Time Out (11 page)

“Excuse me, excuse me,” she flashed a sexy smile at someone from the crew, but when she reached Gwyneth’s chair, a few seats down from ours, I noticed she added with annoyance, “Excuse
you
.”

The gesture made me snicker because it reminded me of how she always had my back when we were at Preston High. I had almost forgotten about this fierce and protective side of Lizzie, probably because she thought I had what she wanted earlier on in the tour, but that was water under the bridge now.

“Just a little reading material,” Lizzie slapped a magazine down in my lap. “Am I great PR person or what?” she boasted as she continued her way down the rest of the aisle. 

There on the front cover of the magazine was a picture of Hawkins and me together hand in hand. Overtop the picture, the headline read, “They Go Public.”

I couldn’t remember a time when I had looked so beautiful before. It could have been because of the makeover, or honestly it could have been because this was the first picture I had seen of us together and I looked like nothing could make me happier. I was smiling at the ground, but I noticed that Hawkins looked right into the camera and gave his sexy come hither smile like ‘yep, she’s with me’.

“Who’s that chump she’s with?” Hawkins smiled down at the picture.

“Shut up.” I was about to whack him with it when a man in a suit crossed the stage to the microphone. He looked like Matthew
McConaughey
in ‘Lincoln Lawyer’. He was an attractive guy with short wavy sun kissed hair and was today dressed in an Armani or some other expensive designer grey suit that fit his tall, but lean body to a tee.

“Check one, two,” he tapped the microphone. “Is this thing on?” His voice suddenly boomed overtop of us.

“Good…hello, how are we all doing today?” he suddenly smiled revealing what I assumed where veneers because his teeth were perfectly white and straight. I would have thought he was Hawkins by the way he began to work the stage by popping the microphone off the stand and then moving it out of the way.

“Hello, I’m Robert Vance. I was sent here by the National Security to contain ‘the situation’ we now find ourselves in. Let me tell you how this is going to go,” he said a bit arrogantly. “As of right now the conversation I am having with you never happened. Last night’s events probably won’t even make the first page of Chicago Tribune.

“As far as they know, it was just a couple of kids who thought it would be a good time to make something explode.
But
…” he held up a finger. “It never happened because the ‘bottle full of gravel’ was faulty, or at least that’s the story they’ll be running in the back of the local paper if it even makes the edition at all.”

“How does that protect our fans?” Swank
, the saxophonist
for the band, spoke up. 

“Because when people hear the word ‘bomb’ they get scared.” He began to casually pace the stage. “And when people get scared they avoid sports arenas or amphitheaters like this one. When people stop attending sports arena and amphitheaters, those establishments lose money. When establishments lose money, people lose jobs. When people lose jobs, our economy suffers. When our economy suffers, then we do have a real problem on our hands, ladies and gentlemen.”

Warren sighed in Swank’s direction, “Forget about the fans man. It’s our economy that
really
matters.”

“I was sent here to
contain
the situation, but make no doubt about it - we have a real creditable threat to our nation’s security today,” Vance stressed; too far away to hear any of our grumbling. “So let me tell you what
is
going to happen.
You
are going to form a perimeter around the entire back half circle of the pavilion,” he began to list. “
You
are going to position someone at the front and back of every restroom.
You
are going to have unmarked crew scattered throughout the entire back lawn.
You
are going to have security women patting down women fans and security men patting down men fans when they come through those gates. None of this lifting up your t-shirt and doing a twirl type crap.”

A guy behind me from the venue crew added, “So in other words, we’re going to be doing everything we
normally
do?”

“But with a little more enthusiasm and a little less half-assed…okay?” Warren said with a glance over his shoulder.  

“Here are some things that won’t be happening,” Vance said, bringing my focus back to the stage. “Just like at any other concerts, no one comes through those gates with a backpack, a purse, a blanket, a camera, any kind of iPod, or any other technological devices besides their cell phones. Unfortunately, you do not have the right to turn a cell phone away - for emergency purposes,” Vance continued to pace the stage again. “But you do have the right to look at it, and you better make sure that it is anything
but
a detonator for a handmade bomb.”

The same guy behind me added dryly, “I’m glad he thought to mention that, otherwise I might have let them pass through.”

“Fans are here to enjoy a good show, period.”

“Did you catch that Hawkins?” Warren pretended to be serious. “Or do you need me to start taking notes?”

“They certainly don’t need all their belongings to do so either.” Vance continued his rant. “Unless it’s medically necessary, everything else gets checked at the front gate. Now do you have any questions?”

“Yes,” Hawkins mumbled under his breath, “What is the highest level of education you’ve received? Is it less than four years of high school?
Because you sound like an idiot.”

Another crew member a few rows back leaned forward in his seat and asked more seriously, “Do you know if this is related to the bombing in London?”

“We are certainly looking into it,” Vance gave a curt nod. “The Islamic extremists group used the 02 Arena, a place they see as evil - and a place they blame for corrupting the morals of Muslim youth, to retaliate for the suspicious death of
Aarif
Kumar. We don’t have any further intelligence connecting the two events, but Home Land Security has raised the threat level to ‘
elevated
’ for now.” 

“We have,” Vance looked down at his wrist watch. “At least three hours until the parking grounds are open to the public, and I’ve been told another three hours until amphitheater opens its gates to the public, so let’s reconvene in about three hours so we can go over where everyone will be positioned for the show tonight. Thank you all,” he dismissed us.

Even though Robert Vance was confident that he could ‘contain’ the situation, I think the rest of the crew, the old crew anyway, felt tentative about the idea of someone being so skilled and deadly that he made Cyrus look like someone who just had a chip on his shoulder.

“I know I personally feel safer just talking about it,” Warren added dryly as we shuffled out of the seats.

“And
I know
, I could be sleeping in right now,” Lizzie groaned.

Warren looked her up and down like she was something tasty to eat, in her cut off denim shorts that were so short the white material of the pockets peeked out in the front paired with a loose white top that slid off of one of her tan shoulders.

“I remember a time when you didn’t sleep at all in the morning,” Warren added suggestively. 

I thought Lizzie would verbally slap him a witty comeback but she just giggled like they were sharing a private joke that wasn’t really so private.

“What are we going to do to kill the time?” Warren looked like he was asking Lizzie, but he then turned to Hawkins as if waiting for a response. “We still have six hours until the show.”

I knew from past experience that when the band had too much time on their hands that they would go biking, skateboarding, or chase each other around in the venue’s golf carts. So it didn’t take long before we spotted Harlow kicking a soccer ball around on the lawn of the amphitheater with a few other members from the crew, since even they had time to kill.

“Hey, Joie, come play with us!” Riley beckoned me with a wave of his hand.

“I’m on
Joie’s
team!” Lizzie called dibs on me right away. “I’m not in the mood to sweat,” she added under her breath. 

“We’ll flip a coin for her then,” Riley offered, like I was an object to barter over.

Hawkins turned to me with a pleasantly surprised look on his face. “I didn’t know that you played soccer?”

“Yeah, she’s good…like Mia Hamm good,” Lizzie answered for me as we crossed the lawn. “She almost took our high school team all the way to states.”

“I’m not Mia Hamm good,” I made it clear to Hawkins.

“Whatever,” Lizzie rolled her eyes. “You’ll see what I mean.”

“No pressure or anything,” I sighed to myself. 

Though it was strange how my nerves disappeared when I actually joined the game. I loved the thrill of playing soccer. It required so much from my body, like stamina and skill, that it kept my interest. I had to be physically tough enough to block and defend the ball with my body, but I also had to be skilled and quick enough with my footwork to move around the other players.

The crew wasn’t playing an official game; more like a group of guys kicking a ball around. Still, it wasn’t long before Warren - and my shoulders and hips - were knocking into each other side by side as we fought for possession of the ball. Warren, who was less experienced, tried to take off, but the momentum of the ball got away from him. I quickly sprinted ahead knowing that I just had to outrun him to gain possession of the ball. All those cigarettes must have finally caught up to him because I easily beat him to the ball.

As I swiftly continued toward Blakely, the tall thick African American drummer who was acting as goalie, I noticed a gaping hole to his left where a lawn chair was set to mark one of the goalposts. Soon the ball was sailing through the air and Blakely didn’t have enough time to adjust his body as the ball zipped past him for a goal.

“Yes!!!!!” Riley shouted, and for a second I thought he was going to pull off his t-shirt and fall to the ground on his knees in celebration.

  “
I’m nothing like Mia Hamm
,” Hawkins said mockingly as he placed his hands on his hips and took a second to catch his breath causing me to laugh.

“Can we flip again?” Lizzie gasped from further down the field.  

“No way in hell,” Riley sang. 

We continued to play the game well into the afternoon, but it didn’t take long until I realized I needed to play down my skills because it was meant to be a friendly game of soccer, not a death match. So I found myself passing the ball off to Riley or Harlow when we neared the goal, but Riley quickly chucked that ball back over to me. When I ‘accidentally’ missed the goal, Riley threw me a dirty look.

“What?” I shrugged innocently enough.

“You’re throwing the game for your boyfriend.”

“No, I’m throwing the game,” I kept my voice down low for only him to hear, “Because we’re so far ahead in points that were practically playing
football
.”

“
So
? This is the only manly thing Harlow and I’ve got going for us.”

“Yeah, watching
me
play,” I cracked a grin. “That is the manliest thing, I couldn’t agree more.”

He snickered at my quickness before taking off to get in position again.

When Vance finally rounded up the crew again, most of them looked sweaty, exhausted and a little beat up. I even saw one crew member grab ahold of another’s shoulder as he gasped from the stich in his side.

“Well—I’m going to need a shower before the show,” Hawkins came up behind me bringing my focus back to him. Beads of sweat were dripping off his face and his grey shirt was damp. “Would you care to join me, Ms. Hamm?” he flashed a wicked grin.

“Someone’s going to need to help hose you down,” I agreed.

As we left, I overheard Warren say to Lizzie, “Well I’m going to need a shower before the show—”

Chapter
Five

After everything that happened at yesterday’s concert, I wasn’t surprised when Hawkins insisted that I watch the show from the safety of the lighting crew’s platform later that night. It was a small rectangular space that hung down from behind the top of the pavilion roof and looked over the thousands of fans in the crowded seats below.

The last time Hawkins had insisted that I hang with the lighting crew it was at a stadium in a section that was blocked off from the rest of the crowd. I knew the extra precautions were for my protection, or at least they had been in the past because we had mistakenly thought Cyrus, the psychopathic stalker was just another person in the crowd at the time.

Lizzie climbed down the ladder like steps, which led on and off of the platform, bringing me out of my thoughts when she landed beside me.