Goodbye Reckless

"I can't believe you're actually doing this!" I cried rather dramatically and threw my hands up into the air.

Andy was stood next to me, a grin firmly in place as he was tugging at the edge of his t-shirt which clung to him in all the right places.

Mike grinned at me through the curtain of his hair and William next to him looking contented. Michael was also fiddling with his shirt and was adjusting the sleeves, rolling them up so the t-shirt was practically sleeveless.

The whole band were taking my fathers' and Beatrice's situation very seriously. Each and every one of the band members, including Tony their manager, were wearing white t-shirts with thick black letters that proclaimed:

'FREE STEPHAN'

And ironically there was a picture of a whale on the back of the shirts.

"Here you go," Sisky said with a grin and handed me my own version of the t-shirt, but in pink.

"Oh no I am not. I don't need to wear a t-shirt to show support for my father," I said quickly and batted the t-shirt away.

"Aw but Amina!" Sisky wailed. "I've even made us some badges!"

"Some?" I asked dubiously, knowing Sisky all too well.

"He got carried away with the 'Badge It!' that he bought yesterday," Will informed me with a grin.

"I made three hundred! We can give them out to the crowd at every show and then we can make posters and slideshows of your Dad and show them at the concerts and…"

"You're going to be late getting on stage," Tony finished for Sisky. "Come on lets go!"

Andy leaned over for a good luck kiss, which I happily indulged him in, despite the rather mediocre and cute naivety with which the band had leapt forward to try and get my father out of prison.

The boys ran off stage, leaving Ryan, Eva, Tony and me to watch the mayhem unfold from backstage.

"Do you know what they're planning to do?" I asked Tony, who replied with a grin.

After a raucous entrance and opening song 'The Phrase That Pays', William pulled the microphone closer and addressed the crowd.

"Good evening Tokyo! Some of you might know that our wonderful drummer The Butcher is off the market! Sorry ladies! He's going out with a gorgeous German American make up artist called Amina, but there's been trouble in paradise and we need you to help. You see Amina's father has unjustly been put into prison after attempting to stop further cruelty to the whales and we would love to see you support him and his fiancé in the same way as you have supported us over the years."

I was stood in the stage wings with my jaw practically resting on the ground. 'Blunt' did not even begin to describe how William handled the situation.

Ryan beside me was laugh and had to hid his smirk behind his hand.

"Well it gets us publicity," he said with a grin.

Back on stage William was explaining about a petition that was going to be handed around and then passed onto the German Embassy.

That night all over the FREE STEPHAN t-shirts that Sisky and Andy had printed in the back of the tour bus had sold. All of the three hundred badges too. Three thirds of the people that attended the show that evening signed the petition.

The evening after that show I was stood back stage once again. Dressed in Vivienne Westwood purple skinny jeans and my usual designer freebies on my feet, but on my upper half I was clad in a white printed t-shirt with the thick black lettering that was slowly taking over Tokyo and various cities in the US as fans back home had become aware of the situation and ordered the t-shirts off the internet.

The t-shirt read:

'FREE STEPHAN'