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“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 snatch 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 sunglasses was right. The lighting in the venue isn’t much kinder and I squint as I head inside. Nobody 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 shit, 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 café 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 crap.
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 fucking 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 space, 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.
