Page 2 of Crazy Love
Jessie’s two band mates grab his arms, slowing Dane’s retaliatory swings down to bullet time micro-movements. He’s getting his arse whooped, and he at least partially deserves it.
It’s only when they crash into the table, and buttons, pens and download codes go flying that I decide it’s time to send them all back to their respective corners. “Can’t we discuss this reasonably?”
“You expect him to be reasonable?” Jessie yaps.
Dane makes an unsavoury snorting noise. “I’m not the one who walked out because band practice was eating up all the time we could’ve had together, and then started my own fucking band.”
I didn’t actually know that bit. I’d kind of figured it from the lyrics, but Dane’s not exactly a man of many words, not when it comes to emotional shit. I put that down to us having weathered too bloody much of it. Talking it over never provided us with any sort of solution. Putting it down on paper as lyrics, that’s a whole other story. It was…is our ticket out of the shit, because while we currently have a foot on the rung, I’m not interested in hanging on, being half-way up or even at the top without a fucking enormous safety harness and a dozen karabiners holding me in place. We’re so close to that point, I can almost taste it in the air—a subtle metallic tang, with a dash of electric spice.
Tonight’s the night when we move out of the kiddie league and into the premiership.
“You are so fucking dead, Daniel Darke,” Jessie hollers, leaning right into Dane’s face.
Looking at them almost lip to lip, it’s a toss-up whether they’re going to kill one another, or fuck each other senseless. If there wasn’t an audience they could lose face in front of, I’d bet on the latter.
“Leave it, Jess. He’s not fucking worth it.” This from the red hot pixie with the bright gold hair. “We’re on in twenty minutes.”
I’m genuinely astonished, when this simple tap on the shoulder makes Jessie back right up.
“Yeah, you’re right, of course.” She brushes palms with her friend, like a match-point has just been scored.
Dane seems equally surprised when the three women link arms and head for the stands.
Perhaps he ought to be relieved he came off relatively unscathed, although he’s down anyone to face suck, because Caitlyn suddenly decides to show supreme dedication to restoring our merchandise to its rightful place on the table, and not scattered across the whole bloody front of house.
“You might have weighed in,” Dane bitches.
“You might consider keeping your fists to yourself.”
“She hit me first.”
I shake my head because that still doesn’t make it right. “You have at least 60 pounds on her. And you knew how she’d react once she got wind of that track.” The same way anyone who wasn’t simply going to curl up and die would react.
“It’s a good track,” he snarls defensively.
“Did I say otherwise?”
“We’re still opening with it, right?”
He’s a glutton for punishment, my brother. “Maybe it’d make more sense to end with it. If you want to cause a riot, at least do it when we’re about to walk off stage, not before we play our set. The point is to get our music heard.”
“Second to last,” he negotiates. “Then we can reprise it for the encore.”
If we get called back for an encore, he can play whatever the fucking hell he likes.
-2-
Loveday Trevaskis
“Let me look at that?”
After Jessie’s punch up, the three of us retreat to the ladies’ bathroom. There’s no point trying to hustle our way into the dressing room. With this many bands on stage, space is at a premium which means only the top acts have any sort of official spot in which to get ready and chill. I’m not sure what the rest of us are supposed to do, mill about in the corridors, I guess. Anyway, we’ve co-opted the backstage ladies’ loos. Since most of the bands are all male, it’s not put anyone’s nose out of joint.
Jessie’s nose is thankfully still in its right location. She inspects it in the mirror over the sink by wriggling the end. I’m not so sure it’s her nose she needs to be worrying about. Her eyes are puffy. She burst into tears the moment she was out of sight of knob-head, and she’s going to have a stonking great bruise come tomorrow morning that no amount of foundation will hide. Right now, it’s just red and angry, exactly like the rest of her.
“We’re going to do it,” she insists through gritted teeth. As if there was any doubt that we wouldn’t prior to this point.
I turn her away from the mirror and press a wad of wetted paper towels over her jaw where the blow actually hit.
