~HOTEL LOBBY, BRISBANE~
"I need to talk to you." Brenin stood in front of Ellie dressed in his trendy, highly expensive, coordinated black jeans and casual jacket, clutching a roll of faxes. He slapped a roll of faxes against his palm, his expression flat.
Ellie sat in the plush hotel lobby with her boots resting on the glass coffee table. She had been tapping her pen on her notebook for at least thirty minutes, trying to force some kind of inspiration as she waited for their taxi to take them to the airport. But the weight of what Ash had done and the way Kim had been so quiet and disengaged from her the previous night pressed down on her thoughts.
Ellie dropped her feet and closed the book shut, slid her pen inside its cover. "This looks serious. Do we need Meg and Kim? I think they're still upstairs packing."
Exactly as Ellie predicted, Meg reverted to her normal self as soon as she jumped out of bed and vowed never to go near James again. And while Meg gave Ellie sly looks and little grins and tried to talk about Glue while they had their breakfast, Kim had been quiet, hidden behind her sunglasses, not engaging in the banter.
Brenin shook his head. "This is between you and me." He sat in the armchair next to her and passed across the bundle of rolled up faxes. "And, so it seems, someone called ... Ash Miller."
Ellie's stomach dropped as she peered at the coiled paper, then back at Brenin.
Brenin pointed at the faxes, mouth set in a firm line.
Ellie rested her notebook on her knees and unfurled the thin paper with shaking fingers. It was a bunch of photocopied newspaper articles. As she scanned through, her fingers trembled as she skimmed the words and images. The biggest tabloid papers in the U.K. and Australia were all reporting one thing and one thing only.
"Holy shit."
"You could say that."
~Secret's Out: Ellie's First Love Tells All~
In an exclusive interview, the swoonable Ash Miller, a 22-year-old ex-surfer from South African's coastal city of Durban, revealed he is sexy singer/guitarist Ellie Devine's first love and that he still owns the van she lost her virginity in.
Speaking from Brisbane, Australia, Ash told Tattler he met Devine when he was an eighteen-year-old surf bum travelling around the country. Miller said he spent a raunchy weekend in his Kombi van in Port Lagan with the rock-and-roll hottie where they 'smoked pot, made love and spoke about the meaning of life'.
'It was a week after Ellie's sixteenth birthday,' Miller recalls. 'She was a schoolgirl with no tattoos, big hair and big pants. I had a surfboard, a wetsuit and a Kombi van. And that was all she seemed to need that weekend.'
Miller believes the blonde bombshell—who Miller remembers as serious dark-haired beauty with an underlying sense of humour—seemed to be looking for love. 'She was really naïve about that sort of thing, so it was lucky I was there to be her guide. But she wasn't naïve about music. She told me she wanted to write music that changed the world. I know now that I was the inspiration she needed to write such powerful songs.'
According to Miller, the feisty but reclusive Devine, celebrating her twenty-first birthday this week, was happy to catch up in his van for a canoodle for old time's sake when she returned to Australia with her band Slider after a two-year hiatus. On tour with U.K. British indie pop sensation Glue, the usually guarded Devine surprisingly chose to leave the tantalising prince of pop Daniel Armstrong well alone to snuggle up with her old flame instead.
'He's the love of my life,' Ellie allegedly said about her romance with Miller. 'We shared a special moment and that Kombi is where it all began for me. I can honestly say, Ash has always been the biggest influence on all of my songs and it's time everyone knew it.'
***
If Ellie looked at the photo and distanced herself from it, pretended it wasn't her and Ash, she would have thought it was a sweet image. A good-looking Ash with his arms wrapped tenderly around Ellie as she rested her cheek against his chest with her eyes closed. Ash's gentle, thoughtful expression implied he was caring for Ellie in a way that went beyond a mutual goodbye hug in a car park.
Ellie could see his van behind them.
That fucking van!
"Isn't there any other news going on in the world right now?" Ellie's voice trembled as she rolled the paper back up and handed the wad back to Brenin.
Ellie couldn't tell whether Brenin was upset or curious or disappointed.
"Yeah, Princess Di got a haircut," Brenin said, then tapped the paper on Ellie's knee. "What's the story?"
Ellie shrugged, fiddling with the spiral binding on her notebook. "There is no story."
"Ellie, come on," Brenin sighed. "Everyone saw you leave with him last night. If you guys are together—"
"We're not together."
"Okay. What then? I need to know so our P.R. department can manage the response. With Jessie and Sam, there's a lot of media coverage that could make or break Slider right now—"
"I knew that guy once," Ellie said through tight lips. "Now I don't. That's all there is to it."
Brenin's eyes narrowed, and he looked over Ellie's face. "If that's what this is," he eventually said, "fine. But don't lose focus, will you? We need to keep our eye on the tour and what's happening with Jessie."
No distractions.
Ellie blew her cheeks up and pursed her lips, staring off behind Brenin's head to where two business execs strode out of the lifts and across the white marble floor, swinging their briefcases mechanically in time together.
"Does anyone else know?" she asked, her eyes back on Brenin.
Brenin rubbed his chin with his chunky fingers. "Meaning Kim and Meg?"
Ellie didn't know what to say.
Kim and Meg would find out eventually and she could tell them the truth.
It was Daniel she worried about.
Would he think she lied to him?
Would he think Ellie had been with Ash in her hotel room last night?
Brenin leaned back in his seat, studying Ellie's flushed face. "We share all the media hits with the band every morning."
Ellie pushed her fingers into her forehead and sunk lower in her seat, picturing Daniel flipping open the folder that held his day's schedule and copies of all his media mentions coming across this article.
"This probably isn't what you want to hear right now" — Brenin tapped the faxes against his chiselled chin — "but have a think about spending more time with Daniel, or Gav. The publicity we could do off the back of those photos would be better."
Ellie sat up straight and gave Brenin a steely stare. "I am not a publicity stunt."
Brenin peered at her as his slate-grey eyes went back to normal. "It's better to have control over what gets said than lose control."
Ellie clamped her mouth closed and grasped for her pen; opened her notebook.
Brenin rested his hands on his knees and tried one more time. "If you need my help I'm here. It's my job to look out for you and protect you from ... creeps like this Ash Miller guy."
"You can look out for things like court cases and contracts and tours and marketing the band." Ellie's hands quivered as she flipped through the pages of her book, avoiding Brenin's eyes. But she couldn't focus on the words on the page in front of her as she wondered whether she should have gone to Brenin last night and stop his whole Ash palaver.
Too late now.
When Brenin pressed himself up from the seat, Ellie breathed out.
"Speaking of court cases"—Brenin folded his arms across his muscular chest as he towered over her—"did you remember to tell Meg and Kim not to go anywhere near Jessie or Sam?"
Ellie widened her eyes and tapped her pen against her temple; quirked her head to the side. "Did you remember I have a brain?"
Brenin firmed his eyes on hers. "You know how important this is, right, Ellie?"
"I think I've worked that out, don't you, Brenin?" Ellie said, glaring at his power shift into being the big suit man.
Brenin clasped his square chin between his thumb and forefinger, keeping his eyes on Ellie, who eyeballed him back, willing him to break the stare before she did.
Brenin's gaze stayed firm and true on hers.
"We managed this band okay before you got here," Ellie eventually mumbled, dropping her eyes back to her notebook to see Daniel's sweet note flare up at her from the pages.
Brenin pulled another wad of squashed faxes out of his back pocket and tossed them into Ellie's lap. "You might want to take a look at these reviews of last night's show."
Ellie picked the faxes up, then held them back out to Brenin. "I know that crowd hated us and we warned you about our fans being different from Glue's—"
Brenin tapped the bundle of faxes against her hand. "I'm sorry, Ellie but things don't always go the way you want."
Ellie snatched the faxes from Brenin's hands and shoved them inside her notebook. "I'll read them on the plane."
"And we'll talk about tonight's show later, yes?" Brenin nodded, raising his eyebrow.
Ellie pursed her lips. "It's my band, Brenin."
"I know that, Ellie," Brenin said. "So let's work together, huh? I know we can do great things together. So let's get on the same page."
Ellie huffed down in her chair and slid her pen out of her notebook, cheeks aflame. The problem was, she knew Brenin was right. She just didn't feel like agreeing with him because she was having such a shit day and she knew it was only going to get worse.
***
~Slider/Glue – Brisbane Forum~
Playing the support slot to Glue at the sold-out Brisbane Forum on Friday night even Slider's two U.K. number one hits, and number one debut album, still couldn't convince Glue fans of Slider's brilliance. For those who've followed the band for the last five years, you'll know a Slider gig is usually an epic experience filled with grit and gusto that ends with ringing ears and yearning for more. With the media-hype surrounding the band's first return to Australia, the question on everyone's lips was whether our home-grown three-piece could hold their own against the princes of British guitar-pop, Glue.
We all know Slider has brought a fresh twist to the unquestioning egotism of male bands we're used to seeing. With their lean, impetuous punk-pop, Slider's roots bridge surf, garage and punk rock. They're not Riot Grrls and can't be part of the new British wave because of their Aussie-ness. Most importantly, everyone thought they were on the verge being the most likely band to create a new genre. Their clever ability to write songs that teeter across swaggering, pumping bass lines and maniacal guitar solos before morphing into smooth, moody streams of consciousness made them stand out in a sea of sameness.
But the crowd at the Brisbane Forum was bored by our favourite up-and-comer. The real Slider seemed to be a no-go zone. The usually energetic, throaty-voiced, charismatic twenty-year-old Ellie Devine on vocals and guitar appeared distracted and lack lustre, barely engaging with the audience. Top selling single and ever-loved 'Green' was played at such a rapid rate the genius naivety and authenticity of the song was scarcely hinted at before Devine crashed head-long into their latest biggest hit 'North' which hurtled along with muscle. Before the yawning crowd knew it, the set was over and done.
While many will be unaware that two years from now they'll wish they'd paid more attention, perhaps Slider shouldn't have breezed carelessly through a support gig in their home country, where many of the audience paid the high price of Glue to see them. Leaving the stadium, aggrieved fans remonstrated about Devine's insistent promotion of the fanciable, well-versed Glue who, of course, strutted across that stage with their flashy sound and light show as expected. Were Glue impressive? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Glue were bold and beautiful; perfect. Just as you'd expect them to be. Challenging? No, that should have been Slider. Let's hold out for the next show and see if they can get over their jet-lag.