The Ruby Riot Series: Box Set Part 6

"Oh, well, maybe Jax will be interested in my services." Bryn looks around sharply, and I grin to indicate I'm teasing. Serves him right for interfering.

Following the s.e.xually charged encounter in the lift, I don't think Jax would say no to anything I could offer him. It would've been easy to drag my fingers through his messy, blond hair and meet my lips with his. I blink away the image of us together. Hot, yeah, but with that comes the inevitable burn.

I turn to Tina. "I can do some promo? Help out with marketing?"

Tina taps her fingers on the iPad. "Do you have any experience?"

"I have a blog," I suggest.

"You and thousands of other people, honey. That's not experience." I bite my tongue at retorting. "We need people to sell merchandise at every venue. Usually we contract locals, but Tegan could help out. Takes a while to set up, and she'd need to be there for sales in the evening."

"Fine by me," I say.

Bryn nods. "Keeps her out of trouble in the evenings, at least."

"No problem. I can cause all the chaos in the daytime." I shake my head at him. "Seriously though, I'm confused about what you think I'm going to get up to on tour, Bryn. I'm not exactly a wild child."

Bryn crosses his arms and again I catch a hint his sense of humour has taken a vacation. "I'm responsible for you."

"I'm responsible for myself."

Tina's phone rings and she glances at the display. "I need to take this. Tegan, come back here around four and I'll introduce you to Sam. He's in charge of the merchandising and can show you the ropes."

"Okay. Cool."

Tina gives us a pointed look and indicates her phone. I leave the room with Bryn and s.n.a.t.c.h my chance. "Are you sure you're all right? Didn't you want to tour again?"

"I'm fine."

"Liar."

He rubs his tired eyes. "I'm happy to be on tour. I prefer being around the Blue Phoenix world. I guess I'm tired and stressed about the first gig of the tour." He's avoiding looking at me. Definitely lying. "I'll back off, Tegan, but I'm here if you need something."

I take Bryn's hand. "And I'm here if you need someone to talk to."

As kids, we shared every secret and Bryn would confide in me about things. I didn't fully understand his problems when he was a teen and I was still young, but that's why he told me, I think. Bryn could talk to me and it didn't matter I had no answers, just that I was there.

"Yeah. Stay out of trouble while I'm busy."

Bryn walks away and I wrinkle my nose. He's not okay. For the first time he doesn't want to talk to me about what's bothering him, and that stings.

He disappears out of sight and I look around. Time to explore.

JAX.

I climb out of the cab and the bright sunlight hurts my eyes. Tegan's advice about sungla.s.ses was right. The lighting in the venue isn't much kinder and I squint as I head inside. n.o.body is around, so I pull out my phone and text Will; let him know I've arrived. When he doesn't respond, I set about finding the stage area myself. Can't be that hard and each extra minute I'm late, the bigger the argument with Ruby will be when I arrive. Disorientated by the uniformity of the place, I wander yet another corridor with doors every hundred metres. Large numbers on the wall above indicate seating sections; I'm up to 30 so far.

Will returns my text and I send him the number of the door I'm outside. Five minutes later, Will appears instead, striding along the hallway towards me. "You still look like s.h.i.t, man."

Beneath his spiked dark hair and pierced eyebrow, Will's green eyes are circled by dark rings too. "You don't look too hot either."

"Late night entertaining." He winks at me. "Guess you chose the wrong girl."

"Mmm." Not like I'm going to tell him the real reason. "There's always tonight."

He laughs. "Or are you saving yourself for Tegan?"

"Yeah, right. Where is everybody?" I step in the direction Will came from.

"This way."

He leads me back down the hallway, past signs in Portuguese I can't read, past closed bars and a cafe before stopping at maroon painted double doors. "Wait till you see this!"

I follow Will through the door into the empty stadium. After a few steps, I stop and look around.

Holy c.r.a.p.

The size of the expansive floor is impressive enough, but the number of rows of seats and the height they reach blows my mind. I think I'd suffer vertigo if I were at the top.

"This place is f.u.c.king huge!" I mutter.

"Bit different to The King's Head," replies Will.

A little over a year ago, we played venues where we could see almost every member of the crowd, and the barman. Tonight, we'll be lucky to see one person's face clearly. Across the s.p.a.ce, the stage holds half a dozen people whose faces I can't see properly from this distance, who are moving speakers and stage props around. I recognise the scarlet hair of one of them and she's standing straight, facing our way.

"What mood is Ruby in?" I ask Will, cautiously.

"The question is what mood will she be in with you because your name appears to have changed to 'f.u.c.king Jax', today." He claps me on the shoulder. "Good luck."

s.h.i.t. "But apart from me, how is she?"

"Not as bad as usual for pre-gig, probably be worse later."

Taking a deep breath, I saunter over. I don't want conflict this early on and Ruby had better not talk to me like a kid, I'm not taking that s.h.i.t.

Ruby's slim frame is p.r.o.nounced in black leggings and a sloppy red and black striped jumper. The colour of her hair and bright red matching lipstick accentuates how pale and unwell she looks. Ruby narrows her eyes as I approach.

"Are you feeling better?" I ask, straight off the bat.

In rehearsals, before we left, she was. .h.i.t with gastro that's lingering. She ignores me. "Where the f.u.c.k were you? We were supposed to meet at eleven!"

"Sorry."

"Not a great start, Jax, is it?" Ruby says with a sigh.

I'm unsure whether to be relieved or worried by the lack of yelling; I pull my best apologetic face. "Yeah, won't happen again."

Ruby pulls hair from her face and twists it into a ponytail. "A chick?"

"No. Drank too much. Getting a little over excited I guess."

The view from the stage stuns and terrifies me as I picture the crowd who'll fill the s.p.a.ce later. Last gig I went to at a stadium was Foo Fighters, where I threw myself into the action at the front. How can people stuck in the top seats enjoy concerts? What's the point if you can't dance?

"Your gear's over there. Five minutes and someone was about to start sound-checking for you."

I tense. n.o.body touches my guitars. Bad enough I have to relinquish them to be driven from place to place with all the other gear.

Heading over to the edge of the stage, I grab the battered case, smoothing where the peeling stickers have been knocked in transit. Inside rests my new pride and joy; the Gibson Les Paul I bought with the advance from our record deal. Okay, a mid-list guitar, but this is the start of a collection to one day rival Jem Jones's. Stroking the wood, I examine for damage but there's none. Good.

Nate appears from backstage. He and Will are dressed identically today, black jeans and the new tour t-shirts, same blue Converse. Presumably this is to confuse people on purpose, something they enjoy. Years of knowing the pair and despite the fact they look exactly the same in every way, I know the subtle differences in their faces and mannerisms. Plus, he's carrying drumsticks, which is a giveaway.

"Hey man, decided to turn up?"

"Sorry," I mutter again, fed up with the constant apologising.

He shrugs. "Ruby was late and disappeared for an hour when she heard you were 'delayed', so we haven't got far with the check."

Sneaky. Ruby never told me that.

"Yeah, you gotta be out in an hour for Phoenix, so get your a.r.s.e into gear." A tall, muscular guy with a sour look indicates the speakers. "Sound engineer wants a break too."

"'Kay."

Curious and concerned about Ruby, I watch her as I head to plug my guitar in. She smooths her hair, and kneels as she tapes a set list to the floor.

"Ruby? We gonna do this?"

She looks over. "Right. Hang on."

Ruby's guitar rests on the floor near the mic and my concern grows at her lack of interaction. I'm f.u.c.king nervous about the first night opening for Blue Phoenix. Are her nerves so bad that she's been terrified into a personality change?

Mid-way through the check, Ruby abruptly stops singing, sets her guitar down, and heads off stage without a word. I look back at Nate who pauses, holding his drumsticks in the air with a shrug. Throwing an apology to the now red-faced stage manager, I unhook my guitar from my neck, put it down, and follow.

The narrow backstage hallway lacks the sophistication of the main venue, concrete floors and plain walls. Ruby is nowhere to be seen.

TEGAN.

A tour of the venue is quick and boring. Metal shutters block off some areas; chairs are stacked in corners. I try a few doors that lead into the stadium but most are locked. Apart from a couple of ladies vacuuming the dark blue carpets, the place is empty. After taking a few shots of the surroundings on my phone, I head in the direction Bryn went ten minutes ago. Maybe he's backstage.

Backstage. Could be awesome. Could be boring too. My stomach growls. Bet there's food, though.

Circling the huge venue, I finally locate a door without a section number above and step through into a concrete floored hallway. The door slams behind, sound echoing down the empty s.p.a.ce and I pause, attempting to figure out the best way to go. Nearby sounds of voices and music point me in the direction of the stage.

A door opposite opens and a girl around my age steps out. Perspiration shines on her deathly pale face, and the scarlet red hair instantly tells me who this is. The larger than life, seldom polite, lead singer of Ruby Riot, Ruby. She rests against the wall smoothing tendrils of damp hair from her forehead. I glance at a sign on the wall above. The bathrooms.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

Ruby looks up and blinks at me. "Yeah. I'm good."

"You don't look it."

"You're Bryn's sister, aren't you?" she asks, ignoring my concern for her welfare.

"I am. How did you know?"

"You look like him. Same eyes. Jem told me you were here and how p.i.s.sed off Bryn is." Ruby wipes at her clammy forehead with the edge of her jumper.

"I think he's generally p.i.s.sed off with everything currently."

"Haven't spoken to him recently."

"I'm Tegan."

"Ruby."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

She pulls herself away from the wall. "I said, yes." The irritation in her voice points to the Ruby reputation I've heard about. Short fuse. She looks past my shoulder. "f.u.c.king great..."

I turn around. Jax strides toward us and ignores me when he reaches Ruby. "What's going on?"

"I needed the bathroom."

He reaches out and rubs her arm. "You look sick. Were you sick again?"

"I'm fine, Jax," she says tersely.

"Is this about tonight? Are you that nervous?"

Jax chews his lip as he studies her and the concern on his face grabs me. I never considered how close he'd be to the lead singer, especially as she's in a relationship with the intense and scary Jem. Ruby rests against the wall again and looks at the floor, breathing deeply.

"s.h.i.t, Ruby. You need to see a doctor. This is getting worse." Jax pushes hair from Ruby's face and places a palm on her forehead.

Stunned, I watch the so-called new bad boy of rock mothering the foul-mouthed girlfriend of rock royalty.

"We need to finish the sound check," she mutters.

"I think you should rest, you can't be like this when we play tonight."

"I'm totally f.u.c.king aware of how big tonight is for us," she snaps. "Do you think I enjoy this?"

Ruby's hand trembles and Jax's concerned frown grows. "You have been sick! Rube... Find Jem. Go back to the hotel. I'll do the vocals for the check instead, rest and save your energy for for tonight."

"I don't want to let you guys down." Her voice is a whisper, shoulders slumping further.