by Elise Noble
For Zander, I decided to go with a variation on the truth as we sat down for dinner. Well, I waited until we’d almost finished eating so I could make a quick getaway.
“I got a part-time job. You know, for my placement.”
Zander’s head snapped up. “What kind of job? I thought the guy last week was a prick?”
“This is a different job. I had an interview this morning, a last-minute thing.”
“Doing what?”
“Uh, it’s freelance work photographing venues and writing copy for an events company.” That wasn’t entirely untrue. I just neglected to mention the part about the venues having rock stars in them. “I’ll have to travel to take the pictures, but I can do the rest from home.”
“Writing adverts? Are you sure you’ll be happy doing that? Two years ago, you wanted to win a Pulitzer.”
The chances of me winning a Pulitzer were negligible, while long hours and eye strain were a certainty. Once, I’d aspired to become a famous journalist covering Washington, DC, but now every time I got near a politician, I wanted to punch them in the mouth. So much of journalism focused on politics, and if I had to listen to those idiots spouting their lies every day for the rest of my life, I’d have a permanent headache.
“Things change.”
And investigative journalism could be dangerous. Nobody liked reporters or anybody else poking their noses into places where they weren’t wanted. Dove had nearly died when she got tangled up with a criminal a few months ago, and I didn’t want to admit how much that had scared me.
Taking photos and writing Instagram posts was much more compatible with my current goal. I didn’t want to be a hard-hitting reporter anymore; I just wanted to be happy.
Maybe I could start a travel blog when I finished uni? Or do something that used my photographic skills? Fashion shoots, perhaps? Grandma had always told me the world was my oyster, even if I didn’t like shellfish.
“As long as you’re happy with that,” Zander said.
“I am.” Sort of.
“What venues do you need to photograph?” Dove asked.
“Uh…”
Zander’s phone buzzed, and I muttered a silent thanks to the heavens.
“Shit. There’s a problem at the office.” He pushed his plate away and leaned over to kiss Dove. “I might be a while.”
“Shall I keep your dinner warm?” she asked.
“No, I’ll get something at work if I’m hungry.” He hunted for his jacket, already distracted. “Good luck tomorrow, Lanie. Call me if you need anything.”
“Thanks.”
He vanished out the door, and I quickly changed the subject to plants. Dove could talk for hours about greenery, and if she was explaining why bananas were technically classed as herbs and not trees, she wasn’t asking questions about Indigo Rain. Phew.
CHAPTER 5 - ALANA
AS I STEPPED onto the tour bus in the morning, a green-haired guy three inches shorter than me thrust a spiral-bound book into my hands.
“Tour rules. Read them, remember them, obey them.”
“That’s Ian, our tour manager,” Rush told me. “He spoils our fun.”
I thumbed through a couple of pages, and the first thing written, in big, shouty letters, was DO NOT SHIT ON THE BUS. Well, that sounded quite sensible to me, along with do not vomit on the bus, no sex on the bus, and no drugs allowed.
JD grabbed the book and tossed it out the door. “Don’t worry about that. Those guidelines apply more to the supporting acts and the crew bus.”
“Then maybe I should ride on the crew bus.”
Rush took my hand and tugged me forward. “No, babe. You need to take pictures of us, remember? Let me show you around.”
There was a lounge at the front with a tiny galley on one side, complete with a kettle, a microwave, and a huge flat-screen TV. Gary had set his laptop up on the dining table, and when he saw me, he beckoned me closer.
“Just so you understand, I agreed to your presence here under duress. If I hear you’ve broken a single one of Ian’s rules, you’ll be off this bus before you can pull your panties up.”
Wow. Wasn’t he just delightful?
“I’m here to do a job. Nothing more.”
“Yes, your photos. I’ve made my feelings on that quite clear to Rush. If you post anything unflattering, our lawyer is on standby to sue you for every cent you’ve got.”
Was he trying to scare me off? Because his rudeness only made me more determined to stay. I curled my toes into the soles of my shoes and smiled sweetly.
“I won’t—”
“Ignore him,” Rush said, pushing me farther into the bus. “He likes to throw his weight around.”
“Ian’s such a hypocrite,” JD added, wrinkling his nose. “He’s already broken the ‘no shitting on the bus’ rule. And I like you, bikini girl.”
The tiny toilet had a neon sign stuck to the outside. NO SHITTING. Beyond that, eight bunks took up the middle of the bus, four on each side—two by two—with curtains for privacy. Belongings lay scattered on the mattresses—phones, laptops, a wallet. A few clothes. Condoms. A plastic baggie full of suspicious-looking pills. Uh-oh.
“Is that your camera?” Rush asked, tapping my bag.
“Yes. And my laptop and a ring light for close-ups.”
“Put it on my bed so nobody trips over it.” He patted one of the top bunks. “Put yourself on there too if you want.”
I dumped my bag, then folded my arms.
“You’ll change your mind, bikini girl.”
“No, I won’t.”
In another lounge at the back, Dex had stretched out on a leather couch with a computer-game controller in his hand. Icy air blasted from an air conditioner in the ceiling.
“This is the band’s private area,” Rush told me. “Ian’s banned from here.”
“Private means private,” Dex said.
“Chill, man, she needs to take pictures.”
“Not of me, she doesn’t.”
“Dex hasn’t taken his meds this morning.”
“Fuck you.”
I backed away. “Don’t worry, I’m leaving.”
In the narrow aisle outside, I had to squeeze past JD to get back to the communal area. The On the Run tour was scheduled to go on for three months, but my sanity didn’t have that much stamina. How long could I last packed into a bus with two people who hated my guts and another who wanted to take advantage of me? A week? Two weeks? Just block out the horror, Alana. I didn’t need to stay for the whole tour, just long enough to do my research. I could do this. After all, I’d spent fourteen years living with my mother.
“Where the hell is Travis?” Ian asked.
Two girls had appeared in the lounge, a blonde and a brunette. The blonde spoke.
“Still in his hotel room, but he said he was just coming.”
“Coming. That’s about right,” Rush muttered. “Alana, meet Reagan…” He gestured towards the blonde. “And Courtney. Our assistants. Girls, this is Alana. She’s helping with our social media.”
“Good luck with that,” Reagan said. “They’ve been through six social media girls so far this year.”
“Call Travis again,” Ian demanded. “We should’ve left five minutes ago.”
But she didn’t have to. Travis swanned out of the hotel with a rucksack over one shoulder and a redhead on each arm. Tall, thin, and beautiful, so similar they could almost have been twins. He kissed each of them on the cheek, and they were still giggling when he climbed onto the bus.
“You’re late!” Ian squawked.
“Yeah, well, I can’t shower properly with my arm in a cast. I need help.”
“Next time, I’ll throw a bucket of cold water over you. Get in your damn seat.”
“Is it always like this?” I asked Rush.
“Nah, usually Travis is at least fifteen minutes late.” Rush rummaged in the refrigerator, which as far as I could see, only contained beer, white wine, and a packet of cheese. “
Drink?”
“No, thanks.”
“C’mon.” Rush herded me back to the rear lounge. “We need to talk strategy.”
Since Dex had bagged one couch and JD decided to spread out on the floor with his headphones on, I found myself squashed onto the other couch between Rush and Travis and someone’s guitar. Great.
Thousands of girls would kill to be here, Alana.
“So what now? We just sit here for five hours?”
Rush gave me a one-shouldered shrug. “Maybe six or seven if we get stuck in traffic. Sometimes they let us out for rest stops if we get lucky.”
“Really?”
“Yup. Welcome to our world. And people wonder why we like to let our hair down in the evenings.”
Dex had his own copy of the tour book, well-thumbed and dog-eared around the edges, and he turned to the itinerary at the back.
“Today, we have interviews, interviews, interviews as soon as we get to Sheffield, so you’d better lay off the beer, bro.”
“You should drink more of it. Might loosen you up.”
“Guys,” Travis interrupted. “Why do we have to start every trip with an argument? Dex, pass me a pill, would ya? My arm hurts like fuck.”
“Why? Did it get twisted by one of your bitches?”
“Nah, she slammed it against the headboard.”
Dex tossed Travis one of the packets I’d seen earlier, a plastic baggie filled with white pills.
“Knock yourself out.” Then to me, “Don’t get excited, little girl. These are prescription.”
Yeah, but whose prescription? And why was Dex so nasty? I could understand him being upset with me, the interloper, but he didn’t seem to like Travis or Rush either.
Rush just ignored him, and that suggested the animosity was a regular occurrence.
“Gimme your phone, Instababe. I need to add my account so you can write nice things about me.” He flipped his hair and mock-pouted. “Make sure you get my good side.”
“Which one is that? I thought you were all bad?”
He grabbed a bottle of beer and hammered the cap off on the edge of the window frame. The scarred plastic suggested he’d pulled that move before.
“Yeah.” He paused, thoughtful. “You might be right about that.”
Like every journey, the trip north went faster if a person fell asleep, and I wondered if the boys partied as a strategy—you know, exhausted themselves by having fun all night so they slept like the dead during the day.
I wouldn’t have minded, but Rush keeled over sideways and pinned me into my seat, and he smelled worse than a day-old corpse. Since he was actually easier to deal with while he was unconscious, I left him like that the whole way to Sheffield.
Opposite, Dex creaked into life when we neared the venue, and I watched him from under my eyelashes. He stretched back, sniffed his armpits, and grimaced before pushing himself to his feet. Then he staggered forward, even though the bus drove smoothly, and his jaw clenched. Those first few steps… That wasn’t normal. And his face scrunched up in pure pain.
Dex had a problem? My hasty research hadn’t mentioned any injuries, but I hadn’t imagined that expression. What was going on?
Beside me, Rush stirred awake and wiped drool off his shirt.
“You’d better not post that picture, Instababe.”
“I won’t. But get your hand off my thigh, rock god.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Rush stopped to use the bathroom before we disembarked, meaning everyone else had gone on ahead when we emerged blinking into the sunshine.
“Which way?” he asked.
“How the hell should I know?”
“Reagan usually tells me where to go.”
“I can’t say I blame her for that.”
“I meant she gives me directions.” Rush put one hand on my back and steered me towards a door. “Let’s try in here. If I’m wrong, we can just make out instead.”
“Don’t you ever stop?”
“No, but most women say that’s one of my better qualities.”
We ended up in a corridor, and I was trying to think up a witty comeback when two men walked towards us and my worst nightmare came true. Shit, shit, shit. I recognised both of them because they worked with Zander. Why were Max and Bryson here? Tell me Blackwood wasn’t involved in security for the tour… Zander hadn’t mentioned that, but why would he? As far as he knew, I was photographing a conference centre today.
Oh, crap. If I didn’t do something fast, they were gonna see me, and my internship would be over before it even started.
“Rush?”
“Yeah?”
“I changed my mind.”
“Huh?”
I dragged him in front of me and stood on tiptoes to kiss him. Thankfully, he got the message and kissed me back—with tongues, the asshole.
Max cleared his throat as they approached, and Bryson muttered something along the lines of, “Shoulda been a rock star.” Then the outside door slammed, and I sagged in Rush’s arms, willing my lungs to take in air. Air that felt like a wave of fire rolling off Rush’s body.
“What was all that about?” he asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I, because I don’t think you really want me to fuck you against the wall in this hallway.”
“I know those men.”
Rush’s eyes widened. “Like, know them, know them?”
“No, not that way! They work with my brother, and he doesn’t know I’m here. He can get a teeny bit overprotective.”
“And you think he might not like you hanging out with us?”
“Exactly. I mean, you’re nicer than I thought you’d be, but Zander doesn’t understand that, and he’ll just go by your reputations, and… I’m sorry. Word vomit.”
Rush just stared at me.
“Do you want me to leave?” I asked.
“Nah, babe. You act all cool, but inside, you’re just as screwed up as the rest of us, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yes?”
What else could I say to that? He was absolutely right.
“Look, I’ve seen those guys before. We’ve got a regular security team, but last year, some crazy woman got into my dressing room and attacked me with a knife.” Rush lifted the edge of his shirt and showed me a thin scar on his stomach. “Now the label likes to hire in outside help to assess the safety of each venue.”
“She stabbed you?”
“Yeah. She’d been writing crazy letters for ages, and the label assumed she was just a kook.”
“I didn’t hear anything about that.”
“They buried it. The venue screwed up, the label screwed up, the crew screwed up, and I got taken down by a girl. Nobody wanted it splashed across the news.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“I grew up in the south side of Chicago, babe. Getting stabbed was practically a rite of passage.” Brave words, but his weary voice told a different story. “But if you ever see a girl go into my dressing room alone, do me a favour and call security, okay? Because they’re all banned.”
CHAPTER 6 - ALANA
OH MY…
NO, I had no words.
I stood at the side of the stage, clutching my camera and waving my pass every time someone gave me a suspicious glance. The concert was almost over, and in the two hours the boys had been playing, they’d blown my mind.
I’d been to concerts before, everything from corporate hospitality at the Royal Albert Hall with my mother and the pervert to a muddy Glastonbury trip with Tessa, but nothing—nothing—had come close to watching Indigo Rain at Sheffield Arena. In terms of music, energy, and sheer volume, they were in a class of their own. Apart from the people in the accessible viewing area at the front, the whole audience had been on their feet, and even the guys and gals in wheelchairs had waved their arms in the air.
Everyone was still screaming when the band finished their encore and ran off stage, and I scrambled to get my camera ready.
Travis with sweat pouring down his face.
Snap.
Rush waving his guitar.
Snap.
JD pausing to throw his drumsticks into the crowd below.
Snap.
Dex forgetting he hated me for a second and sticking his tongue out as he made devil horns with one hand.
Snap.
Holy hell.
Now I knew why people did it. Why boys started drumming on plastic buckets and playing cheap guitars in their garages at home, and why women threw themselves at the men those boys became. The four idiots who’d made me want to tear my hair out for the last two days had transformed into divine beings before my very eyes. And ears.
Luckily, only an hour later, they shattered that illusion.
I’d managed to get the last room available in the hotel the band was staying in, a tiny single tucked away by the fire exit on the ground floor. The boys, of course, had suites again, up on the top floor. Apparently, they were having a post-concert get-together, but I had to finish editing photos before I could consider having fun. I had the perfect shot for Rush’s Instagram feed, him lifting his guitar strap over his head after he came off stage with his shirt riding up high enough to show a hint of his six-pack while he did so. I just needed to play around in Lightroom to enhance the contrast and bring out the blue in his eyes.
When I’d asked if he wanted to check out the photos, he’d told me to go ahead and post whichever one I liked best. It felt kind of strange that he trusted me like that, but I guess he was used to delegating.
I loaded up the photo and added a caption—Thanks, Sheffield!—and a bunch of hashtags.
“Well, here goes.”
Posted.
That wasn’t so difficult, and best of all, uni counted it as work. My supervisor had emailed back this morning, surprised but pleased that he wouldn’t have to spend his precious time dealing with my inability to find a temporary job.
Hmm… Was anyone still around upstairs? I kinda wanted to sleep, but Rush had invited me to join the band for a drink, and I figured I should probably make the effort if they hadn’t gone out to a club or something. I touched up my lipstick, checked my hair, and hopped into the elevator, only to get stopped by security at the door of Rush’s suite. Not Blackwood, thankfully. I’d seen this guy getting off the crew bus earlier.
