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“That snake was asleep, wouldn’t have hurt anyone,” murmured Jake, thinking David, no Darren, no Damien, definitely a D name, ah—
When they got to the hotel, Sharon took his elbow and pressed a room card into his hand. “Go sleep it off, boss, I’ve got this.”
He nodded.
“I’ll come meet you for breakfast tomorrow and give you an update.”
He stood in the foyer and watched the two bands dump luggage and pick up room slide keys and get back in the hire cars for their inspection of the Perth Stadium. Half of him wanted to join them. There were things he needed to do. But the half that had a thick tongue and a woozy head and knew he wasn’t even supposed to be here, headed for the elevators.
Jake swayed on unsteady legs when he’d joined them at the luggage carousel, so Rielle knew he wasn’t himself. Still what he’d said stung. A wild shot, she guessed. The sort of thing I would say. He might not remember he’d said it. He couldn’t possibly appreciate the accuracy of his arrow. Bullseye, baby.
When they arrived at the venue, Rand caught up with her. “What’s the story?” He slowed his pace so they dropped back from Jonathon and Dale.
“Meaning?” Let’s see how long it would take her to piss off Rand as well.
“Jake.”
She sighed. “What good was he to us three days away?”
“Rie, we have a three day break here. We don’t need him yet.”
“Yeah well, he’s paid to do what we want.” Was Rand kidding, anything could go wrong, they needed all their resources on hand.
“What gives?”
“What do you mean?” She skipped up a few steps ahead of him. She could hear Sharon explaining about the green room facilities.
Rand took the steps two at a time and was in front of her. “You can be hard to get along with, but you’re not normally so pig-headed or so fucking mean. That was dirty what you did to Jake.”
“He could’ve said no,” she snapped, coming level with him. Jake was a sap for saying yes.
“Yeah, and have you up his butt the rest of the tour for it. He’s smarter than that.”
Sometimes Rand was too soft. Too willing to think the best of everyone. Why couldn’t he see this? “It’s not about Jake, it’s about Jonas. I don’t trust him.” She pinched Rand’s arm as he stepped ahead of her.
“Ow! Jonas is fine. He understands, he’s promised to—”
“He’s a junkie and you believe his promises.”
Rand stopped. He rubbed his forearm where she’d pinched. “I don’t think it’s that bad.” He considered. “If I thought it was that bad, I’d have him out of here in thirty seconds.”
Rielle stepped past him. “It’d better be all right.”
“You’re the one who’s not all right, Rie. I’m more worried about you than Jonas.”
She turned back, looking down on him. She shrugged. “I blew it last night. I beat myself up. I’m okay now. It’ll be easier from here. It was just first night jitters.”
He came up one step, almost meeting her eye to eye. He so wasn’t buying. “You beat yourself up worse than normal and you’ve never given yourself the excuse of first night jitters in your life.”
“Shut up, Rand.”
He stepped past her and called over his shoulder. “Yeah, that’ll fix everything.”
After a good fifteen hours sleep, Jake had a clear head but a cloudy conscience. He woke early and went for a run, hoping that pounding the pavement might help him forget what he’d said to Rielle. He could blame the Zanect, but it hadn’t made a liar of him. He did think she was a terrible fake. There was nothing real about her—not even that moment at the beach when she’d seemed vulnerable. It was all an act. Problem was, it was none of his business, and it’d been stupid, and hideously unprofessional to let her goad him into making those comments.
It was already hot and threatened to be a stinker by the time he got back to the hotel. He showered, dressed and was early to meet with Sharon, whose efficiency succeeded in making him as redundant as he’d known he’d be for the next couple of days.
If he’d had Bonne he could have taken off. Ridden out to the Margaret River and visited some wineries or taken a jaunt out to Wave Rock just for the pleasure of riding through kilometres of red dust. This unplanned leisure time weighed on him. He did a venue visit with Sharon, had lunch with the Perth-based concert promoter, took a taxi out to Cottesloe Beach for a swim, even read most of Brendan Cowell’s How it Feels.
