Chapter Two

Backstage, they had to move fast. The London arena was in the middle of the city, and crowds began to pour out onto the busy streets immediately. Dax was whisked away by his security team before he’d even had a chance to change his last outfit, which was a simple black suit and white shirt, a bow tie securely fastened at his neck. His dressing room had already been cleared, and the entourage seated in the huge estate car. The door was opened, and Dax leapt into the back seat. His bodyguard, Rocky, slammed the door shut, got into the front passenger seat, and they were away.

Dax got his breath back, leaning his head on the back of the headrest. “Thank God that’s over,” he said. “I’m not sure I could have taken any more nights.”

“You were incredible,” said his assistant, handing him another cool bottle of water. Dax took it.

“I could really go for a couple of beers,” he said. “Anything in the cooler?”

His assistant looked hesitant. “We didn’t bring any,” she said. “From what you said last time, we thought you were giving it up.”

“Is that what I said?”

“Yes.”

“I was probably drunk when I said it, Kelly,” Dax replied. “Let’s stop off and get a few beers. For the whole team. Come on.”

He opened the bottle of water, but after a few sips gave it back to Kelly. It just wasn’t cutting it. He wanted a real drink. He didn’t like to think about it, and he’d certainly never mention it to his assistant, but he remembered telling her that he wasn’t going to drink anymore. And he remembered why.

Having a few drinks after a show was a matter of course. He could have anything he wanted, from beer to heroin, although the furthest he ever went was to snort a few lines of coke during costume changes on his Australia tour. Once the press got wind of there being drugs backstage at a Dax Monroe concert, it had to stop. Dax made a public announcement on social media that he despised drugs of any kind, and that he’d found the member of staff responsible for taking it, without his knowledge, and had immediately fired them. To everyone’s relief, there were no photographs of him bent over the vanity table, a rolled-up hundred-dollar bill in his hand.

It was a near miss, and once Grant had screamed at him on the phone for nearly an hour, he vowed to both his agent and himself that he wouldn’t touch drugs again. It was too easy, Grant said, to destroy everything that had taken so many years to build. It could all disappear in an instant if any scandal like that was leaked to the papers.

It hadn’t been too tough for him to give up the coke, but the booze was another matter altogether. A few beers became many beers and then shots of vodka, and in his more sober moments he found there was a correlation between the amount he drank, and the number of his staff who walked away from him, many of them saying he’d become someone they didn’t want to work for anymore.

But, despite all of this, he was craving a drink. And he’d earned it, after all. Fifty nights in two and a half months all over the UK and Ireland, with barely time for him to take a breath before heading back home and into the studio for another new album. Then, there’d be talk show appearances, radio interviews… he was beginning to get a headache just thinking about it.

He leaned forward and pointed out of the blackened windshield. “Here,” he said to Rocky. “Pull over here at this store. Get me a six-pack of something and a bottle of Russia’s finest.”

He could see that Rocky looked into the mirror above his head, catching Kelly’s eye as he did so. Kelly simply shrugged. “Get him what he wants,” she said. So, Rocky did. He pulled his huge frame out of the car, as interested onlookers, who had no idea who was in the back seat, marveled at both the vehicle and the giant who’d emerged from it.

While waiting for his bodyguard to return with the liquor, Dax prodded Kelly, who was swiping through the many emails on her phone. “Have you got my cell?” he asked, and Kelly reached into her purse and got it out for him. The battery was fully charged, the way he liked it. He opened the cell and began to search through his social media apps. He had several. Most of them were managed by his team, and were places for them to announce news, upcoming tours, and the occasional personal musing, most of which didn’t originate in Dax’s own head.

But he had one or two social media sites under a pseudonym, where he connected with family and personal friends. They kept in touch with him while he was on the road; he was especially eager to read any messages from his mom, whom he missed deeply. In the last five years since his career had gone through the roof, Dax had seen Diane no more than a handful of times, and even then, they were flying visits. He begged her to get on his private jet and come out to see him wherever he was, but as a real home bird who shunned the limelight, she wanted nothing to do with the glitz and glamour of his career, settling with being proud from the sidelines and speaking to him on the telephone whenever she could.

There were a few sweet messages, one or two funny posts, and reminders of birthdays for which he sent quick messages. Then he exited the app and subconsciously shifted to the left, so his hip touched the door to his left, and he brought the cell phone closer to his chest. He knew Kelly, seated on the other side of the spacious car’s back seat, would never have dreamed of looking at his screen, and she couldn’t have seen it anyway, but still he kept the next few moments to himself.

He pressed into an app that could only be opened with his own fingerprint. Once inside, he was lost in another world. He scrolled through page after page of beautiful, hot bodies, some in underwear, some in nothing at all. He could feel himself beginning to get hard. And it wasn’t as though the pictures were of people many miles away. They were all, according to the app, within five miles of his current location. Damn, London, he thought to himself. You have some incredible talent here.

It had been difficult for Dax to contain himself throughout the several weeks of his UK tour. But finally, enough was enough. He’d closed his final show, earned millions for both himself and the rest of his team, and he deserved a reward. He was about to look seriously at the app, when the door to the front passenger side opened again and Rocky was back, holding a white plastic bag, bulging with familiar shapes.

Rocky sat down and opened the bag. “All right, all right,” he said. “We’ve got some regular lager, some stronger lager, and some dark beers. I also have a bottle of vodka and some miniature whiskies.”

Kelly rolled her eyes. “Come on, Rocky,” she said. “We’re not here to party. We have to be on the plane in less than eight hours, for God’s sake. Plus we have drinks back at the hotel if we want to get totaled but we all know it’s a bad idea.”

“I think he’s earned it,” Rocky said. Dax didn’t get involved in the power struggle between his assistant and his bodyguard, who clashed on most decisions made on his behalf. He certainly didn’t want to say anything now; instead he reached forward and Rocky placed a large can of beer into his hand. Dax took it and raised it.

“To my incredible team,” he said, appeasing his two most faithful employees. “We’ve smashed the UK, and now I’m finally going home. Here’s to a safe journey and a great night.”

The others cheered, including the driver, Charles, who’d been silent up until now. Rocky pulled open the ring pull to his dark beer, and even Kelly took a can of lager. They banged the cans together, and took a gulp, Dax taking the deepest. It felt incredible. The icy cold beer slid down his throat with ease, and he settled back into the seat as the car sped through the streets of London toward the hotel, on the other side of the city. He opened the phone app again, and began to browse once more through the beautiful bodies before him, grateful that the car was so dark nobody could see the erection bulging against the seam of his pants.