Free The Celeb Next Door by Hilary Freeman

I thought I’d seen you around. Well, please don’t tell anyone on the street aboutwhat you find here. The council is trying to get us out.’
    ‘I know,’ I say. ‘It sucks.’ I don’t tell her that Mum, as chairperson of the residents’ association, is backing them all the way.
    Amanda doesn’t talk much as she shows me around; she just opens doors and points at things, like she can’t wait to get it over with. The collective house is amazing. They’ve got darkrooms for photography, art rooms that Dad would kill for, and music studios. There’s also a huge space for parties, where there are decks permanently set up, which extends out into the garden and is covered by a canopy. Amanda doesn’t show me where anyone sleeps, and I think it would be rude to ask, but I’m dying to see. She does tell me there are up to fifteen people living here at any one time. I wonder what she’d say if I asked to move in for a while …
    ‘Right,’ says Amanda. ‘Tour over. Sorry, but the rest is private and I’ve got stuff to do.’
    ‘Oh,’ I say, disappointed. I want to stay longer, to meet some of the others, especially if one of them might be Winksy. Everyone I’ve passed looks really quirky and interesting. One guy was dressed like he’d stepped out of a photo from the Forties, complete with a moustache and RAF flying jacket.
    It’s not to be. Amanda shows me to the front door. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she says. ‘See you around.’ No party invite, or suggestion to return. She opens the door justwide enough so that I can squeeze through the gap and bolts it shut behind me. Before I walk away, I stand on the doorstep for a moment, wondering if I’ll ever have the chance to go inside again.
    What to do about Max bugs me all afternoon. I’m glad I’m not seeing him today – he’s gone to meet some friends from school who live in South London. When he sends me a text to find out how I am, I reply with a friendly message but I feel really self-conscious about putting three kisses at the end, even though I always do that. Funny how knowing someone fancies you changes everything. I wonder if Rufus has told him what I said yet? I feel like I need to talk about it, but Sky isn’t picking up her phone, and obviously I can’t talk to Vix. Dad is home, so I decide to ask him for his opinion. He can be quite good at giving advice because he doesn’t see life like most older people do; he still remembers being a teenager and what it feels like.
    Dad is in his studio, surrounded by sketchbooks and screwed up bits of paper with half-finished drawings on them. He looks frustrated. He tells me he’s having another go at the Fieldstar album cover. Rufus didn’t like his first ideas because he said they weren’t ‘honest’ enough, whatever that means. The problem is, he won’t let Dad hear the tracks (they still haven’t been mastered) or tell him what the new album is called, mainly because it doesn’t have a name yet. ‘We’re trying to come up withsomething that truly captures the genuine nature of the material,’ he told Dad. As Fieldstar’s first two albums were called
Fieldstar
and
Fieldstar Two
, it’s probably not too much of a stretch to guess the title of the third one, but that doesn’t really help Dad.
    ‘Can I ask you something, Dad?’ I say, cautiously.
    ‘Of course you can, Rosie. You can ask me anything you like – as long as it’s not for a bigger monthly allowance.’
    ‘No, no. It’s nothing like that. It’s personal.’
    Dad stiffens. I think he looks a trifle scared, as if he’s going to have to give me a lecture on the birds and the bees, or something. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to ask your mother? She’s better on
that
kind of thing.’
    ‘No, really, she isn’t. And don’t worry, it’s not a woman thing. It’s a life thing.’
    He relaxes. ‘OK. Fire away.’
    I’m not sure how to explain myself, so I just come straight out with it. ‘How do you know when you fancy