See You at the Show (5 page)

“Something to deaden the nerves,” Jack smirked, throwing a bottle of whisky at Johnny and sitting down next to him on the trailer steps, lighting up a joint.
 
“Want one?”

Johnny took a long drink of the whisky straight from the bottle before putting it down on the step beside his feet.
 
“Give it here.”

Jack handed over the just-rolled joint and Johnny sat back again as he took a long drag on it, closing his eyes as that familiar mellow feeling flooded his body.
 
This is what he’d needed.
 
He didn’t even know why he felt like he did, but it was probably just too many days of partying, drinking and not enough sleep.
 
Dave, their manager, had tried to get them to slow down and Johnny was beginning to wish he’d listened to him.

“Where’s Billy?” Johnny asked, handing the joint back to Jack.
 

“He’s with the missus.
 
Her getting pregnant right when we’re in the middle of this tour wasn’t the best timing and now he won’t leave her alone.”

Johnny couldn’t help smiling.
 
Jack wasn’t particularly tolerant of partners joining them on tour, especially on the tour bus.
 
But Ava, Billy’s interior designer wife, was now pregnant, and Billy had threatened to pull out of the tour altogether if she didn’t come with them.
 
Johnny didn’t particularly mind, although he had noticed the look of intermittent shock that sometimes crossed her face at the occasional goings on around her.
 
Especially those of Mark and Stevie.
 
They didn’t care what they did or who they did it in front of and whilst everyone else around them was used to it, those on the outside could be forgiven for thinking their behaviour was a little out there.
 
It wasn’t what Ava was used to.

“I mean, is he going to want to bring her and the kid on the road once she’s had it?” Jack went on, taking a swig from the bottle of whisky.

“Cut him some slack, Jack.
 
This is their first baby, he’s bound to want her with him.
 
And anyway, Stevie’s with Mark, isn’t she?
 
You don’t mind
her
being around.”

“Stevie’s one of us, man.
 
She’s one of the guys.
 
Besides, with her and Mark around you can save a fortune on the porn channels and just watch those two.
 
Jesus, that girl’s got one hot body!”

“Ok, that’s enough, Jack,” Johnny said, getting up and stubbing out his cigarette, pushing his hands through his hair.
 

Jack looked at him, taking another long drag on the joint.
 
“Hit a nerve there, mate, have I?”
 

Johnny ignored him, an unusual tense feeling knotting up his stomach.
 
“It’s time we were making a move, come on.”

Jack was still looking at him.
 
“I have, haven’t I?
 
Have you got the hots for our girl, Johnny?
 
Not enough to just fuck her anymore when she’s sick of Cassidy, huh?”

“Leave it, Jack!”

But Jack never left anything.
 
It wasn’t what he did.
 
“You know, we’d all like a piece of her too.
 
Who wouldn’t?
 
A roadie who looks like a ‘Playboy’ centrefold and you get to bang her on a regular basis, you lucky bastard...”

“Fucking leave it, Jack!
 
I’m warning you!”
 
Johnny knew he had to walk away before he did something he’d regret, and now really wasn’t the time to start an in-house fight.
 
They’d had plenty of those, but not just before an important gig, and Johnny was sensible enough to know he had to get out of there.

Jack held his hands up in surrender and stood up too, bringing the whisky with him.
 
“Ok.
 
Ok, chill out.
 
I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

They both turned to look at the trailer as the sound of Stevie screaming out loud came from the open window.
 
Jack smirked, throwing the almost-smoked joint onto the ground and crushing it underneath his heavy black boots.

“Looks like our leader’s getting the pleasure of her company right now though.
 
She must have a thing for you Yanks.”

“Move it, Jack, come on.
 
Let’s go find Billy.
 
Stevie can sort out Mark.”

“Sounds like she’s sorting him out quite nicely there already, mate.”

Johnny grabbed the bottle from Jack and unscrewed the cap, knocking back another mouthful, feeling the hot liquid burn the back of his throat but the sensation was everything he needed.
 
It felt good.

“That nerve’s well and truly been hit, John,” Jack said, watching him as he downed the drink.
 
“I’d keep a check on that if I were you.”

“Well you’re not, so quit worrying about it.
 
We’ve got a gig to play so let’s just concentrate on that, ok?”

But deep down Johnny wondered if Jack really had hit the nail on the head.
 
And it was something he didn’t really want to think about.

***

Stevie knelt up on the bed, tying her bandana back around her head - the only item of clothing she was still wearing.
 
Mark lay watching her, one hand behind his head as he smoked a cigarette.
 

He was watching every move she made, not wanting to take his eyes off her.
 
She had the body of an angel, the mind of a whore and a mouth that could talk dirtier than any woman he’d ever slept with, and he couldn’t get enough of her.
 

“You’re staring,” Stevie said, tightening the knot in the bandana.

He blew smoke into the air and smiled that smile, saying nothing.

“Come on, Mark.
 
You promised me you’d focus now, and
I
promised I’d have you back out there as soon as we were done.”

He raised an eyebrow as he continued to look at her.
 
“
Are
we done?”

“Well, I’m quite happy, yeah.”
 
She looked down, pulling the covers away from his naked, perfectly toned body.
 
“Jesus, Mark.
 
Can you get a fucking hard-on at will?”

He sat up and quickly grabbed her before she had a chance to get free, pushing her back onto the bed, pinning her down by her wrists, parting her legs with his knee.

“You’re such a bastard, Mark Cassidy.”

“And you wouldn’t have me any other way.”

She looked up at him.
 
Handsome as hell and unpredictable to the end but he was right.
 
She wouldn’t have him any other way.
 
The craziness and uncertainty was a major turn on, it made their relationship what it was.
 
It kept it alive.

His fingers tightened around her wrists and she closed her eyes as he started to kiss her neck and she knew they were going again.
 
Round and round, the same old story, time and time again, it never changed.
 
And yet she didn’t think she’d ever tire of him.
 
He may go off and sleep with other women when he needed his ego feeding, because that was one thing Stevie wouldn’t do.
 
And Mark Cassidy needed to be loved and adored and know that he was the famous rock star he’d always wanted to be.
 
But she’d never go down that route with him because when he was done with the groupies and the fans who just wanted a piece of the fame that Mark Cassidy represented, when he was finished with all of that, he always came back to her.
 
He always needed her.
 
More than he needed anything he needed her, and deep down inside he knew that.
 
Did she want him completely?
 
No.
 
She didn’t.
 
She didn’t want anyone completely.
 
She’d been down that road before, before all of this, and she was in no hurry to go back to what she’d left behind.
 
It only brought back unhappy memories and a pain she didn’t want to re-live.
 
A pain she’d never talked about.
 
A pain she didn’t want anyone in this life to ever find out about.
 
It was where it should be now.
 
Hidden away but never forgotten.

“You ok?” Mark asked, loosening his grasp of her wrists slightly.
 

She just smiled, closing her legs around him and letting him in, letting him back inside.
 
“Just fuck me, Mark.”

And who was he to argue?

***

The sound of the crowd was incredible, the atmosphere intense and heady as they waited for Black Rock Diamond to take to the stage.
 

Stevie and the crew had taken just a few quick minutes to set everything up for the band but that short amount of time out there had felt electric.
 
She always got a buzz running out onto the stage when the crowd were there, listening to the barrage of noise that never failed to make her heart skip a beat.
 
The rush was something she almost craved, and if she felt like that just setting up amps and guitars then God knows what Johnny and the guys must feel when they stepped out onto the stage.
 

As she set up Mark’s microphone she took a quick look out at the mass of people that seemed to stretch way into the distance for miles, all of them anticipating the set that the guys were about to play.
 
It was an amazing sight, like an almost never-ending sea of people.
 
This was where she definitely belonged and she couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.
 
Mark and the band, the guys in the crew, they were her family now, and this world was her life.

She checked the microphone was in place and took a quick look off to the side of the stage.
 
Mark and the guys were arriving in the wings; Johnny’s guitar slung over his shoulder, Billy’s drumsticks stuck in the back pocket of his jeans, Jack smoking one last cigarette, another unlit one shoved behind his ear.
 
And Mark, well, Mark just looked like the sexy, full-of-attitude rock star that he was.
 
Back in his black t-shirt and jeans, his hair still ruffled from the crazy sex they’d had not half an hour ago, she wondered who’s heart he was going to break tonight.
 
Because he’d be pumped full of adrenalin after this, on a high that only having his ego massaged was going to help him cope with.
 
And
she
wouldn’t do that.
 
She
wouldn’t tell him how amazing he was and how incredible he looked, she’d never do that.
 
So he wouldn’t be looking for her tonight.
 
Someone else was going to get Mark Cassidy, and she’d sleep in the arms of her best friend, as she always did when this happened.
 

She ran off the stage, more shouts and screams erupting from the crowd as people caught glimpses of the guys, the noise level rising considerably.
 

Mark grabbed her hand as she ran past him, pushing her back against the wall in one swift movement, kissing her hard and fast before pulling away and walking off onto the stage, and all she could do was watch him, out there where he belonged in front
 
of his adulating audience.
 
The crowd went crazy the second he walked out there and from that moment on he was in the zone, out in the one place he wanted to be and Stevie couldn’t help but find it an incredible turn on.
 
Even though she knew she wouldn’t get near him tonight.

Johnny caught her eye as he followed Mark out, walking backwards as he smiled at her, that knowing look passing between them.
 
They both knew the drill for tonight.
 
They both knew the way things would play out.
 
And it was good to know he was going to be there, because she was going to need him.

She hugged Billy as he made his way out onto the stage, not missing the look his wife Ava threw in her direction but that wasn’t even worth giving a second thought to.
 
Billy wasn’t interested in her nor her in him.
 
He was the family man of the band, the daddy of the group, and she loved him like a brother, nothing more, nothing less.

“Don’t I get a kiss then?” Jack smirked, as usual the last one to make it out onto the stage.
 

Stevie looked at him.
 
“Fuck off, Jack.”

“When you talk like that it’s such a turn on, do you know that?”

“In your dreams, Warner.”

“Always, Stevie.
 
Always,” he shouted as he ran off out onto the stage, the crowd now going wild as the first chords of their classic anthem ‘Days Of Old’ started up.
 

Mark’s voice belted out into the warm Mediterranean night and Stevie peered out at the sea of arms punching the air, flags waving, bodies jumping up and down to the thumping beat and heavy guitar riffs.
 
And then she looked over at Mark.
 
He was away in that world he always went to when he was on stage.
 
It was his territory, his space, and he owned it.