// C H A P T E R S E V E N //

The concert was amazing. Watching Matty do what he loves put a smile on Lacey’s lips. It was so nice to see him give his all on stage and him getting the love right back from all of his fans. It made her regret staying backstage. She would have much rather been in the crowd, dancing along to every single song with everyone else.

But there was also a perk of her place at the side of the stage, meaning that she was the first one who got to see Matty after the show. As soon as he stepped out of the sight of his fans, she put his arms around his waist and pulled him tight – not caring about all the sweat that lingered on his body.

“You were so, so good.” She whispered into his ear before she softly kissed his cheek.

Slightly out of breath, he laughed, “Oh so now that you’ve seen all these other girls enjoying my singing you do, too?”

Smiling at how he remembered their short banter before, she shrugged innocently, “I may have lied.”

“What?” Matty exclaimed with faked surprise, “The good, proper and incredibly sweet Lacey would lie? I’m shocked.”

“Who would have thought?” She winked.

Chuckling lightly, he leaned in to kiss her forehead, “I’m gonna freshen up real quick and then we’ll head over to Ross’s – is that alright?”

“Sounds good.” She smiled as she watched him disappear into the bathroom, then went to join the others in the ‘sofa room’ as she came to call it.

“There she is!” Ella grinned when she saw Lacey step through the door, “Where were you? I was looking for you, but then stopped cause the guys went onstage.”

Plopping down next to her best friend, she explained, “I watched from the side stage. You should have been there. I probably had the best view of George and all the weird faces he makes while he plays the drums.” She laughed and winked over at George, who sat on Ella’s other side.

“Shut up!” George grinned and punched her playfully, then shifted his eyes towards Ella, “You totally thought that was hot, right?”

Adam suddenly burst out laughing, “Anyone who thinks that is hot, needs to get his eyes checked out.”

Ella immediately burst out laughing herself, “I love how Adam is so quiet most of the time and then he just suddenly chimes in and says something like that.”

“See? Your girlfriend agrees.” Adam winked.

While Ella immediately blushed at being called George’s girlfriend, George grabbed one of the pillows on their sofa and threw it over at Adam only to hit Matty who had just come in through the door.

Observing the pillow that now lay on the floor for a moment, Matty looked questioningly at George, “Did I miss something?”

He shook his head, still smiling, “Your dear friend Lace just thought that she had to bring up the faces I make during drumming and question their beauty.”

“He can’t help it.” Matty shrugged, then laughed at the memory of something, “We once tried to have him play a whole set without doing those faces, but then it was as if all his concentration was directed at not making them anymore and he completely forgot how to play the drums. So we gave up and started to embrace the many grimaces of George.”

Ella cuddled up a bit more to George, “It doesn’t even look that bad,” She laughed, “It’s actually pretty cute.”

“Ugh.” Lacey groaned at their sappiness and also Matty rolled his eyes and let out a disgusted “Oh god.”

“You know, I find it funny how you two are so disgusted by something like that when we were the ones who had to watch you two make out before.” George raised his eyebrows challenging.

Shrugging, Matty replied, “You could have just left the room as soon as you saw it. Plus kissing is perfectly normal. Both of you sweet talking each other - not so much.” He then winked at Lacey, “Which is also why Lace, Ross and myself will excuse ourselves now.”

“What are you guys doing?” Ella asked as they all got up to leave.

“Getting tattoos.” He replied casually whilst putting on his leather jacket.

“Tattoos?!” Ella exclaimed shocked, “With Lacey?!”

“It was actually her idea.” He smirked at her obvious surprise before he took Lacey’s hand in his, “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a lot to do today and it’s getting a bit late.”

With that he pulled her outside with him, checking quickly that Ross was following them, “I love how surprised she was. Doesn’t that make you feel good?”

“Why would that make me feel good?” She furrowed her eyebrows confused, “If anything it makes me even more scared.”

“You shouldn’t be scared, it’s really not that bad. Right, Ross?” Matty encouraged her and also Ross murmured some encouraging words, “But don’t you like knowing that you’re doing something that surprises people? Something that changes the image they have created of you over the years?”

She thought that over for a second. Indeed, the absolute surprise written all over Ella’s face had somehow been satisfying. It was as if she never thought that the oh-so-studious Lacey would do such a thing. Showing her that she could and actually wanted to get a tattoo was like telling her ‘Hey, maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought you did’ and simultaneously showing herself that she didn’t really know herself all that well either.

“Care to share your thoughts?” Matty smirked as they all reached a black car that apparently belonged to him.

She crossed over to the passenger side and slid into the front seat after a short awkward conversation with Ross whether he’d like to sit there.

“So?” Matty asked again when they were all seated and lit himself a cigarette for the drive.

“It is pretty cool.” Lacey admitted, then continued, “But not really because I’m surprising Ella with what I’m doing. More that I’m showing myself what I actually can and want to do.”

Smiling, he simply laced his fingers with hers, which was enough of a response to let her know that he liked the way she was thinking.

Ross coughed slightly, “If you guys are going to turn into George and Ella 2.0, I’d appreciate it if you did it in private.”

While Lacey, of course, blushed at the comment, Matty once again just laughed it off and replaced his hand onto her thigh, “Better mate?” He asked Ross by looking at him through the rearview mirror.

“I can work with that.” Ross laughed.

“Good, then that’s settled.” Matty grinned, then quickly glanced over at Lacey, “Except that you made Lace a bit uncomfortable with your comment, she’s as red as ever.”

“Shut up.” She muttered, turning even redder with the attention turning onto her.

“I think we’ll just have to make you so uncomfortable that you’ll never care about odd comments again.”

Widening her eyes in shock, Lacey muttered, “Please don’t.”

Stroking her thigh gently, he grinned, “Ah Lace, you’re in luck. We’re already here, guess it’ll have to be next time.”

“I hate you.” She muttered as she unbuckled and got out of the car, which earned her laughs from both Ross and Matty.

“Got yourself a feisty one.” Ross grinned at Matty as he went through the main entrance and took the steps up to the door of assumingly his apartment.

“Mhh…” He murmured happily in response as he put his arm lazily around Lacey while Ross opened the door.

Once he succeeded they both followed him inside. Lacey immediately noticed several drawings lining the walls. She stepped closer to one of a woman to inspect it a bit more. The woman was beautiful, she had all the attributes every woman wished for: high cheekbones, long flowing hair, a perfect nose – everything about her screamed beautiful. The only thing that was off about her were her eyes. Instead of having incredible human looking eyes that would complete her beauty, she just had two black holes with tears falling from them.

She felt someone joining her and looked over to see Matty looking at the same drawing as her with his arms crossed, “You like that one?” He asked.

“Yeah, it’s amazing.” She nodded.

“Mind telling her the story of that picture?” Matty shouted over to Ross, who was already preparing everything they needed for their tattoos.

Wiping his hands on his pants as he came over to join them, he asked, “Which picture are we talking about?” Then noticing what both of them were looking at, he continued, “Oh that one. Well, that woman was a prostitute I met once. I wasn’t with her to have sex or anything. We just met at a bar and understandably, I started hitting on her. She went with it at first, but then she suddenly started crying.” He stopped shortly to look at the picture himself again, seemingly remembering that night, “I didn’t really know what to do with her, so I asked her if she wanted to come here to talk. Once we were here she told me about how she was a prostitute and how she thought she wasn’t worthy of love anymore because of that, but that she just simply needed the money and couldn’t find a job anywhere else. I simply told her that was bullshit and then asked if I could draw her to kind of show her what I saw when I looked at her. She let me and that’s what came out of it.”

Looking over at Ross’s face, Lacey could see how much this woman had touched his life. “Did you ever see her again?” She asked gently.

“No, never.” He shook his head, still staring at the drawing.

“We actually wrote a song that was inspired by her.” Matty said.

“Really? Which one?”

Instead of Matty answering her, as she expected him to, Ross replied, “It’s called ‘Woman’. It doesn’t really describe what kind of person she was, more how she thought people saw her.”

“You have to play it for me someday.” Lacey smiled and Ross smiled back at her, nodding.

She was surprised at how much she actually came to like Ross in these few moments. At first he seemed like a rather quiet guy, giving off a more of a shy vibe. But that was not the case, he was nowhere close to being shy. He just simply seemed to prefer to keep his thoughts to himself, if he wasn’t asked to share them. In a way, that reminded her of herself so it wasn’t a surprise that she was starting to consider Ross to be a friend.

“Anyways,” Ross smiled, changing the subject, “I think it’s time for your tattoos.”

“Oh god…” She groaned, dreading it.

Laughing lightly, Matty took her hand and pulled her over to where Ross had lined up all of his equipment, “No way of getting out of this anymore, love. It’s part of our mission.”

“Do you guys want to smoke some weed before? No clue if it works, but some people have told me that it’s less painful if you do.” Ross shrugged.

Lacey immediately froze, “U-uh I don’t do drugs.”

Matty burst out laughing and also Ross couldn’t help but join in, “Weed is hardly any bad, Lace.” Seeing her hurt expression, he pulled her closer to him on the sofa, “I’m sorry, I know you haven’t done anything like that before, but if I remember correctly doing drugs is also on the list, right? What better time than this?”

“I don’t know, Matty…” She sighed, “I’m already getting a tattoo and that’s quite a big deal, isn’t that sufficient for today?”

“Of course it is. If you don’t want to do it, we won’t do it. I’m not going to force you to do anything.”

“Though it will probably make it less painful.” Ross chimed in and Matty tried to contain a grin.

Pushing him slightly, she gave in laughing, “Fine. Just don’t laugh at me when I’m dying of a cough attack, remember that.”

He grinned and kissed her forehead, “I would never do that.”

Meanwhile, Ross had already rolled up a joint and handed it to Matty together with a lighter, who lit it right up. Lacey watched the way he inhaled the smoke and let it out again, trying to remember every bit of it, so she wouldn’t make a complete fool of herself.

Smiling, he handed her the joint, “It’s not too strong, so you should be fine. Just stop as soon as you feel a bit odd, okay love?”

“Okay.” She nodded and took it from him a bit clumsily, not really knowing how to hold it.

He reached over and rearranged her fingers a bit, “Here, that’s better.” He laughed, “Now just inhale a bit and do it slowly.”

She did as he told her and was surprised that she didn’t start coughing like crazy, even though the smoke burned her throat.

Matty raised his eyebrows, seemingly impressed, “No coughing, I’m impressed.” He winked and took it from her again taking a hit himself, “Not that bad is it?”

“It fucking burns like hell.” Lacey shook her head and both Matty and Ross burst out laughing.

“You’ll get used to it.” Matty smiled and gave it back to her.

They went back and forth a few times and with each time Lacey grew more accustomed to the taste of it. She liked the way it made her feel, she felt so relaxed as if nothing and no one could ruin her peace of mind.

“Good, yeah?” He smiled as she laid her head on his shoulder, completely relaxed.

“Mhh…” She murmured happily and declined the joint he was about to pass back to her, “I think I’m good though.”

Putting his arm around her, he pulled her even closer and smiled, “Okay babe, let me just finish it up.”

He took several more hits before he finished and put it out, then he turned to her, “Ready to get tattooed, love?”

“Ah I almost forgot.” Lacey exclaimed and sat up straighter, noticing Ross after what seemed like forever, “Oh hi Ross.”

Ross simply laughed in response, “Feeling good, Lace?”

“Perfect, thank you.” She smiled, then laid down on the lounge chair that seemed to be his official tattoo chair.

“Where do you want it?” He asked her.

Instead of responding, she simply took off her shirt and pointed to the space right on her right side, right beneath her bra strap, “Right there.”

“Fuck, Lace.” Matty muttered as he took in the sight of her in her black lace bra, before he turned to look at Ross, “Do you need her to take off her bra as well?”

“Would make my job quite a bit easier, mate.”

In her state of simply feeling carefree, Lacey went to unhook her bra, but was stopped when Matty’s hand snatched hers.

“Easy there, Lace.” He laughed lightly, “We don’t want Ross to see you half naked, now do we?”

Seeing his point, she simply shook her head back and forth, replying, “No we don’t.”

He laughed lightly at how innocent she seemed even whilst being high, “Okay, so what we’re going to do is this,” He unhooked her bra clasp and moved his arm underneath her bra to cover her breasts from Ross’s sight before he took it off completely, “I’ll cover you up with my arm. This way your arm won’t be in the way and you have your other hand to hold on to me in case you need to because of the pain, sounds good?”

Not being able to register anything but Matty’s arm covering her up, she simply bit her lip and nodded. She didn’t even understand why she was so turned on by it, his hand didn’t even touch her breasts. His arm just lay there, covering her up as if it was a cloth – there was nothing sexual about it really. Still, having his bare arm touch her bare chest seemed so intimate in a way. More intimate than she had ever felt with any other guy, who she done way more with than having their arms hanging limply over her body. It was as if it wasn’t really the touch of bare skin against each other that made her feel that way, but mostly the fact that it was Matty who did it. She looked up at him, expecting to have him stare back at her intently, but did not seem fazed by the gesture at all. He was laughing at something Ross had apparently said, not looking at her for a second.

Before she could stop herself, she suddenly blurted, “Does this not affect you at all?”

He turned his head to face her and cocked an eyebrow, “What was that?”

Frustrated by having to explain herself, she nodded down towards his arm, tears welling up in her eyes, “Does this not turn you on?”

He looked down at his arm and then back up at her face, “Why? Does it turn you on?”

She nodded, biting her lip to stop herself from crying, “It makes me want to fuck you.” She admitted quietly, her peace of mind suddenly gone and replaced by a frustration about the whole thing with Matty – both sexually and emotionally.

She could hear Ross bursting out in laughter, but she kept her eyes glued on Matty’s face, who just stared down at her intently before he leaned in close and whispered, “If it makes you happy, I’d love to do just the same to you, but sadly my love, we have company.”

“She is going to be so fucking embarrassed by tomorrow morning.” Ross laughed as he came over to start on the tattoo, “Ready?” He asked her.

While staring up into Matty’s eyes, she nodded and replied, “Ready.” 

A/N: So here's chapter seven. I hope the whole weed smoking thing sounds alright, I didn't really wanna get into it that much tbh, but I hope it's at a level where it makes sense. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it all. I'd love to hear back from you and get all your ideas and thoughts. Please also vote for this chapter if you enjoyed it, it would mean a lot :) thank you in advance and for almost 200 reads (what.) x m