Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place Read Free

make the swap. My beautiful pink dress in exchange for
her super-short denim jeans and her signed t-shirt.
    ‘A
pleasure doing business with you,’ the girls say as she leaves the bathroom.
    The
pleasure is all hers. I’m lucky we are almost the same size, but this look is a
little bit boy-ish for my girly-girl taste. Dylan will not only be replacing my
dress, he’ll be buying me a whole new wardrobe to make up for this. My only
problem now is that when I hand the t-shirt over to the girl in room 192, I’m
going to be wandering around in my bra. Hopefully if I call Mikey he will bring
me a spare t-shirt or a hoodie or something.
    I
knock on the door of room 192, again, and the underwear-clad girl answers -
again.
    ‘Ew,
I much preferred the dress,’ she tells me, looking my new outfit up and down.
    ‘How
about a signed t-shirt in exchange for the phone?’ I ask, ignoring her fashion
advice.
    ‘No
thanks,’ she says with a cackle. ‘I’d have sooner swapped the phone for the
dress, designer wasn’t it? But I’m sure we can work something out, what shoes
are they?’
    ‘Fuck
off!’ I reply, before tuning on  my  heels and walking away.
    ‘Bitch!’
she calls after me, slamming the door closed yet again. Back to the drawing
board, Nicole.

Chapter Four: Get inked or die trying
     
    I
can’t help but look at my hideous outfit in the mirror as I go down in the
lift. It’s just way too tomboy chic for me to pull off, but I didn’t bring a
change of clothes with me because I knew I’d only be stopping over one night
and it would only be more for me to carry around/potentially lose. I guess I’m
stuck with it.
    I’ve
never been a big fan of t-shirts, band-branded or otherwise, and the shorts are
so short that the pockets poke out of the leg holes. As I try to tuck them back
up, I feel something in one of the pockets – it’s a green iPod Nano. I press a
button on the front, causing it to spring to life. It opens up on the video
camera, and curiosity gets the better of me so I press the play button. Who
should pop up on the screen but Dylan King himself, the fan must have filmed
him as he chatted to them.
    I
listen carefully for clues – where the hell was he going?
    ‘I’m
always forgetting things,’ I hear him say. He sounds so bloody drunk, who is
still giving this man alcohol? ‘I need to remember my room number, but I’ll
forget. I wrote it on my hand.’
    ‘What
if it washes off?’ one of the fans asks him.
    ‘Ah,
well I have that problem sorted,’ he slurs. ‘I’m going to get it tattooed on. I
haven’t washed my hands in hours.’
    ‘Eww,’
the girls all say, totally in sync, before bursting into fits of giggles.
    I
know he’s drunk, but he wouldn’t really go and get his room number tattooed on
his hand, would he? This is Dylan, of course he would.
    ‘Oi,’
I call out to the fan-girl when I’m back outside again. ‘You left your iPod in
the pocket.’
    ‘Give
me that back,’ she insists.
    ‘I’ll
swap you it for the dress.’
    I
thought this would be a reasonable offer, but she just laughs at me.
    ‘I
could sell this thing and probably buy another three iPods.’
    More
like five, bitch.
    ‘Are
you local?’ I ask her, noticing her accent.
    ‘Yeah,
why?’
    ‘If
I wanted to get a tattoo, where would I go?’
    I
hold the iPod out in front of her, but pull it back as she reaches for it.
    ‘We
only have one tattoo parlour, but it’s rough as hell. It’s on West Street.’
    I
hand her back her iPod and take one last look at my beautiful dress before
hopping in one of the empty taxis waiting outside the hotel. Dylan will be
getting my bill for today, don’t you worry about it.
    ‘West
Street, please,’ I tell the driver.
    He
looks at me in the rear view mirror. ‘Pretty young thing like you don’t want to
be going down West Street alone.’
    ‘Thanks,
I’ll be fine. West Street,’ I tell him bluntly – a little too bluntly perhaps,
because he drives me straight