Getting Real

43. Balance of Power



Jesus Christ! Jonathan was right. Coming down after Rielle Mainline was going to be a white knuckle ride. Worse than anything Jake had been through with other relationships. Hell, he was still friends with most of the other girls he’d been involved with. Could he be friends with Rielle? Were they friends now?

In the last week, he’d somehow managed to forget the balance of power between them was so unequal. She was a superstar, and the world was interested in what she had for breakfast and he was just a roadie with a trade to fall back on. Next week she’d be in LA and he’d be working the phones looking for work.

Last night, having her so embedded in his world—far from the lights, the fashion and the craziness of rock stardom—had been like a dream come true. But in reality, what did they have in common, other than an all consuming lust and the tour schedule which was now in its last days?

So why was it that her kiss felt so much like the start of forever, when he should’ve known it was the beginning of the end?

F*ck, that Jonathan had been the one to remind him.

Jake watched the rest of the show in a daze, lost in the mastery of the band’s performance, of Rand’s musicianship and Rielle’s thrilling vocals. It washed over him in a haze of light and heat, sound and emotion. He tried to collect himself so when he saw Rielle next, he’d be wearing a disguise of his own—a mask that didn’t show how sick the prospect of losing her made him feel.

When the stage plunged into darkness after the third encore, the band came off on a high. Rand’s entourage was going berserk, as though they’d had a hand in the triumph. They’d spilled out of the green room and met the band in the backstage tunnel giving Harry’s cameras another spectacle to shoot, and the Sydney-based journalists in attendance additional colour for their stories. Tonight the party would be radical.


All Rielle wanted was Jake. She didn’t care about the rest of the band, about the after-party, about being starving hungry and wringing wet. When she came off stage she was swamped by Rand’s mates, and their wives and girlfriends. She couldn’t see Jake. After a show, he always gave her time to herself before he came to her. But she didn’t want to wait—she wanted him right now. She had to extract herself from the flow of people streaming towards the green room to make it to her dressing room.

As she’d fought her way clear, laughing and promising to come and join the party, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She smiled. He’d found her.

“You were on fire tonight,” said the wrong J.

“Thank you.” She smiled up into Jonathan’s face, but didn’t slow her pace.

“Come party.” He closed his hand around her arm, stopping her.

“Later. I want to get changed.” She pulled against him. He was holding her too tightly, and she could tell he’d been drinking.

“Nah. Come on, you can do that after.” Jonathan stepped into her space, his other hand going to her hair.

She dropped her voice and her smile. “Let me go now.”

“Ah Rie, don’t be like that. I’ve missed you. Come party with me.”

“I’m only going to tell you one more time. Let me go.”

Jonathan laughed. The hand not holding her bicep was now caressing her face.

Rielle sighed. “Remember, you asked for this.” She brought the flat of her palm up sharp and hard under Jonathon’s nose.

He clutched his face, reeling backwards, blood spurting through his fingers. “Bitch—you broke my nose!”

“No I didn’t.” There’d been no crush of bone under her hand. “But it’ll feel like it. Go ice it and don’t ever grab me again.” She watched him stumble in the other direction, blood now on his white shirt, calling for ice and a towel and sending a couple of wardrobe assistants scattering to do his bidding.

Then she saw Jake. He was a good twenty metres away and there were a dozen people between them, but he’d obviously seen what went down. His handsome face was creased with mirth. He sent a roadie with a first aid kit scurrying off after Jonathan and he sprinted up the corridor to her. “You are a goddess.” He swept her into his arms. “I’ve wanted to do that to him since Perth.”

“I’m wet and I smell.” She tangled her hands at the back of Jake’s neck.

“Couldn’t care less.” He brought his face to hers, teasing her with a near-kiss.

She strained upward to meet his lips. “Can we get out of here?”

“You should go to the party, just for a few minutes.”

“Mmm, one condition.”

“Name it.”

“Give me ten minutes to change and come shower with me. I want to ravage you.”

“Ravage!”

“Got a problem with that?”

“Nope.”

In her dressing room, Jake flicked the lock and his shirt over his head. He sat to unlace his boots and stared at her while she undressed. Watching his eyes in the mirror she almost forgot what she was doing. He came to help, peeling her out of wet lycra, his hands doing things to excite her that seventy-five thousand screaming fans hadn’t achieved.

He had a way of touching her that made her skin sing notes she’d only ever heard in her mind. He chased a song all over her body, with feather light touches, stinging bites and soothing licks designed to make a chorus of his name. And he loved that, so she held it back, and he loved that too, and he showed her how much with his eyes and his lips and his own wordless articulations that rumbled in his chest and were breathed through her epidermis to start the process over again.

Forty minutes later, he was back on the couch, watching her dress again, but she could tell by the look on his face, something wasn’t right. “What are you thinking?” she said, eyes on him in the mirror. She couldn’t read his expression, and that was puzzling. He was normally so open, so transparent and truthful.

“I’m thinking that’s a waste of good lipstick.”

She laughed. But his mind wasn’t on lipstick.

“Jake.”

“What?”

He sounded grumpy. She turned to face him, hoping it was the filter of the mirror affecting her ability to read him. “What’s wrong.”

He shook his head. “I have to share you again out there.”

She knelt in front of him. “Why is this worrying you now?”

The head shake again and he didn’t want to look at her. “Jake?”

He brought his eyes back to her face. “Sorry. I’m missing you already.”

“Don’t do that.” He couldn’t be this way. He wasn’t meant to make this hard. He knew what this was. He knew forever wasn’t on the menu, wasn’t a dish she’d ever have the ingredients for.

“You’re right.” He hauled her to her feet. “Come on rock star, your adoring public awaits.”

By the time they got to the green room, the party had reached the sloppy stage where too much of everything except edible food was happening. The pizza was cold, the sushi was just leftover grains of rice, but the alcohol flowed.

In one corner, Stu was holding court, telling stories about other tours they’d done. He played straight man to Roley’s funny guy. Ceedee was hanging out with Problem Children, but Jonathan was nowhere to be seen. How was on the sofa with his tongue down the throat of some girl in black leather pants and a lace bustier. Brendan and Jeremy were likewise engaged with women on the prowl, though neither of them had advanced to the stage where buttons were popped. Rand had Harry in one hand and a beer in the other. He looked bleary and happy, surrounded by friends and well-wishers.

Rielle kept hold of Jake while she reconnected with the band and then chatted to some music journalists. She was starving and the one drink she’d had was making her sleepy.

“Let’s go.” She tugged Jake towards the door, but when a dancing couple cut her off, she lost hold of his hand. Laughing at their drunken stumbling, she wound her way through the clump of dancers and turned back to look for Jake. The expression on his face made her catch her breath. He looked worried, his mouth drawn down, his brow furrowed. But then he caught her eye and his lips ticked up in an immediate smile. Before she’d had time to process what she’d seen he was at her side, his arm around her back to shepherd her into the corridor.

“Are you okay?” She stopped him to watch his response.

“You bet.”

She squinted at him. He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “What?”

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

He rattled the keys to the Triumph. “Sure, let’s get out of here.”

Back at the hotel, Rielle ate a twenty-five dollar room service hamburger and loved every bite of it. Sprawled on the plush suede sofa, Jake watched her lick tomato sauce off her fingers. Now she could read him, the expression on his face told her he wondered what else she might like to lick.

Seated at the dining table, she said, “I’m still hungry.”

He laughed, his voice husky. “For someone so little you sure can put away food.”

“Not that sort of hungry.”

He was on his feet and across the room in less time than it took for her to push away from the table. They made love in four rooms and used half a dozen surfaces starting with the dining table, moving to the moonlit balcony and then to the bedroom via the massive double shower.

Neither of them was tired. They were fuelled by the touch of each other’s skin, the sounds of each other’s sighs, and the knowledge that their time together was almost over.

With one Sydney show down and only three to go, the tour had reached its climax, and everyone was already tuned in to the next thing. Sharon had completed all the forward arrangements, airfares and freight for equipment. Stu and Ceedee were going home via a week in Bali, Jeremy and Brendan were detouring to the Great Barrier Reef, and Rand was working out agenda items for meetings set up in LA prior to the start of the European leg of the tour. Even the crew were talking about their next jobs, some of them moving on to the summer festival season and others taking jobs with smaller touring bands.

For Rielle, lying in Jake’s arms was release and relief. A sweetness she knew was only borrowed; a tenderness that made her throat close up and her eyes water. When she thought about the future, she concentrated on what was critical: seeing Jonas, looking at the whites of his eyes to know if he was well again, the music video edit, planned interviews with media in the UK and Germany, and the kick off of the European tour in Spain. That’s all she could afford to think about. She had to stay centred on the business, keep moving forward, because if she thought about the personal, about her life, if she looked in the mirror too closely, or over her shoulder for one minute, she knew she was lost. If she thought about Jake she knew she was already heartbroken.

“You should sleep, baby.” Jake trailed his knuckles up the curve of her neck. She was as reluctant as he was to let the night end. She hooked her leg across his hip and settled on his chest, her chin on her hand.

“We still have time,” he said.

She shook her head. “I was thinking about how much time we wasted before we got to this point.”

He smiled and stroked her back. “I think maybe we needed all that to get to here.”

“Maybe.” Rielle felt tightness behind her eyes. How could she leave this man whose every touch told her he loved her without conditions? Who’d promised her he’d never ask for more than she could give, and never had?

“Ah Rie, what’s wrong?”

She closed her eyes. “I guess I am sleepy.” Rielle let the pull of tired muscles and the threat of tears drag her into fractured dreams.

For Jake, sleep was elusive; kept away by a growing sense of bitterness born of the knowledge that despite what they’d become to each other, Rielle fully intended to walk away, and he had no idea how to stop her.