The Art of Living

[20] Brian, huh?

Despite Ellie's slight worries, the day had turned out to be a lot of fun. And she spent it away from Brian, so all her worries wouldn't have been necessary. Brian, Freddie and Mike had gone to see some people they knew, and Sue and Pat had invited Ellie to spend the day with them. They had gone shopping, to a café, and Ellie had met some of Roger's ex .. partners. Some of them had never officially been his girlfriend, but none of them seemed to hold a grudge against him. Quite the opposite actually.

All in all it had been a very fun afternoon. All of the girls she had met would be coming to the gig in the evening, but they wouldn't be there for the soundcheck. Other than Pat, Sue and Ellie. That was why they returned to the flat quickly, to drop of the few things they had bought. And of course they needed to pick up Ellie's camera.

On the way to the city hall Ellie was glad that she had someone to guide her through the streets. And she was glad that neither of them had brought up the topic of Brian. Neither Pat nor Sue had mentioned anything, if they had caught on to what everybody was seeing between them - which they probably had - and Ellie was very grateful for that.

"How much time do you need to get ready?" Sue asked curiously. She seemed very interested in what Ellie did and Ellie was glad to tell her as much as she wanted to hear.

Ellie could end up being quite nerdy if she wanted to, if she felt comfortable enough letting people see that side. Which was also why she had picked up the astronomy book that Brian had lying on his bag, the one that she had looked through in the car. Who knew how long she had to wait, so she would maybe get another chance to look through that. It wasn't all that bad.

"I don't really need a lot of time, I'm going to see which lenses I'm going to use and which settings and so on, but apart from that, I was planning to see if they need any help with setting up. With the other bands that I took pictures for I got to the location like half an hour before. And now we have a bit more than two hours. We'll see."

"We're going to get something to eat probably, so that will keep us busy for some time," Sue told her. "Depending on how far they are, we'll either all go or they will send us three. Have you ever seen them play?"

Ellie shook her head. "No, I haven't. I've seen Mike play, but only because I've known him the longest. I'm really curious though. Are they any good? I actually have no idea, I'm really just here because of the pictures," she admitted with a smile.

"Well, this is the first time we're seeing Freddie perform, and same for Mike, but Roger and Brian are definitely good. I think you'll really like their style of playing."

"If they get to play gigs here, and not just in London, they have to be. But how come you know Freddie if this is the first time you see him perform? I don't know much about their band history at all. I only met them last week so there hasn't been much time for that. They didn't even originally plan to bring a photographer, they told me they were going to find someone here but then Brian convinced them to bring me."

Sue looked at her, seemingly surprised. "Brian convinced them?"

"Yes," Ellie sighed. She knew what Sue was getting at. "But that's just because he was the only one who was aware that I'm studying photography."

"Really? What about Mike? He had to know that too if you've known him for so long."

Ellie glanced at her, now she was surprised. "Yeah.. You're right. He did know that. But Brian was definitely the one who insisted that I come."

"Brian, huh? Are you sure when you say my eyes tricked me? You did sleep next to each other, didn't you? Roger told us that you were cuddling."

Ellie sighed. Not again. The more Sue insisted on talking about that, the bigger Ellie's doubts were getting that Brian was no one special. "Cuddling.. If that is how Roger cuddles, then it doesn't get very intimate with him.. Brian and I were just sharing the mattress, and there wasn't a lot of space so of course we were close. But that doesn't mean anything. Not to me." If Lynn could hear that, Ellie knew exactly what her friend would say: 'Excuses, excuses..'. She knew she was making it sound less spectacular than it was, but she had to insist that it meant nothing to her or nobody would believe her anymore - not even she herself.