Me: Hello, this is Arthur.

I text Guinevere after I finish my pizza (which was a Sun-kissed Tropical Hawaiian, by the way) and wait for her to reply.

Ah, a few minutes later and ding.

Gwen: I know.

Okay.

That's not exactly the reply I was thinking of, I have to admit. But it's a good conversation starter.

My fingers hover over the keyboard as I ponder whether I should drag the conversation a bit before asking her out or just go for the money here and now.

Oh, whatever.

Me: Are you free next Monday?

Oh no. Should've dragged the conversation a bit before that. Damn me.

That's another way of showing that you're desperate. Another thing I do not usually do. But have just done.

Gwen: Yes.

Me: Do you want to go out for a coffee or something then?

Gwen: No, sorry.

Me: I thought you were free?

Gwen: Yes, but just because I'm free doesn't necessarily mean that I want to spend my day with you, you non-magic poo face. No offence.

Wow. That's harsh. Non-magic poo face? No offence?

Me: That's a bit mean.

Gwen: Sodfih2jhdf008d

Me: What?

Gwen: Sorry Merlin just wrote that. And the one before that. Not me.

Me: Who's Merlin? Your boyfriend?

Gwen: No. My brother. Why?

Oh phew. I thought I'd blown it with her.

Me: Nothing.

Gwen: Why are you asking me out anyway?

Me: Huh?

Gwen: We don't know anything about each other and all the times we've met have been seriously awkward.

Me: So? Let's make it a bit less awkward this time then.

Gwen: ...

Me: So do you want to go out?

Gwen: Not sure.

Just give her some time to think.

A few minutes maybe.

Sure enough, a couple of minutes later my phone dings again.

Gwen: Okay. Only once though. I can only spare half an hour or so. And it has to be somewhere private.

Oh my. This one's naughtier than I thought.

Me: Sure, sure, whatever you want, Guinevere. Private sounds good to me. Good to another part of me too.

Gwen: It's not what you think.

Me: I know. So how about the village cafe down the small alleyway in town?

Gwen: The one with the pea-green blinds?

Me: Uh, yeah. That one.

Gwen: Fine.

Me: At 12:40.

She doesn't reply. But it says she's read it so I'm probably okay.

Ahh. Now just call the guys and tell them the good news.

And look for a cafe with 'pea-green' blinds. Whatever that means.


"I like this one. She's interesting." Gwaine comments as he reads my texts.

We're at Starbucks this time and Gwaine's somehow got hold of my phone.

I reach for it but keep getting blocked by Percival, my other best friend who's just come back from a romantic ski trip with his girlfriend.

Did I also mention the fact that he's built like a tank and always seems to take Gwaine's side?

Which somehow always ends up with my face in his palm, which is extremely sweaty and grimy. So I find myself going to the loos every time he and Gwaine are around.

The men's loos of course. I'm not a pervert.

"You can let him go now, Percy."

I suddenly shoot forward land on Gwaine's lap.

He looks down at me and grins, "Hey, mate, sorry but I'm straight."

Oh god. I will never understand what goes on in that dirty mind of his.

''Shut up, Gwaine, you perv." I crawl off his lap and retrieve my phone.

"Did you do anything?"

"I just looked at your messages. Not as elaborate as I thought they'd be."

"What were you expecting then?"

"You know... cyber love."

"What? I'm not getting... ugh Gwaine that's disgusting!"

Percival stares at us, mystified. He's obviously not got it yet. Too innocent for his own good.

"Phone sex you idiot."

Now he reacts. "Gwaine! That is the most revolting thing I have ever heard!"

"Don't say you haven't tried it before Percy. I've seen some of your messages too, and I can't say they're entirely innocent..." Gwaine waggles his eyebrows at him.

Percival blushes the deepest shade of red I've ever seen a man blush and he suddenly clasps his giant paw over his pocket.

Gwaine notices too. "Hah, so you've been at it have you? What did you say?" He laughs and slaps his back. "Oh darling Maria, I can almost feel your beautiful female genitals around my big horsey male genitals." He snorts like a pig while Percival goes purple.

I should've brought a camera. Percival's like a full colour chart. To pink to red to purple. He's probably turning blue next.

My phone suddenly vibrates in my pocket.

I take out my phone and squint at the screen.

Anonymous caller. Ooh, mysterious.

"Hello?"

"Is this Arteur?" A strange deep German-French accent greets me.

"Who are you?"

"Are you Arteur?"

"Yeees. Why?"

"Mademoiselle Guinevere would like to cancel her meeting with you on Monday." Guinevere? But this isn't her phone number.

"What? Why?"

"She has more important things to attend."

"This isn't Merlin, is it?"

"I am her agent, Jean-Thomas Bouvard."

"Well, Monsieur Agent, please can you pass me over to her? I need to talk to her."

"I am not permitted to answer personal questions about Mademoiselle."

"But I-"

"Goodbye, monsieur." He hangs up abruptly and I turn to Gwaine slowly who's looking at me expectantly.

"Well? What did she say? Is she in bed? Wants a bit of phone sex?"

"No, you idiot, her agent's just cancelled our 'meeting'."

"Agent?" Percival's eyebrows knit together. "But isn't that the term used for the kind of secretaries of celebrities? Are you dating a celebrity?"

"No, don't think she is. And Percy, I'm not even dating her."

"Then why you so different with her?"

"Different?"

"You know, you didn't chase after your previous victims so much, you know? You're more, I don't know, not cool with her. You're breaking all your never-look-desperate rules."

I guess I am. The bus, chasing after her, the loos- I've never broken down like that in front of a girl before. Ever. Neither Mithian nor Elena had that effect and I even had sex with

"I don't know, Arthur, it's just, you know, what I feel. You know what I'm talking about don't you, Gwaine?"

"What did you say her name was?"

"What?"

"What's her name?" Gwaine asks again impatiently.

"Errr, Guinevere."

"Full name."

"Dunno."

He sighs, "What does she look like then?"

"Ummm, you know, English, nice skin, brown hair, err, eyes-" She's harder to describe than I thought.

Gwaine sighs and rolls his eyes exasperately, "Arthur, your observational skills blow me. Now I understand why your clients shout at you so much. I need detail!"

I start again. "Okay, she has brown eyes-"

"Actually this might be just a little bit quicker." He reaches for his pocket and fishes out his phone. He types something on his phone and drums the back of it a bit before turning it around to show us.

"That's a kid."

"Oh, right. Sorry, wrong photo." He quickly swipes it a few times and shows us again.

"Umm, dunno. Maybe. She looks a lot younger in the photo but it could be her. Why's maybe-her on Google images?"

"Didn't you ever watch that show when you were younger? 'May and Tay'?"

Percival grins and snaps his fingers, "Oh yeah, I remember that. The one with the little girl and her teddy bear who go on adventures and stuff. That was the most amazing show ever! I was so disappointed when it finished."

"I don't remember anything like that."

"You obviously had a very deprived childhood then, shortie." Gwaine chuckles and I turn away, his words cutting a little deeper than intended. He's right, I have had a seriously childhood-deprived childhood. Going to seminars, lectures and award ceremonies with Father is the only thing I remember from back then. No 'May and whatever' or anything.

I quickly come back to the present. "Why is it so important anyway? What's it got to do with Guinevere?"

Gwaine taps something and turns his phone around to show me. "Well, this cute little baby in 'May and Teddy' is your Gwen."

I stare at the smiling little baby girl on the screen. "What?!"

"She is. It's her." Gwaine smiles smugly.

"How is that baby her?" I'm kind of confused now.

"It is, Arthur. Gwaine, show him a photo of her in 'Family Trees'." Percival grins.

"Oh yeah, she was gorgeous in that one. So cute. That's when I first fell in love with her. My first love." Gwaine grins and types a bit before flashing the screen to me again.

It's the same baby but she looks a bit older, maybe about three or four years old. I have to admit I can see a bit of Guinevere in her though. The same big vacant brown eyes that makes her look like she's somewhere far off. Among the angels and the clouds.

I still can't believe that it's her though. The Guinevere I saw the couple of times we met does not look like the cheerful little baby actress in the photos.

Gwaine flicks to another picture and snorts, "I love this one. She looks so hot in it. I used to want to snog her face off every time she did that cute little pout of hers."

Percival laughs, "Oh my god, Gwaine, I loved it too. She looked like one of those Disney characters." He suddenly pulls a face. "But seriously, you had a crush on her? You were like, what, seven then?"

"So? Doesn't mean I can't want to have her right?"

"You were some dirty-minded seven-year-old. No wonder you're such a playboy now."

I must admit I'm feeling a little left out. When I was young, Father never let me watch TV or films or anything, saying it's a waste of time and electricity. We had only one set in the whole house- a tiny old one in his room so he could see what the media were saying about him.

I guess that's the down side of growing up without a mother. You miss out on so much. Especially in your childhood.

I look at the picture again and read the caption. Wait. This is some girl called Amy or something. "Gwaine, this isn't even her. It's some girl called Amy."

"Oh my god, shortie, you are seriously out of date. Guinevere's not her first name. It's her middle name, dumbass."

Percival chips in, "Her first name's Amelia-May. Amy-May for short. Pretty, isn't it?"

"Then why'd she tell me that her name's Guinevere?" I'm getting more and more confused now.

"Dunno. Beats me." Gwaine shrugs.

Even though I'm still not convinced it's her, I'm strangely curious about this supposed-to-be Guinevere.

"Show me more pictures of her."

"Okay. Just warning you, mate, there's a lot of her on screen, you know, acting, but there's barely any of her in public. In everyday life."

"Whatever, show me whatever Google's got."

"Here. She's been in quite a lot of shows, especially in her childhood. Did you know that she began acting at 3 months old?"

"Wow, that's amazing." I flick through the images one by one, trying to find a little bit of Guinevere in each one. It doesn't help that I don't know anything about her but her name. Her age, where she lives, what she likes- they're all a mystery to me.

"Yeah, that's pretty cool right? Maybe that's why she was such a great actress." Percival takes the phone and quickly types something else in and I see photos of her, about twelve-years-old now. I can recognize her face and her posture a bit more in the photos. There's something weird about her though.

In every picture she looks in character, like somebody else- I guess that's what defines a good actress, but there was one thing that was pretty foreign to the rest of her face.

Her smile. It doesn't look forced but doesn't look natural either. It was as if she didn't understand the concept of smiling. Or maybe just something else. I don't know. I shake my head and brush the thought away and continue scanning through the photos.

Suddenly a question pops into my head, something to do with what Gwaine said earlier. "Why aren't there any photos of her outside the set?"

"I don't know. There should be loads- there are for other famous actresses anyway." Gwaine shrugs and scrolls down. "There's only been like one photo ever in her entire career that shows her offset. This one." He points to one of a girl in a gray thing under an umbrella. Her face is all shaded and you can only see her feet, poking out under the huge over-sized mackintosh.

"How d'you know that's her? You can't even see anything!" I ask, puzzled.

"Someone recognized her a couple of years back. Well, that's what they said, then. There was a total media frenzy cos it was like the first photo of her in like, ages. The media haven't got anything from her since then." Gwaine explains.

"Yeah, it's so rare to find a photo of her off the stage that big magazine companies have put up rewards of hundreds of pounds to whoever gets a half-decent shot of her. But then again, it's pretty hard because all you have is pictures of her when she was younger so nobody really knows what she looks like now." Percival looks all excited, telling it like a murder story just waiting to be solved.

"She hasn't been in any films recently?" I ask.

"Her films and everything stopped when she was about fourteen or something. Dunno why." He shrugs.

"She suddenly disappeared. You know, like, just vanished."

"I have a really good idea though." Gwaine nudges Percival and they nod.

"Since you seem to keep bumping into her..." Gwaine starts.

"... the next time you see her, maybe you could get a photo and give it to us so we can have the prize?" Percival gabbles and grins hopefully at me.

"No." I reply.

"What?" Gwaine looks at me as if I'm talking Japanese.

"I said no." I say simply.

"Why?" Percival looks as baffled as Gwaine.

"Because it's unfair on her."

"What?" Gwaine repeats.

"I'm guessing she's not being found because she doesn't want to be found. Why else would she shy away from all the fame she could've had if she'd been like any other celebrity? She's obviously got a reason, and I want you guys to respect that. I want to earn her trust and betraying her like that won't do it."

Gwaine stares at me. "Are you alright, Arthur?"

"Yeah, you're actually caring about someone's feelings for once. That is just alien." Percival nods.

"Shut up." I punch them lightly on the shoulder.

"Well, stop being so deep and emotional and... girly, mate. I can't get used to it."

"I'm still getting used to the fact that Guinevere was some little child star." I comment.

"You're just lucky she isn't a porn star." Gwaine says.

I laugh and Percival snorts. "That would be just..."

Gwaine chuckles. "Yeah, I know. Typing up her name on Google and finding her arse looking at you."

"Stop it, Gwaine, stop it. The mental image is not helping." Percival grabs his stomach and rolls around on his seat which looks as if it's about to collapse under him.

"I wouldn't mind it though. Just imagine squeezing her..." He grins and squeezes the air with his hands while moaning loudly making a lot of people stare at him. And at me and Percival too. But I guess that's what comes with having Gwaine as a friend. You get a lot of unwanted publicity.

"Gwaine..." Percival's getting rather red now.

He grins and stops. "Fine, you spoilsport."

"You idiot. Oh wait, Maria's calling." He leans back and puts his phone to his ear.

"Have you talked to your girlfriend recently Gwaine?" I ask.

"Ah, no. They broke up with me just before I came here." He looks a little suspicious.

"Why?"

"They were cousins. And they found out about each other. In a rather... wrong way."

I'm not sure if I want to hear this. "What d'you mean?"

"Well." He bites his lower lip. "I had sex with Jenni, then she left for some lecture or something. Then Tracy came over a few minutes later and gave me a blowjob." He grins.

What? And then suddenly it hits me like a stone wall. "Oh god, Gwaine. You don't mean..." I pull a face.

"Yep. She tasted her cousin's insides on me." He looks pretty proud for someone who's done something like... that. Everyone's looking at us again.

"Maria's getting a tomato plant and she wants to make pasta with me." He smiles then looks up. "What were you talking about?" Percival looks at us expectantly.

I burst out laughing and Gwaine smirks. "You do not want to know, you giant old bear. It's a bit... inappropriate for you."

"Why? What happened?" Percival's as clueless as ever. He and Leon have more in common than I thought.

"You don't need to know, old pal." Gwaine suddenly looks at the clock. "Oh, shit, gotta dash, Soph's going to blow if I don't get there on time."

"Blow what?" I couldn't help myself.

"Shut up, shortie, I'm serious. Come on Perce." He dashes out with Percival leaving me sitting there on my own with everyone staring at me, obviously thinking of Gwaine's dirty ways. And probably thinking that I'm as dirty as he is.

I leave the cafe and walk outside and shiver. It's getting a bit chilly now even though the sun's still out.

I should probably be heading home now even though I don't want to. Morgana's been even more annoying than ever. So much that I almost considered going back to Father. But then reality kicked in.

I get a cab and lean my head back and close my eyes as soon as I get in.

I have a crazy life.