Mac continued, “I think he needs—”
Breathless, I stood up and banged the table, knocking Mac’s half empty bottle of water and cutting her off. It tipped, spilling everywhere.
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Tears burned from both my clumsy and emotional behaviour. “I’ll just get a cloth,” I blurted out and ran inside.
“Quinn!” Mac called. “It’s just water.”
I grabbed a cloth from the kitchen sink and paused to take a deep shaky breath, trying to push the memories away.
“Quinn?”
Flustered, I spun around, wringing the bit of material in my hands.
“Is everything okay?”
“Sorry,” I offered. “I’m not usually so…” I was going to say clumsy, but that was a lie. “I guess I’m just a bit nervous about starting the new role.”
“Well being nervous is good, right? Means you care about doing a good job.” She tilted her head. “Why don’t I show you the office? Then we can talk all the boring stuff, like paperwork, and get your employment forms drawn up.”
Mac ushered me into the back office and pointed to a huge black and white photo mounted on a board that took up half the wall. “That’s Jamieson,” she said. I could hear the pride in her voice, and it thrilled me to know this was something I was about to become a part of.
The photo was of the band playing on stage. “Evie...” she pointed “...who you sort of met this morning. She’s mostly the lead singer but is amazing on the guitar too when she gets it out. Henry, as you know, is lead guitarist, but he can play bass as well, and sometimes he sings. I met them both when we were living in Melbourne. We all went to university together. That’s Frog…” she pointed to the bass player “…and that’s Cooper.” She pointed to the keyboardist. “They’re pretty tight, and be wary... They’re letches.” She chuckled but it died off when she pointed at the drummer. “That’s Jake,” she said and her lips pressed flat. Then I thought I heard her mutter, “the a**hole,” but I couldn’t be sure, so I leaned forward to get a closer look. He was shirtless, with a wide chest and powerful shoulders. His hair was a buzz cut and tattoos covered his entire left arm, his right shoulder, and one around his torso. He looked serious and intense, absorbed in the action of pounding the drums.
Mac sat down at the desk and ushered me over. She tapped on the keyboard and called up the schedule. She ran over the next two weeks with me, handed me a pile of employment papers and a contract. “Check it carefully,” she warned. “We have a confidentiality clause in there you need to know back to front.”
She handed over an iPad and an iPhone. “Here. That phone is for business calls. When you have to go out, you’ll need to divert the office phone to the iPhone, okay?” I nodded and she continued. “It’s all synced to this computer and my iPhone and iPad as well. You’ll now be in charge of keeping the schedule updated. Here...” she handed me another large envelope. “This is original signed paperwork that needs to go to Jettison Records. That needs to be delivered first thing in the morning, so why don’t you do that and then come here and get yourself acquainted in the office first. Then you can meet us on set for the music video at lunch time and meet the rest of the band.”
I gratefully agreed, grabbing what I needed from the desk before Mac ushered me into the kitchen where Henry was pouring a cold drink.
“Where’s our drink, asshead?”
Henry smirked and levered himself up on the kitchen counter. “Get your own.”
Mac glared and then looked at me pointedly. “See what I have to deal with? Welcome to my world.” She huffed and opened the fridge. “Do you know if Sandwich is doing the shop? There’s no food.” She half turned to face me. “Another drink, Quinn?”
I declined and she opened a bottle of Diet Coke. The front door slammed and Evie came whizzing into the kitchen. She looked different then she did when she took off hurriedly this morning. A grin was splitting her face a mile wide. It was infectious and I found myself smiling back as she opened the fridge and grabbed her own drink, and Mac introduced us properly.
“So tell us,” Mac demanded, hands on her hips.
Evie raised her brows at Mac. “Tell you what?”
“Chook,” Henry said warningly to Evie from his seated position on the kitchen bench. “She’s gonna blow!”
Henry chuckled as Mac tried to push him off.
“Jared bought a house and we’re moving in together.”
Silence reigned as both Mac and Henry froze, so I figured this must be pretty big news. I wondered how it would feel, that sweet burst of love, of sharing it with someone else every day and building a life together. Immediately I thought of Travis and my chest burned. I rubbed at it a little. Was it possible for water to give you indigestion?
“Sorry, did you say you and my brother were moving in together?”
“Uh, yeah, I did,” Evie replied.
Henry scooted off the bench, folded Evie in his arms, and whispered something in her ear. I could see her eyes soften, and then Mac was squeezing her hard. I felt like I was intruding on a private moment and took a step back.
“I love you, you know I do,” Mac told Evie when she pulled back, “but you know what this means.”
“I do?”
She started to chuckle slowly until it escalated into a full on wheezing, tear streaming, hyperventilating moment. “Sandwich,” she choked out.
“What?” Evie shouted.
“Your days of chips and chocolate are numbered. From now on it’s mung beans and grilled chicken all the way.”
Henry also started to wheeze with laughter and looking at the three of them, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.
She flexed her jaw. “Thanks for the support.”
Henry waved a hand at her as they both gasped for air. Evie muttered a “nice to meet you” at me, grabbed her bag, and said, “I’ll be in the damn car waiting when you’re all ready to leave.”
***
Chapter Five
At around six that evening I was utterly exhausted from a day I was still trying to wrap my head around. Putting a tray of chicken in the oven, I started to relax, but a phone call from Mac ensured the day had not finished with me yet. I picked it up, answering absentmindedly as I placed a saucepan on the stove top.
“Quinn?”
“Hi, Mac.”
She paused. “There’s a slight problem. I missed giving you some of the paperwork today that needs to go to Jettison Records in the morning.”
“Oh. Well that’s okay. I can just leave a little earlier and swing by to get it first thing.”
“That won’t work because we’ll be out early. They want us on set at six in the morning, and I forgot to give you a key. Can you come get it now?”
“Actually, Mac, I sort of can’t leave right now. I’m sorry. Can I swing by in maybe an hour or so?”
Justin was eating dinner here tonight, and I was in the middle of making it. We traded business. He walked Rufus for me every other day, and I fed him a home cooked meal. Food for Justin was a high commodity. It made sense because not only did he share an apartment with three other guys, he was also Lucy’s younger brother. Justin never ate anything at their place. Neither did I for that matter, but Justin was moving soon. Finished with uni, he was taking a new job interstate, and I was losing my dog walker.
“Okay. Um…hang on,” Mac told me.
I heard a muffled sound as though she was putting her hand over the speaker. “Travis,” she hissed.
Oh no.
“I need you to drop some papers over to Quinn’s on your way to Mum and Dad’s place.”
Her words left me feeling like my body had just plummeted through an open trapdoor beneath my feet. I spun around from the stove and glanced down at my very unsexy, but very comfortable, pink fairy princess pyjamas, and I knew that just having washed my hair, it would be fluffed out to wild proportions.
“Mac,” I heard him say, sounding put out. “Can’t you do it?”
“No, I have to get to Mum’s early to help with dinner. I don’t have time. Come on, asshead. It won’t take a second.”
“Mac,” I shouted down the phone. “Really, it’s okay. I can—”
“No, no,” she cut me off. “It’s all good. Travis said he’d love to help out.” I heard a loud thump and a muffled ouch. “He’s going to deliver them to you, okay? Just hang tight. He’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Uh…well I think—”
She cut me off again with, “Anyway, I have to go. Thanks so much Quinn. I’ll see you tomorrow,” and hung up the phone.
My fingers dialled Lucy in a panic. Yes, she only lived next door, but there was no time for such pleasantries as knocking on the door.
“Yo, Quinny,” she answered.
“Lucy.” I poured out two wines and tucking my phone between my ear and my shoulder, I raced into the bedroom and sat them on the bedside table. “I have a problem and I need you here yesterday.”
I flung open the wardrobe door.
“Calm down and tell Lucy what’s wrong,” Lucy said in her fake, soothing voice. I know it’s fake because it takes on a low, drawn-out pitch when she thinks I’m behaving like a five year old, which quite frankly, I knew I was doing right now, but I had good reason.
“It’s Travis,” I half yelled as I rummaged through my shelves for something I could wear. “He’s on his way here. And if you speak in the third person again, I’ll slap you,” I added as an afterthought.
“Oh Em Gee, Quinn!” she squealed. “You rang him after all. You sneaky hooha! You told me you never got his number.”
“I didn’t.” God. Where to begin with that? “I don’t have time for explanations. I need you.”
“Fine, but you better tell me everything when I get there. I’ll just grab my bag of tricks and be right over.” She hung up.
Lucy’s bag of tricks was actually a suitcase sized bag of makeup, hair products, and all types of beauty related, mind-boggling, electrical devices. This bag had wheels and a combination lock that Lucy gave to no one, not even me. Not that I ever had much use for it until now.
I rummaged through all my clothes, lamenting that nothing was clean. All my favourite items of clothing, like the dark, skinny jeans that made me look taller, or the soft pink knit that made my skin less pasty, were in the laundry. I held up a pair of denim shorts that I rarely, if ever, wore, but I bought them for the colour. They were hot pink with black piping along the pockets—bought in a mindless splurge simply because they were a bargain. Emerging from the wardrobe, I found Lucy striding in, wheeling her suitcase behind her.
She looked at me and flinched. “You invited him over looking like this?”
“I didn’t invite—”
“Just shut up,” she snapped, her eyes flashing. “I’m so disappointed in you. There’s no time to perform miracles here.”