Diving Deep (UK Crush #2)

Chapter 48

Teddy and I looked at each other and started to smile. He reached out his hand to me. I grabbed it and we raced for the elevator, which carried us down to the ground floor, and we ran out to the street and basically fell all over each other laughing. He hugged me around the waist, hugging me tightly.

"Birdie the Bitchtastic to the rescue," he said, kissing me warmly in the middle of the street.

"That was invigorating," I exclaimed breathlessly. "Let's celebrate with a huge lunch!"

"It's always food with you, Birdie," he said, laughing.

"Let me finish, let me finish," I said, hitting his chest. "A huge lunch, followed by an afternoon in a really posh, fabulous hotel somewhere close, where we can just go to bed and watch movies and fuck, and order room service for dinner. What do you think?"

"We have no clothes, no luggage," he said.

"Oh, come on, be adventurous," I encouraged. "All we need are our bodies." And I grabbed him, between his legs, right in the middle of the street.

He stared at me in shock. "What if someone took a picture of that?" He asked.

"Sometimes you have to take a risk. And I never took media training, so I don't know about those things," I shrugged. "Where do you want to go for lunch?" I leaned up and kissed him.

He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and kissed me, really kissed me, put his arms around me and made me forget where I was. He finally let me go, both of us breathing hard. "How about we check into the hotel now and get room service for lunch and dinner?" He said, sliding his hand under my sweater to touch my skin, making me shiver.

"Sounds good." I said, biting my lip. "Best idea I've heard all day. Lead the way, mister."

The weather grew colder, and I delved deeper into my Mozart. London in autumn was beautiful, and I was so happy that it kind of scared me. One afternoon Teddy surprised me with a walking tour of historic Westminster, ending with dinner at another riverside bistro, and it was such fun to find out how much he knew about the city. We wandered the tree-lined streets, leaves crunching under our feet, buildings looking like something out of Mary Poppins.

Sometimes, just for fun, Teddy and I would go on the Internet to read about ourselves. Some of it was true, some false, some hurtful, some outlandish, but it was almost always entertaining.

Once, when we were out to dinner with Janelle, there was a story that said that we were trying to have a child and having trouble conceiving, so we were trying to talk Janelle into being a surrogate for us; another story said that I was actually Ronan's secret wife (they had a picture of me and Ronan kissing from somewhere) and that Teddy was just "keeping an eye" on me until my audition. Yet another article said that the boys "shared" me, that I slept with all of them. I'd snarfed my iced tea when I read that, while Teddy just slid onto the floor laughing. He also found an article that was all about me and my different "looks"; I hadn't been aware that I had any looks. I just put on whatever clothes were clean in the morning. That particular piece described me as Teddy's "doe-eyed beauty". He read it out loud and nudged me, smiling. I hid my face in his arm with embarrassment, but I was flattered, too.

"You know who else was described as 'doe-eyed'?" I mentioned to him. "Audrey fucking Hepburn. Wow. Me and Audrey Hepburn, being described with the same adjective, that's really something. Damn." I sighed.

"But you know what?" he said, putting the laptop aside and pulling me onto his lap. "You're built way better than Audrey Hepburn ever was. She was a stick. You're curvy and round and soft in all the right places." And he kissed me, putting his arms around me and moaning comfortably. "God, that just never gets old."