The tour

Chapter 26

'It's so nice of Michael to let us all have the night off!' Kelly almost sang to herself as she sat in front of the mirror applying make up.

After the rehearsals Michael had informed the entire crew that they weren't on duty until 19.30 at night. The warmup was to start at eight, and Michael would go on around nine-nine thirty, which left them plenty of time to get ready. He then told everyone that he had made reservations at a fancy sushi restaurant in downtown for everyone.

'Because,' as he had said to everyone during rehearsal,

'What's the fun in being in a new country if you can't explore what it has to offer?'

He had then winked to Kristina, making her stomach churn.

'Yeah, that's really nice of him,' Kristina said absentmindedly.

She wasn't sure if Michael was coming to the restaurant as well. If he wasn't, she kind of wanted to spend some time with him. She was already in need of his presence again and the way he made her feel when he was, but he had disappeared straight after rehearsals and she hadn't seen him since.

A knock on their door made Kelly stand up and open it. Kristina could see the confusion in her eyes, but she couldn't see who was at the door.

'Can I help you?' Kelly asked with a wary look at the stranger.

'I'm looking for Kristina,' he answered with a dark voice.

Kelly shot Kristina a questioning look which Kristina answered with a shrug and lifted eyebrows as she got up and walked to the door. On the other side was a man whom she had never seen before in her entire life. His skin was dark like a Mexicans and he had a black pornstache and bushy eyebrows. His hair was tugged away under a LA Lakers-cap and you couldn't see his eyes because of a pair of cheap black sunglasses. He was wearing worn out jeans and a green lumberjack shirt. Kristina looked at him, trying to remember. Who the hell was this guy and why did he know her name?

'Hi...?' she said in a doubting and small voice, feeling a bit creeped out by the stranger.

At that moment Kelly looked into her phone and the stranger lifted the sunglasses revealing Michael's beautiful brown eyes. Kristina couldn't help but smack her hands to her lips and start laughing with big eyes. That was a good disguise!

'Oh my God... José!' she said after quickly giving the disguised Michael a name and hugged him.

'What are you doing here, and how did you know I was here?'

'Wait, you two know each other?' Kelly asked with a frown looking between the odd couple. Admittedly, 'José' didn't look like someone a nice girl like Kristina would know.

'Uh, yeah! We-uh... We...' Kristina tried and looked at Michael with desperate eyes.

'I'm a friend from Denmark!' he said in his dark altered voice.

'We used to play in a band together, and now I work here, so I wanted to meet up. Surprise!' he said and put his arms out.

'What a surprise indeed!' Kristina said in a high pitched voice.

'You wanna go out for coffee?' José asked and Kristina quickly followed his trail of thought.

'Well, actually, Mr. Jackson invited the entire crew out for sushi, right Kelly? So I already have plans unfortunately.'

'Oh, come on Kris, I'm sure Michael will understand. You should enjoy a night off by doing what you want!' Kelly answered but still shot José a suspicious look.

'Yeah maybe you're right, I mean, you did come all the way in here to meet me,' she said to José who nodded.

'Would you tell everyone that I'll be at the stadium at 19.30?' she asked Kelly while she grabbed her bag.