Collision

The time leading up to the day before the band left for the tour were, to put it simply, agony. Alex had camped at Finley’s house for the first month, then moved to Red’s when Finley’s mother had gotten kind of angsty about the fact she had a homeless eighteen-year-old sleeping in her front lounge. I don’t really blame her. But at least Red actually had a flat for himself, albeit a tiny, one-bedroom one with little more than two eggs and an old takeaway in the fridge. It wasn’t the homeliest place, but Alex seemed to find it pretty damn exciting because she spent the first few days she’d stayed there telling me how awesome it was not to be living at home still.

I wasn’t as fortunate. Since my lack of funds meant moving out on my own would be suicide, I was stuck here. And mother was being extra short-tempered to make up for the lost arguments Alex and I had. Or at least, that’s what I put it down to. It seemed everything I did was wrong in some way, and that even leaving the milk on the counter was a capital punishment-worthy crime.

It was after yet another screaming fight that morning I’d found myself contemplating leaving again. It was probably because of this that when Alex called me in the middle of the afternoon, waking me up from a nap, and offered me an escape route I was so willing to at least listen to the idea.

She skipped the normal greetings and launched straight into the reason she’d called. “Sis, how’d you like to go on tour with us?” she asked as soon as I’d muttered a sleepy hello.

“I guess that would be pretty cool,” I admitted, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from my eyes with my free hand. “Why, what does that entail?” I added suspiciously.

I heard her take a deep breath, which did nothing to inspire confidence in me. “There’s a job opening,” she said, continuing quickly. “It’s nothing special, just a general crew position, but it’s not a bad chance and you’d get to travel alongside with us. Obviously it might be a bit cramped… but I thought you might be interested...”

“Alex, I already have a job,” I said tiredly. And that one was bad enough.

“I know... it’s just...” her voice cracked. “I’m gonna miss you like crazy, sis. I know I’ve said I can’t wait to get out of London but already it’s harder than I thought being away from you and the house.”

I knew the feeling. I missed her too, but I didn’t want to admit it. And I did notice she didn’t mention mother, at all. “You’ll have the guys,” I pointed out after a short pause.

She laughed, but it sounded weary rather than amused. “Do you have any idea of what it’s gonna be like having to live, sleep, breathe, eat and spend all your free time with three guys with minimal entertainment and showering facilities for an extended period of time? It’s bad enough with just Red now, I shudder at what it’s gonna be like on the tour.”

“You’re not selling this job to me very well,” I said jokingly. “But you know what? Email me the details. I’m not promising anything but I’ll check it out.”

“Already have. Check your email and then tell me you’ll take it. Please.”

I said goodbye, then pulled my laptop into my lap and flipped it open. A quick successions of clicks drew up my email, showing I had a total of 23 unread emails. I was only interested in the latest one, though, from Alex’s screenname of ’RitalinRocker’ (no, I had no clue what that was meant to mean, either.) It opened it up and read through the message.

[font= lucida-sans]Yo, sis, you better choose the right choice, or else (btw the right choice is taking the job.)

Okay, so, basically, SAYF are awesome & all, but we need some crew, right. But especially if we’re gonna be TOURING... which, y’know, is awesome just in itself.

Anywaaaaaay, read through this & then message me back so I can tell Mallory (oh, he’s our manager, in case you were wondering. I know, I know, we have a fucking manager! ’excuse my french... but then again he is half-french, so... and he’s pretty hot ;D) and make sure you get the position. Because I’m good like that.

Basically the position is as a general crew member, involves a lot of work but hey you’ve never been work shy, right? The total pay is £1500... not bad, eh? You’ll basically be pitching in with everything & anything, including merch, loading, setting up, etc. Finley taught you how to tune his guitar right? So you can do that too. And the best perk of it all? You get to spend time with me! Yeah, I know, exciting right? But calm down, there’s more. You get a place on one of the Whiteout crew buses, and you get food, too. All you need to do is bring enough clothes and stuff... oh, and a lot of spending money. We’re totally hitting the shops in all the major cities!

So, message me back, ’kay? I need to tell Mallory by tomorrow.

All my love,
Alex <3
xoxoxoxoxo

I had to laugh at her enthusiasm. You’d never guess from the way she wrote that she’d actually got an A in her English GCSE, but then again Alex never had been very open to the fact she was actually pretty intelligent. I annoyed me at times — my younger sister was taller, prettier, could sing and play instruments, was intelligent... everything I basically wasn’t. But hey, at least I had a sense of humour.

I took a long time mulling over my reply, staring at the blank ’compose email’ page on my laptop, before my fingers started moving over the keyboard and I managed to write out a brief reply.

[font= lucida-sans] Wow, nice, um, vocabulary, Alex.

I’ve thought about it. And, I guess I can do. BUT, and it’s a big but (no, don’t you dare make any jokes about the size of anyone’s derrière), I need you to realize having me on tour isn’t gonna be all jokes and laughter. I will definitely be overbearing and protective of my sweet younger friends... and you too, of course (what, you thought I’d call you sweet?!)

Anyway, yes, tell hot half-french Mallory (he actually sounds quite delectable. More details please?) that I’m up for it and to mail me the paperwork. Obviously, you know my address... y’know, that house you stormed out? Yeah, that’s the one.

I love you, lil’ sis,
Cam
xoxo

I fired my reply off, and I received a text message from a very excited Alex soon after (judging by the amount of exclamation marks and use of all capital letters, at least.) We arranged, via about fifty text messages — thank god for unlimited texts on my contract is all I can say — that I’d meet Mallory the day before the tour started, get all the details sorted out, and then join the others on their flight up to Glasgow, where the Whiteout tour was apparently kickstarting.

I was pretty pumped up on the day I was going to meet Mallory, and I spent about twenty more minutes than usual doing my make-up and hair (which brought the time spent to a grand total of about twenty-five minutes, honestly.) I’d plaited my wet hair the night before, which left my reddish-brown normally-only-slightly-wavy-hair very twisted and curly. It was pretty cool, actually, and I was especially pleased to not my skin was looking pretty damn good. I’d stolen this face wash from Janey, and apparently it was a miracle worker because I no longer suffered from dry skin or blotchiness I normally had to cover up with foundation — I always wondered how the girl looked so stunning without make-up. The traitorous bitch.

I wanted to make a good impression of some kind, to show that I was really a good choice for this ridiculous job. I threw on clean clothes, grabbed my yellow hoodie, and found myself on a bus about thirty minutes earlier than I’d first planned. It was kind of weird, being on time for once, especially when I got off the bus and made my why through the streets to the café I’d arranged to meet this Mallory guy in and found it basically empty.

I’d got a brief description from Alex about what he looked like — tanned skin, brown eyes, curly brown hair — and I’d been told he would be wearing a leather jacket, but a glance around the room came up blank. Instead, I ordered a coffee and sat near the window, watching the people walking past in an attempt to pass the time without becoming too bored.

I spotted Mallory as he walked in, noting the way his eyes scanned the café before landing on me. He smiled, walking over. “Hey, are you Cameron?”

I nodded. He slid into the seat across from me and offered me his hand to shake as he spoke. “Carlos Mallory.”

“Oh, Mallory’s your surname?” I said, confused, but shaking his hand anyway. I guess Mallory was more of a girl’s name, although I hadn’t given it much thought.

He grinned, brightly, showing off perfect white teeth. “Yes. But most of my friends call me Mallory anyway.”

Alex hadn’t been kidding when she’d called him hot. I mean, he looked like he was a little older than me, so I wouldn’t be letting her within twenty feet of him alone, but he had gorgeous brown eyes and bone structure — as much as that made me sound like a complete creep. It was true! I couldn’t help but feel that this meeting would be really really awkward if Mallory was secretly a mind reader or something.

“So, how about yourself? Is it always Cameron or?"

“Some people call me Cam,” I said. I didn’t add that it was only my direct family, Janey, the band... and Gerard.

“Cameron Martinez. Huh. Well, that’s a curious name itself, isn’t it?” He asked, leaning back into the chair.

“How do you mean?” I asked, focusing on the coffee I’d ordered.

I still caught his grin widen, though. “Well, I’m pretty certain Martinez is a Spanish surname. And yet, you look pretty English to me. Certainly with a name like Cameron. And a pretty hair colour like yours.”

I couldn’t help my cheeks turning a slightly redder colour. “Uhm, my dad was Spanish, so he had the surname. My mother’s English and Irish, thus the hair colour,” I replied. “But I hear you’re half-French yourself, according to my sister. Is that true?”

“Yeah, dad’s side like you. Mallory is a French surname, after all. Sort of. Apparently it means beautiful.” He was still grinning, his eyes creasing up. I laughed.

“So you’re called a girl’s name which is French for beautiful?”

“And ’unfortunate’. I prefer the first one, really. Honestly, it keeps me in touch with my feminine side.”

Another small laugh and a grin from me. He was really nice, I decided. Being quite easy on the eyes was only a bonus. I certainly wouldn’t mind working for this guy... or with him. Whatever it was I was actually signing up to do.

“Anyway, down to business,” he said. “So we’re here to discuss the crew opening for Whiteout, right? I know you’re Alex’s sister, so I guess that makes it a good choice to hire you since I do need someone to keep her in check...” He winked, and I felt like he’d already had experience with Alex’s wild mood swings and sometimes even her temper tantrums. “But still, I need to know you’ll be a hard-worker. Do you have your CV, recommendations, anything like that?”

I nodded and dug into my satchel, pulling out the neatly folded white pieces of paper and handing them over. “There’s my CV, and a few recommendations from previous jobs. It should include all my skills and anything else you need to know.”

He took the pages and started scanning them quickly, flicking through them all in a matter of minutes. He paused on the last one, though, rereading a line. “You speak fluent French?” He said, amused.

I laughed. “Si, señor.”

“Close enough. Not sure if it’ll be any use on this tour, but there’s plans for a Europe one next year.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah, SAYF... they’re gonna be the next biggest hit. Trust me. It’s gonna be hard, and we’re gonna push them a lot, but they could be the new Combatant. Heck, the new Vaudeville, if we play our cards right.”

“Vaudeville? Aren’t they that sort of weird grunge alternative rock band who was in the papers a few weeks back because their lead singer had been caught with two prostitutes?” I asked, suspiciously. “And their drummer or bassist or something had a gun and managed to shoot somebody in the foot?”

He laughed. “Well, yes, let’s not focus on those bits and focus on their multi-platinum albums instead.”

“I don’t know... I don’t see Alex as the prostitute type. More married man’s mistress, you know?”

“Hmm, we can let her decide her career ending scandal, okay? But I’m impressed, this is quite a nice CV. You’re certainly qualified enough for the job you’re applying for, although I’m not sure how a degree in Journalism may help. Saying that, I may have another thing you could do... in fact, yes, there is one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s not a certainty, yet, but there was something mentioned in the planning stages which I quite liked.”

“And?” I prompted.

“It’s meant to be this online blog sort of thing, an insider’s view on the Whiteout tour, things like interviews, reviews, sound checks, funny stories. You know, all the stuff the fans want to know. But we never got around to arranging somebody to do it.”

“... and you want me to do it?” I asked slowly, trying to work it out.

He nodded. “I think so. You strike me as the sort of person who’d be good at it. Kind of funny, cute, friendly? You know, relatable. And you’re certainly interested in journalism, right?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I am. But can you just hire me to do this? Don’t you have a boss?”

He grinned again. “Oh, I do. But I can basically get what I want at the moment. Let’s just say he owes me a few favours. And I can see this really bringing in some hype. In fact, yes, you’ll be perfect... if you want the job, of course. How about you get an extra one-off payment on top of your salary for this crew job for daily articles? Only little ones, don’t worry.”

I blinked, surprised and slightly overwhelmed. I was certainly excited at the prospect... writing was my passion, and here I was being offered the chance to be paid to write about having fun? That couldn’t be a bad thing. I tried to compose myself but I couldn’t help a smile spreading over my face. “I could definitely do that,” I said, shaking his hand when he offered it again. He winked, handing back the papers.

“Glad to have you join us, Cam. I’m certain you’ll fit right in. I’ll have your tickets sent with Alex’s party, so you’ll need to meet up with them all in the airport. Oh, and I’ll have Alex email over the inventory I suggested everyone bring, just so you don’t leave anything behind. Plus some tips for a first time tourer — trust me, you’ll be thanking me by time it’s over.”

I was too happy to take his words seriously, just laughing instead. “I look forward to it,” I said, picking up my Styrofoam cup and throwing it in the bin beside our table. We both said our goodbyes and then I walked back to the bus stop opposite the one I’d got off of earlier, feeling like I was floating.

Unfortunately, I didn’t count on the fact the flight was tomorrow, and I needed to pack and wrap up my life neatly before I went to bed. I spent two hours packing, sorting through what I’d packed, restarting, and finally finishing. Then I had to beg the very annoyed Janey (because I was abandoning her, apparently) to make sure the Boss had got my resignation letter, as late as it had been (thank god my contract didn’t come with a notice period), and then after that I had to finish the last few projects I’d been working on and hand them in. It was midnight by time I finally crawled into bed in an exhausted heap.

~*~

Morning came too early. I’m sure it was a conspiracy against me to make sure I was never relaxed or well rested. It seemed as soon as my head hit the pillow it was time to get up again and start the day all over again. Damn you, brain. Damn you and your stupid inbuilt alarm clock, waking me up at eight in the morning.

The flight was at four, and since it was only a short flight it didn’t require me to be there as early as an international flight, thank god. In fact, I only had to be at the airport by two, which was quite reasonable. I spent the morning wisely, though, taking a nice long relaxing soak in the bath after being assured by Alex a proper bath would be a luxury on tour, and then double-checking I hadn’t misplaced anything important like documents or not packed something.

Finally, the taxi which had been arranged arrived, and I jumped to my feet to grab everything. The taxi driver helped me pack the heavy bags in the boot (I’d packed less than Alex, though, so I was being a bit moderate) and then waited patiently whilst I triple-checked everything, once again.

When we arrived, I was a bit lost, honestly — I’d never liked airports, they were way too big and busy for my tastes. I took a deep breath and stepped inside, awkwardly dragging my two cases behind me with my messenger bag balanced on both of them. I knew I was meant to meet up with the group in one of the private lounges, but which terminal? I stood there for a few seconds, trying not to panic, until it finally remembered it was the South. At least, I was pretty sure that was the case.

I did find the lounge easy enough, showing the details I’d be told to bring along with my ID (again, my provisional driving license. I really needed to get a full one) and when I walked in, I was immediately accosted by my sister. She ran at me and threw her arms around my neck, clinging to me not unlike a koala bear to a tree.

“Cam!” she yelled, squeezing me tightly. “I missed you!”

“Alex, we spoke this morning... and you saw me a few days ago,” I said, gently disentangling myself and setting my sister down on the floor. I looked around the room, surprised at the general air of luxury about it. One whole wall was just vegetation and moss, a strange feature in the otherwise completely modern, minimal lounge. I noticed the others were already perched in various seats around the room — Mallory on the sofa with Finley, Red on the floor and Jack at the small bar chatting to the pretty server there. I tried not to roll my eyes at that — how cliché. Instead, I wandered over and took a seat next Finley and Mallory on the other sofa beside them, earning myself a hug from Finley too after he managed to scramble up and over the armrest and reach out to me without even getting to his feet. I was quite impressed, honestly.

Mallory grinned at me, waving. “I see you’re a hit with Finley.”

I nodded, ruffling Finley’s hair patronisingly. After Christmas he’d bleached it back to blonde and re-dyed it green, damaging it even more in the process. But at least the green was back. He scrambled back again, out of my reach, complaining about me messing it up which earned him an incredulous look from everyone — could it even get more messed up than it was already? Apparently so, since he spent the next few minutes smoothing it down again (only for it end up as bad as it had been before when he was pulled off the sofa and dragged across the floor by an angry Red for kicking him in the back.)

Eventually, after everyone had settled down, got their choice of beverage, and had become reasonably calm, a flight attendant came in and announced our flight was boarding.

I ended up sat next to Jack, which wasn’t too bad at first since he was too busy trying to be subtle when he was checking out the girl two seats in front on the other side with the ’great legs’ (according to him.)

I settled back into my own seat; it was surprisingly comfortable, since the majority of airplanes I’d been on seemed to have seats made out of only metal and lumpy foam. In fact, it was so comfortable I was thinking about just falling asleep and facing a sleepless night later as a consequence.

Of course, Jack wasn’t going to let his only entertainment fall asleep. Just as I was drifting off I felt him elbow my side, and when I glared at him he just gave me an innocent look.

“You don’t fool me with your innocent act, Jackie,” I said, turning away.

“My name is Jack.”

I was happy I’d managed to make him sound slightly annoyed. Deciding to push it a bit more, I responded with a sleepy: “Mhm, whatever, Jackie.”

He groaned, throwing his head against the headrest with a bit more force than was necessary. “You know you’re lucky you’re hot, Cam. I would have killed you ages ago otherwise.”

I scoffed. “Hot? Jack, you consider anything with two legs and a boob or two as a worthy sexual conquest.”

“Being picky just narrows my choice. Hey, speaking of boobs, she has a nice pair,” he said with a grin, nodding at a girl a couple of rows down who was leaning down to grab her bag. I pinched his arm.

“Stop being such a perv,” I chided.

“Aww, you jealous?” He replied, winking. “It’s okay, Cam, I’m not a one admiration guy. I’m sure I can fit in some time for you too.”

I wondered how I’d landed myself the seat next to him. He’d been pretty okay for the last few weeks, but being in close proximity to him for more than a few minutes had reminded me of just how much he annoyed me. I turned away again, facing Finley. ’Save me’, I mouthed, trying to use puppy eyes on the laughing guitarist. He obviously found my pain funny.

The fight was exactly one hour and twenty minutes long. For the first half of it I kept checking my watch wishing it would go faster, that Jack would shut up, Finley and Alex would stop flirting, and somebody would try and entertain me even a little bit. Eventually, I lost myself in a book.

Finally, the PA chimed in with the landing speech, telling everyone to return to their seats and engage the seatbelts and thanking us for flying with the airline.

Jack was made to fetch the suitcases with help from Red, leaving us four (Alex, Finley, Mallory and I) standing around before Mallory and I decided to fetch from coffee from the Starbucks nearby. When we stepped into the large, practically empty store, I was distracted by the lit up menus and directed my gaze there, so when I turned around again and found that Mallory had walked over to a table near the back and was stood there with his back to me, I was confused until I pushed my way over there. Mallory was chatting to a young-looking, brown-haired guy sitting there, a laptop on the table in front of him. They obviously knew each other.

“So your flight was really delayed for an hour? Wow, that sucks, Brian. But hey, at least you got here anyway!” Mallory said, cheerfully. It was then I looked closer at the guy and realized who he was. He had an amazing amount of tattoos decorating his arms and piercings.

“Hey, you’re that Brian guy, right?” I said, vaguely, pointing at him. He looked at me, as if wondering where I’d come from, and raised an eyebrow. “You know, MCR’s manager. I’m sure it’s you.”

He chuckled. “I prefer Brian Schechter, honestly. But I guess ’that Brian guy, you know, MCR’s manager’ will do.”

I blushed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m horrible with names.”

Mallory’s grin spread. He pointed at me. “This lovely blushing girl is Cameron, she’s my newest hire. She’s gonna be doing something new, a kind of behind the scenes blog. It’s gonna be pretty cool, if I do say so myself. She’s actually the sister of the lead singer my newest wards, SAYF. Alex recommended her when I mentioned we’d need some help around during the tour.”

“Oh, really? Well good luck, Cameron. You may need it on this tour.” He smiled though, flipping his laptop shut as he finished off the coffee beside it. “I’m gonna go check on my own wards... I think leaving them alone is a bad idea even if they have Worm with them.”

Suddenly I couldn’t help but grin myself. “My Chem’s here?” I asked excitedly. I’m not sure why it was a surprise — obviously all the bands would have to travel to Glasgow, since that was the starting city. Although the chance of them being in the airport when we arrived was quite slim.

He nodded as he stood up. “Yeah, you a fan?”

I shrugged. “I guess so? I don’t know.”

Mallory seemed to remember we were here to buy coffee, finally, and spoke up. “Hold on, I need to get the drinks. Hey, do you mind waiting a few minutes? I need to discuss a few things with you, since I’ve caught you now.”

“Sure, a few minutes can’t hurt that much... although saying that, last time...” he trailed off, grimacing.

I decided I daren’t ask what had happened last time, then followed Mallory to the counter, listing off the drinks we were meant to get when he couldn’t remember. It took a surprisingly short time for the five drinks to be made, and between Mallory and I we managed to carry two and three respectively back over to where Brian was waiting by the door. He took my third drink despite my protests I could handle it fine.

Alex saw us coming and ran over, taking her drink from me too so I was just left with my own and then the rest got shared out with minimal fuss. Mallory introduced Brian, and the others reacted with surprising calm — although, admittedly, Finley did spill his drink when he jumped up to shake his hand.

And then our group was herded by Mallory to get up and follow Brian to where he was going, so the two managers could talk together about whatever managers talked about. Probably something boring about band promotion and planning. I dropped back to walk next to Alex, wrapping my arm around her waist. She returned the gesture, so we were forced to move kind of awkwardly to make sure we didn’t trip over each other’s shoes. Finley raised an eyebrow at this, and then looped his arm through my free one so I had one arm around Alex and the other clung onto by Finley. It was certainly restricting, but hey, it was there way of showing love. Or possession. I wasn’t sure. I was just trying to sip from my coffee still.

The whole group stopped when Mallory did, and then there were a few seconds where everyone exchanged confused glances when we all realized Brian had disappeared. But then he was back, leading a staff member with a pass, who swiped it through a nearby card reader and led us into another lounge. It was less luxurious than the one back at Gatwick, missing the vegetation-full wall and the designer feel, but I couldn’t help but smile anyway as I took in the sight of seven people sitting around it. I instantly recognized five of them — all of MCR — but the other two I needed to be introduced to; one was Worm, the bodyguard Gerard had mentioned way back, and the other was a tall, thin girl with dark hair and the fringe pinned back, who was Mikey’s wife according to Mallory. He neglected to actually tell me her name, although I was a bit too shocked by the fact he was actually married to care.

Our group drew the eyes of everyone in the room except one, which was Gerard. He was too busy giving the cup of steaming hot liquid in his hands a loving gaze to notice the sudden double in the number of people in the room, although when he finally did look up he grinned brightly.

“Guys!” he said, looking surprised. I didn’t blame him. “What’re you doing here?”

I grinned back. “Ask Mallory,” I said, nodding towards the managers deep in conversation. And then a round of explanation and greetings occurred. I found out Mikey’s wife’s name was actually Alicia without asking when somebody called her over, which was good because I always felt awkward asking the names of people that everyone else knew. And forgetting them, too. Infact anything to do with names usually ended in embarrassment for me.

Then, introductions were undertaken between the members of MCR, Worm, Alicia, and SAYF and Mallory. I was introduced to Frank, too, since he’d been away when I’d met the others. He grinned and waved at me in-between sharing a packet of Fruit Salad sweets between Ray, Bob and him and raving about how awesome English candy was. Jack quickly wandered over to Frank’s little group to see if he could bag himself some sweets.

I, myself, was forcibly pulled over to the sofa and sat down next Gerard by Finley, who took the chance and decided to sit in my lap. It was certainly awkward, having a nineteen-year-old sitting in my lap and trying to make small talk with somebody. Especially since Finley had also got Alex and Red to come over, and made them sit on the floor in front of us so he could still talk to them without moving. So I was blocked in on all sides, and surrounded by people chatting happily, too.

“So you have fun with your little break?” I asked, still smiling. He nodded.

“If you could call it a break. Really it was just a few fleeting days of sleep. I didn’t actually do much.” He shrugged and then pointed at Finley. “Is he, uhm, gonna stay there all day?”

“I hope not,” I replied. “He may be skinny but he’s slowly squishing me to death. And seriously, I’m sure there’s more comfortable seats.” I directed the last bit a Finley, who just grinned.

“But I like it here.”

Gerard looked slightly bewildered, and mouthed ’is he always like that?’ at me. I laughed, nodding.

“Fin’s very clingy,” Alex explained from her seat on the carpet. I glanced down at her, giggling when I realized she’d starting using Red’s shoulder as a pillow despite his displeasure. “Trust me, when he likes someone, he really likes someone.”

“Yeah, and I love you, Alex!” Finley got up from my lap, deciding that actually the prospect of displaying his affection for the singer was a greater need than squishing me, sat down on the floor and wrapped his arms around Alex in a tight embrace. I grabbed the opportunity and pulled my legs up and sat cross-legged instead, so he couldn’t resume his seat on me again.

“So you’re here to, what... write about the tour?” Gerard asked, after a few more minutes of catching up.

“Apparently so. I met with Mallory after Alex kind of insisted I get the job so I could travel with her. She doesn’t like to admit it but she loves me really.” I winked. “And then he saw I had a journalism degree and decided I’d be a good candidate for his idea. So, here I am. I guess it’s pretty cool, right? I mean, I get to write about the tour and interview people and stuff. Although, I’m gonna need some help brushing up on my music knowledge.”

“Hmm, well, I’ll help you,” Gerard offered.

I decided to take him up on it, and racked my brain for one of the name’s I’d read on the paperwork.

“Who are Combatant?”

“Heavier rock, kind of edgy. Not as good as us, obviously,” he said. “But pretty good. Five members, all of them have weird names... the guitarist’s called Amon if I remember correctly…” He paused. “Okay, so maybe I’m not that much help. Brian knows a lot more than me probably. And Alicia, she’s good friends with a lot of the crew.”

“I can believe that. She seems nice,” I said, looking over at where she was talking to Jack. I quite liked the fact she was pointedly ignoring his attempts to flirt with her, even going as far as to back away, and yet still responding politely.

“Hmm, she is. Although, her and Vanessa don’t really get along, which can sometimes end up a bit awkward... especially since she’s my brother’s wife.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, curiously. She didn’t strike me as the type to not like someone for no reason, from the way she’d been so friendly to our little invading group.

“I don’t know. Bad blood, I guess. It’s one of the reason’s Vanessa didn’t want to fly over for these shows,” he replied with a small shrug. He twisted a strand of his hair and pushed it back, but it just flopped back into his face again. I watched, giggling quietly, as he attempted to make it stay, then started blowing it out of his eyes instead. It reminded me of my daily battles make my hair stay in any semblance of order. He noticed my amusement and arched an eyebrow. “You laughing at me?”

I was about to reply when an arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me backwards, and suddenly I was no longer sitting on the sofa — I was on the floor, looking up at a grinning Jack standing over me.

“What the hell was that for?” I demanded rather angrily from my new position. My butt hurt.

He shrugged, offering a hand to help me up. “Mallory told me to get your attention because we’re leaving. Sorry, Gerard, I’m stealing her now.” He smiled apologetically at the singer, putting his arm around my waist again and using this to drag me over to Mallory, who was watching this all happen with a half-amused, half-stern look. The others were already with him, having been rounded up in a less violent way I’m sure.

“Jack, next time, when I say bring her here I don’t actually mean physically drag her here, okay?” Mallory said. I hit Jack, hard, on the shoulder, when he released me. “Come on, guys, I’ve finished arranging a few things for Brian. We need to get a taxi to the start point now.”

“What about those lot, then?” I asked, motioning at the other people not part of our little group.

“They’ll follow soon, don’t you worry. I won’t keep your apart from your best friend for long,” he responded, giving me a teasing grin.

I was unimpressed with the joke, but I left the room with the others without complaint, linking onto Alex during the walk so I could bag a seat next to her and have someone to talk to during the drive.

We left the city behind and headed into a less urban area, where there were fields either side of us. When we came to a stop, I noticed there was a chain-link fence to the side with loads of banners hung on it advertising the ’Whiteout Tour’. When I saw what was behind the banners and fence, my mouth dropped open. There was nothing special about the area; the ground was a scruffy, grass-and-mud combination, an empty field, but I was surprised by the number of trailers, vans, trucks, buses and cars parked inside... and the number of people scurrying between them.

I knew, thanks to Mallory, that most of the bigger bands would be flying, although I’d also been informed that both MCR and Hello, Irony were using tour buses since it was only a small tour — so this was a reduced number of vehicles than it would normally be for a proper festival. It certainly shocked me. Mallory, from experience I’d guess, seemed totally at ease with the situation, but the rest of the group — including me — spent about five minutes just gawking. Alex finally snapped her jaw shut and turned to Mallory.

“Just how much people are there behind this?”

He shrugged. “God only knows. There’s the bands, their personal crews, the Warner Bros staff, venue staff, PR people, journalists, photographers, guests, management, the other crews including drivers, roadies, stage hands, caterers, etcetera. Quite a few, I’d say.”

“I thought this was going to be a smaller tour?” Alex demanded, still looking around with wide eyes.

“Nope, this is the big time. You have no clue how lucky you guys are to land something like this as your first break. Trust me, it’s gonna rocket your sales.”

We were escorted by Mallory, another woman with a clipboard, and a burly security guard, into the main area. I was told to follow the woman, who’d was going to show me to the crew bus, and so I said goodbye to the band. Alex was skipping, she was that excited. I couldn’t help but smile as I walked beside the clipboard-wielding woman.

“First time?” She asked, noticing my wide-eyed looks. I laughed and nodded. “Ooh, good luck.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I demanded.

“Trust me, honey, you’ll know by the end of this. First tours are always pretty damn hard to get used to. But hey, the people here, they’re real nice. I think you’ll be sharing with only four others, since it’s the smaller bus, but they’ll come to be like second family, trust me.”

“Hold on, five people altogether? And that’s a small amount?”

“Yup, lucky you. I was put with twelve on my first festival tour. God, that was crowded.”

We stopped outside a bus with blacked out windows. Unlike the colourful pink and red one we’d walked past a few feet back, this one was quite plain. It was probably meant to be silver, but it had lost its sheen long ago and was now a flat grey colour. It did look nice enough, though, if a lot smaller and simpler looking than some of the other ones we’d passed. The clipboard girl knocked on the door and it was flung open by a red-haired guy wearing what looked like an outfit for a hen party: a blue feather boa, a cat ear headband, a pink top and tight white jeans. I stared at his choice of attire.

He didn’t seem to be put out by my stare. “Hey y’all, welcome to the bus of awesomeness, you the last member? It’s nice to meet you, I’m Elijah. You’ll fit right in here. I like your hair, by the way. Is it your first tour? You look kind of like a scared bunny rabbit.” He said everything all in a rush, not even stopping to even let me answer any of the questions. Then he turned to my escort. “Don’t worry, Ames, I got it from here.” He turned back to me. “Come in, what’s your name?”

“Uh, Cameron,” I answered, watching ’Ames’ walk away and wondering if she’d abandoned me with a crazy person, and then following him into the bus slightly reluctantly. “What the hell are you wearing?”

He looked down, as if only just realizing he was wearing a feather boa. “Oh, that. You can thank my sister Genie for that. She decided this would suit me.”

He swivelled around and walked through a curtain of multi-coloured beads into another section of the bus, and I heard him yell ’guys, new person!’ and listened as an excited chatter broke out. There was definitely more than one female voice, but how many was soon answered: Elijah was back, followed by two girls. One, a red-head, bounded forward.

“Hey, I’m Genie. It’s short for Eugenia, before you ask. I work as a special effects and sound assistant,” the short red-head girl said, smiling, before being interrupted by the other, taller girl, who’s tanned skin and black hair with two blonde streaks at the front contrasted quite wildly.

“Hullo! I’m Chantel. I work in catering and do general slave-work, and it’s nice to meet you!” She said loudly, pushing forward herself and offering her hand. She had awesome eyes which looked grey when I first glanced, but when I looked back she’d moved slightly and they looked green.

Elijah, who apparently was a tech guy, explained that the one other member of the bus, Yasmine, was out doing errands and would be back soon. It turned out that, other than Genie and Elijah, who were siblings, nobody had met before the tour, so I hoped that it would be easy than I’d first imagined fitting in. Certainly they all seemed friendly enough.

We all ended up sitting down in the seats provided, which were like those you found on a normal coach but arranged in in rows on either side of the bus, so there were three on one side and three on the other. It was cool, meaning we could all sit down and chat and get to know each other, although the narrow aisle meant that if you wanted to get past when somebody was sitting down they had to either lean backwards, suck in their stomach in or risk being elbowed.