By day’s end Jake was spent. His head was pulp, and he’d not been able to stomach the thought of food. All he wanted was a good lie down. He’d made the crew check and test that bloody trapeze until it was working flawlessly and he had a crick in his neck from looking up at the bugger of a thing from the back of the stage where he could do it without feeling sick.
They had an early start tomorrow, and a long day and night with their first gig, followed by the need to strike the stage and pack the trucks. They had four days to get to Perth and set up all over again for two gigs. In those four days, they had to cover two thousand seven hundred kilometres—that was like London to Berlin and back again or LA to Kansas—and re-build the stage. It was a punishing schedule that meant driving day and night, changing drivers every four or five hours. The band would fly and be there in Perth in about three hours.
Most tour managers travelled with the band, but Jake went with the road crew whenever he could to avoid flying. He was grateful he had Sharon working as advance manager. She was already in Perth, and would meet the band, give them a preliminary venue tour, and settle them into their hotel, all before the road train changed over their first driver.
He was locking his document case and gear in one of Bonne’s panniers, and mentally pouring himself a drink from the hotel mini bar when he saw Rielle detach herself from the rest of the band and the security team and make her way over to him. Rand called for her, but she waved him off, and the group let her go, jumping in two hire cars and taking off. This was trouble. This was not being ten minutes from the blissful oblivion of a fresh made hotel bed. Fucking fantastic.
Jake had spent most of the day following the trapeze incident keeping his distance from Rielle. And he was keen to avoid her now. He didn’t need to give her one more excuse to think he was incompetent, and he was beyond humiliated about the whole fear of heights thing. Both from a professional and a personal point of view.
But now she was intent on getting in his face. She was striding across the car park, the long tendrils of her vivid hair flying in the breeze and her arms swinging. Before she got to him she called, “Jake, is that your bike?”
“Yeah.” He threw his leg over the royal blue Triumph, avoiding eye contact, and focussed on a quick getaway.
She stopped in front of the bike, forcing him to lift his head. “Take me for a ride.” She stood there, head tilted to one side, hands on her hips, an amused smile on her face.
He looked at Rielle’s short shorts and singlet top. The sight of her up close did something to clear his head, like a first shot of hard liquor. It was difficult to imagine her wearing less clothing even though he kind of wanted to. He up and downed her, much like she’d done to him when they’d first met. She’d changed since the trapeze incident and her radio interview, but she must’ve had a whole wardrobe of clothes that fit her like this. Too bloody well. Too cleverly designed out of bits of nothing, to make a bloke’s eyes wander, linger, want.
Shit. He couldn’t look at her like that. Never mind he’d hugged her on the trapeze like she was his own backbone. She was his boss. She was a rock star and he was a roadie, with a slightly better than average touring crew salary. He snapped his eyes back to her face and, no surprise, there was ‘gotcha’ beaming from her perfect smile.
He sighed, felt his face colouring. “I apologise. That was inappropriate.” He really, really wanted this day kicked in the head. Rielle was tapping a booted foot to some inner tune, no doubt containing the words ‘I get what I want.’ She really wanted a ride. The only thing okay for wearing on a bike was her boots. There was no way he was taking her anywhere dressed like that. She had nothing with her except a pair of sunglasses tucked in her singlet front, and a wallet and phone poking out of one pocket. The path of least resistance was to drive