Page 16 of When We Fell Again
Of course, one turned into two and then three. As I was about to knock back my latest vodka and coke, Jordan came over to Claudia and me.
I hadn’t spoken to him since before the gig and hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him how well I thought it had gone until now. Reaching out, I grabbed his arm.
“Really good set tonight, Jordan. I haven’t seen you play in years and it really took me back.”
He looked down at my hand on his arm like it was some kind of poisonous creature. Anything I thought he’d been trying to tell me duringWherever It Takes Youwas clearly wrong.
“Yeah, whatever, Lex. Have you got my painkillers?”
My eyes narrowed. It seemed like he’d been drinking and, as far as I could tell, he wasn’t meant to have alcohol if he was going to take the pills. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?”
His top lip curled. “To be honest, I don’t give a fuck what you think. I just want the pills.”
“Hey, back off, Jordan.” Claudia cut in. “Lex is only trying to do what she thinks is best. It’s the first night of the tour. Don’t screw it up.”
“I don’t need someone telling me what to do.”
Fumbling in my bag, I closed my hand around his packet of pills and slapped it down into his palm. “Here you go. Do what you like. You always did.” And then I stalked off.
Much later, I sat in bed, relishing the quiet of my hotel room. The disagreement with Jordan had left a sour taste in my mouth. Claudia was right. It was only the first date of the tour and we still had another two weeks together. We could at least try to be civil to each other.
Realising sleep wouldn’t be coming any time soon, I grabbed my phone and checked my emails, just like Claudia said I would. There was one from Theo asking how the first date had gone, and I fired back a response to say it had gonejust fine.
In reality, it felt anything but fine.
How I thought Jordan and I could function as two professionals on this tour was beyond me.
His attitude towards me sucked, particularly after the show. These two weeks would be a lot longer than I thought.
To try and take my mind off things, I scrolled through my socials, checking out any of the Idol Rev posts out of morbid curiosity. I played the thirty-second clip before he startedWherever It Takes Youseveral times, trying to see if he had been trying to reconnect with me like he’d said. After about the tenth viewing, I tossed my phone down onto the covers with a hard sigh.
Five years hadn’t changed a thing. The differences that had pulled us apart back then were still front and centre now.
CHAPTER7
Jordan
The next fewdays were rinse and repeat. Leeds turned into Newcastle, then Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff, and Bristol. We travelled between venues, set up for the gigs, played a set, then left. Lex dished out my meds at the appropriate times, and she and I ignored each other as best we could.
It was fucking torture.
Exeter turned out to be the game changer.
Lex provided the usual pre-show briefing, mentioning something about having to look after the merchandise stand herself that night because the university hadn’t been able to find someone to do it. Exeter would be the first date she wouldn’t be watching, and knowing that felt weird. Having her there, either at the side of the stage or close to the front, had given me additional impetus to be the best I could be. To be the best Jordan Bowie I knew I could be to blow people away with my performance.
Claudia had also been updating us after each gig about how we’d gone down and, overall, every single show had been well-received. There had been a spike in downloads of our old EP and questions about where people could get our new music from. If the response continued in this vein, I could only hope that Kelvin would agree to us going into the studio to record the new material.
I walked into the Great Hall foyer, where both the support acts’ merch stand and ours were set up. Obviously, you could tell the more established act by the amount of shit we sold; t-shirts, hoodies, baseball caps, and old tour posters. In amongst all the stock stood Lex, her arms full of t-shirts, lips moving in what appeared to be quiet obscenities.
“You okay?” I asked, stopping by the stand.
“Whoever the fuck has been looking after this shit clearly doesn’t know what they’re doing. Everything is mixed in together. Different styles and different sizes. It’s going to take me a fucking age to sort it out,” she spat, dumping the pile on the table.
Oh, how I’d missed her cursing.
“Can I do anything to help?”
She appraised me with narrowed eyes. A look that questioned why I’d even want to help this close to the start of a gig.
