home ground advantage for the first six shows. I'd got together a crew to film their performance but for the second night. Not for this show. I had to focus all my efforts on being a FAN!
After the first week, the guys would hit the road and then Hannah and I would join them mid-tour for a few days then again near the end of the tour. Which really sucked because I wanted to do the whole join the band on tour thing but, when you are the first support band, you don't get that kind of luxury. A budget flight worked out cheaper than hotel rooms for the week and also the van they’d rented barely fit them and their gear.
We walked into the band room. Jack Colt, lead singer and my first love, now Hannah's boyfriend, sat on a bench in front of the mirror. Shirtless. Not only did I get to have a full on perve at his chest, I got the back view too. I wasn't sure which was best, I mean, that rippling six-pack versus the curving cleft of his back. Maybe the most delicious bit of all was the jut of his hipbone just before it curved into those tight leather pants.
I felt kinda dirty and wrong actually looking at him like that because he was Hannah's but she'd said it was okay. Every other woman in the crowd would be eye-sexing him so she had to get used to it. Anyway, it wasn't like I wanted him, I just liked looking at him.
"I have a boyfriend women want to objectivity," she'd said and then laughed. "Which is probably a good thing or I'd be broke."
In case you didn’t know, Hannah said that because she’s Storm’s manager and not because she pimp ed him out for dirty sex or anything weird like that.
I knew Hannah could get a bit jealous at times but she tried to handle it. Handling it was pretty much her only alternative because Jack oozed sex out of every pore. But, while my eyes appreciated the body that was Jack Colt, all my feels were wrapped in an Eric-shaped package sitting quietly in the corner. And that was a package I was trying my darnedest not to unwrap.
Eric was as different from Jack as you could get. For starters, his mum was Korean so that meant he had dark, dark eyes. Not just brown like Jack’s but dark eyes the colour of the richest chocolate, like a bowl of melty chocolate – sweet and warm and embracing. And, next to Jack’s hard, tattoo-covered body, Eric looked lean. Don’t let that fool you into thinking he wasn’t strong though. That body of his was all sleek, long muscles. Not that I looked. Much.
"So , are you ready?" asked Hannah. She sat down next to Jack, and I whipped out my camera to take a photo: him leaning back with both his hands pressing on the bench behind him, flexing all the muscles of his body, her beside him, leaning in with her blonde hair flowing down. They were an incredibly good-looking couple. He leaned over to whisper something in her ear and she giggled. It seemed strange to see them so relaxed with each other and I wondered how long it would last before they had a tiff. But I looked away, not wanting to be a creeper around them being all intimate.
"Hey, Angie," said Eric, looking up at me with a shy grin.
That grin made my belly flop.
"Metal face!"
And that was the woman who made it flop back into position. The one who made me put the brakes on any feelings I had.
Eric-Mama. She hated me. She hated my piercings and my multi-coloured hair. She hated the clothes I wore and pretty much my entire existence. She had very old-fashion Korean values and it seemed she didn’t even want to know about my insides because she thought my outsides were all wrong.
I should've realised she was there because of all the containers of food sitting on the table. The band had been doing a pretty intense sound-checking session for the first night of the gig so she must’ve come in to feed them in their break.
That woman loved to feed people. And it smelt so good. The smells seemed to waft from the food straight to my nostrils, reminding me it'd been an age since I'd eaten. But I'd rather
Ryan Graudin
Camille Aubray
Jacklyn Brady
Anne Doughty
Master of The Highland (html)
Scott Monk
H.E. Bates
Dennis Wheatley
Kara Hart
Judy Baer