5
Emily Blake, twenty-one and bulletproof, sprinted across festival grounds in ankle gumboots and sequined Sass & Bide pants that cost more than her weekly rent, trailing glitter from the promo team’s welcome pack.
The radio station’s breaky host had been struck down with gastro that morning, and suddenly Emily wasn’t just the promo girl handing out Red Bull.
She was taking the main stage. The halftime show.
In front of fifteen thousand people. Three times the population of her hometown.
She. Emily Blake. Front and centre with the mic.
It was ten minutes until showtime and she still had to grab the run sheet from the VIP tent.
The security guards at the rope didn’t think so.
‘VIP access only.’
Emily grabbed for her lanyard, but it was just an empty plastic pocket flapping against her chest. Of course. The pass had vanished somewhere between the promo tent and here, probably sacrificed to the festival gods along with her phone battery.
‘Look,’ she said, waving her radio badge instead. ‘Check the run sheet. It has Dan down, he’s our breaky host at the radio. I’m filling in for him. I’m Emily.’ She gestured to the station logo on her cap.
That’s when the suit appeared with his precise movements and expensive accent—Eastern European maybe, though her geography knowledge peaked at identifying which tram went to Chapel Street. But it was the guy behind him who made everything go sideways.
He had a guitar in hand and he was sprawled in a chair like the festival existed solely for his entertainment. When he looked up at her, something in her stomach did a stupid little flip that she immediately resented.
‘I do not think she is with us,’ he said to the suit. That accent! ‘She does not look like part of the team. Or the halftime show.’
The dismissal in his voice lit her up like a flare. Beautiful prick.
‘And,’ he continued, checking his watch, ‘we are running late. I do not have time for whatever this is.’
Whatever this is. Those three words made her want to commit property damage.
‘It’s three steps to the run sheet,’ she said. ‘I’m not asking for nuclear codes.’
He watched her with detached interest, like she was mildly entertaining but ultimately irrelevant. Finally he gave the world’s smallest nod. Permission granted. How generous!
‘What’s up his arse?’ Emily muttered, not quite under her breath.
His head turned slightly. Just enough to let her know he’d heard. A flicker of something crossed his face. Surprise? Self-awareness? Then it was gone.
Suit-guy nodded crisply. ‘I’ll escort her.’
‘Wow. Royal treatment,’ she said.
Security didn’t flinch.
Suit-guy escorted her in, watched her scan the run sheet, escorted her out. Thirty seconds, max. As she passed guitar guy, he was studying his hands on the guitar strings with excessive concentration.
A few minutes later, Emily was on stage, the lights hitting her like a wall of white heat.
‘EUROFEST! You beautiful, sweaty mess, how are we feeling?’
The crowd roared back. This was it. Her moment. Everything she’d worked towards since she was ten and corralling her cousins into backyard Red Faces concerts.
‘Huge thanks to the Quantum Beards, yes, that’s a real band name. And up next, the legends from Sweden whose keytars outnumber their members. Stay hydrated, stay weird, and no flashing cameras, it upsets the wildlife. And the drummers.’
The crowd loved it. She was flying. Right up until her boot caught a cable.
Her ankle went. Emily caught herself on the mic stand, with fifteen thousand people watching. The silence lasted about three years.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll ice it with a vodka cruiser,’ she called out, forcing a grin. ‘Standard festival first aid.’
And thankfully she got a laugh. She started to exit, but her ankle had other plans. The pain flared hot and sharp.
That’s when he appeared. Guitar guy. He stood at the edge of the stage, shifted his weight, and looked back at someone. His security maybe? Then he took a step forward. Hesitated. Finally offered a hand, steady and there. She tried to wave him off.
‘I’ve got it.’
She took another step and definitely didn’t have it.
He steadied her, no fuss, no antics. Just walked her to the stairs like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t been a complete arsewipe twenty minutes earlier.
‘Thanks,’ she muttered. ‘Normally, I stick the landing.’
‘I am not convinced,’ he said, dryly.
‘Still judging, huh?’
‘Observing.’
She stuck out her hand. ‘Emily. Thanks, by the way.’
‘I know your name. You just introduced yourself to thousands of people.’
‘Right. And this is the part where you introduce yourself. You know, basic human etiquette.’
He looked at her a beat too long, like he had in fact completely forgotten how basic human etiquette actually went. ‘Leo,’ he said at last.
Just Leo. No surname, no explanation. But she hadn’t exactly offered up those details about herself either.
At lunchtime, perched on a milk crate behind the dumpling vans, Emily watched him approach again, this time with two pink vodka cruisers in hand. The terrible kind that taste like teenage mistakes.
‘I thought you might need a medical-grade sugar hit,’ he said.
‘You actually bought vodka cruisers.’
‘Doctor’s orders.’
‘Which doctor? Dr Smirnoff?’
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. ‘The very reputable tent medic recommended elevation and ice. I am simply adding to the prescription.’
‘With alcohol.’
‘It is medicinal.’
‘It’s noon.’
‘It is Eurofest. I am sure different rules apply.’
He held out the bottle, then seemed to second-guess the gesture, his arm suspended awkwardly between them. Emily took it, careful not to touch his hand. He noticed.
They clinked bottles and she shifted on her crate, as if making room. He stayed standing, brushed imaginary dust off his jeans, then finally sat. The movement was careful, like he was calculating the appropriate distance.
‘So,’ she said, ‘come here often to lurk behind dumpling vans with injured promo girls?’
‘It is my first time.’
‘Where are you from anyway? Your accent’s doing things to my consonants.’
He paused just long enough to make her suspicious. ‘Europe.’
‘Wow. Specific. Someone from Europe at Eurofest.’
This time he actually smiled. ‘You are mocking me.’ His accent was thicker somehow.
‘I’m Australian. Mockery is our love language.’
Emily tried to dig deeper, where exactly in Europe, what brought him here, why the security detail, but she got only practised deflection in return. He was ‘between things’, he said. But between what and what?
It was sweet, she thought, the way he helped her hobble back to the promo tent, pink vodka cruiser in hand.
‘Earlier, when you worried I had something up my arse…’ He paused, meeting her eyes. ‘When I saw you, I made an assumption. A stupid one.’
‘Most apologies avoid reference to your arse’s contents. Is that what this is?’
‘Sorry, yes. I apologise.’
Pretending to consider it, Emily tilted her head. ‘Needs work. The delivery was good, but you lost points for making me extract it from you. The apology, I mean.’ Heat flooded her cheeks.
His mouth lifted in a half-smile. ‘How may I improve these points?’
‘Well, the vodka cruiser helped. Even if it does taste like liquid regret.’
‘It is no regret.’ He started, then stopped. Stared at the label on his bottle like it held answers. ‘I do not usually talk to people like this,’ he said.
‘Like what? Like we’re humans having a conversation?’
‘Yes.’ There was something raw in his voice that made her stop joking. ‘It has been a long time since someone just…talked to me. Without wanting something,’ he continued.
The admission hung between them, more intimate than a kiss.
At his insistence, Emily ended up sitting down and elevating her ankle, while he packed up the promo gear.
This pristine creature in his white T-shirt was folding banners in the dust without complaint while his security, three of them, she counted, kept their distance.
He folded tarps and pull-ups with bizarre efficiency, like he’d been trained in banner logistics.
‘You’re good at this,’ she said, watching him turn a tent pole into a compact bundle in about three seconds. ‘The helping thing. Didn’t expect that from the guy who had to grant me permission to access my own run sheet.’
‘Today has been unusual.’
‘Yeah? How so?’
He glanced at her, then away. ‘Meeting you was not in the schedule.’
When they finally closed the tray of the station promo ute, Emily was dusty, dishevelled and somehow energised. Leo leaned against the tailgate, still looking unfairly good for someone who’d just spent twenty minutes working up a sweat.
‘Are you okay to drive this vehicle?’ he asked. ‘I have someone who can escort you…’ Then, almost as an afterthought he added, ‘Or I could drive you.’
‘I’ll be fine. I grew up in the sticks. I’ve been driving utes since I was nine years old. A dodgy ankle won’t stop me.’
He shifted, and she could tell he wanted to say something. The air between them crackled with that pre-goodbye awkwardness when neither person wants to actually say goodbye.
‘I want to see you again,’ he said.
The directness caught her off guard. ‘You do?’
He smiled, but there was uncertainty in it. ‘May I take you for a drink?’
Just like that. No games, no maybe-I’ll-text-you-sometime.
‘There’s a wine bar near my place,’ Emily heard herself say. ‘Quiet. No keytars.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Okay.’
Emily eyed the security hovering at a distance, their gaze politely averted. She nodded in their direction. ‘Think you can slip them?’
He gave her a slow wink that didn’t quite hide his nervousness. ‘You will see what I can do.’
Watching him walk away, Emily felt betrayed by her body. Her heart thudding, her stomach doing little ninja flips, and her ankle throbbing without him there to distract her.