#id love them so. in my life i love the beatles more or whatever john wrote | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

honeyfieldsforever · 3 years

Text

hello! sorry if this is bad i literally haven't wrote in forever 😆 and this is really unrealistic and unaccurate but that's why it's called fanfiction, eh? hope you enjoy!!

"what? you can send me back in time?" i asked to the old man in front of me in disbelief.

"correct." he nodded, leaning on his wooden cane.

"right, go on then, send me back to 1958." i said confidently, still not believing the man.

"as you wish..." his voice faded away as my vision went completely black, feeling as if my life flashed before my eyes.

*time skip lolol*

"is she even alive?" you hear quiet mumbles of a young liverpudlian boy.

"course she is, don't be stupid lennon." another boy says in a strong scouse accent.

"well we can't just leave her here, she'll freeze to death!" it sounded as if you were surrounded by a group of the boys.

you feel someone's arms wrap around you, lifting you up and carrying you bridal style to god knows where. your mind was still hazy at this point and you struggled to keep your eyes open, so you didn't resist being carried.

"your parents better not be home, what will they do if you just carry an unconscious girl into the house?" one of the boys trailing behind exclaims.

"they're not, they've went out for the day." the one with the scouse accent who was presumably carrying you responds.

eventually you were brought into a house and laid gently down onto a bed.

"she's awfully cold, go make her a cuppa macca."

by now you were slowly gaining more consciousness and able to peel open your eyes.

"she's alive!!" one of them shouts and throws their arms in the air as if it was a celebration.

"oh shut up, lennon."

"what's happening?" i mumble, rubbing my eyes and slowly sitting up.

"oh hello love, you were lying in an alleyway completely knocked out and you looked as if you were going to die of hypothermia!" the scouser says with a toothy smile. the other boys in the room were all wearing leather jackets with slightly elvis-style hair. my eyebrows furrowed as i tried to comprehend where i was and who i was with.

"here, take this for now. i'm george, george harrison." george takes off his jacket and wraps it around me as i stare at him in disbelief.

he can't possibly be george harrison? he's so.. young. i have to be dreaming.

"and i'm john lennon!" john exclaims and makes a funny face, causing me to giggle.

"oh she's awake! here's your cuppa love." another boy walks in with a cup of hot tea and winks.

"i'm paul and that's pete." paul waves and points to who i presume is pete standing in the corner.

my smile fades as i subtly pinch myself and realise that i'm actually in a room with the fucking beatles before they were famous.

"wow, this is lovely, but.. what year is it?" i say, sort of clueless.

"oh dear, have you hit your head?" paul asked worriedly and presses his hand to my head, checking my temperature or whatever.

"its the 3rd of october 1958." george says with concern in his eyes.

"oh, yes. right. i just forgot. silly me." i say on the verge of a breakdown.

"ah, right. so what were you doing unconscious lying in an alley next to the club we were playing in?" john says, sort of laughing it off.

"erm, i really don't know actually. ill probably remember later." i say, smiling through the pain. the boys shrug their shoulders.

"well, we've never seen you about before. where do you stay about?" george says. after this question im silent. i don't know how to respond, everything just seems so overwhelming.

"do you want me to take you out for a walk or something and we can talk?" george says, placing his hand over mine and i just nod quietly.

"right, we'll be back in a while." george and i get up and walk out the door.

i wrap george's leather jacket tighter around myself as the cold air hits us.

"so, what's happened, you ran away or something?" george asks with his hands in his pockets as we start walking. in response to this question i just broke down, tears started streaming down my face. i opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out.

"oh darling, what's the matter?" he says softly and wraps one of his arms around me, using his other hand to wipe away my tears.

"you won't believe me." i cry, my breath uneven.

"it doesn't matter, you can tell me." he smiles sympathetically.

"im from the future." i state, causing him to stop in his tracks and just stare at me in disbelief.

"i told you you wouldn't believe me." i chuckle, sniffling.

"no no, i believe you, i just..." george trails off, still in disbelief.

i shrug my shoulders and continue walking, leaving george to comprehend what i just confessed. i hear footsteps running towards me and george stands in front of me, stopping me in my tracks.

before i knew it he cups my cheek and presses a soft kiss to my lips. as i pulled away i looked into his eyes, a combination of love and sadness. i smiled slightly and pulled him in for another kiss, this time longer and more passionate.

"look, we'll sort something out, we can try get you back to the future, or me and the lads are going to hamburg soon, you can come with us! in the meantime you can stay with me!" he says excitedly, still holding my face.

"id love that. just give me time to think and we'll take things one day at a time, yeah?" i smile as he pulls me in for yet another kiss.

#60s #50s #beatles #george harrison #classic rock #hot lol #john lennon #paul mccartney #music #ringo starr #the beatles #pete best #teddy boy #time travel #fanfic #fanfiction #beatles fanfiction

13 notes · View notes

daggerzine · 6 years

Text

The Dot comes before the Dash- the Danny Ingram interview.

You would see their names on the back of records, many for Washington’s DC’s Dischord label and you might see a photo every now and again, but don’t know much about them unless you were part of that scene (ie; see my previous interview with Chris Bald from a few years ago). Danny Ingram was another one of those names. I knew he’d been in some of the early Dischord bands (Youth Brigade, etc.) and knew he’d done a lot of other stuff but wasn’t exactly sure where, when or in what context (‘cept that I knew he’s a drummer). Fast forward to nearly a decade ago when I saw his name as drummer of a new Washington, DC combo named Dot Dash. Their guitarist/vocalist Terry Banks had been in some of my favorite indie pop combos, namely Tree Fort Angst and The Saturday People, so I knew I was gonna like this one (Hunter Bennett rounds out the trio on bass)! I’ve enjoyed all of their records, but this latest one, Proto Retro (released earlier this year on The Beautiful Music label) is really a special thing of beauty. Well-written rock-pop songs that are both heartfelt and fun (and catchy as hell). Back to Ingram though, he was one of the older punks on the DC scene and thus saw and heard a lot so grab your favorite beverage, your reading glasses and bathrobe and take a stroll both down memory lane and up ‘til the current day.

A man and his drums,

Were you born and raised in Washington, DC?

Yes – DC born and raised. Lived in SE DC until I was 12, then moved to Palisades (NW DC) where I met my life-long friend and future bandmate, Nathan Strejcek.

At what age did you take up the drums?

I had a fascination with drums from an early age. I’d had a crush on my baby sitter, Irene, and her brother had a drum set. To impress her, I tried playing along with his Beatles records and such, even though my feet didn’t reach the pedal. It was a lost cause. But a dear family friend and neighbor in SE, Richard Spencer, nurtured my interest. I think he bought me my first drums. He played in Otis Redding’s band and achieved quite a bit of success with his own band the Winstons (he wrote the Grammy-winning song ‘color him father). I was about 19 when I took up the drums in earnest – with the intention of being in a band. At the risk of repeating an oft-told story…I had gone to see the Clash at the Ontario theater and was hanging out in the narrow, upstairs ‘dressing room’ with the band and several other people. I was sharing a spliff and talking with Joe, Mick and (to a lesser extent because I had trouble understanding him) Paul. Joe asked if I played in a band – I told him I didn’t – but that my best friend did. He admonished me to get off the sidelines – to ‘do something – create something’ – and when Joe Strummer tells you to do something…well…you do it. Shortly thereafter I volunteered to join the Untouchables (their drummer, Richard, left for college). A few weeks after that we played our first show. This was probably in the fall of 1980.

How did you come into contact with the Dischord Records folks? Were you a Wilson HS student as well? Yeah. I went to Wilson (briefly) and knew all the Dischord people before there was a record label (or a Teen Idles). Nathan and I were best friends and he, along with Ian and Jeff, started the label. We all grew up together and have been friends since early days.

Do you remember the first person you ever met in the DC punk scene? What was your first punk show?

I was there at the outset and knew most-if not all-of the people before there was a scene, per se. I guess the first people I met who weren’t in our group of friends were Xyra and Cathy – they had a punk radio show at WGTB (Georgetown University radio) called Revolt into Style. Nathan and I used to sneak out of our houses and go down for their shows after our parents went to sleep. As for the first concert? Hard to say. I saw so many bands in those early days –one of the first was probably the Ramones in the fall of ’77. I worked at the Atlantis and at the 9:30 club when it first opened up – so I saw almost every show that came through the DC area for many years. Also, I was a smidge older…so coupled with my fake ID I was able to get into places like the Bayou as well.

Youth Brigade (Danny is 2nd from left)

From what I know you’re a bit older than some of the other DC punks, were you there early enough to go to places like Madam’s Organ and the Hard Art Gallery? (places I only know about from pictures, usually of the Bad Brains).

Tell me about how/when The Untouchables formed? Was that your first band?

…and please tell us about the origins of Youth Brigade?

I was born in 1961 – so it makes me a about a year older than Ian and Jeff and six months older than Nathan. I never really considered myself older. Now, Boyd and the guys in Black Market Baby were fucking old! Most of em born in the 50’s! J Seriously though – we were all roughly in the same age group – though I think Xyra (who was a bit older) referred to that initial scene (affectionately – not anatomically) as teeny punks or baby punks. My first band was the Untouchables. As noted above, Richard had split and moved off to college. I was sitting at the Roy Rogers with Eddie, Alec and (I think) Bert as they lamented the loss of their drummer and the prospect of breaking up. I jokingly volunteered to take his place. They immediately said ‘yes’ despite my warnings that I’d never really played the drums. A few weeks later we played our first show. We hung together for almost a year before splitting up. After that was Youth Brigade. Nathan had been the singer of the Teen Idles – but when the band split, it seemed only natural that Nathan and I should start a band together. We’d been best friends for years and had very similar life arcs and musical tastes. We tried out a few guitarists (including Jason of 9353) and one other bassist (Greg) before finally settling on the line-up that most people know with Tom on Guitar and my old friend and former Untouchable mate, Bert on bass. As for Madam’s Organ or Hard Art? I played at Madam’s Organ – and I was at the infamous Bad Brains show at Hard Art. I can’t remember if I ever played there…but it’s entirely possible. You would have to consult with Bert or Alec or someone whose memory isn’t a shambles.

Madhouse backstage

Was Madhouse next? They were a bit different right? A darker sound.

I was in a few bands before Madhouse. I played in a band with Dave Byers and Toni Young (from Red C) called Peer Pressure. Tom Berard (scenester) also sang with the band for a while. We recorded a demo up in NY with the bad brains at 171A. We played a handful of shows but, like so many other bands of that era, split up and moved on to other projects. I also played in a band called Social Suicide – great guys and a fun band (featured Joey A who went on to Holy Rollers). Also short lived – but we did record some songs for a local compilation ‘mixed nuts don’t crack’. OH – I also briefly tried my hand at singing in a VERY short-lived band called black watch. This featured future members of madhouse (Brad Gladstone on bass and the mega-talented Norman van der Sluys on drums). The less said about this the better. Not because of the band – but because my singing can curdle milk at twenty paces.

I was starting to get a bit antsy with the way the DC scene was evolving – so my then girlfriend (Monica Richards) and I decided to start a band that was more rooted in post punk bands like killing joke, magazine and the monochrome set. That was how madhouse started. But unsurprisingly enough, there was no scene for this band, so we still played mostly punk and hardcore shows – but the direction we tried to take didn’t really sit well with a lot of new, burgeoning scene. It seems, at least from afar, that you were willing to go in other directions musically (goth, etc.) whereas maybe some of your DC co-horts stuck to the punk rock thing. Would this be accurate? Did you get flack for it?

Yeah – I guess it was a bit gothy. Certainly, that was Monica’s m.o. I’ve always considered myself a punk – no matter what kind of band I played in. But this was definitely the beginning of stretching musical wings. And, yeah, we caught flack for it. But it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Monica caught the most grief – and that is exactly why we both were getting put off by what the scene was turning into. I’ll just leave it at that. That said – my friends, the ones I’d known from the outset, were all cool. Otherwise I wouldn’t have spent some time drumming for Iron Cross with another life-long friend, Sab.

Strange Boutique (not ready to dine and (dot) dash)

Was Strange Boutique next? If so how/when did that band form and what was its history?

Yes – Strange Boutique (a name I copped from the Monochrome Set song/album) was next up. It was still Monica and me – but while Madhouse tried to straddle the punk scene with whatever it was we were trying to do – Strange Boutique basically said ‘fuck it’ and dove headfirst into what was certainly a more goth-punk-pop sound. The Chameleons, Siouxsie, Cure and bands of that ilk were really influencing us a lot and the quality of the band grew exponentially with the addition of Fred Smith and Steve Willett. -- I should pause here to note that I’ve lost a few friends and bandmates along the way – like Toni Young. But two hit particularly hard: Fred Smith – who was a true original. A crazy fucker. Much loved and much missed no matter how much trouble he got me into! And John Stabb – My brother in every sense of the word. Someone I loved until the end and who was a never-ending source of insanity, humor and energy. John and Fred were both unique spirits…and it’s just not the same without them.

Swervedriver- not huffin’ and puffin’

radioblue in black and white

Pardon my ignorance (I know it was some years) but was there anything between Strange Boutique and Dot Dash?

There were a few bands after Strange Boutique. I played in radioblue who, like strange boutique, were a band on the outside of the dc hardcore scene. They were more 60s-influenced indie pop (byrds, beatles, beach boys, buzzcocks). It led to drumming in a Mark Helm (a singer/guitarist in the band) project called Super 8 and playing on his solo album (on not lame records). I also started a band called King Mixer AGES ago with Steven Engel and James Lee (the bassist and singer/guitarist from radioblue). We still get together to this day, but it’s more like the monthly poker game: play some music, have dinner, hang out and catch up with old friends. We did put out a self-released CD years ago, but Dot Dash came along, and that has monopolized my time for the last seven years. I also played in Swervedriver for about a year, relocating to London for about ten months. It was an amazing experience. Adam Franklin (the singer / song writer) is the greatest musician I’ve ever played with. And as far as I am concerned Adam is in the pantheon of great song-writers of the last 40 years. Glad to still call him and my old swervie bandmates friends. A lifetime of memories crammed into a short period of time! When I moved back to DC from London at the end of 1992 I played in two more bands. The first was the criminally obscure UltraCherry Violet. They were definitely in the mold of swervedriver and some other favorites from that era. The band was Dugan Broadhurst and Dan Marx (who later played in king mixer). We played a handful of shows before I imploded. We got together a year after we split to record some songs for posterity – and those were ultimately released on Bedazzled records (a label I started while in strange boutique – but by now taken over by Steve Willett). There are a few songs on that CD that are among the things I’m most proud of as a musician. I also played with my old running mates and brothers-in-arms John Stabb and Steve Hansgen (and Rob Frankel) in a band called Emma Peel. THAT was fun! We really clicked together musically – and we recorded a single on our good friend John Lisa’s label Tragic Life. The Avenging Punk Rock Godfathers! This web of connections is what led Steve to joining Dot Dash further down the road. The last thing I did before Dot Dash was drumming in the legendary local mod band Modest Proposal, with old friends Neal Augenstein and Bill Crandall (who shortly thereafter was part of the original Dot Dash line-up). Steve Hansgen had played with Neal and Bill during an early incarnation – and he and I comprised the rhythm section for and MP reunion show.

Emma Peel (Danny is far right and that is the late, great John Stabb, 2nd from left)

Do tell us about your current band Dot Dash? I think the records have been terrific. How did you meet Terry and Hunter?

Thanks for the kind words about the DD records. Right now, the band is a three-piece: me on drums, Terry Banks on vocals and guitar and Hunter Bennett on bass. Terry has been in almost as many bands as me – playing in a lot of indie-pop bands like Saturday People, Glo-Worm and Tree Fort Angst. Hunter was a veteran of the Stabb band among others. I didn’t really know either of them before we started the band…but I knew of them from their previous band Julie Ocean (the band also had Jim Spellman of Velocity Girl on guitar/vocals and Alex Daniels from Swiz on drums). Julie Ocean released a great record on Transit of Venus – and they should have been huge. JO had planned to go on tour with a band called Magnetic Morning (that was my old friend Adam Franklin and Interpol drummer Sam Fogarino’s side-project), but drummer-Alex, bailed on the tour. So, that night at the Rock n Roll Hotel, Terry asked if I wanted to play drums in a new project with him and Hunter. I said yes – after consulting with my wife, Sally – but it actually took another six months or so to get rolling (I had already promised to do the Modest Proposal reunion). As it turned out, Jim was planning on leaving JO as well (taking a job in Colorado) – but when he came back he played briefly in Dot Dash (between Bill and Steve). Dot Dash has been the most prolific band I’ve ever played with and the longest running active band. We’ve put out six CD’s on the Canadian label, The Beautiful Music. It’s run by an amazing guy – Wally Salem. I’m not sure that we would still be going without his love and support! Truthfully – I also do it for my kids (Noah 12 and Sam 16). I think it’s good to show them that you can do fun and creative things at any age. Sam has really taken it to heart. He’s been playing guitar since he was 10 and is already a better musician than I ever will be! He’s already formed and broken up his first band – and he filled in for Hunter (on bass) at one of our shows…picking up the songs with relative ease and aplomb.

Almost forgot the Social Suicide pic (Danny’s the UK Subs fan)

What’s next for Dot Dash? Another record in the works? Maybe a tour? I don’t know about touring. I think we would all love to do it – but because we all have demanding jobs, families and such – it makes it difficult to pick up and run off. That said, if the right opportunity presented itself (like going on a tour with a band we love) I think we would certainly consider it. We’ve been REALLY fortunate to play with some bands that have long been heroes/favorites: the Chameleons, Ash, Hugh Cornwell (of the Stranglers), the Monochrome Set, Stiff Little Fingers, the Dickies, DOA and so on – I think if any of them said ‘let’s do it’ we’d be packing our bags! As for another record? Well – we just released our sixth. And it is definitely the record I’m most proud of. Geoff Sanoff did an amazing job producing it – he also produces the Julie Ocean album – and it’s probably the best batch of songs Terry has written to-date. We are always cranking out new songs – and already have a few in hand – but I think we want to enjoy the last release, Proto Retro, for a bit.

Dot Dash with Sam on bass.

What’s happening in Washington, DC these days musically? Any new bands we need to hear about? The great thing about DC is that it is like the Hydra of Lerna – every time a band breaks up, two new ones start up again! The scene has been regenerating for ages. And there are a lot of great bands still plugging away – The Messthetics with my old friend and Brendan Canty, Miss Lonelyhearts, Foxhall Stacks (with Jim Spellman), Nathan’s band the Delarcos, any band with Chris Moore (an epic drummer) such as the Rememberables or Coke Bust, Anna Connolly’s new project or the new project with Ian, Joe Lally and Amy Farina. Old or young – the scene here is still vibrant and vital.

Any final thought? Closing comments? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask?

Obviously, most people know DC for the great music (bad brains, minor threat, fugazi, 9353, government issue, fire party, faith, rites of spring, tommy keene) – but to me, the best thing about it has been the friendships…which for me have been practically life-sustaining. You can’t have a great scene without great people – and to me the people I’ve known along the way simply are the best.

BONUS QUESTION: What are your top 10 desert island discs (I know some people don’t like when I ask this questions so I decided to put it as a bonus) Wow. Tough one. My top ten has about ten thousand records in it. So, it really is dependent on my mood at the time. I’ll try to throw it together…but if you ask on another day it might be a different batch. Because I’m old – I’m going to take the liberty of picking a baker’s dozen. Adam and the Ants – Dirk Wears White Sox (original on Do It records) Art Ensemble of Chicago – Les Stances a Sophie J.S. Bach – Air on the G String Buzzcocks – Spiral Scratch ep (rip Pete Shelley) Chameleons – Script of the Bridge (or Strange Times) Miles Davis – ‘Round About Midnight Al Green – Greatest Hits Kinks – Something Else The La’s – The La’s Punishment of Luxury – Laughing Academy Red Cross – Posh Boy ep Swervedriver – 99th Dream Zombies – Odyssey and Oracle

www.dotdashdc.bandcamp.com

www.thebeautifulmusic.com

(**all photos posted with permission from the Danny Ingram collection- if you took one of these please do let us know so we can credit. Thank you).

Thank you very much Danny Ingram (from publisher/editor Tim)!

Dot Dash tearin’ down the house.

4 notes · View notes

sleemo · 7 years

Text

Edge of Darkness

From the Marines to the Emmys to the most powerful cultural force in the galaxy, for ADAM DRIVER, finding his path has been a long, hard battle. Now, for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, in a role he never imagined could be so complex, the brooding face of millennial angst faces his toughest fight yet. Spoiler alert!

—British GQ, December 2017

His face shrouded beneath a hood, Adam Driver strides toward me. Shoulders hunched, fists jammed into jean pockets, he lets out a low whisper, “Hi. I’m Adam.”

The mixed messages – simultaneously worrying he’ll be recognised and that he won’t – hang in the air awkwardly as Driver surveys our spot, a near-empty New York City café. Neither fear is well-founded; there is no flock of fans to notice him and yet there is no mistaking the actor, his grey hoodie notwithstanding.

“I try to disguise things, but it just doesn’t really work for me,” Driver says, shedding the sweatshirt. “I honestly just look the way I look and it’s difficult to blend in because I’m tall and I look strange. I shouldn’t put a judgment on it.”

Others have judged his appearance more favourably. Driver has been dubbed a “cure for the cookie-cutter leading man” and “a millennial sex symbol”. Which may or may not be a compliment. Although few phrases are as loaded as “unconventionally attractive”, it’s as if those two words were combined expressly to describe Driver. Exaggerated ears; hooded, slanted eyes; long nose with a boxer’s bridge; broad mouth and lips – his disparate features coalesce into a surprisingly appealing whole.

“I guess I never think about it like ‘I am a leading man’ or ‘I am a sex symbol.’ It’s strange to hear that stuff. I don’t think I could have imagined it,” says Driver. Yet, there was his visage on Gap billboard ads; in American Vogue with a black-horned ram slung across his shoulders; in a close-up at the Emmy Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor three years in a row for his part in HBO’s Girls; and cast eternally in plastic as a Kylo Ren action figure for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – masked and unmasked versions available. (“Not bad,” he says of the likeness, “but my head and face are a lot bigger.”) Passers-by who once stopped him to ask, “How could you do that to Hannah?” in reference to the bad-boy behaviour of Driver’s character in Lena Dunham’s runaway-success television series, now ask, “How could you do that to Han Solo?”

“It’s a lot,” Driver says, “every part of my life. If we rewound to ten years ago, I would not have said that this is what my life would be.

“And now this music,” he waves his hands at the piano composition streaming through the café like pretentious Musack, “is making that sound so emotional. It isn’t helping, you know?”

Far from angry, the brooding face of millennial angst is smirking. At 33, Adam Driver’s signature intensity hasn’t wavered, but interest in being a tortured artist has. He’s aware of his tendencies – toward anxiety, analysis and absolutism – and is taking steps to temper them. Still, it’s a struggle, seeing good fortune as anything but a cause for self-flagellation.

If we did rewind ten years, we’d see why. Driver was a Gordian knot of clenched intensity. Enrolled at New York’s Juilliard performing arts school, he was so aggressive that his comments made fellow students cry. Every morning he would have six eggs for breakfast, then run five miles to the school from his home in Queens. He would eat a whole chicken for lunch and, during his day at the prestigious drama school, perform random feats, such as 1,000 push-ups.

“That must’ve been an obnoxious thing to be around,” he says, shaking his head. “I was trying to make it as extreme for myself as possible. Now it just makes me so tired and annoyed.”

I’ve met Driver in a peaceful, leafy corner of the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood that he and his wife, Joanne Tucker, call home. It’s a square precinct full of baby strollers that belies the borough’s hipster cred. “I like sleepy, quiet places,” Driver explains, “because my job is very loud.” Right now he’s savouring a respite from work, the first in a five-year sprint to stardom and even letting himself idle a little. Driver, who has made a career of ill-at-ease eccentricity, is starting to feel comfortable in his own skin.

He genuinely enjoyed himself on the set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which will be released in cinemas this December. “The first one was all ‘You can’t fuck it up,’ you know? There was a lot more hanging out this time,” Driver says. “Then there are just practical things, like I have a lightsaber. That’s fun.”

Whatever the outcome of the larger battle between good and evil, the Resistance and the First Order, never underestimate the power of Driver’s light side. ”I had heard about Adam’s intensity before I worked with him, but he’s also really fun and funny,” says Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi’s director.

There was one emotionally charged scene that they shot over and over. “Every time the guy holding the clapper marked each take, Adam just starts trying to steal his shoe,” Johnson recalls. “It was hilarious. And then Adam goes straight into it with all the intensity of Kylo Ren. He just added a sense of play that made the process really click.”

Neither Johnson nor Driver can say what the scene was about or who else was in it. They are acutely aware of the cone of silence that surrounds the Star Wars films, suitably enough, like a force field. “There’s probably something in my contract, I don’t know – but it’s kind of unbelievable that no one has told me, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Driver explains. “It’s just implicitly understood.”

With plot points guarded like state secrets, even the tiniest perceived leak sets off an online feeding frenzy. Internet scribes grab at every quote, often misreading them. “You have to clarify truthful things you’ve said that people read these false things into,” Driver says. “It can be frustrating.”

After several years of sidestepping spoilers, Driver is practised at the art of obfuscation. His evasive manoeuvres are near perfect.

On whether he enjoyed acting opposite Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey: “That’s hard to answer. I mean, people assume that we’d spend time with each other. Maybe our characters see each other in the movie?”

On whether he had scenes with Carrie Fisher: “It’s hard to answer without being vague.”

On whether the lightsaber scar on his face, which came courtesy of Rey in The Force Awakens, was moved for the new film: “I noticed a lot of things.”

On whether Kylo Ren’s story has a happy ending: “Not saying yes or no. But continue.”

On whether Han Solo might have known Kylo Ren would kill him: “That’s interesting.”

On whether he appears with his mask off: “Yes, I can answer that. You’ll see it off in the new trailer, so I’m not giving anything away!”

Other times, Driver playfully embraces the absurdity of it all. “I can’t say anything, but what if I signal you,” he jokes. “If I just start sneezing uncontrollably…” He fakes a loud achoo and exclaims, “Bingo! Harrison Ford’s ghost returns!”

When I ask him about Kylo Ren’s mysterious order of Dark Side disciples, the Knights of Ren, he waxes whimsical. “We can talk about them. Peter, Paul, John… No, I was thinking of The Beatles. Except wait – there’s Peter. He was too ambitious on the tambourine. Now you know: the last Knight of Ren is Ringo Starr!”

On this particular mid-September day, the internet is abuzz with new speculation that Ridley’s character, Rey, is the daughter of Princess Leia (also Kylo Ren’s mother). This theory would take any romantic tension between her and Driver’s Kylo Ren into the realm of incest – territory that the first Star Wars trilogy explored with a kiss between Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher’s Leia.

“Yeah, my uncle and my mum made out,” Driver says, with a laugh. “Which Mark still talks about. He’s like, ‘Luke kissed his sister. How could he do that?’ I guess he hasn’t seen Game Of Thrones, you know?”

The Last Jedi marks the final film in Fisher’s storied career. Like the rest of the cast, Driver was shaken by the actress’ death last December at age 60. “It’s hard to talk about it without saying generic things,” he says. “Like, ‘It’s shocking,’ but it was. Or ‘It’s incredibly sad,’ which it is. I mean, it is all of those things.”

Driver brightens as he recalls Fisher’s wit on display at Comic-Con before the release of The Force Awakens. “The whole cast was downstairs in a conference room, talking through what’s supposed to happen at this big event. She was like, ‘Just pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit.’” Driver pauses for a moment then laughs. “So now I pretend I’m down to earth and you know what? People really do love that shit. They eat it up.”

The image of Driver that people have consumed is not so much down to earth as intense and uncompromising, the all-or-nothing avatar of millennial manhood named Adam Sackler, Driver’s character in Girls. Ever since Driver landed the part, originally a cameo called simply “Handsome Carpenter”, the notion he really was that id-driven artist has, like the life of another charismatic carpenter, been taken as gospel.

In the public consciousness, Driver’s backstory is as extreme as his alter ego’s: a Midwestern misfit enlists in the Marines after 9/11, then studies acting at Juilliard – and finds he’s an outlier in both worlds. The truth is both less and more dramatic.

Born in San Diego, California, Driver is the son of a preacher. When his parents divorced, Driver moved with his mother back to her native Mishawaka, Indiana, where she was soon remarried to a Baptist minister. As a teenager, Driver was a poor student who dabbled in pyromania, trainspotting and climbing radio towers. A fan of the film Fight Club, Driver started one with some friends. “Just seeing the angst, I thought it would be a good idea to emulate it.“

Acting offered Driver a way out of the tiny town he called a shithole. “I applied to Juilliard when I was graduating high school and didn’t get in, so I was like ‘Well, fuck it. I won’t go to college, then.’” Instead, he set off for Hollywood and what he thought would be overnight stardom. “I’d always heard the stories of people striking out and finding success,” he says. “Why not me?” The dream lasted as long as his hand-me-down 1990 Lincoln Town Car did. After it broke down outside Amarillo, Texas, the repairs cost Driver nearly all the money he’d saved. When he finally limped into Los Angeles, Driver spent two nights in youth hostels. The only agent he signed with was a real estate agency, which took him for the rest of his savings. Having landed neither an apartment nor an acting gig, Driver arrived back in Indiana a week after leaving.

Following the 11 September attacks, Driver did not, as some retellings suggest, march down to the recruiting station. Instead, he enlisted in the Marines several months later. “My stepfather pushed me into it a little bit, which was good – I was grateful for it,” Driver says. “It followed an argument where he was like, ‘You’re not doing anything!’ I’d gotten this brochure in the mail. He was like, ‘Why don’t you just join?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to join the Marines.’ Then I thought about it more. I had this sense of patriotism and wanted to get involved. I also had no prospects. I was living in the back of my parents’ house, working as a telemarketer.”

From the start, Driver’s time in uniform had a profound effect on him and his worldview. “The patriotism, the idea of country, doesn’t go away necessarily, it just turns into something else,” he says, reverently. “Not a big, sweeping idea, but this group of people you’re serving with, and that becomes your world, and it becomes sacred.”

Going into the Marines, Driver had a seemingly straightforward goal: “I’m going to be a man.” But rather than reinforce clichéd concepts of masculinity, military service put the lie to them. “You have to put implicit trust in the people to your left and right, and when they demonstrate that they’re looking out for you, that their own safety is secondary to yours, then all that kind of guy shit goes away and there is no ego,” Driver says. “There is no posturing, no need to say how much of a man you are, whatever that even means. You prove it with your actions.”

When Driver was not allowed to deploy to the Middle East with his unit, after suffering a broken sternum in a mountain biking accident, he was despondent. Although he fought to stay on active duty, Driver ultimately received a medical discharge.

He decided to apply to Juilliard again and this time got in. The transition from the Marine Corps to a New York City drama programme was jarring. During Driver’s second year, in an effort to bridge his past and present vocations, he launched a non-profit called Arts In The Armed Forces with his then-girlfriend, now wife, Tucker. Driver was able to carry a discipline and teamwork into his studies, but it didn’t stop him from feeling he’d gone soft. “I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m wearing pyjamas doing acting exercises where I’m giving birth to myself or being a plant or moving around in jelly,’” he says. “Then again, even now, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’”

After a brief fallow period after graduating from Juilliard, Driver says he learned to hate everyone in the audition room. He didn’t like TV and almost skipped his audition for Girls entirely. Instead, he dazzled the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, and the one-episode part Driver had read for was expanded into a central one. In audition after audition, Driver made a similar impression on a series of noted directors. Even before Girls aired, Steven Spielberg cast him in Lincoln, in which he played a telegraph operator opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. “He was very nice to me,” Driver says of the legendary method actor. “He would still talk in character, but very nice.”

In particular, Driver’s unusual, instinctive style made him a favourite of indie filmmakers. He landed meaty roles in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and a series of films by writer-director Noah Baumbach: Frances Ha, While We’re Young and The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected). He played the lead in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and shared top billing in Steven Soderbergh’s heist comedy Logan Lucky. When Martin Scorsese was finally able to make his passion project, Silence, after two decades, he sought out Driver. Similarly, Driver recently wrapped shooting on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which Terry Gilliam had been trying to make for 17 years.

And yet nothing Driver had done remotely prepared him for Star Wars. He had grown up a fan of the original trilogy, but had little faith in outsized film franchises. “I’m leery of big movies – a lot of them sacrifice character for spectacle,” he says. “When they’re bad, it pisses me off – you can just tell it’s made by a bunch of executives somewhere.”

Despite his initial trepidation, the complicated nature of Kylo Ren put Driver’s concerns to rest. “It was all about story and character and playing someone who doesn’t have it all together. Making him as human as possible seemed dangerous and exciting to me.”

Driver was drawn to an idea that JJ Abrams, who wrote and directed The Force Awakens, had. The man behind the mask was not a man at all, but rather a young person struggling to come of age. “I remember the initial conversations about having things ‘skinned’,” Driver recalls, “peeling away layers to evolve into other people, and the person Kylo’s pretending to be on the outside is not who he is. He’s a vulnerable kid who doesn’t know where to put his energy, but when he puts his mask on, suddenly, he’s playing a role. JJ had that idea initially and I think Rian took it to the next level.”

Driver is on a roll now, discussing what excites him: character and narrative and cinematic influences. The original Star Wars was an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, he says, and the link lives on in the new trilogy, in which concealed identities drive the narrative. Then he lets it slip. “You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices,” Driver says, apparently dropping a massive revelation about Rey’s royal origins.

Perhaps he’s unconcerned and Rey’s parentage is less dramatic than imagined by fans, who posited that her father is Luke then trumpeted that her mother is Leia. Or it could be that, in passionately holding forth, Driver is simply unaware he’s revealed anything, much less a major spoiler. In any case, he doesn’t skip a beat. “The things that made it personal to me,” Driver continues, “I’ll keep to myself, but I think everybody can relate to the idea of almost being betrayed.

“Wow, this music is killing me.”

As the café’s latest piano piece reaches its crescendo, I ask Driver if he tapped into his own experiences with his dad and stepfather and he reverts to evasive manoeuvres.

“I may leave that one. I have strong convictions about not talking about family, for many reasons,” Driver says. “It’s not as if the answers for Kylo are found in my relationships with my parents.”

In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson saw Driver go light years beyond his own experience. “Adam was always pushing the context of the character,” Johnson says. “He’s put in this unhealthy environment and goes through the worst of youth, the selfishness and volatility, he’s representing that side of adolescence.”

Of course, these days immaturity and insecurity are no strangers to power. “It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be,” Driver says of Ren, who prefers lightsabers over Twitter for his tantrums. “You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine – or hope or pray – are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.”

Even more topical and even more touchy was the decision to play Kylo Ren like a radicalised extremist. “We talked about terrorism a lot,” Driver says of his early conversations with Abrams and Johnson about his character. “You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.”

The demagoguery drives him to the most famous film patricide in galactic history, as Kylo Ren kills Han Solo in the shocking denouement of The Force Awakens. “When I watched the premiere, I felt sick to my stomach,” Driver recalls. “The people behind me, when the scroll started, were like ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s happening.’ Immediately, I thought I was going to puke. I was holding my wife’s hand, and she’s like, ‘You’re really cold. Are you OK?’ Because I just knew what was coming – I kill Harrison – and I didn’t know how this audience of 2,000 people was going to respond to it, you know?”

One person in the crowd who appreciated that scene was Han Solo himself. “We were sitting on this catwalk in between takes,” Driver recalls, “and Harrison was like, ‘Look what we get to do. Just look what we get to do.’ Meaning, look at how lucky we are that this is our job, you know? To see someone at that point in his career still get excited like that hit me. It’s like, ‘Oh, right. I need to take this in more.’”

As if on cue, a couple stop and introduce themselves. “I love everything you’ve ever done,” the wife says. “Everything.”

“Thanks a million. Yeah. Hi, I’m Adam.”

As fan encounters go, it is respectful and pleasant, but not even a whimper of what will soon follow come the release of The Last Jedi.

For all the ways in which he’s made peace with his success, Driver, who is almost pathologically private by nature, remains uncomfortable with notoriety. “I’m not in the world the same way I was before,” Driver says. “It’s completely changed my life. My anonymity is gone. But who I am as a person is the exact same. I think. Or, I hope.”

Soon after, we exit the café, as Driver is heading home for some quiet time. He stops in front of a bicycle locked to a fence. “It only looks bourgeois-hipster because of the saddle,” Driver says, adding that he’s only just added the leather Brooks seat. “I bought the bike for $200 back when I was at Juilliard,” Driver says. “Besides the seat, it’s the same crappy bike I’ve had for forever.”

Driver pulls his hoodie up over his head and as he starts pedalling off turns back to me. “Remember,” he says. “Pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit. Right?”

The Last Jedi is out on 15 December.

#this is the ENTIRE THING #gah its so long #this took forever #adam driver #interview #gq #kylo ren #ben solo #star wars #the last jedi #the force awakens #long post

412 notes · View notes

rfsak2 · 7 years

Text

Cactus, A Blurb

I had another blurb-ish idea. Again, kinda separate from whatever plot I may (may not) have going on. First section is expanding on the very first chapter of Cactus, second and third are in LA post-Jamaica.

Cactus, A Blurb Summary: What attracts. The Styles Warnings: Discussion of drug use and past traumas. PTSD from childhood trauma.

She knew better than to walk into a recording session with expectations. She knew better than to expect anything of anyone in Hollywood.

She would either be disappointed or she would make a fool of herself.

Every time.

Though to be fair, every other time she’d walked in only to walk out disappointed, they’d been personal heroes, people she wanted to impress. She’d wanted to pick their brains and learn from them. NOT aggressively make out with them.

They were mostly old men and her expectations were of a musical nature.

Harry Styles was a whole different beast.

Harry Styles was Her Type™ and she knew it. Between the hair and the tattoos and the pretty eyes, there was the chance that she would be in deep shit.

She needed to be careful if she wanted to make it out of this okay.

So she was walking in expecting one of two things. Either he was a colossal asshole and she was safe or he was nice and she spent the whole recording period constantly on watch, guarding herself against catching feelings and making everything awkward and horrible.

She half-hoped he was an asshole. It would be cleaner. Get the work done, make Jeff happy, bank that commission and go on about her life with zero complications.

No muss and, sure as hell, no fuss.

She grabbed her guitar and pushed the clicker for her Jeep. Adjusting her sunglasses as the Jeep beeped, she shoved her keys into her bag and made for the door.

One hand in her jean jacket, she paused at the security desk.

“Howzit, Jamie?” Jay was the youngest of the four security guards at Columbia and a generally cool dude, probably trying in the music business just like everyone else.

She smiled. “It’s good, bro. What’s up with you? Last we talked you were dating some new chick.”

He shrugged. “She was… she was bit weird. Just strange I guess.”

“So is everyone else in LA. Welcome to reality.”

“Yeah, but…” He sat up straighter as a lanky man carrying a guitar pushed through the doors, looking confused. “Hey, man. Can I help you?”

She side-stepped and just watched as the man set the guitar down at his feet. “Hey, I’m here to help with Harry Styles’ album… I think.”

“ID?”

The man passed his driver’s license over and she pulled up Jeff’s text on her phone. She leaned against the counter and smiled. “Mitch Rowland, right?”

The guy started, pushing some of that thick brown hair out of his face. “Yeah. You are?”

She stuck her hand out. “Jamie Schwartz. I’m a guitarist with the label. I was asked to come help too.”

He sighed, audibly relieved. “So you know what the fuck is goin’ on?”

Chuckling, she turned to Jay. “He clear?” Jay nodded and handed Mitch back his ID as she motioned down the hallway. “First studio gig?”

He grabbed his guitar and nodded. “Yeah. I’m still not sure how it happened. Ryan, my roommate-”

“Ryan Nasci?”

“Uh.. yeah. You’ve worked with him then?” She nodded. “Yeah, apparently they had another guitarist lined up but he couldn’t make it, so Ryan called me.”

“Yeah. Heard about that.” She shrugged. “Jeff called and said they could use some more help. Apparently this album is going to be guitar-heavy. Wanted another set of hands.”

“Yeah. I’d imagine so. Harry seems to be really into the 70s. Big into Fleetwood Mac and the Stones... the Beatles.”

She was impressed, she could admit it. He would have good taste in music, just her luck.

She pressed the call button for the elevator and turned to him. “Cool. We’ll get along just fine then. You? What do you like?”

He shrugged. “Like the 60s, I guess. The Doors, Jimi Hendrix-”

“Love Jimi.” He followed her into the elevator, both guitarists standing their guitars up by their feet. She pushed the button for the floor. “Zeppelin?”

He seemed to feel more comfortable and he smiled. “Yeah… I like all of that.”

“This is going to be fun then.” She stepped out of the elevator and led him down the hall. “Good. I’m gonna be honest, I was a bit worried.”

“Me too.” Mitch took a deep breath. “But Harry’s like really cool. Solid dude.”

“He’s nice, then?” She opened the door to the conference room they were using for this meeting and nodded at Jeff and Ryan, already seated at the table.

“I would say so.”

She smiled at Mitch. “Mitch, Ryan, you know. This is Jeff Bhasker. Jeff, this Mitch Rowland.””

Mitch stuck his hand out. “Good to meet you.”

He sat next to Ryan and she set her bag in her chair and propped her guitar up against the table. She briefly debated taking her jacket off, before simply rolling the sleeves up and leaning over to pull her mug out of her bag. “I’m making tea. Anyone want anythin’?”

Mitch wanted coffee and she returned with her tea, a new blend sent to her by her friend in London, and passed Mitch his coffee.

“That smells weird.”

She nodded. “It’s supposed to be smoky, I think?... My friend sent it to me. Figured I’d try it.”

“Smoky?”

Laughing, she offered her mug to him. He shook his head and she sipped at the still very hot liquid.

“How’s it?”

She pushed her hair off her face. “It is smoky.. A bit weird but I don’t half-mind it.”

“Wha’s that?”

It didn’t take her very long to come to the conclusion that she was totally screwed.

He was nice.

He made comfortable eye contact with whoever was speaking. He smiled and responded and generally acted like he was paying attention, like he cared about what was happening.

He was excited, engaged and enthusiastic, which was more than could be said about 75% of the acts she’d worked with.

There was also a sort of like shy, reserved nervousness about him that she found endearingly humble.

And he was fuckin’ gorgeous. More so in person then she’d expected.

Of course he was.

She took a deep breath as his eyes (green, so green) caught hers.

“Do y’want more tea, love?”

She wanted to melt.

Jamie adjusted the gauzy white fabric of her dress and crossed her legs, tilting her mug towards her. She shrugged. “I’ll grab some more later. Thank you.”

He grinned and stood, nabbing her mug with one of his massive hands.

She’d gladly curl up in that dimple and die a happy woman.

For Fuck’s Sake.

“I’ll get yeh some more water. I wanted coffee as it is.”

He ran his hands through his hair, shaking it out and then shoving it back from his forehead, and turned toward the door.

He was even broader from the back. Jesuchristo-

Her phone roared and she dug it out of her bag to silence it.

Jeff: Down girl.

She silenced her phone and discretely flicked him off.

She wrote her name in the sand and smiled down at where he lay on his back, staring up at the moon. He hadn’t really bothered to properly button his shirt (not unusual) and the silk gaped, showing off the defined muscles of his chest and the sharp line of his collarbone.

She wanted to trace her finger over the bone and dip her tongue in the hollow of his throat. She wanted to run her fingers over the swallows inked into his skin, memorize them the way she’d memorized her own.

He traced his fingers over the dogwood branch on her forearm, the symbol of strength and stability that reminded her that Jorge would always be there for her, a port in the storm that occasionally washed over her life.

“Tell me something about yeh. Anythin’.” He smiled and his hand drifted up and over the big, red maple leaf on the inside of her elbow.

Picking up the shell she’d found earlier, she winced, reaching for the beer that was aiding the word vomit that always seemed to happen when she was tipsy. She hated it about herself, the complete inability to stop the flow of words she didn’t want to say. She always ended up killing the mood.

“I’m terrified of drugs…” She blushed and made a vague motion with her hand. “Not like weed or anything… obvs. T-the hard shit…I guess. My birth mom was a heroin addict and I’m terrified that I’ll end up like her, strung out and useless. I worry constantly about it, but I’m also angry. Sometimes it’s overwhelming how fuckin’ livid I am with her. I don’t remember anything about her, don’t care to.”

She threw back a big swig of her beer. “I don’t remember what she looks like, what she sounded like but… I remember the smell of heroin.”

She made a helpless little hand motion, eyes on her floral converse. She tried to speak again, the words getting stuck in her tight throat. “I remember her johns and I remember the smell that clung t-to my hair and my cl-” She swallowed. “My clothes.”

Shushing her quietly, he grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckle, sitting up to rest his chin on her knee.

“One time, I was in a studio in Nashville and I was on my way to the bathroom and I could smell it… kinda came out of nowhere. It smells like vinegar… Like someone just dropped a whole bottle of really strong, white vinegar and just left it. It was like all the years I spent in therapy had meant nothing.” She sucked in a stuttering breath. “I was in the bathroom for probably fifteen minutes, head in the toilet. It probably sounds so stupid. Lose my shit over a fuckin’ smell.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid. I swear.”

She smiled down at him. “Never did find out if someone was really doing smack or if they’d just dropped a jar of pickles or something. And I still don’t like pickles or most hot sauces. I’m a failure as a San Antonian.”

He kissed her knee. “1D gave me anxiety… or being famous made me anxious… probably more accurate. Maybe.” He chuckled listlessly and shrugged. “It shouldn’t have done. That should’ve been a dream come true, right? I was makin’ music, which I’ve always wanted to do. I was makin’ the kind of money that allowed me to provide for my family and live the kind of life everyone always says they want. I don’t feel like I should complain about it. Don’t feel like I have the right to complain.”

She leaned forward to kiss him chastely. “You have every right to complain.”

He met her eyes hesitantly and nodded, tongue darting out to moisten his lips. “I loved a lot of the job, I did. I love makin’ music and performin’ and I love interactin’ with fans. I love the guys. They’re my brothers. But I hate havin’ to be suspicious of everyone. I hate that I can’t just be who I am. I have to be aware and I have to always edit myself and be careful about what I say to whom and how I say it. It’s so frustrating! I’m more me when I’m on stage then I’ve been off of it in the last five years. I used to have fun, to enjoy all of this, and now I’m just tired. I’m exhausted and I feel like I’ve been holdin’ on t’all of this.”

He sucked in a breath and she squeezed his hand, eyes on his. “I’m tired of never trustin’ anyone, of always knowin’ that someone is only lingerin’ around me on the off chance that it will help them. I’m tired of being treated like arm candy, like I’m one step above a fuckin’ cabana boy. And part of me knows that I set myself up for it every bloody time. I only have myself to bl-”

“That’s not true.” She shook her head.

“It feels true. The media thinks it’s true. If you ever say anything, it’s always ‘Well, you’re famous’, ‘You’re a public figure’, ‘You chose this’. I was sixteen. I never expected this. I was never prepared for this.” He huffed and shoved a hand through his hair.

“It’s a crock of bullshit.” She ran her hands through his hair, fingers chasing his and laid her forehead against his. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He shook his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. That is not you. I’ve never felt that way with you. Thank you for that.”

She smiled. “Anytime. ‘Course. Thank you for not looking like you pity me or somethin’.”

“There’s nothing about you that’s pitiable. You know tha’, yeah? You’re so…” He clenched his fist and made a face. “You’ve got more spine than half of Hollywood. Honestly.”

She shook her head. “That’s not that hard, baby.” She thumbed at his temple, pushing short, sandy hair from his face. “You are easily the most genuine person I have ever met. I’ve never felt this comfortable with someone so quickly. I didn’t tell half… fuck, 99% of this shit to the dude in Nashville. Probably why he broke up with me.”

One of his big hands came up to cup her face. “His loss.” He kissed her softly. “I’m not gonna fuckin’ cry for him.” He smiled against her lips and nipped at her bottom lip. “Not gonna make the same mistake either.”

She chuckled and leaned forward to kiss him fully, slipping her tongue into his mouth as he laid back. She followed him down, his free hand in the small of her back kept her tight to him as they fell headlong into each other.

She let out a low groan and her hands smoothed down over his pectorals, finger massaging into smooth tanned skin. He gasped into her mouth as her fingertip ghosted over his nipple and she chuckled, doing it again with more purpose.

“You minx.” He grinned, pressing up against her, the hand still in her hair pulling her down to his eager lips and keeping her there.

“Minx.” She kissed him again, hands flattening over his chest, fingers idly tracing the swallows. “Never been called ‘a minx’ before.”

He licked at the roof of her mouth and the hand on her lower back, drifted down and squeezed. “Missed opportunity, tha’.”

She laughed and moved to mouth at his clavicle. Dipping her tongue into the hollow of his neck, she smiled. “You have gorgeous shoulders.”

He giggled. “Shoulders? Wha’? I don’t think I’ve ever been complimented on my shoulders before.”

She sat up, supporting herself with her hands in the sand, and shrugged. “Missed opportunity, that.”

He brought her back to his lips and smiled, hands slipping under her shirt to trail up her torso. He thumbed at her belly-button ring and her hips jerked against his. Grinning against her mouth, he whispered, “Wouldn’t have assumed I’d get that reaction.”

Jamie giggled. “I’ll have you know-” She gasped as he did it again.

“Wha’ was that, love?”

She captured his mouth in hot, open-mouthed kiss. “The navel is an erogenous zone.”

“So is watching such a pretty mouth say the word ‘erogenous’.”

She smiled. “Erogenous is a very scientific word, thank you very much.”

He groaned and rolled his hips up against hers. “Very erogenous.”

She gasped, her hips instinctively working against his. “We should probably go. Not good practice to have sex on a public beach in LA.”

“Good call.” He nodded and sat up to kiss her one last time.

Fuck Green Bay.

You take that back.

Absolutely not. Fuck. Green. Bay. Cowboys all the way.

The Cowboys suck.

Didn’t suck so much back in October, bitch.

Romo is fucking useless.

He’s just old. You leave him alone.

I can’t believe you have such bad taste. I thought you were a woman of taste…

Taste? I was raised this way. I bleed navy blue. YOU chose GB. Talking about taste.

Now you’re just being mean. I’m not sure we can be friends anymore...

Poor baby. However will I make it up to you?

Movie night at mine?

She smiled and cuddled under her blanket, biting her lip.

Well if I have to… I guess.

You said you want to make it up to me.

I did… What time?

It takes approximately twenty minutes to get from yours to mine… so twenty minutes. Get driving. I’ll open the gate and the garage for you.

I have to change…

No you don’t. Pajamas required. No primping allowed. And I’ll order take-away.

You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Styles.

Okie Dokie. Be there very soon.

Twenty minutes. I’ll give you thirty for traffic.

How magnanimous.

Fuck… I like it when you talk dirty to me. Keep going, love.

Haha. I’m getting in the car. See you in a bit.

The gate and the garage were both open as promised, so she pulled her Jeep in beside his Mercedes. He popped his head out of the door leading to the house and hit the button for the door.

“Hello, beautiful.” His smile was slow and soft as he walked around the front of her car. She found herself returning it, a light blush staining her cheeks.

She grabbed her phone, her keys and a tube of chapstick as he came to open her door. She stepped down, almost chest to chest with him- well chest to stomach, considering she wasn’t wearing heels.

“Not sure about beautiful, but I got here in twenty minutes.” She pulled at her Fender t-shirt and wiped suddenly sweaty hands on her brother’s old high school football sweats.

“Woman, yer fuckin’ gorgeous.” Leaning over, he kissed her softly. “Missed yeh.”

Part of her wanted to deflect with humor, to make this as casual as the non-title suggested it was, but…

Why pretend?

She didn’t want this with anyone else.

She smiled. “Missed you too.”

He grinned and kissed her again. “Even though we’ve been textin’ all day?”

“Even though you choose to root for the fuckin’ Green Bay Packers.” She plucked at the green t-shirt stretched across his broad chest.

He pulled away and frowned down at her. “Yeh can go, thank yeh.” He sniffed and headed for the door. “I’ll eat our Mexican food by myself.” He grinned back at her and tugged on her hand. “Yeh should go while yeh can.” He tugged on her hand again. “Yeh absolutely should not follow me into the house.” He opened the door with his free hand. “I’m very angry with yeh.”

She snickered and let him pull her into the house. She set her phone and her keys next to his on the table in the foyer. “What are we watching?”

He shrugged. “Dirty Dancing?”

“That’s fine.” She dropped onto the couch and smiled up at him as he carried the takeout into the living room. “Haven’t watched it.”

“Ever?”

“Nope.” Shaking her head, she unwrapped her taco. “I’m super impressed that you remembered what I ate at this place, even though we only went there that one time.”

“Good.” He hit play and grabbed his taco. “I like impressing you.”

Jamie looked away shyly. “Consider me impressed.”

“All the time?”

She blushed, eyes on the screen. “Generally speaking, yes.”

He grinned and bit into his taco.

Ten minutes later, she stood to throw the trash away, even though Harry insisted he would do it later. “Do you want somethin’ to drink?”

“Aren’t I the host? Should I be askin’ yeh that question?”

She shrugged. “Do you?”

“No, love. I want yeh t’come back quickly.” He grinned a dimpled, cheeky grin at her and winked.

With a smart salute, she turned on her heel, not missing the way his eyes lingered on her as she carried the trash into the kitchen. When she’d returned, not a minute later, he had laid back on the couch.

He held out his arms. “Cuddle me.”

She climbed over him, cheeks heating as his eyes skated brazenly over her breasts, down her stomach and down further to the junction of her thighs as she straddled him. She sucked in a breath as his eyes met hers, heavy-lidded.

She braced her hands on his shoulders and lowered herself until she was tucked against the side of his body and the back of the couch. Her thigh was still trapped between his, pressed against him intimately. She went to lift her leg over his knee, but he caught her, hand high on the back of her thigh. “Uh-huh.”

She looked back up and still. “Hmm?”

“Stay there.” He grinned. “Like you there.”

She blushed and tucked her head under his chin, arm stretched across his chest. “Alrighty then.”

He chuckled.

They were quiet, focused on the screen, but they were not still.

What had started as just his thumb rubbing softly at her side became, in incrementally bigger movements, more like petting. His hand smoothed down to her hip before running back up under her shirt.

Her hand found its way under his shirt, one finger idly tracing the curve of the laurel on his belly. Harry sucked in a deep breath, his chest expanding under her as his hand wandered, tracing back down over her spine. She shivered against him, her thigh rubbing at where he was growing hard against her thigh.

He stifled a groan and his hand started its return journey down her side, fingers dipping under the rolled waist of her sweats to skate over the lace waistband of her panties.

“Lace?”

His voice was all grit, his voice rumbling under her cheek as she smiled. “Yep.”

“Were yeh…” He swallowed. “Were yeh wearin’ those when I texted-”

“Nope.” She could feel her heart thundering in her chest, waiting on the response that would change the course of the evening, hopefully for the better.

He was still watching the TV, but his eyes weren’t fixed, weren’t focused. “Yeh put them on for me?”

Jamie nodded.

“Say it, love. Please.”

“Yes.”

He groaned deep in his chest. “Fuckin’ hell.” He pulled her fully on top of him, hand tangling in her hair as he kissed her fiercely. The hand around her waist wandered back up her side, trailing over permanent brilliant color then rubbing along the lace of her bra. “Matches?”

She bit her lip and nodded and he smiled widely. He kissed her again, his hips pressing his erection up against her. “So sexy. So.” He kissed her. “Fuckin’.” Another kiss. “Sexy.”

She smiled against his mouth and pushed at the hem of his t-shirt, fingers dancing over the laurel over his hipbone.

“Sit up.” He tugged at her shirt and smiled. “Wanna see. Can I?”

Nodding, she tugged her shirt up and above her head, the collar catching her ponytail and loosening it.

She felt his hands on her, hands on the black lace that covered her. “For me?” When she nodded, lip once again caught between her teeth, he moaned. “Take yer hair down, love.”

She did, his fingers tracing the cup of her bra before taking a detour to thumb at the soft skin above it. “So pretty.” He glanced up at her and smiled. “This isn’t a booty call. Yeh know that, right?”

She felt disappointment settle in her stomach. What were they doing then? “Oh. No sex?”

“No wait! That’s not what I mean.” He sat up to kiss her. “I wanna make lo… I wanna have sex with yeh. But I don’t want it just once, y’know? I don’t want it just once...” He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I dun want yeh thinkin’ that yer a just booty call. Yer more important to me than that, monster.”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Good. That’s good.” She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him, hands bracketing his jaw. “For the record I want this more than just once, too.”

“Yeah?”

Kissing him again, deeper, she nodded as she pulled away. “Yeah. Been wantin’ it ‘not just once’ for awhile.”

He moaned against her lips. “How long?” He pulled down the cup of her bra, his thumb smoothing over her nipple, smiling into her kiss as she gasped and arched into him. “How long have you wanted this, pretty girl?”

She pulled at his shirt and he obliged, lifting his arms over his head as she tugged the green fabric over his head. Her hands fell to his shoulders. “Since Jamaica.”

“Got yeh beat.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’ve wanted ye since I met you in LA.”

She smiled and kissed him. “Too late for me to say ‘me too’?”

“Is it true?” He tapped front clasp of her bra. “Can I?”

She nodded and gasped when he wrapped his lips around a nipple. “Of course it’s true. Baby…” She moaned. “I remember thinking it’d be easier if you were an asshole...Shit.” She threaded her fingers back through his hair.

He covered her nipple with his thumb and nipped at the underside of her breast. She moaned as he started working a hickey into the soft, pale skin. “Fuck, Harry.”

Rolling her nipple between his fingers, he grinned. “That’s very sweet.”

“I don’t mean it that way!” She huffed. “You’re distractin’ me.”

He licked into her mouth, a smile stretching his lips. “What do you mean?”

She giggled. “You’ve looked in a mirror recently, right?” She captured his lips as he pinched her nipple. She gasped. “You’re so fuckin’ attractive, it’s unfair. It would’ve been easier to ignore that if you’d been an asshole.” She leaned her forehead against his and shrugged. “Knew it’d be difficult to pretend I didn’t want you, to be professional, if you looked the way you look and you were nice.”

She feels his fingers at the waistband of her sweats. “I need you naked. Please say yes.”

“Yes.”

Part XVI Up Next: Part XVII

#harry styles #harry styles/reader #harry styles/oc #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic

22 notes · View notes