The Biggest Fan

'Go Fish'.

“I’m gonna go to the sound check now. Meet you guys backstage afterwards?”, Bert said, looking at me and Jepha where we were sitting in the sofa with each of our tea cups.
“Yeah, we’ll catch up later”, Jepha responded before seeing him head out of the tour bus.

“What about you? Aren’t you going to have the sound check too?”, I asked.
“Nah, I hardly never do to be honest. It’s stupid. Besides, Quinn check it for me anyway, so I’m off the hook”, Jepha grinned, taking a sip of his tea.
“Lazy ass”, I said smiling.
“It’s in my nature, except from jogging, he replied.
I could see he was joking from the way he was struggling not to laugh.

“Hey, can I keep on reading those magazines? I wanna see if I can find something more interesting in them.”
“Sure”, I said, handing him an issue of Rock Sound.
Even though I hadn’t gotten the chance to read it myself yet, I still let Jepha do it, despite the fact that I always preferred to read my magazines before letting anyone else do it.
Nevertheless, I just didn’t bother this time.

“Hey, here’s a picture of us!”, Jepha burst out, pointing at a picture from last year’s Taste of Chaos tour.
“Man, do I look fierce”, he grinned.
I had to laugh.
“I can’t believe I actually miss out on things like this. I didn’t even know magazines still wrote about us anymore”, he continued.

“Well, of course they do. Don’t you ever go online and check?”
“Nah, not really. Should I?”
“There are all sorts of fan sites created by fans who honour you, and there are message boards, chat rooms, and all sorts of media created by The Used fans. So you’re most definitely not forgotten.”
I sounded like a lecturing teacher or an encouraging mother or something.
It must’ve been awful listening to.

“Wow, that’s awesome! Hey, thanks for lettin´ me know. Maybe I should check it out some time”, Jepha said, looking at me with a grateful look.
“Oh, shit! It’s already 6 pm! We can’t be late, let’s go”, he suddenly burst out, closing the magazine he was reading.
We both hurried to drink up our tea before I got my hoodie and put on my Converse shoes.

“Ready?”
He was already standing outside the tour bus.
“Yes. But aren’t there a lot of people outside now?”
“No, not here. They’re on the other side, on the back side. This is a highly secured area, so we don’t need any security guards to guide us, if that’s what you think”, Jepha said teasingly.
“Okay, then. I’m ready.”

It didn’t take long before we were inside the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, the place where the guys were gonna play tonight.
There, in the backstage area, we were met by Bert, Quinn and Dan.

“Hey, what took you so long? I almost didn’t think you’d show up, so I was just about to come n’ get you”, Bert said.
He actually sounded stressed, something I couldn't remember seeing before.
“Sorry, dude. We lost track of time. Me and Lina were reading those magazines you guys bought”, Jepha apologized. “But we’re here now so…”
“Yeah, well, it’s all set now actually. I guess we’ll just have to wait here until we’re on.”
“Does the concert start at 7 pm?”
“Yeah”, Bert answered automatically.

“Hey, wanna play cards?”, Quinn suddenly asked from where he was sitting.
Until then, I hadn’t really noticed he was there at all.
“Nah, I’mma go outside n’ have a smoke. Comin´, Jeph?”, Bert said standing up.
“Yeah”, he answered, following him out to the back, leaving me, Quinn and Dan alone.

“I’ll play with you”, I said, looking at Quinn with a smile.
“Great! What do you wanna play? Do you know any particular games?”, he asked with an excited voice.
“… I know Solitaire?”
I can’t believe I said that as I saw Quinn’s and Dan’s face turning red before they both burst out in laughter.

“Dude, that’s cute! But I meant games for multiple players”, Quinn said, trying to hide his smile.
“But I don’t know what they’re called in English. I only know the Norwegian titles.”
“You know ‘Go Fish’?”, Dan asked.
“Yeah, I know that one! Let’s play that.”
I was still embarrassed by my last comment, but sucked it up.

“Okay”, Quinn said, handing out 5 cards to each player.
“You know the rules, right?”
I had to ask, I just couldn’t help myself.
“Suuure”, Dan replied, grinning from the chair across the little table between us.
“I’ll start!”, Quinn said as he held up his 5 cards, hiding them from me and Dan.
“Lina, do you have any 5’s?”
“Go Fish”, I responded, hiding a smile.

“Ah, man!”, he said, reluctantly drawing a new card from the talon.
“Nice first try, dude”, Dan commented humoristically.
“Okay, my turn”, I began. “Dan, do you have any Queens?”
“Yeah, here. I got one.”
“What about 3’s?”
“Nope, Go Fish”, he said, making me draw a card.

“Hmm… Quinn. I’ll ask you. Got any 2’s?”
“No, you ass hole. You were lookin´ at my cards just a sec ago and you know I don’t have any 2’s”, Quinn replied, bumping friendly into Dan’s shoulder.
“Hey, don’t blame me. You’re the one not hiding your cards well enough.”
“Whatever, just pick a card.”
“Yeah, okay. I better Go Fishin´, then.”
“Yeah, you should, moron.”

I was having a hard time not to burst into laughter as I was sitting between Quinn and Dan, listening to them quarrelling over little things and behaving like kids.
As I gazed over at them both, I received their smiles, looking into their eyes and seeing nothing more than kindness in their hearts…
♠ ♠ ♠
Don't ya just love card games? ;D

xo,
lina.