#robertplantsmullet

It was 1965, The Who had just had it’s first hit single ‘I can’t explain’ and had signed on to a record deal. Money was a little bit more then scarce now and Roger Daltrey was able to feel a little reprieve from the financial pressure that often plagued new bands, but he wasn’t eager to move out of his trippy little flat with his much treasured roommate, Annie.

  She was a sweet little thing, a few years his junior, meeting her ends by pairing up with him to find their own roof and he couldn’t just leave her behind, but at sixteen he was pretty certain he couldn’t take her with him either. Still it would be hard to think about his life without her in it…it would seem like a cold and distant world without a sweet cherubic smile to greet him in the mornings over a drowsy cup of tea.

  Daltrey ruffled his cut-down locks and swallowed hard, pushing the thoughts of leaving her out of his head, the ache was a bit too terrible for him to consider at the moment. When had he become so attached…when had it all gone from some kind of necessary situation to a type of serious dependency to where even the consideration of removing her from his life just didn’t seem possible?

  He sighed so heavily that it felt like someone stepped on his lung. Stop thinking about it.

  Three gulps of rapidly cooling tea finished off what was left in the porcelain cup, and his ears picked up the sounds of her rustling around in her room. What was she doing in there? He could hear some kind of humming, a few random German words thrown about, some obscure lyric he didn’t know, before a little golden head popped out from behind the door, a random strand of hair unfurling from the binding of her ponytail to collide with her glasses.

  Cute, he thought, and couldn’t help but feel a smile pull at his lips as her eyes rounded and she offered him up one of her brilliant little grins. How could such a sweet thing surmise herself ugly? He heard her idle comments every time he tried to compliment her…why couldn’t she see the genuine sweetness and light she brought to his life?

  “Something up?” he asked realizing they’d mutually stared at each other for a few seconds without speaking.

  “Yes” she said in a chipper tone “Please, Roger I need your help with something” and at those words he was all too eager to come off his chair and rush to her aid, being allowed past the door of her bedroom and beyond, into the world of a sixteen-year-old music lover. And oh what good taste she had, he felt at home in this space almost instantly…why didn’t their whole apartment feel like this? The answer was pretty simple, it wasn’t filled with her. Instead the common areas were neutral ground between the two of them and either had been too nervous about the arrangement to chose anything befitting their equal personalities. Though being in here, now, he regretted not encouraging her to expand her territory somewhat.

  “What…uhm…what did you need help with?” he’d gotten distracted again and had to snap back to reality, his pale eyes focusing on her soft features.

  “Oh!” the expression from her made it appear as though she too had forgotten why she’d summoned him. Immediately she went to her closet, ripping out several different tops and slinging them down onto her bed “I need you to help me pick out what I should wear!”

  “For--?” he wondered.

  “My date tonight!”

  Date… Date, that word hit him like a lead pipe to the gut. When did she get a date? Why hadn’t he heard about this! “Date?” he managed to choke out.

  “Yes, I told you last week, don’t you remember?”

  He vaguely recalled something amid the whirlwind of record deals that she’d said about some boy but he’d disregarded it, he never thought there was actually going to be some dating involved. The idea that she was slipping away, that some other man would have his arms around her, hold her, take her places and whisper sweet nothings into her ear… it seemed so surreal, almost torture! He was jealous! “No, No I forgot” he managed.

  “Oh, well help me out, I’m going to be late” she demanded but gently and he took a deep breath before looking down at everything she’d laid out. The word date was still spinning around in his head. Who was this boy? What did he want? Was he going to hurt her? He didn’t like this, not at all. “I don’t know” he said aloud suddenly “Are you sure about this, Annie? He could be some kind of creep” immediately trying to deface the date, maybe he could convince her to stay home and have Chinese food with him or something.

  “Creepier than you?” she laughed “I don’t think so, Rog… I’ve seen him around for a while you know? Don’t worry so much…everything’s going to be fine.”

  “Why don’t you call it off” he blurted, he really didn’t want her to leave his side, certainly didn’t want some little nit taking her out “I could take you out if you’d like to go somewhere, we could go to dinner or a movie or something… whatever you like”.

  Annie paused and looked at him like he was crazy “Roger, I’m old enough to go out on a date, besides you didn’t even get dressed today” she gestured at his slow slung pants and faded shirt with a little bit of amusement “Looks like you just crawled out of bed, actually” then it appeared as though she was thinking intently on something as her eyes breezed down his body before she blushed and turned away.

  Was she… was she just checking him out? Something in his chest swelled at the idea that he might yet convince her to trade off this nobody loser for him instead. Wait…how exactly did he feel about that? She was his roommate, his close friend, she made his days brighter by default, always ready with a sweet smile and a gentle hand, he really couldn’t bear to be without her but why was that exactly? And as he studied her pink cheeks and the way she was trying way too hard to focus on clothes instead of him he realized… he liked her. Really liked…. Maybe even, loved? Was that possible? His friend, his companion, the one always by his side no matter what…did he love her?

  He cleared his throat “Annie, I can dress fairly quickly…you don’t really want to go out with this fool do you” he tried to shy her away from what’s his name and laid a hand on her shoulder “Come on, we’d have more fun” his fingers turned her towards him and he hooked his knuckle gently under her chin, lifting it to force her to look at him. He gave her one of his smiles, accentuating piercing blue eyes and the wickedness of his grin.

  “Why are you pushing this so hard” she said boldly as she stared at him, and now it was his turn to fall into some kind of shyness “I just…don’t want you out with him is all… if you’re out with anybody you should be out with me”

  Did he just say that? It left his mouth so fast he had very little time to recover. He heard her gasp, and then a look of puzzlement crossed her before she asked “What do you mean?”

  “Well it’s just that… I realize I – care about you, you know I really don’t want you away from me. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately what with the record being picked up and I know the one change I really just can’t stand the idea of is losing you” he actually bit his lower lip briefly as he ran his hand through his thick hair, staring at hers as though he longed to yank it down from that confining ponytail “I don’t want you finding some boy and – and I don’t want you falling in love with anyone – unless that someone is me” and his eyes found hers again before he lifted his fingers and removed her glasses gently “Please, Annie, don’t go… I need you more than he does, don’t you see that?”

  And that sweet little girl, stared up at her friend and offered a brilliant smile, an expression that rocked him to the core and nothing in the world felt more right than that moment “Okay Roger, but only on one condition” her voice had gone low and soft, and it was heartbreakingly lovely for him, even as his fingers did what they wanted to and freed her hair.

  “What’s that?” he asked, as his knuckles slid along her jaw line, yearning so terribly to touch her skin.

  “I get to pick the movie”