I don't own Night World. Here is a preview of the first chapter of the sequel to Love is Blue. (Thank Taylor Swift. Her new album gave me a load of inspiration. I mean, Treacherous. I listened to that and thought, 'Oh my goodness, that is Love is Blue.' :O Well, to me, at least.) I decided to put this bit up just so that my lovely readers know that I haven't forgotten about them. It's split into 7 parts and an epilogue (I'm about 1000 words into the 7th part atm), and each part is 1-4 chapters long. There is some Morgy POV thrown into it, too. ;) Anyway, feedback. If you spot anything wrong with this chapter, tell me and I'll sort it out.

Painting in Red

Part 1 – Treacherous (Jez)

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can't take it in all at once. ~Audrey Hepburn

Chapter 1

I had a bad feeling from the moment I woke up.

It was little things, like the fact that I'd fallen out of bed. The kettle had refused to boil and the teabag I threw into the water had a rip in it. And I was out of sugar.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back (a very weak back) and after some very impressively inventive swearing I threw the mug at the wall and spun round to come face-to-face with a very rumpled-looking, scared Pierce.

"Oh. Hi," I said. "We're out of sugar."

"And out a mug. What did it do to you?"

"I'm just stressed."

"Yeah. I gathered. You haven't been this stressed since we left England."

I kept my expression carefully blasé. I'd tried to think about England the bare minimum in the four months since we'd left.

Tried being the operative word. Every now and then, a memory would hit me, pierce me through like a cannonball and leave me raw and gasping at the intensity. Who knew the capability of human memory? I couldn't remember anything as vividly as I could remember him. Though I tried and tried to forget.

Forget forget forget forget.

"Are you alright, Jez?"

I smiled at him. "Yeah. I'm fine."

That phrase sticks in my head a lot. I'm fine. It's true, for the most part. Living with one of my best friends (there's nothing romantic – thank God – between me and Pierce) means that I've never a cause to be lonely. My parents have promised to come sometime soon, and we talk for about two hours every day. The band is really taking off, and our gigs are usually sold out within a day or two. The songs for our upcoming CD are coming on really well, and we've recorded about four songs. Our first single, 'Fly', is coming out two weeks today.

Of course, I miss England, with its rain and clouds and the green and yellow patchwork-quilt of fields in the Suffolk countryside, the grey waters of Felixstowe, reaching out to the east to meet the morning sun, and even the sprawled, scattered buildings of my old school.

And of course, I miss Morgead.

I flinch, as always, when his name slips, like a thief, into my consciousness, stealing my mind and dragging me forcibly away from the really quite… beautiful present. I love every moment of my life, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better.

But that's being selfish, isn't it? I'm lucky. I shouldn't demand more when I've already been given so much. It's only when I'm alone in the flat that I curl up on the sofa and allow myself to linger over his green eyes, sparking with laughter and love when he looked at me, his ruffled hair falling over his forehead, and the feel of his strong hands on mine.

It's brilliant fodder for song writing.