Girls Who Play Guitars

•you're not that pretty•

"Ellie! Wait—"

Ellie flinched as she felt Daniel's hand on her arm.

She shook him off and continued to stalk across the flattened grass back to Slider's trailer. She hoped Sam had gone to ping himself off on some dodgy e's so she could pack her things and find Lachy who could drive her back to the hotel.

"Devine!" Daniel called, his footsteps crunching across the grass after hers.

No wonder his band was called Glue. He was so sticky. Why couldn't he leave her alone? Didn't he realise she was half stoned and as angry as Angus Young's ferocious guitar lick on 'Hells Bells'?

Ellie swung around. She wasn't exactly in the mood to have him flutter his eyelashes and wink at her. "Why are you following me? Go back to your boyband and  ...  and  ...  get your fuckin' hair done or something!"

Daniel stopped, the perfect mess of his hair lifting in the cool breeze. With his navy sports top zipped right up under his chin, his skin was pale and his eyes bright under the moonlight.

Ellie folded her arms. She dug her toe against the damp ground causing a clump of turf to lift. "Sorry. Things are a bit ..."

"Bonkers?"

Ellie lifted her eyes.

After fumbling in his jeans' pocket, Daniel pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes.

He held it out to her.

Waving him away, Ellie stared up at the stars and thought how much bigger the sky was in Australia. Back home in Port Lagan the stars were a bazillion clear, diamond-white pinpricks in a deep, endless, velvet blackness. Here their twinkling glow seemed stifled, covered by a hazy film. Not just tonight. It had been like this nearly the whole time she'd lived in London.

She let out a sigh and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "If you must know, I have a dickhead of a manager."

Daniel tugged a cigarette out of the packet and propped it between his lips. "Anything I can do?" he asked, cigarette wiggling between his lips as he spoke.

Ellie wrinkled her nose. "What are you? Some kind of popstar superhero?"

Daniel foraged in his pockets again. "There are worse things to be, I'm sure."

"Oh? Like a record company puppet, maybe?"

Sparking up his lighter, Daniel cupped his hand around the orange flame as he breathed in. "Didn't realise my offer of help would turn into a statement about the music industry."

"Come on." Ellie flicked her thick fringe back. "Let's be honest here. Someone else writes all those new songs you keep putting out, don't they? Songs designed to appeal to the masses?"

Daniel breathed a long plume of smoke into the sky before he looked down at Ellie, a low chuckle rumbling in his throat. He rubbed at his chin as he shoved the lighter and cigarette pack back into his pocket. "Shouldn't all songs be written to appeal to the masses?"

Ellie took a breath. The acrid cigarette smoke mingled with Daniel's aftershave and the cold, fat smell of squashed grass, mud and night time seemed to blur her thoughts.

"Song writing shouldn't be about ... making the big bucks," she tried to clarify. "I'm not in it for the money."

Tiny sparks flew from Daniel's cigarette as he took another drag and bent toward her. "What are you in it for, then?"

"The music," she implored.

Daniel's soft laugh forced Ellie to flick her eyes across the curves of his face, trying to work him out.