Girls Who Play Guitars

•i feel like i know you•

Nodding to the beefy security guy, Ellie dodged out of the tent. The sun had gone down and the evening air had turned cool. It was brisk after the stuffy crushed grass, stale beer, cigarettes and body odour aroma inside the tent. Dance music thumped off in the distance while Glue's crew finished setting up their gear.

She shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her jeans and in her beat-up boots, forged across the grass towards Slider's tour bus past the peering eyes of ambling hangers-on, searching for Sam. As she neared the bus, she creased her forehead trying to work through what Sam's problem with the magazine would be—

"Shit!"

"Bugger!"

"What the fuck are you doing?" Ellie twisted to check the shoulder of her t-shirt wasn't singed while the person she'd collided with bent his head to brush cigarette ash off his baggy blue jeans.

"Having a leisurely smoke," he said, flicking his bent cigarette onto the grass to squash it under the toe of his white trainer. "Until you threw yourself at me—"

"I didn't 'throw' myself at you," Ellie seethed, wiping a dusting of ash from her arm.

"Of course. Ellie Devine wouldn't throw herself at just anyone."

She lifted her eyes.

It was the singer from Glue - manufactured indie pop prince extraordinaire Daniel Armstrong. The same Daniel Armstrong on the cover of Tattler that Ellie really needed a copy of.

He smiled.

Ellie stared.

Huge, childlike blue eyes surrounded by sweeping dark lashes were topped off with scruffy blond locks. His face was all smooth lines and curved edges, reminding Ellie of the Rickenbacker with the Maple Glo finish she'd run her palm greedily over in a music shop in Paris only a week ago. Slim under loose jeans, in a perfectly fitted navy t-shirt and navy sports top, Daniel Armstrong was beautifully casual—but considered—slouchy indifference. No wonder teenage girls wet their pants over him.

Ellie dropped her eyes as goosebumps rose on her arms.

But also, he was about to perform in front of thousands of screaming fans and he was just standing around? Ellie would be crapping her dacks if she wasn't ready at least an hour before show time with her tech rider checked off by as many people she could find to check it off.

"Cutting it fine, aren't you?" she said, going to push past him to get to the door of her bus.

"What's life without a little risk?" Daniel shrugged and shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans.

On the breeze, Ellie caught his aftershave underneath the acrid cigarette smell—something expensive, minty—cool, clean.

His eyes lingered on her face before he let out a soft laugh and tugged a hand from his pocket, rubbing at his golden hair where it stuck up in tousled tufts. "What's rather amusing about this situation"—he grinned and revealed the flash of a crooked front tooth—"is that I've read quite a lot about you. So, even though we've never met, I feel like I know you—"

"Really? That's your line?" Ellie creased her nose. 

Daniel raised his eyebrows and Ellie peered at him more closely, noticing the way his nose tip crooked to the side a tad. While Santa Claus had definitely given him more than a double album's worth of charisma for Christmas, he definitely wasn't a Rickenbacker. Take away the expensive haircut and student-cool clothes and he could easily pivot right into goofy-looking Tonika territory, the only guitar in the world Ellie couldn't bring herself to play.

Anyway.

She didn't have time to ogle this  ...  creature.

She had things to do.

Places to be.

A manager to find and interrogate.

Ellie threw her glance at the door of the bus behind Daniel. "I really should—"

A commotion near the tents caused them both to turn.

Two dark figures appeared at the side of the V.I.P. tent.

"Looks like my babysitters have arrived," Daniel said with a sigh.

Relieved he was finally going to leave her alone, Ellie stepped closer to the door. "Well, I'm sure you'll crush it on stage."

Pushing his hands deeper into his pockets, Daniel leaned towards her and Ellie got another whiff of that fresh scent. "Come and watch?"

"Can't, sorry." Ellie wished he would get a move on and away from her. "I've got shitloads of things to—"

The tour bus door clanged open.

Meg jumped down the steps, black hair flying around her, dressed in a red sequined jumpsuit, flared pants tucked into gleaming red gumboots.

Ellie would never have let her wear that combo on stage - it was off the punk rock Slider brand scale.

Slamming the door, Meg clocked Ellie and bounded over. She held her pant legs out wide and spun around, sparkles glittering across the three of their faces. "I'm so spangly right now!" When she realised Daniel Armstrong stood next to Ellie, bemused grin across his face, Meg scanned him up and down before folding her arms. "Shouldn't you be somewhere kinda important?" She looked towards the stage with scolding eyes.

"Yes, I should. But then I'd have missed out on seeing how spangly you are." Daniel winked at Ellie.

She glared back at him.

Nobody winks at Ellie Devine.

Meg poked Daniel's shoulder with her black fingernail. "I told Ellie you were a spunk-rat, Glue man, didn't I, Ellie?"

Ellie tightened her mouth as Daniel's amused eyes cruised back to hers.

There was a bustle behind them as the search party arrived, relief sweeping over their faces as they politely, but firmly, asked Daniel to "get a fuckin' move on".

"You better be at the after-party with your chunka-hunka band mates," Meg said with her hands on her hips. "Or I'll come find you."

Daniel touched Ellie's arm above her elbow.

Ellie tensed; crossed her arms.

"I'll see you there?" he asked.

Ellie caught his eye; looked away, her arm throbbing where he'd touched her. She rubbed at it to get rid of whatever he'd left there.

No. She would not be seeing him 'there' or anywhere, or whatever he was implying.

"Dead set you will!" Meg answered before grabbing Ellie's hand, drawing Ellie's attention from Daniel's smooth grin as he turned away. "I can't find that copy of Tattler anywhere, Ellie! And something's really wrong with Sam. He's been acting like a derro for days."

Ellie watched Daniel saunter off towards the stage with his entourage..

"Ellie?" Meg tugged at her hand.

"Yeah? Yes." Ellie focused back on Meg. "Can you find Sam? Tell him to come to the bus?" 

As Meg bounced across the grass in her shiny suit and went inside the V.I.P. tent, in the distance the holding music on the Main Stage faded and the screams of the crowd rose. Ellie pictured Daniel Armstrong bounding up the steps to the stage. He'd have that nonchalant grin as he headed towards the microphone, the bellowing crowd blowing those messy tufts of his hair across his forehead—

Ellie pressed at her temples.

Daniel Armstrong wasn't even that hot.

Those bushy eyebrows reminded Ellie of the moth-eaten dead cat on the mic in the studio she'd recorded Slider's biggest hit, 'Green', in. He didn't even write his own songs whereas Ellie's songs burst from her like a fireball from her belly and battered waves over the tops of one-hundred-foot cliffs.

Right now, Ellie had way more important things to think about than schmoozing winking 'players' like Daniel Fuckin' Armstrong.