Chapter 2
Jodi Castle
Breathe girl, breathe. If you don’t, you’re going to wind up hyperventilating, and then where will you be? Sitting on the damp grass breathing into a paper bag, that’s where. It’s not a look that’s going to impress anybody, especially not your future husband’s people.
Cat carrier tucked under one arm; Jodi Castle stepped off the shuttle bus into the sprawling chaos of the Equinox Festival camping zone.
A canvas city of greens and blues with the odd garish eyesore filled the horizon.
Behind her, to the right, stood the main festival stage.
She’d got a good look at that on the way in from the comfort of her bus seat.
It resembled an alien spacecraft, and honestly, if it didn’t sprout legs and tentacles by the end of the weekend, then she’d demand her ticket money back.
Not that she’d paid for a ticket. She’d got in for free, which frankly, considering the cost of festival tickets these days, was the only way she could afford to be here.
Knowing the right people, that was the key. And boy did she know the right people.
Speaking of; it was past time she tracked them down and presented herself. She’d meant to arrive mid-morning. Only there’d been a slight problem with her train ticket and then a delay. Mysterious leaves on the tracks, or something like that.
The three moggies imprisoned in the oversized cat carrier yowled at her, reminding her to move.
“I know, I know,” she said, attempting to soothe them.
“We’ll get right on with finding him so that you can stretch your legs.
Look, it’s not going to be an issue. We’re going to have a fab time.
” There were only five to ten thousand people here.
No probs. It wasn’t as if he was going to be milling about with the masses.
There’d be a band enclosure somewhere. She just needed to find it.
A quick glance at the orientation board told her the area wasn’t conveniently labelled.
Not really a surprise. If it was marked, every bugger would be trying to blag their way in for a chat with their favourite artist.
She fired off a text.
Jodi: I’m here. Where are you?
Nash: In a meeting. Can’t talk atm.
Yeah, great, but where are you?
Nash was her saviour in so many ways. Thoughtful.
Intelligent. Handsome in exactly the way she liked her men to be, hence smallish and kinda skinny with big eyes and pouty lips, and shaggy ink-black hair that softened all his sharp-edges.
Obviously, he had his faults, everybody did.
Was singlemindedness a fault? It could be, when it made you unaware of everything else outside of that narrow focus.
Out of sight, out of mind. She shrugged; it was just how he was.
Luckily, he had her to keep on top of all the other things.
Jodi: Not asking you to meet me, just need a clue where to head…
She left the message in draft a moment, then deleted it, and trooped over to one of the hi-vis wearing officials instead. It was likely what she’d wind up doing anyway, and she didn’t want to make things difficult for Nash. Not now, when things were going so smoothly.
“Hey. Hello.” She rested the cat box by her feet, then raised a hand to shield her eyes from the afternoon sun. “I’m with one of the bands, can you point me in the right direction?”
Somehow, this was always easier when you were arm-in-arm with a musician, rather than flashing security a smile while carrying a rucksack containing all your worldly belongings and simultaneously trying to hush a carrier full of yowling moggies.
“And they’re expecting you?” The officials craggy face folded in disbelief.
The guy had to be sixty and didn’t look as if he wanted to be here in a field full of predominantly twenty-somethings, listening to their awful music while they drank too much, and forked over astronomical amounts for some lungfuls of fresh air.
“Should be.” She offered him her brightest smile. Nash had promised her he’d make sure that security was notified, and his band’s manager had been present for the conversation, so fingers crossed. There’d been a few hiccups in the past.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Castle. Jodi. I’m with the Ghost Boys.”
“I’ve seen at least a dozen girls walk past with bands around their wrists that say just that in last five minutes.”
Shit, did that mean he wasn’t going to help her? What the fuck did she do then?
Not panic, that’s what. Didn’t stop her heart doing a wild gallop.
She would just have to find herself a quiet spot and hang until Nash was free to correct the oversight.
It’d get easier over time. It would. The people surrounding the band would get to know her.
Would recognise her. Nash would introduce her, or one of the other guys.
Finding herself fenced off from them had never been a problem before they signed with Stormland, but she’d been a part of the team then.
Not so now. Now she was just their lead singer’s cuddly fiancée.
The person who, just like this guy, got looked at and dismissed.
“What does he see in her?”
“That’s who Curtis Nash is engaged too?”
“She’s all tits and arse and not in a good way.”
She’d heard it all. Mostly let it wash over her. It was that or dissolve into a puddle of anxieties. Six months ago, nobody even knew who Curtis Nash or the Ghost Boys were and the shape of his girlfriend hadn’t mattered to anyone.
The guy began talking into his radio. He repeated her name. Good, he was doing his job rather than just discounting her.
It was crazy how fast everything had changed. How one miserable night on a farm in rural Valencia had birthed something so significant, and all because a bunch of fruit-picking nomads had saved her from an over-zesty orange merchant and wound up jamming together in a communal camping barn.
As the sole non-musical participant that night—she played about as well as Bob Dylan sang—she’d become their de facto manager.
Well, more like a booking and merchandising assistant.
She’d been a whizz at designing gig posters and merch.
And zines. She’d created a whole string of them, although only the first three issues made it to print, because the word about them spread fast and their audiences kept on doubling in size.
They’d been playing together six weeks when Harry Storm swooped in and bound them all up in contracts. All of them except her. Girlfriends weren’t part of the package deal. Future merchandising would be outsourced. Thank you. Goodbye.
The guys had all been shipped back to England to a recording studio the moment the contract ink was dry, leaving her to see out the rest of the picking season alone.
She’d mourned the loss, convinced that the distance would put an end to their relationship.
Then Nash had only gone and surprised her with a goddamned ring.
Paid for it with his very first royalty cheque and had written, with a lot of help, a song that referenced it that was still dancing up and down the Spotify top ten.
The engagement ring glittered on her finger as she waited on security making their necessary checks. She didn’t often wear it that way. Mostly, she kept it on a chain around her neck. It always felt alien on her finger and stressed her out over the possibility of losing it.
Plus, it caught on things, like all the time.
“Yes, she’s here with three cats,” the site official said into his radio. He turned to her. “Someone’s going to come and collect you, but you’re not supposed to have pets onsite. Guide dogs only.”
She shrugged. What was she supposed to do? Abandon them at the gate? “They go everywhere with me.”
The look she got in return made it clear if he hadn’t already branded her a crazy cat lady he had now. She’d tried the emotional support line before. It never washed, even though it was true. Those cuties were her family.
Thirty seconds later, a guy in a golf buggy arrived. “You Jodi Castle?” he asked, not bothering to get out from behind the wheel. “Climb in. You can put your luggage in the back. I’m to take you to the band enclosure.”
She struggled with the weight of her rucksack.
“What have you got in there, a tent?”
As a matter of fact, she did. For two reasons.
She’d learned not to rely on others for her well-being.
That included a guaranteed bed beside her fiancé.
Secondly, it was where she lived, as in it was her permanent abode.
Not everybody had the luxury of bricks and mortar.
She’d been pitched in a patch of woodland just off the M62 until yesterday.
Last night, she’d slept in the train station waiting room.
Tonight, would hopefully be a bit more comfortable, although if the guys were to be believed, tour bus bunks left much to be desired.
Nash didn’t like it, of course. Her roaming.
Right after he’d put that rock on her finger, he’d insisted she move in with him and advocated for a ceremonial burning of her tent.
She’d said she’d feel trapped if she did that.
Poor Nash, he meant well, really wanted to do his best for her, but he didn’t really understand where she’d come from.
He thought her “troubles” were down to the episode in Valencia.
It was hardly his fault; all she’d told him about her family was that she wasn’t in touch with them anymore.
She suspected he was secretly pleased that he hadn’t been obliged to do a meet and greet with them or ask her dad’s permission to wed his daughter.
Did people even still do that? She supposed some did. The notion kind of revolted her. Smacked too much of being someone’s property, and she wasn’t and would never be that. Even if it meant humping her home around on her back.