stories from the city; damon albarn

2020

Sitting in Chloe Erlich's newly refurnished LA home, which felt much nicer now that Ewan had finally moved the remainder of his things out, Chloe watched as Damon Albarn spun around one of her newly upholstered chairs and fiddled on his phone.

She had no idea how he was wearing a sweatshirt in the mildly hot LA weather, or why he had the energy of a two year old today, but regardless, she was thrilled that he was staying here with her. And there was no sneaking about that had to be done.

A grin flushed over her face as he placed his phone down on the table and then made his way over to her, gently pulling her over and onto his lap.

The house was empty.

Alf, Chloe's youngest, who for some reason loved the nickname given to her as a kid, was at her father's home after finishing up a soccer game. Her elder two children were somewhere out in the city and wouldn't be due to visit her for another few days. Damon's own daughter was in London, and they'd both told their assistants and whoever else to fuck off for the day.

She kissed him gently, before snickering a little, his hands move up to her shoulders, sitting there proudly before squeezing them for a brief second and then letting go.

They had a lot of silent moments, it was just how they were these days. They enjoyed just staring at one another, it reminded them of how long it took them to get here, and now they just felt eager to lap it all up. Most of their relationship, even as friends, had been so fucking hidden. And now, after years they could finally scream the words "I'm out with Chloe" or "I'm out with Damon" without feeling like there would be some sort of judgement waiting for them.

Graham Coxon had been one of the first people Damon Albarn had told, and his reaction had simply been "took you long enough."

And Alex James had asked about his sex life.

Damon hung up.

His daughter had found the situation weird, yet amusing.

And Jamie Hewlett found it fucking hilarious that it had taken his friend nearly 20 years, and now Damon Albarn of all people was acting shy.

On the other hand, Maxis Erlich had been fucking thrilled, as most of the Erlich's had been. Except for Hans, who had just grinned. It was basically what they all had been waiting to happen for years.

Her kids had taken a bit of time when it came to warming up to the idea of Damon Albarn dating their mother, similar to how they felt about their father and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. But after awhile they kind of realized that they weren't bad people and neither were their parents. Things just hadn't worked out.

But back to the present.

The buzz of his phone interrupted their own blissful silence, causing Damon to groan and lean over, picking up his cellphone and wrinkling his nose as he looked through the message he had received.

"What on earth is a DeuxMoi?" He mutters, moving his phone away from his face.

"Have you tried googling it?" Chloe asks, sliding off him and into a different spot on the sofa, pulling out her own phone to look it up.

"How do you spell that? Is it Do or?" She adds

"It's French Chlo. D-E-U-X-M-O-I" he spells it out before looking to his phone again. "Could've sworn somebody mentioned it to me, but now my manager sent it my way."

She googles and hits the first thing that comes up, an Instagram page, where she quickly learns that by clicking through, the page offers celebrity blinds, that were surprisingly more accurate than tabloids had ever been- apparently celebrity sightings and well, professionals, friends and employees leaking information was now popular.

She hadn't even owned a proper Instagram. Hers had been set up by her management, who also posted photos from her archives (which was in the process of being digitalized). Chloe never used the damned thing, unless her daughters asked her to. The app had kind of sat wasting away on her phone.

Damon was apparently the same way. He had the app. He was logged in. But he wasn't necessarily allowed or interested in posting on the account. It was just used to promote whatever project he was working on next. Or something someone else that he liked had done.

"I figured it out." Chloe murmurs, swiping through the page, looking for mentions of his name, or hers. But with the anonymity of most of the submissions, it made it significantly harder to tell what could be about who.

Damon leans over, placing his head on her shoulder and looking over her screen.

"Thought you didn't understand technology?"

"I'm somewhat versed in it." She snaps playfully

After speculating who a few of the posts could be about, they finally come across one that sticks out and struck a chord with Chloe. One that most definitely described her situation with her ex husband and Damon Albarn.

And upon further investigation, the comments all seemed to think the same thing as well.

Damon sits up, an unsettled look on his face. "People care about us?"

"We are public figures."

"Still, us?"

She stares at the phone for a minute and bites her lip anxiously. She wasn't sure if this was something to take seriously, or if it was something worth caring about. Chloe had been enjoying the peace and privacy she'd been afforded as of late and didn't feel like disrupting it, especially in order to get ahead of a gossip column that was unfortunately correct.

Damon plucks the phone out of her hands and sets it down on the table and sighs. "Don't bother with it." He murmurs before planting a kiss to her face. "It's not doing us any harm."

"What if it does? Wouldn't work it be best to talk to your publicist or mine? Be prepared?"

"Mine has seen it. They haven't said anything yet. Just let it sit."

She sighs "If anything happens-"

"Relax Chlo." He says "I can assure you. It won't."

She wasn't sure if she entirely believed that.

Damon wasn't either. But he wasn't going to say anything to freak the woman in front of them out. She'd been through enough as of late and he'd worked too hard to get where they were today and the last thing he thought would end up becoming a problem would be a stupid gossip column based on Instagram.