Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Kitty

"I think we should leave them to it lads," yawned Fliss leaning back in the grass with her head in Vans lap, smoking a ciggarette.

She was talking about Bondy and Saffron who's whereabouts was presently unknown. This was only odd because I'd woken up first, as I always did, and had found that two of my friends were missing, something which had never happened before.

Whenever i woke up saffron was always passed out. In the old days she'd have passed out alone in whichever flowerbed she'd deemed looked comfiest under the early morning moonlight, in recent months she'd have slept soundly wherever her new friend had placed her down. Still she would always remain passed out until I began to stir and it would be the two of us who watched over our sleeping friends as we rolled breakfast and hunted down a brew.

Johnny had apparently never been known to wake up before noon and therefore there unexpected absense from the hotel lawn we'd all woken up on had lead to several different theories which we'd been tossing around between ourselves as we'd started to settle into our new hungover, sleep deprived states.

I sat with blakes between my legs, he lay half asleep his back to my chest, my arms wrapped round his body as i closed my eyes and leant my chin on his shoulder.

"Maybe theyre finally," started Larry before Bob hit him hard in the arm and the two of them disolved into quiet giggling.

"fuckin?" fliss finished his sentence dryly, surprising them both, shocking even Van.

"Theyre not," i smirked shaking my head and when i was met with nothing but frowns i laughed and repeated myself, amused that i knew them best. "Trust me," i yawned, "theyre not,"

"Bonds wouldn't have made a move on her," agreed Blakes, "he's got too many principles,"

"ah yes that bloody moral code of his," grinned Larry, "always gets in the way," and i just faded out of their conversation and wished they were wrong though I knew they were right and I knew it was right, him leaving it. Him letting her have a little time to herself without forcing her to think about anyone else. Still i knew she was thinking of him. You could tell when you looked at them, when you looked at her looking at him. When you looked at her and you could see it in her eyes, if he wasn't there she was waiting for him to return.

"What are we gonna do then?" yawned Fliss after a little while, "cause me head hurts an i want a brew..."

"Int there a cafe or somet near here?" asked Larry though i had to wonder why. So did Fliss apparently as she pushed herself up and pretended to peer around in search of one.

"what do you think?" i smirked.

"she's right la were in the middle of bloody nowhere christ Fliss whys your sister got to be so bloody posh?" teased Van forcing a smile as he too stood up and started gathering his things. "Alrate lids we're gettin in the car,"

"and goin where?"

"are you sure thats safe?" chuckled Blakes as he helped me up and pulled me instinctively into his side. It was one of those little movements, those throwaway kind that you might not think about that often, but which make your heart flutter all the same. You find yourself struggling to hold back a smile.

"Of course its fuckin safe," he grinned back, "come on get in we're going for a drive," and so we did. We piled into the car which wasn't really big enough for all of us and we squished together sitting on eachothers laps, crouching down in the footwells as Van began to drive away.

It only took him ten minutes to get lost but when he did they all started chiming in as if they were king of the road and had lived round this way all their lives. It was only really Rudy who knew where we were but since he was asleep, his hair tickling my face, his drool dribbling down my shoulder, he wasn't exactly in a position to contribute.