Airplanes in the Night Sky

Three

The lights go dark.

Two

The crowd roars.

Take a deep breath.

One

Showtime.

Welcome to my life and the life of my band, Black Ice. The crowd cheered as we took stage, Adrian took the vocals as Derek stood with his bass, Gabe on drums, and then me the lead guitarist.

This has been our life for a while now, for me, joining these guys it's going on 3 years. They're all from Chicago but I moved there when I was 19 since I didn't want to be around my dad anymore. Not that he was that bad but he got on my last nerve a lot of times. Being 26 now, I joined these guys at age 23, leaving the bartending life behind me for the most part.

Being Valo Jade Cruise wasn't what people usually thought of me. I wasn't like all those other Hollywood girls who get thrown into fame because of a famous family member like Paris Hilton and what not. Yes my dad is Tom Cruise but I don't like many people to know about it, I keep it on the down low. I don't party like them either. I'd prefer to stay in, watch a movie, play guitar, write songs, something that my band loves about me.

My mom isn't around much since she ran off and married some guy from Portugul when I was 15 but she still calls and tries to keep in touch. That's when she sent me to live with my dad in Hollywood. Then he was married to Nicole Kidman and was cool but then again he wasn't always sane either and not in the good insane.

Not to mention, I'm 10 million times different than he is but that's another story for another time.

Back to now, we were finishing our last show on this tour with Kill Hannah before we went our seperate ways and went home for a while before finding a new tour. Our tour manager, Matt Rubano, was still working out last minute details on that but we all trusted him on finding someone without it causing any sort of drama for anyone. He became our manager and tour manager after touring with Taking Back Sunday. They were actually the band that took us on our first major world tour with them, three years ago when I joined.

After this show, my band was coming with me back to LA for a week before taking a week and half off from each other at our own homes.

Matt had been talking to someone in the wings of the concert hall in Phoenix as we played, it was someone he looked stoked to be talking to but we were all too busy to ask him who it was.

"Thank you!" Adrian shouted to the crowd, "We love you and we'll see you all soon!"

We quickly walked off stage on the hot summer night in August, all smiles as we put up our instruments and get a drink. We were all talking around when Matt walked up to us with our mystery guest.

"Guys," Matt mentioned as a pink mohawked guy followed him, "And Val, I'd like to introduce you to someone."

"Who?" Gabe questioned.

"Well I know Val will probably know," He smiled at me which I shrugged then finally set eyes on the guy.

"No way," My mouth dropped open.

"Yes way."

"What?" Gabe looked inbetween us.

"Dude, that's Jared Leto," I whispered to him feeling butterflies flutter in my stomach.

"I talked to Jared and he's more than happy to take you guys on the road for the rest of the 2009 year," Matt smiled at us.

"Seriously?" Adrian questioned.

"Yeah," Jared nodded, "I've heard good things about you guys and I liked what I seen tonight."

"Sweet," Derek smiled.

"Jared is going to introduce you to the rest of the band the week you guys go to LA and then we'll meet up with them in Europe and start the tour," Matt smiled at us.

"Sounds good," Adrian shrugged.

"Great, so I'll see you in a couple days," Jared nodded.

"Of course," I smiled at him.

"It'll be fun," Jared smiled back at me.

I smiled as Jared walked off to talk with Matt, this new tour was going to be fun, especially with the crazy, spontaneous daughter of Tom Cruise and her equally crazy band.