★彡ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ʟᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ | ᴘᴀᴜʟ ᴍᴄᴄᴀʀᴛɴᴇʏ彡★ ✅

★彡[ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 2]彡★

Paul was hoping that nobody recognised him in his disguise; a stick-on moustache, pork pie hat and pair of his dad's old glasses with the lenses put out. It wasn't too much to ask, was it? All he wanted was a spring walk around London without having to worry about being chased by a legion of fans - which happened way more often than he liked.

He and the boys had once loved the idea of people chasing them around, but now they couldn't stand it. They were practically prisoners, their prison alternating between their flat, hotel rooms and the recording studio.

Paul stopped at a newspaper stand, which was in between a flower stall and a bric-a-brac table. He looked at the front pages and sighed; almost all of them featured an article about the band in some way, shape or form. Why couldn't they just have their privacy? They were people just like everybody else, but nobody seemed to get that. The previous summer, The Beatles had stormed not just London, but the whole of England, and earlier that year they had taken America. They were, the newspapers said, Britain's answer to Elvis Presley. Paul quite liked that, though he didn't think that they would ever be able to outdo the King.

Ignoring the vendor of the news stand, he picked up a paper and flicked through it. Paul mentally tallied how many times The Beatles were mentioned.

John

John

Me

Ringo

George and Pattie (who had just met and started dating)

Me

Me

"Can I help you, Miss?" Paul looked up from the article he was skimming. At the flower stall beside where he was stood a very pretty girl. She was stooped over, the head of a flower resting softly in one hand and her eyes cast up towards the flower seller, who had spoken to her.

"Um, no..." she stood upright, "I was just, um, looking. Thank you."

Flushing a deep red, the girl turned and hurried off.

She seemed flustered and stressed, and definitely unhappy.

Paul reached into his pocket and threw a few coins to the man at the newspaper stand before he went to the flower seller. "A bunch of those flowers." Paul pointed to the ones which the girl had been smelling a few seconds before. He paid, and the man handed over the flowers.

The Beatle dashed down the road, trying desperately to catch up to the girl whom had just rounded the corner. He hoped that he didn't lose her!

Keeping her image in his head, Paul kept going. When he rounded the corner, he was shocked to see how busy it was. He was concerned that he would never find her in the throng of early morning Londoners, but after a second or so he managed to spot her and her plain brown pea coat. Paul wove through the people until he was so close to the girl that he could see her hair was not the single brown which he had first thought, but rather it was made up of lots of different shades. The crowd thinned as they turned the corner again, and Paul found that he and the girl were the only two on the street.

And it was a familiar street, not far from the EMI Studios on Abbey Road where The Beatles were recording for their next album. He and the boys quite frequently - if they could get away with it - walked down the road when they were looking for some place to get their next meal from.

George, Paul and Ringo - who had never had much growing up - loved very little more than splashing their money on food. Whether it was at an expensive restaurant or a little greasy spoon, they marvelled at being able to order something and it would be cooked for them.

John, on the other hand, quite enjoyed cooking - though he would not want anybody else to know that. He too, though, was quite partial to a fry-up at a cafe.

"Excuse me!" Paul called, being careful not to raise his voice too much so he didn't attract a lot of attention from anybody who might have been in the shops around them.

The girl, surprised, turned and put a hand on her chest. "Me?"

Paul smiled in reply as he reached her, "well you're the only one here, aren't you?" He paused, "I'm Paul."

"Abby." For a few seconds, they both looked at each other before Abby asked, "can I help you?" She wasn't being rude, but she was already late for work and a meeting with a random stranger was not going to help her remedy the situation.

"I got these for you." Paul held out the flowers: peonies, if he guessed correctly... and he did. When he was younger, Paul's mother Mary had grown peonies in their garden, and when they had moved to 20 Forthlin Road she had replanted them... and after she had died, Paul's father Jim had tried to keep them alive... but they had died, just like she had and not too long after.

Abby didn't take them.

"What?" This had never happened before - a stranger buying her flowers? And he looked like a total dick, too; his moustache was lopsided, his glasses obviously for show and he was wearing a dumb hat. Wait, was that a stick on moustache? Why was this idiot in disguise?

"Flowers." Paul moved his hand a little so the flowers would rustle. "For you, Abby." When she didn't take them, Paul tried again, "I'd really like you to have them. I saw you looking at them and then you hurried off. Every pretty girl should have flowers given to them by a man."

Hesitantly, she took them, unable to hide the deep red blush from her cheeks.

"Y-you think I'm pretty?"

"Very." Paul flirted, batting his long eyelashes at her. He didn't usually have to do this much work with a girl; usually they were his before he even spoke to them - but he liked this girl better for making him put more effort in. It had become almost too easy for the twenty-two year old to pick up girls since the band had gotten big.

Abby looked at him for a few seconds, wondering how he looked under the ridiculous disguise - but then she snapped back into character.

"I-I have to go -"

"Will I see you again?" Paul asked as she tried to turn away.

Feeling slightly sad, she turned back to him. When she was a few years younger, she had always wanted a man to approach her the way that Paul had just done, but she had other responsibilities, now. Her life had changed. She had Mollie, and she had bills that needed to be paid... and she had a job that she was very late for.

"I don't know." She answered, "maybe... maybe one day, if it's meant to happen." Abby had never been particularly philosophical, but she didn't question where her last words had come from.

With that, she rushed off to the little greasy spoon where she worked. Abby was still clutching the peonies.