Part 6 (1/2)

”Oh, well, maybe Jax will be interested in my services.” Bryn looks around sharply, and I grin to indicate I'm teasing. Serves him right for interfering.

Following the s.e.xually charged encounter in the lift, I don't think Jax would say no to anything I could offer him. It would've been easy to drag my fingers through his messy, blond hair and meet my lips with his. I blink away the image of us together. Hot, yeah, but with that comes the inevitable burn.

I turn to Tina. ”I can do some promo? Help out with marketing?”

Tina taps her fingers on the iPad. ”Do you have any experience?”

”I have a blog,” I suggest.

”You and thousands of other people, honey. That's not experience.” I bite my tongue at retorting. ”We need people to sell merchandise at every venue. Usually we contract locals, but Tegan could help out. Takes a while to set up, and she'd need to be there for sales in the evening.”

”Fine by me,” I say.

Bryn nods. ”Keeps her out of trouble in the evenings, at least.”

”No problem. I can cause all the chaos in the daytime.” I shake my head at him. ”Seriously though, I'm confused about what you think I'm going to get up to on tour, Bryn. I'm not exactly a wild child.”

Bryn crosses his arms and again I catch a hint his sense of humour has taken a vacation. ”I'm responsible for you.”

”I'm responsible for myself.”

Tina's phone rings and she glances at the display. ”I need to take this. Tegan, come back here around four and I'll introduce you to Sam. He's in charge of the merchandising and can show you the ropes.”

”Okay. Cool.”

Tina gives us a pointed look and indicates her phone. I leave the room with Bryn and s.n.a.t.c.h my chance. ”Are you sure you're all right? Didn't you want to tour again?”

”I'm fine.”

”Liar.”

He rubs his tired eyes. ”I'm happy to be on tour. I prefer being around the Blue Phoenix world. I guess I'm tired and stressed about the first gig of the tour.” He's avoiding looking at me. Definitely lying. ”I'll back off, Tegan, but I'm here if you need something.”

I take Bryn's hand. ”And I'm here if you need someone to talk to.”

As kids, we shared every secret and Bryn would confide in me about things. I didn't fully understand his problems when he was a teen and I was still young, but that's why he told me, I think. Bryn could talk to me and it didn't matter I had no answers, just that I was there.

”Yeah. Stay out of trouble while I'm busy.”

Bryn walks away and I wrinkle my nose. He's not okay. For the first time he doesn't want to talk to me about what's bothering him, and that stings.

He disappears out of sight and I look around. Time to explore.

JAX.

I climb out of the cab and the bright sunlight hurts my eyes. Tegan's advice about sungla.s.ses was right. The lighting in the venue isn't much kinder and I squint as I head inside. n.o.body is around, so I pull out my phone and text Will; let him know I've arrived. When he doesn't respond, I set about finding the stage area myself. Can't be that hard and each extra minute I'm late, the bigger the argument with Ruby will be when I arrive. Disorientated by the uniformity of the place, I wander yet another corridor with doors every hundred metres. Large numbers on the wall above indicate seating sections; I'm up to 30 so far.

Will returns my text and I send him the number of the door I'm outside. Five minutes later, Will appears instead, striding along the hallway towards me. ”You still look like s.h.i.+t, man.”

Beneath his spiked dark hair and pierced eyebrow, Will's green eyes are circled by dark rings too. ”You don't look too hot either.”

”Late night entertaining.” He winks at me. ”Guess you chose the wrong girl.”

”Mmm.” Not like I'm going to tell him the real reason. ”There's always tonight.”

He laughs. ”Or are you saving yourself for Tegan?”

”Yeah, right. Where is everybody?” I step in the direction Will came from.

”This way.”

He leads me back down the hallway, past signs in Portuguese I can't read, past closed bars and a cafe before stopping at maroon painted double doors. ”Wait till you see this!”

I follow Will through the door into the empty stadium. After a few steps, I stop and look around.

Holy c.r.a.p.

The size of the expansive floor is impressive enough, but the number of rows of seats and the height they reach blows my mind. I think I'd suffer vertigo if I were at the top.

”This place is f.u.c.king huge!” I mutter.

”Bit different to The King's Head,” replies Will.

A little over a year ago, we played venues where we could see almost every member of the crowd, and the barman. Tonight, we'll be lucky to see one person's face clearly. Across the s.p.a.ce, the stage holds half a dozen people whose faces I can't see properly from this distance, who are moving speakers and stage props around. I recognise the scarlet hair of one of them and she's standing straight, facing our way.

”What mood is Ruby in?” I ask Will, cautiously.

”The question is what mood will she be in with you because your name appears to have changed to 'f.u.c.king Jax', today.” He claps me on the shoulder. ”Good luck.”

s.h.i.+t. ”But apart from me, how is she?”

”Not as bad as usual for pre-gig, probably be worse later.”

Taking a deep breath, I saunter over. I don't want conflict this early on and Ruby had better not talk to me like a kid, I'm not taking that s.h.i.+t.

Ruby's slim frame is p.r.o.nounced in black leggings and a sloppy red and black striped jumper. The colour of her hair and bright red matching lipstick accentuates how pale and unwell she looks. Ruby narrows her eyes as I approach.

”Are you feeling better?” I ask, straight off the bat.

In rehearsals, before we left, she was. .h.i.t with gastro that's lingering. She ignores me. ”Where the f.u.c.k were you? We were supposed to meet at eleven!”

”Sorry.”

”Not a great start, Jax, is it?” Ruby says with a sigh.

I'm unsure whether to be relieved or worried by the lack of yelling; I pull my best apologetic face. ”Yeah, won't happen again.”

Ruby pulls hair from her face and twists it into a ponytail. ”A chick?”