’re trying to destroy the hotel room, aren’t you?” She laughed, and within second the water came rushing down at them from the shower head far above. She shrieked at the initial blast of cold water, relaxing only slightly as the water warmed. “You have to go, now, Bono.” She told him, trying to climb out of the tub with as much grace as possible.
“Have breakfast with me” He suggested suddenly, climbing out of the tub after her.
“What? No, you know I can’t.” She replied, beginning to get irritated with his persistence.
“I thought you might have changed your mind after last night.” He told her, sitting on the bed and watching her as she dressed.
“What? You think I want to throw open the window and scream out to everyone ‘I had sex with Bono!’?” She replied as she dragged a brush through her wet hair. “Maybe I should have a T-shirt made. Or better yet, have it tattooed across my forehead.”
“I was thinking more of a tattoo on your bum.” He teased, still rebelliously naked and playful. She choked back a chuckle and tried to scowl at him.
“You have way too much self-confidence.” She told him.
“Nat…” He said, his voice dropping to an intimate whisper as he came to stand behind her, wrapping damp arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. They stood there for a moment, looking at themselves in the mirror. “You really want to keep this a secret?”
“No.” She replied, and she could see the surprise in his blue eyes. “But Bono, we have to. There just isn’t any other way.” She told him firmly. This time, he finally seemed to believe her. He nodded, kissed her on the cheek and pulled away. His silent acceptance reminded her of a puppy who’d just been kicked by it’s owner for being too excited to see them and dirtying their clothes with it’s paws.
She fought back the guilt by reminding herself that he had agreed with her, before. He had come into her bed knowing that it had to be a secret. She wasn’t doing anything he had not been forewarned about. Besides, she thought, it’s just sex. We’re just having fun. It’s not like we’re in love.
She searched through her suitcase for her clothes for the day as he dressed himself in silence. When he left, she hugged him as she would an old friend, not a lover. She told him she’d see him soon, accepted a chaste kiss and then locked the door behind him. She had been unable to look into his eyes, because she was scared. She knew those eyes had the ability to make her see the truth. She didn’t know, but she suspected if she looked into them she would see that there was already far more to it than just sex.
Just as it had been since the day she’d met him, she knew when it came to Bono, she had gotten far more than she bargained for.
**************************************************************
“It’s not about God or religion or anything of the sort! It’s about winning a fight that’s been going on so long that people have taught their children loyalty to a cause without question. People are dying because neither side is willing to budge, and why? What does either side really win? Death and destruction.” Edge was saying to Paul when Holly finally managed to join them after the show.
“I’m not arguing with you, Edge. All I’m saying is what happens if one side or the other does give up? After all the years of bombings and terrorist tactics, if the British government gives in, they’re condoning violent rebellion.” Paul replied as Holly sank down into the soft couch beside Edge.
“What are you talking about?” She asked as Edge wrapped an arm around her in welcome.
“The hunger strikes. Ten men starved themselves to death, riots erupted this past summer over it.” He replied grimly, and Holly frowned, her green eyes darkening at his words.
“Where was this?”
“In Northern Ireland.”
“Why?”
“Nothing new.”
“I don’t understand.”
“People who’ve been arrested in the IRA’s paramilitary campaign used to be treated as prisoners of war. That was taken away from them and they became common prisoners who were forced to work, to wear prison uniforms and had certain other rights of things such as telephone calls taken away. After this batch of hunger strikes this summer and the riots and everything, it looks as if they’ve earned their prisoner of war status back.”
Edge could tell from the look on Holly’s face that she still had no clue just what he was talking about.
“You know about the troubles in Northern Ireland, right?” He asked, the possibility that not everyone knew what was going on making him sick to his stomach.
“A little, I guess. I mean I know I’ve heard of the IRA on the news, always involved with some sort of fighting or another. I never associated it with anywhere I might go or anyone I would meet, really. It’s like the fighting in the Middle East, I suppose. You hear it so often you don’t really listen.” She told him, chewing her lower lip nervously, wishing she had paid more attention now.
Edge’s eyes grew distant as he thought about her words, his mouth pursed into a thin, straight line. For a frightening moment, Holly thought he was angry with her for her ignorance.
“I never realized you didn’t know. If you don’t know, then how many other people have no clue? It’s everywhere back home, you can’t turn around without being slapped in the face with it.” He told her, his eyes still distant and thoughtful.
“How did you not hear anything about it on the first leg of the tour?” Paul wondered aloud.
“I remember hearing ‘IRA’ mentioned occasionally. I guess I just had too much other stuff on my mind to bother wondering what it was.” She replied, wincing at the frown her statement caused Edge. She knew he would interpret ‘other stuff’ as Adam. Perhaps the worst part was the fact that he was right.
“Well, I think it’s time for me to call it a night.” Paul announced, sensing the tension in the room and wanting none of it. He wished them both sweet dreams and vanished as quickly as his feet would take him.
“Can I ask you something?” Holly asked Edge, sighing and turning to face him, hugging her knees to her chest.
“Of course.”
“Why do you like me?”
“What?”
“I don’t understand what you see in me. What do I have to offer you? I’m not as deep as you are, obviously I’m pretty out of touch with things that are important to you. You’re obviously uncomfortable with the history I have with Adam. Why did you … what do you want with me?” The words spilled out before she even realized she had been thinking them. Something had been bothering her, nagging at the back of her consciousness about Edge and his feelings for her, but this was the first moment she saw it in full light.
“Are you serious?” Edge asked, his beautiful green eyes full of genuine concern at her words. He reached out to her and she let him gather her up in his slender arms. “Holly, I like who you are. We’re friends, aren’t we? You didn’t doubt that before, did you?”
“No, I never doubted that.” She admitted, feeling a bit silly for her concerns. The heat of his body against her, the rhythm of his heartbeat, the caress of his hands all told her that he wasn’t so different from her as she feared.
“I don’t expect you to know all the things I know, or be interested in everything I am. I like it that you’re from California. I like your accent, your view of the world.” He told her, making her chuckle slightly. He had told her once that she was like a child; always discovering something new and exciting where he only saw the old and familiar.
“And what about Adam?” She asked as the silence came, doubt creeping back into her heart with each second that went wordless. Edge sighed, pressing his mouth against the top of her head as he thought about what to say.
“I can’t say that I like the thought of any other man being with you. But Adam is my mate, and that is still true despite your relationship to him. We’re on new ground here, and I guess we just have to take it one day at a time. I don’t think it’s anything worth losing you over.” He told her softly, and tears sprang to her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to cause trouble between the men.
“The only thing I want to know is, are you in love with him?” His words hit her like a ton of bricks. Somewhere deep inside of her, a voice cried out ‘yes!’. She chewed on her lower lip nervously as she listened, instead, to the voice of reason. There was no future in loving Adam. He didn’t want her love. She didn’t even really know what love was.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. With anyone. It seems like the sort of thing you would know, doesn’t it?” She laughed gently. Edge seemed to accept that answer, and Holly wondered which voice inside of her was the wisest, which the most honest.
She felt him loosen his grip around her shoulders, and shift his weight away from her. She turned to look up in his eyes and her breath rushed out of her lungs in surprise at the intensity there. He leaned in close and kissed her slowly, with the sort of white hot intensity she’d only read about in romance novels.
She hadn’t thought Edge would get her blood boiling like that. She had expected him to be sweeter, more tender, and he was. She had never expected him to incite this sort of sudden, desperate lust in her. She whimpered into his mouth as his tongue penetrated her mouth with no hint of indecision or doubt. Her hands slid up over slender hips to caress the sinewy muscles in his back as he guided her to lay back.
She buried her hands in his hair and leaned upward, deepening the kiss, trying to drive him beyond the point of no return. She was already there. She didn’t just like him, but she wanted him. She mashed her breasts against his chest forcefully, slipping her legs apart to let him settle between them. Her teeth caught his lip and he pulled back, smiling at her. He caught her hands in his own and pinned them above her head, against the arm of the couch.
The confidence in his smirk surprised her. He knew what he was doing to her. She would have stumbled backward in surprise, had she been standing. There was more to this man than she had imagined.
“Edge…” She whispered, her voice pleading for more.
**Ahhhh-hhehh-hemm!** the sound broke through the intimate cloud his kisses had created and Holly remembered that they were not alone. Paul had left, but Larry and Alyx remained. So did several of the people from the club and the hotel who had joined them in their post-concert gathering.
Not certain his throat-clearing had gotten the message through to the two would be lovers, Larry pitched a pillow across the room, hitting Edge and surprising him with it’s heaviness. Edge cursed and slung the pillow back, missing his friend by a mile but toppling a lamp and breaking it.
“Nice.” Larry laughed in surprise before kneeling to pick up the pieces. Holly could feel Edge’s body shake with embarrassed laughter. She loved the way his eyes turned up at the corners when he laughed, she thought, gazing up at him. Maybe love wasn’t something you fell into all at once, but something which developed. She thought she could definitely learn to love this man.
***********************************************************************
“You look far too cheery this morning.” Adam told Bono as he joined them on the bus. Larry was close behind, his usually neat hair still damp and clinging awkwardly to his forehead and cheeks. He was frowning so hard it looked like it might actually hurt.
“He ought to be, he spent the whole bloody night out and come back just in time to steal the shower.” Larry grumbled.
“Really?” Adam asked, sitting up to look at Bono with interest in his eyes. “Who was she?”
“None of your business.” Bono replied, settling into the seat behind Edge.
“Oh, c’mon, let a guy live vicariously. All I had to help me sleep was Edge strumming a few notes and then scratching something down on paper, scribbling it out and then playing some more.”
“You working on something new?” Bono asked, and Adam sighed, knowing he had lost any chance of getting Bono to talk about women.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Edge replied, turning sideways to look Bono in the eye and tell him about his conversation with Holly about Northern Ireland. “I know it’s in the news but for people who don’t have it happening in their own back yards, it just doesn’t reach them. There needs to be some other way to get them to listen.”
“Well, they’re listening to us.” Bono replied. “We’ve got their attention, now let’s say something worth saying. It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?” Edge smiled at his friend and passed his notebook back to him.
“There’s many lost, but tell me who has won? That’s a great line, The Edge.” Bono mumbled as he read. “and it’s true we are immune This is really good.”
“Is anyone going to actually produce this, though?” Adam asked, frowning as he listened in on the conversation.
“Why not?” Larry asked. “We’ve already done a lot of things other bands aren’t doing and we’re making money for the record company. We have the chance to really say something. It goes along with the theme we were tossing around for the next record perfectly, anyway.”
“Adam has a good point.” Paul piped in. “This is the sort of thing people get very worked up over. And Bono’s right, people are listening. It’s wise to really think about what you say from now on. Keep working on it. I promised you when we got our first contract that I wouldn’t try and make you sell out, and I won’t do that now.” Bono smiled at Paul gratefully and turned his attention back to the music.
Paul sat back down beside Natalie and they watched as all four of the young men began working together on this new song which, they suspected, had the potential to change everything.
I have a sudden urge to have a bath 
