Free Love Nest by Julia Llewellyn Page A

saying, ‘Did she? Yeah, well, that is the plan.’
    ‘I’ve always wanted to go to America. New York. The shopping’s meant to be brilliant.’
    That familiar feeling of being slowly suffocated. ‘I don’t know if we’ll go to New York. Nothing’s certain yet.’
    Kylie didn’t react. ‘I was thinking maybe we could go by ourselves some time. For a weekend. Becky and Ian went a couple of weeks ago for her birthday. Drank champagne all the way. They said it was amazing.’ Her voice softened. ‘It would be good for us to get some time alone together.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Nick said, feeling like the most evil man in the world.
    The following morning, Kylie was up early and out of the flat by eight. Nick rose an hour later and took the Tube to Farringdon, revelling in the stares of an office worker, a young woman, in a shiny grey suit. Brazenly he stared back at her. Immediately she looked away. Nick grinned. He could see her puzzling – is it him? No, it can’t be. That was the joy of being the lead guitarist/songwriter. You got all the perks of wealth and fame, but you could still travel more or less anonymously on the tube. As lead singer, Jack couldn’t step outside his front door without a volley of paparazzi bulbs exploding.
    But without Nick, Jack would be nothing. Nick wrote the songs, and the songs – despite what Jack’s groupies might argue – were what made the Vertical Blinds so hot. They were also what brought in the money. All right, the other guys were doing fine, but Nick got the royalties every time their songs were played on the radio and a way bigger percentage than the rest of them every time a disc was sold or downloaded. Hence his ability to pay cash for that amazing flat and still have plenty left over to buy his mum a house.
    Like last time, Lucinda was waiting by the front door. If anything, she was sexier than he’d remembered: in a dove grey trouser-suit, her hair tied back in a neat bun. Her cheekbones seemed almost to point through her skin, heralding her genetic superiority. She was so sleek and glossy, like a racehorse. Kylie – well, Kylie was like a pit pony in comparison: cute, amiable but uninspiring.
    ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘How nice to see you again.’
    Nick didn’t quite know how to respond to this. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered.
    ‘Shall we go in?’
    Just like Lucinda, the flat was even better than he remembered. To own something like that would be the apex of his dreams. But one of Nick’s rules of life was always to play it cool. Show eagerness and Lucinda would be off spinning a line about how many buyers were after it, the stiff competition, blah-di-blah, maybe he should put in an offer straight away or risk losing the place by morning. He looked around in silence and – unlike last time – she kept her comments to a minimum. At the end, he said, ‘I’m going to have to have a think about this.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Yeah,’ he said and then suddenly deciding it was time to change tack, he added, ‘I like your suit. Very Katharine Hepburn.’
    ‘You didn’t strike me as a Hepburn fan.’ She looked amused.
    ‘Why not?’ Snooty cow. Still, she had a point. One of the advantages of having a mother addicted to black and white movies, he guessed.
    ‘Well, you know. You’re in a band and…’
    ‘Have you ever seen us?’
    ‘What? Your band? No! I’m not that into music.’
    Not that into music? Nick just couldn’t understand how anyone could say that – it was like saying I’m not that into eating to stay alive, I’m not that into washing (actually Nick hadn’t been that into washing for a big chunk of his teens, but whatever). Not that into breathing, into having a beating heart. Kylie loved music. It had been one of the things that had oiled their early years together, going to gigs, making up obscure playlists, tuning in to far-away radio stations. Some of her favourites were a bit dodgy, but she was always open to new stuff and had, in fact,