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“You won’t,” replies Jax and wraps an arm around her shoulder. “Come on, first I’ll find you some water.”
I hover on the edge of the scene, feeling intrusive. Ruby straightens and stares at me in alarm as if she forgot I’m here too.
“Okay. Let’s go,” she says, turning away from me quickly.
Something else in her eyes, besides the tears, hits a sixth sense. Her situation is more than a worry about tonight.
7
TEGAN
I loiter around the trestle tables as a couple of young guys cut open cardboard boxes filled with t-shirts. The younger-looking of the two guys pins them to the board behind us. Another with long hair more befitting to a Blue Phoenix fan scrawls prices on paper, attaching them next to the shirts. Neither bothered introducing themselves.
Sam hasn’t arrived yet to tell me what my duties are when selling the merchandise, and I’ve no clue what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m where I was told to be, at the right time.
“You want help?” I ask.
The longhaired kid in the Blue Phoenix t-shirt shrugs. “Don’t know. Sort the badges out?”
He points to a smaller box, which I pull open and take out a bag of button badges. The badges are a selection featuring Blue Phoenix and Ruby Riot logos, album covers, and names. Official badges, not the silly homemade ones with band members’ names on that I saw pinned to girls’ bags back when I was at school. I spent a lot of time at school pretending Bryn Hughes wasn’t related to me, but once I went home with a Team Bryn badge, which I proceeded to wear when he visited. Grinning at the memory, I pin a set of four badges to my sleeveless tee before grabbing another set and attempting to fix them to the board behind.
“Are you Tegan?”
I look over. A guy a few years older than I am — tall, skinny, hassled — studies me. “I am. Are you Sam?”
He nods, and throws me a lanyard with a plastic pocket attached. “Bryn asked me to give you this. He forgot earlier.”
I catch the pass, brightly coloured with band logos and my name printed, allowing me entry to everywhere tonight, and laugh. “I should hope I have access to all areas!”
The hipster-looking guy next to me looks at my pass with curiosity as I string it around my neck. He has one too — printed ‘Staff’. “Who’d you sleep with to get that?” he asks in a local accent.
I turn my back, refusing to be drawn into a conversation with him.Rude.“I looked for you earlier,” I say to Sam. “Wasn’t sure what I needed to do.”
He runs a hand through his short brown hair. “Yeah, this was dropped on me. I have people contracted for tonight you’ll have to start working when we arrive in Madrid.”
“Oh. Right.”Yes. I can watch the opening night. “So you don’t need my help?”
“Help finish setting up if you like, but you don’t need to stay once the doors open. Unless you want to.”
“Will I get paid?”
“Nope.”
“Right, I’ll help set up then go.” If there’s no financial reward, no way am I dealing with the general public.
Sam hands a clipboard to the longhaired guy who’s kept quiet since Sam arrived, intently counting the contents of the boxes. “This is yesterday’s stock count. Make sure everything is accounted for.” Sam catches sight of my badges and raises a brow.
I smile sweetly. “Am I allowed a t-shirt to go with my badges? Call it a work uniform.”
Grabbing an item from the nearest box, Sam chucks a t-shirt at me with a small shake of the head. “Wear this. The one you’re wearing is old and not a great ad for the new gear.”
I hold up the stretch tee with the tour dates on the back and the Blue Phoenix logo on the front, and debate whether to ask for a Ruby Riot one instead. Their logo is prettier, but Jax might take it as a hint. “Cheers!”
“Right. I’ll be back when the doors open,” he says to the nameless guys with me.
Sam disappears and my companions aren’t chatty, so I set about grouping the t-shirts and tote bags into piles on the long table, singing to myself.
Blue Phoenix.
