One Kiss from the King of Rock (The One 2)

Nostalgia didn’t taste as good as the burger Evie was eating. It was super delicious for a couple of reasons. It was gourmet. It arrived on a tray stolen by Grip from the greenroom allocated to World’s End at the Channel Nine Studios. And it stopped her thinking about Jay and worse, playing back the video she’d shot of him doing his thing, gracious and genuine with the fans.

And so sexy, he’d basically glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth while she watched him from the remove of her phone screen.

She had to stop doing that. Watching him, thinking about him. Being conflicted about how it felt to have him touch her like they still belonged together and could own each other with a single caress and then apologize for it because they didn’t.

Under no circumstances where the planet wasn’t imminently ending and civilization about to be wiped from it with a climate-warmed flick was she to voluntarily touch him again.

Never mind that they’d both said sorry for the past. That handshake had been a rookie mistake. It’d acted like a lightning strike to her libido and there was only so much shock a person could take.

Jay was messing with her cool and she needed her cool, she was goddamn busy having added another band to her roster of eight, no, nine, and juggling four new sponsorship deals. She was going need to put on another social media manager soon if she wanted to start working reasonable hours. And even then, reasonable hours weren’t going to kick in until after this tour was over.

While she checked engagement and viewer stats and reviewed résumés from potential new hires, she snuck another burger. The tray was almost empty. She hadn’t had time for lunch after the signing and who knows when she’d get near food again.

“Must be nice to be the kings of rock,” said Abel, gesturing with the iron he was using on a shirt to the room next door where World’s End were supposed to be waiting.

They were late. Served them right for having their much nicer food stolen. Lost Property only got sandwiches, which was something Evie would take up with Errol. Way to make her guys feel second-hand, let the network order for them off the cheap menu.

“Kings of wishful thinking,” Isaac said.

That got a laugh. Abel abandoning the iron for his guitar and strumming out the first few bars of the early 90’s Go West song of that name. It’d been one of Mum’s favorites. Oscar quick to kick in with his keyboard, Grip using his sticks on a pile of magazines and random stuff heaped on the coffee table.

Evie couldn’t help herself singing the first line about not needing to fall at an old lover’s feet just because he’d cut her to the bone.

It might well have been her theme song of the moment. She sang another line in harmony with Isaac and then they’re were all singing about getting over love, stumbling and mumbling half-remembered lyrics when in a fit of overly enthusiastic drumming, Grip opened the zip on his lucky pants again.

She finished the song on her knees wrestling with his zipper for the umpteenth time. And that’s where she was when Jay opened the greenroom door.

He looked at her like he didn’t know if she was animal, mineral, vegetable or artificial intelligence. Regardless, he was offended.

“Well if it isn’t the king of wishing thinking himself,” said Grip.

She laughed so hard at the way Jay’s expression went from affronted to crush, kill, destroy that she had to let go of Grip’s pants and sit on her heels.

When Jay lunged for the scissors on the table, everyone shouted, but no one was quick enough to stop him grabbing Grip by the back of his jeans and cutting into the bum of the pants.

“I’d stand very still if I was you,” Jay said to Grip as he severed the waistband and then the back seam of the jeans, making the two pieces flap open at Grip’s hip.

“Oh fuck, man,” Grip said, but he was laughing so hard he was in danger of having vital parts of his anatomy severed.

“Been wanting to do this for days,” Jay said. He wasn’t laughing like the rest of them. “No more wishful thinking,” he said passing the scissors between Grip’s legs, making Grip’s eyes pop as Jay cut the denim right through the crotch to the faulty zipper, leaving Grip standing in his black Calvin’s with the remains of his jeans hanging around his thighs in shreds.

“Is that for stealing your food?” Grip asked.

“That’s for making Evie fix your stinking pants every day since I’ve been back,” Jay said, eyes fixed on her as if he’d done her a heroic favor.

“What’s he supposed to wear now?” she snapped. This wasn’t funny anymore.

“Like I give a shit,” Jay said, going for the door and slamming it on his way out.

“He is such a dick.” She leaped up and followed, near colliding with Jay in the corridor as he was on his way back with a pair of jeans in his hand. He thrust them at her. “These will fit him.”

She ignored his hand and got in his face. “You might’ve cut him, badly.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t.”

“What’s your problem with Grip?” She might as well have been asking what Jay’s problem with her was.

“I don’t have a problem with Grip. I have a problem with his pants, which were once my pants. They were great pants, lucky pants. Lucky for him. Not so fucking lucky for me. And now they’re not pants. He has new pants and neither of us have a problem with the fucking old pants.”