Girls Who Play Guitars

•you are a punk angel•

Ellie shook the thought away.

Her supposedly more mature sister, Coral, smoked a massive jay in front of her.

"What would Mum say to you right now, Coral?" Ellie shook her head.

"Can I have some of that?" Coral let out one of her deep hoots of laughter as she passed the joint on to Meg.

Without lifting her head from James's shoulder, Meg took a toke and passed the durry to James. "Your olds are the best ever."

"When I grow old  ...  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled," James purred, examining the spliff with huge, brown eyes from under his shining locks. "T. S. Eliot."

Ellie took another gulp of cold beer and pointed at him with the neck of the bottle. "Hate to break it to you, sailor, but your trousers are already rolled."

James gave her a lazy smile before he waved a hand towards the door. "Aha! The man of the moment." Ellie turned to see Daniel make his highly anticipated entrance. "That boffin knows turning up late gets him the most attention," James drawled.

The beer in Ellie's empty stomach swirled as she noticed a change come over the room. Wearing an expensive looking navy-blue t-shirt and baggy jeans, Daniel made his way through the crowd, golden hair ruffled to perfection, cigarette hanging from his pouty lips, eyes sparked and lively. Everyone stood a little straighter as he neared them. Women pushed their boobs out and their hair back as he passed. Ellie watched how they eyed him over their drinks, lips parted, cheeks flushed. The men did the same.

It wasn't enough that Glue's other band members were here - or Slider. Daniel was the man everyone wanted to see, and he was well versed in working a room - charismatic and addictive. Everyone wanted him to come over, talk to them, high-five and slap them on the back, share a joke. Everyone wanted to be touched by what he had.

Ellie glugged her beer and turned away from The Daniel Show to see Ash gazing up at her with those green eyes she'd coveted for so long. Except now he was here, she wondered if maybe she'd wasted the last four years thinking about him.

It was time to put the past behind her.

It was time to let Kombi Van Man go.

Ellie flicked her thumb at the door. "Let's talk," she said to Ash who raised his bronze eyebrows at her.

"Good for you," Kim said, patting Ellie's hand but Ellie brushed her away.

She fixed her stare on Ash; tilted her head towards the door.

Ash finally pushed himself out of the chair and Ellie passed her beer to Coral.

"I won't be long," Ellie said to her sister. "Make sure you're nice to everyone."

Avoiding the stares of Meg and James, Ellie made her way through the crowd with Ash, her boots thudding across the cigarette-singed, sticky carpet in time with her beating heart.

All she needed to do was find out why Ash was here, make sure he apologised to her for being such a dick, then tell him to leave.

She'd already spent too long thinking about him.

When they got out into the stark white corridor, Ash grabbed her hand. "Wait," he smiled. "I know where we can go."

Ellie shook herself free. "Where?"

"My van."

Ellie blinked at how ridiculous this sounded. "Your van?"

Ash's green eyes were washed with flecks of gold. Ellie had forgotten that until one verse in 'Green' came back to her.

"It's right outside. Meg got me a parking pass."

Ellie lifted her chin to the ceiling as her heart slopped around inside her chest. There really wasn't anywhere they could go where they wouldn't be interrupted - apart from the bogs, and Ellie didn't fancy that. She let out a sigh. "Fine."

She led Ash through the whitewashed halls to where a security guard stood by the exit, jabbering electronic voices from his walky-talky echoing around the walls. He waved them through once Ellie confirmed he would let them back inside again.

The air outside was still warm and Ellie checked for paparazzi lurking at the stage door entrance. Thankfully, there were none. Across the nearly empty car park, she made out Ash's Kombi van parked under the bright glow of a security light but it was no longer a rusty old wreck. It was shiny and sleek and freshly restored.

Even still, it caused Ellie to stop on the spot, her heart banging hard as if she'd added a boost pedal to it.

Ellie could handle this.

She'd handled The Pig on stage in Germany, hadn't she?

If she could handle a Marshall amp with 200 watts of sheer noise perfection that caused her intestines to shudder as she struck her first chord, she could handle this.

"You've still got the same fuckin' van?"

"It's a classic," Ash said, giving Ellie a small grin.

"How many other people have you rooted in that bloody van, anyway?"

Ash shrugged and gave her a small smile.

Even in the stark security light, the shadows that fell across his face took her right back to one of the most meaningful moments in her life. Even though he didn't seem to surf much anymore, Ellie could still smell a distant saltiness on him; that underlying spiciness that had driven her teenage hormones mad.

"Why are you here?" she asked, crossing her arms to steady herself from moving any closer to the Kombi. "After all this time? You know my sister. It was one simple phone call."

Ash's gaze softened on hers. "I know I hurt you."

Even though Ellie didn't want them to, pricks of tears burned in the corners of her eyes. "Did you make all that shit up you said to me that weekend?"

Ash glanced across the car park to where a gleaming silver Holden Commodore was parked next to the Kombi, before looking back at Ellie. "I don't know what I said but I want you to know I'm not that guy any more. I've got a proper job. A house—"

"Care factor zero." Ellie folded her arms tighter around herself to give herself the strength to say what she had to say to him. "You think I enjoyed how you pissed off without saying goodbye? You  ...  we  ...  " Her shoulders wilted, and she pressed her hands to her chest where it hurt the most. "It was  ...  special—"

"I know."

"—and you ruined it."

"We were young." Ash looked down at his tan loafers before sending an enquiring gaze back to Ellie. "You must've been with a hundred people since me?"

There was no way Ellie could tell Ash he was the only one.

"Why? Just tell me why," she sputtered, lifting her eyes to find him looking at her with a deep, soft tenderness that could have parted waves.