Angie Read online

  When they moved on to the next song, I pulled away so I could dance but the feeling of his arms stayed with me.

  After the gig finished, we got our stuff together and headed to the bar for the after party. We flashed our VIP tags at the girl on the door and she gave us wristbands for free drinks. You know, they could be my two favourite words in the English language – “free drinks”. Drinks you didn’t have to pay for tasted so much sweeter.

  I stumbled into the dark cavern of a room. Seriously, I’ve been to clubs with dim lighting but this place was something else. The only thing I could see at first was a string of lights glowing around the bar. At least that made the bar easy to find. The rest of the place was a blur of black. Black walls, black floor, black-outfitted people. And really, the choice of music? That cheesy pop song had better be the DJs idea of ironic, ‘cause if I had to listen to that all night, I’d be hijacking the turntables and playing something decent.

  My eyes adjusted just seconds before I barrelled into a group of girls standing around near the door. I grabbed hold of Hannah to anchor myself.

  “Are you right?” she asked. “You haven’t even started drinking yet.”

  "Who are these people?" I asked Hannah. “Isn’t it a private party?”

  "People from the record label and media, some of them are crew from the tour and then just randoms. That guy over in the corner is from the tour promotion company. I should go over and talk to him. Probably should talk to the label guys too." She sighed. "No fun party shenanigans for me. I have to be totally on my game."

  She headed for the back of the room where the tour promoter guy sat.

  Eric got us all a round of beers from the bar and we grabbed a table at the side of the room where we could watch the action without being in the thick of it. A couple of girls came over and asked for autographs but most of them were looking around, waiting for the Monkey Bride guys to turn up. I could spot a few other familiar faces in the crowd too – not familiar as in I knew them, but familiar as in I knew their bands and had seen them play. In a recessed pit near the DJ desk, a couple of girls tried to sexy dance but I didn't think they were getting the attention they were after.

  A couple of Jack's friends turned up and sat with us and things were going well, then Spud whispered in Jack's ear and the two of them headed off to the bathroom.

  "Want to go and join them?" I asked Eric. I didn't want to be holding him back.

  Eric shook his head.

  Jack's friends sat at the other end of the table, not really paying attention to us. I think Eric knew them but didn't want to get wrapped up in their talk. Instead, he began telling me about the project he'd just started.

  "Isn't that tough, starting a new project when you’re on tour?"

  "It's probably stupid of me," he said, "but you don't know how long this is going to last. It's the only project I'm working on, so I should have plenty of time in between playing."

  I wondered how Eric ended up in a band with Spud, even with Jack, because he was so different to them. Spud was all the stupid in the band and Jack was all the cocky arrogance while Eric had more than a lick of common sense.

  As more people joined our table, Eric moved his chair over until our knees touched. I didn’t know if he did it on purpose. I wanted to move my knee away but I wanted to keep touching him. The music had changed to some rock, thank goodness, an old Ramones song, and Eric tapped his foot in time with it. That meant he rubbed his leg against mine with every tap. The friction made me swell up with warmth inside.

  It was not the situation I wanted at all. I’d promised myself Eric was off-limits while his mother hated me. Eric-Mama was not the type of woman who’d sit back and let her son date a girl she didn’t approve of. She was the type of woman who’d do everything in her power to destroy that relationship – not just break it up but shatter it into tiny little particles so, no matter how hard you tried, you could never put it back into the love-shaped form it had been. That’s why she scared me. And that’s why I didn’t want this Eric thing to become a thing. Not until she approved of me, and it looked like that would be the day after we all went ice-skating in hell.

  Jack came back looking more cheerful than he had all night. He'd got us more drinks too and had just put them down on the table when Hannah rushed over, saying she needed to introduce him to some people.

  Sometimes, I thought that Hannah and Jack were the oddest couple around, that they were only together because of the whole opposites attracting thing – the rich girl and the bad boy rock star. But, at times like that, I could see how it worked. If Jack had been left to his own devices, he'd have spent the whole night drinking with Eric and Spud and his friends in the corner. He'd have never thought about networking or talking to the right people. Jack knew how to shine but Hannah was the one who focused that light so it shone in the right direction.

  Sheesh, I’d only had one drink and already I was getting all sappy over the Hannah and Jack love. I’d have to watch myself or I’d end up making a complete dick of myself before the night was over.

  When the guys from Monkey Bride turned up, everyone in the bar went crazy. Women poured out of every crevice to surround them and that wasn't even including the entourage they brought with them. Bastian, who'd just seemed like a regular guy before when he'd come into our dressing room, now walked through the bar as though he was something more than human. His long, leather jacket hung casually from his shoulders and flowed behind him. He had that rock star presence. People flocked to him, not just women but half the men in the room too. Like a little smidgeon of that glittery rock star magic would rub off on them and make them a little bit more special.

  But he acted oblivious to them, heading straight to the bar and ordering a drink.

  As he waited for the barman, a girl in red satin short shorts and fishnets lunged at him and attached herself to his lips. He grabbed her around the waist and moved her to one side.

  "The queue starts here, darlin'," he said and took a swig of his drink.

  "Looks like the circus has started," I said to Eric.

  Eric laughed. I think we were both happy to just sit in the corner and watch. Hannah and Jack came back to join us. After a few drinks, I heard a commotion on the dance floor. I looked over and saw Spud dancing with two girls. He had his shirt off, swinging it over his head. Let me tell you, Spud is not the kind of guy who should be taking his shirt off in public.

  "Should we stop him?" I asked.

  Jack shrugged. "Let him go. He's getting himself pretty messed up but he's having a good time."

  To be honest, Jack started to look pretty messed up himself, his eyes all glazed. I felt pretty much that way myself. After that, things got a bit blurry. I’d said I wouldn’t drink much but that went from not much to too much very quickly with all the free drinks flowing.

  Then it was “want a shooter, Angie?” and I was all “NO! Shooters are the worst idea ever,” but I drank it anyway.

  Then we got a few bottles of champagne… I’m not sure how many, they just turned up on the table.

  By that time, I thought I was bulletproof. The drummer from Monkey Bride came over to chat to Eric, and I told him his red boots would look better on me.

  He grabbed one of the champagne bottles and handed it to me and then grabbed one from himself.

  “Winner gets the boots,” he said, as he picked up the bottle in a drinking motion.

  “You’re on,” I replied.

  I grabbed the bottle and swilled it down as the bubbles rose up in my neck. Of course, I won.

  “Hell, you can pack away the booze for a tiny chick,” he said as he pulled off the boots. They were about three sizes too big for me and a bit sweaty but I wore them while he went barefoot.

  Then I went to the bathroom and some girl showed me her full body Lord of the Rings tattoos in the queue for the toilet. It was the most awesome tatt I’d ever seen and I think I told her that many, many times. Then it got a bit blurry again until Hannah ca
me in and pulled me by the hand.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?”

  They were playing “Party Dress”, my favourite Storm song, so the two of us jumped on a table and danced, then the girl in the red satin shorts who’d kissed Bastian earlier in the night joined us. When the song finished, we’d gathered a bit of a crowd around us, hooting and cheering.

  Eric grabbed my hand and I jumped off the table into his arms.

  “We need to get you girls as back up dancers,” Jack said.

  Then I remember giving Spud valuable life advice on how not to be a dick, because I figured he really needed to hear that. He seemed to be really interested in what I had to say but then he moved in closer and kinda slumped with his arms over me, and his gross tongue pushed into my mouth.

  I pushed him away.

  “What the fuck are you thinking?” I yelled, as I threw a beer at him to cool him off. “I told you to stop being a dick, not be more of a dick!”

  Spud sulked off in his beer-drenched state. We thought he’d gone to the bathroom to sponge himself off and I was glad to see him go. While I bitched about his non-consensual invasion of my mouth and that bitch, Hannah, laughed, a shout rang out from across the room.

  We couldn’t really see well but it looked like Spud and one of the Monkey Bride roadies had got into a punch up.

  I looked over at Eric and he just shrugged.

  “We’d better break it up,” Jack said with a sigh.

  I followed them to see what was happening. Spud sprawled on the floor – I wasn’t sure if he’d been hit or if he’d just fallen. Jack and Eric pulled him to his feet and sat him down in the corner. He didn’t look in very good shape but he wasn’t bleeding or injured.

  Minutes later, he left the bar with some chick. He could barely walk but had a massive grin on his face so obviously the possibility of sex overruled the getting punched in the head.

  It seemed like not long after that we decided to leave too.

  I woke up the next morning wondering where I was. I could feel floor beneath me. I think I'd started on the couch but had fallen off some time during the night. Something had trapped me, pinning my legs down. I tried to shake free and realised it was a blanket. I could hear the noise of the coffee machine in the kitchen.

  "Are you making coffee?" I murmured, trying to untangle myself from the blanket.

  "Ah, you're awake!" said Hannah. She looked mighty perky, considering.

  I sat up on the couch.

  "I think I'm awake. Is that jackhammer outside or in my head?"

  She laughed. I assumed that meant it was in my head. Damn, free drinks are evils.

  Shit. I remembered when we got back to Jack and Eric’s, that big D&M with Eric where I told him exactly why I couldn't go out with him – because his mother hated me and I cared too much about him to start a serious relationship under those circumstances. Except, I couldn't actually remember Eric saying he wanted to have a relationship with me in the first place. Oh, my face burnt. I’d have to run away and never come back. I must've sounded like a complete dick. But he'd kissed me. I totally remembered him kissing me.

  I remembered that it was sweet and gentle and it shook me to the soles of my feet and I’d rubbed his earlobe. I actually told him I loved his earlobes. Did that make me freaky and weird? I’m pretty sure it did.

  Then I must’ve passed out on the couch. What had happened to that sensible me who wasn’t going to drink too much? I felt like a mess. A cotton-mouthed, foul-smelling mess.

  "Why do you look so chipper?" I asked Hannah. "It's the sex, isn't it? It totally cures hangovers."

  She put her head down and didn't answer so it totally had to be the sex. Damn her and her sex.

  "Ready for another big night of rock?" she asked.

  Hell. Fuck. Damn. I had to organise the film crew. I had to be alert and in control to organise shit. I needed the fuck out of that coffee because right then, I could not organise my way out of a... well out of a blanket even, since it was still tangled around my legs. And that meant I could not avoid Eric for the rest of eternity. Playing cool and keeping a feminine mystic would not be possible. Maybe he was too drunk to remember my freaky ramblings?

  "I'll have a coffee too, love." A head emerged from under the coffee table. It was Lucky, the drummer from Monkey Bride! How had he got there?

  -o-

  The rest of the week went by in a rock-infused blur. Concerts and parties and filming and some weird-arsed party pranks. Those guys from Monkey Bride were crazy as all hell. They were like “drugs and groupies are old hat, let's get up to some crazy larks instead”. Not that they were impervious to groupies and drugs, just that they went much, much further.

  After the fourth night of partying, they really let loose. Bastian and Lucky decided hanging out in bars was just not hard-core enough. They disappeared, leaving us all wondering where they’d gone.

  An hour later, Jack got a call. Bastian wanted us to meet him at the docks. So Jack, Eric, Hannah, Spud and I headed down, so intrigued that we had to see what they were doing.

  They’d stolen a yacht!

  “It’s not stolen, darlin’. It’s just borrowed,” said Bastian, when Hannah protested. “We’ll return it in one piece.”

  Except that Hannah was the only one who actually knew how to drive a yacht. I don’t know how he coerced her into doing that, but Bastian just had the knack of making people do things.

  It made my stomach feel weird, in that fun but scary way. Like when you’re in high school, the first time you sneak off behind the oval to have a cigarette – and it becomes fun because you might get caught, not despite it.

  And it’d been so lovely out in the middle of the bay with only the sound of fish plopping in the water and our laughter floating out over the air. I lay on the deck with Eric beside me. The two of us not talking, just staring at the moon and letting the cool breeze sweep across our bodies on the warm night. I didn’t need to touch him. I didn’t need to do anything more. I was happy just to be with him and know that my drunk, freaky self hadn’t scared him away.

  It was one of those nights that even at the time, you know will live forever in your memory. One of those nights that will define your youth. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to ruin the spell of it. And, with Eric, I didn’t need to talk. I stretched out my hand and his fingertips met mine and that was enough.

  When Eric got up to use the bathroom, Bastian sat down beside me.

  “The two of you are so cute, with your finger touching.”

  “Are you mocking me? It’s complicated, you know.” I sat up and gave him my mean face.

  “It’s always complicated, love, but you only get one chance at this shit. You crazy kids should be banging each other’s brains out by now, not sitting around looking moony-eyed at each other.”

  “Thanks,” I said, giving him a salute as Eric came back.

  I know he meant well with his little pep talk but it made me feel shit. I sat up hugging my knees, a smile plastered on my face but wondering the whole time what I’d do about the Eric problem.

  We got the boat back into harbour safely and ran off into the night, hoping no one had noticed.

  The week went by too fast. I didn’t want them leaving but I had a fuckton of video to edit together. The original plan had been to put it up on YouTube and the band website but we’d started talking about selling a concert DVD. If I got it together soon enough, they could sell it during the last half of the tour.

  Plus, Monkey Bride had asked me to get a crew together for the final night of the tour with actual, real cash involved. That made me very popular with my old uni buddies. But it meant I'd be working like a bastard to get everything done and organised.

  Meanwhile, Hannah had a busy time of her own ahead. Because of the huge success of the week's shows, those lousy record labels were now knocking down her door. It'd gone from nothing to a flood of offers, so she had to get into total business mode. Anyway, that all meant t
hat we had a quiet night of farewell dinner planned. Which would have been well and good and totally fun until Eric said his mother would come over and cook.

  He'd not said anything to me about my drunken rant to him, which suited me fine. We could all pretend I'd said nothing and it would go away. But he had asked me to come over early, before his mother got there, so we could talk. Oops.

  I got there extra early, like he'd asked, and had even made a big “Happy Rock Tour” banner to hang up. I rang the doorbell with my heart jumping all over the place. I don't even know why it was such a big deal. I would not react. I would not be emotional and I would definitely not get drunk enough for another big rant.

  Hannah answered the door and helped me hang up the banner. While we were attaching it to the rail, Eric came out of his room.

  "Oh, you're busy. Can we talk when you’re done?"

  Hannah waggled her eyebrows at me so that Eric couldn't see. Thanks, Hannah. I blushed and shook my head but didn't really look at him. If this was going to be a “stop being a creepy stalker and hanging around me all the time” talk or even an “I like you but not like that” talk, I'd rather he just sent me a text. That would be easy. Or he could snapchat me. I'd get the idea and we'd not have any of that awkward silence and not knowing what to say shit. I'd be all over that.

  Obviously though, Eric wanted to do this the old fashioned way. Face to face, with talking and body language and all that.

  I tried to linger once the banner had been hung but Hannah pushed me towards Eric's room then knocked on the door and ran away. That was so totally mature of her.

  Eric sat on his computer chair and I sat on the bed and we both stared at things floating in the air and definitely not at each other. If he wanted to talk, he could talk. I sure wasn't going to start it and say something stupid.

  "Umm, Ange, how's things"

  "Fine, fine." I picked at the hem of my skirt.

  "You know, my mother, she doesn't rule my life. I'm not a mummy's boy," he said then grinned without looking directly at me.