say hello wave goodbye

17: we'll go to sleep but this time not alone (1980)

January 1980

As soon as the flight attendant announced that they could get out of their seats, Stevie was up and headed to the other side of the airplane.

Like always, she had been late arriving at the airport due to...oh, who knows why. She doesn't even remember now. But unlike most of their trips, this time the band was flying commercial, meaning the plane wasn't going to wait around for her. She had ran down the ramp right as the door was closing, giving her just enough time to stow her luggage and collapse into her seat before they took off.

It was certainly no accident that she was assigned to sit as far away from Lindsey as possible within the confines of the first class cabin. She could see the top of his head from across the aisles, but what really caught her attention was the short dark hair of his seatmate.

"Look who decided to show up!" Richard joked, standing up to hug her. "JC was shitting kittens, y'know."

"Yeah, yeah, he should expect it from me by now. Happy new year...how was your vacation?" she asked as she returned the hug.

"Cancun was very good to me. The tequila, the senoritas..." He gestured not so subtly toward the now empty seat next to Lindsey. "Hey, why don't you sit down for a while? We'll trade."

"Are you sure? I don't wanna kick you out."

"Course I'm sure. It'll give me another chance to shoot my shot with the lovely Ms. Sharon," he said with a wink, and then he was gone.

Stevie sat down beside Lindsey, still looking around. "Where's Carol?"

"What, that's the first thing you have to say to me?" Lindsey asked, chuckling. "No 'hi Lindsey, it's nice to see you'? Nothing?"

She laughs along with him, giving his arm a squeeze. "Hello there. But seriously- she's not here?"

"If I knew you were gonna miss her..." He shakes his head, still amused. "She had a couple of jobs lined up so she's staying back here. She'll meet up with us again in Australia."

"Oh, that's...too bad," she says, not bothering to hide her pleased smile.

Lindsey holds back his own grin, although he's just as happy as Stevie. It wasn't that he and Carol were having problems, per se- at least, no more than usual. But their constant togetherness was wearing on his nerves, so when she got the opportunity to do some modeling gigs in February, he insisted that she take them even if it meant she'd have to miss the Japanese leg of the tour.

Going on the road without her was something he hadn't done since the first month of the Rumours tour. Not that he'd admit it to anyone but himself, but he was too much of a pussy to face Stevie all alone day after day. Even the hassle of having to find the right time and place for them to sneak away when he did want to see her was preferable to having to see her live her new life without Carol at his side to serve as a shield and a distraction. Also, she really pissed Stevie off, and he will admit to enjoying that.

But while he was on vacation, he did a lot of thinking about everything that had happened between Stevie and him during the first portion of the tour. One thing he kept coming back to was the late night talk they'd had in their New York City hotel while their respective partners were asleep upstairs. They'd been honest with each other in a way that they hadn't been for a very long time, and for weeks afterward their relationship was as good as it had ever been post-breakup. She had mentioned during the conversation that she thought Carol made it harder for them to be friends, what with her being ever-present and ever-jealous. He brushed it off at the time, but as he thought more about it, he realized she was probably kinda right.