Stood side stage Dex watched the warm up act, something he usually avoided. He didn't want any one in the crowd to see him and ruin his big entrance later on and watching just amplified his nerves by 1000! He was already sweating an un-humanly amount, his fringe had begun to stick to his forehead, he attempted to brush it back up on top of his head, wiping sweat from his forehead in his sleeve.
He downed a little bit more vodka from the bottle in his other hand, hoping it would steady his nerves.
"Alright man?" Asked Jesse as he came and stood beside him, beer bottles in both hands!
"Yeah" replied Dex
"I hate these tiny venues, the crowd is too close to the stage" groaned Dex. The more famous he became the more nervous he felt about his audience being close enough to touch him, he feared at some point he would be pulled off stage, he'd come close a few times already, teenage girls were crazy!
"I know, but Mac will be down at the front, ya'll be aright" said Jesse reassuringly. Jesse couldn't stand still, as Dex looked up at him he polished off the second beer bottle!
"Go steady man, I might get pulled off stage but you're gonna fall off if you drink any more!" Joked Dex, though he was half serious! Jesse laughed
"I'm alright" he smiled
Dex' attention returned to the band on stage finishing their set. He had to go on soon and no matter how amazing, how talented and how confident he was on stage waiting to go on always terrified him, it never got any easier. The anticipation was his enemy. He needed to get on soon before the nerves ate away at him.
He jumped as he felt someone touch him, wrapping arms around his waist,
"Hey baby" whispered a voice in his ear. As he turned to look over his shoulder his smile was almost a reflex as he laid eyes on Millie. He turned around instantly throwing his arms around her and squeezing her in tight. Millie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, taking in the smell of his sweat that she loved! It smelled like HIM! It was the smell she missed the second after he left her, every single time.
"What are you doing here?" Asked Dex, pulling back from her for a second to look at her face.
"I missed you" she said shyly, she still turned into a nervous wreck every time she saw him!
"Ah I missed you too" he replied, pulling her in tight to him again. Millie glanced over at Jesse stood next to them, his stare glued to the band on stage he hadn't even acknowledged Millie.
"Alright Jess?" She said, Jesse didn't answer he was in the middle of necking another drink, with a full bottle still in his other hand, he looked a mess, she thought, watching him as he polished off the last of the drink he turned to her briefly for a second, avoiding eye contact
"A'ight" he replied unenthusiastically
'He's such a dick!' Thought Millie 'and he's always drunk!'. Despite him being really good looking, Millie had taken a disliking to Jesse, he was rude and arrogant and it was obvious to her that he didn't like her! She had no idea why but he did nothing to try to hide the fact that he obviously didn't like her being there with Dex. Despite her need for everyone to like her, she wasn't all that bothered about him.
She really tried hard to fit in with Dex and his friends, she wanted them to like her and to believe she was good enough for him, or at least she wanted to convince herself of it! But Jesse, just didn't seem worth the effort.
Dex was agitated, she'd not seen him right before a show before and he didn't seem like himself, his eyes were glazed, he wasn't quite there, as Millie spoke to him it was as if he was looking right through her, his mind was completely somewhere else, it was like he was high. Millie hoped that he wasn't! With that thought planted in her mind she began to question herself. Did she really know him? Really? Would she even know? She hadn't known him long and being who he was he had access to anything he wanted, she wasn't with him a lot so it would be easy for him to do anything he wanted without her knowing, she knew Jesse had to be taking something, what if they all did? What if that was just a normal part of their lifestyle. It was a whole other world to what Millie knew. Maybe he'd taken something because he assumed Millie was in England. Cate had mentioned something about him taking drugs a long time ago, Millie wondered if she was just ignoring the signs because she didn't want it to be true! She suddenly felt a little bit sick, she began to wish she hadn't flown out, she'd rather she wasn't there to see whatever he was doing.
She looked at Dex, he was watching the band on stage, he seemed nervous, he was jumpy and couldn't keep still on his feet, his hands were constantly moving, his whole body fidgeting like a child on a sugar high! She looked at his face, his eyes were wide and despondent, sweat was running down his forehead, his hair already stuck to him before he'd even gone on stage!
'That's it, isn't it' thought Millie, He's on drugs, they all are' she thought, looking over at Jesse who didn't even look like he knew what time of day it was! Millie's excitement quickly faded, replaced with anger and disappointment, she despised drugs! She'd been in an abusive relationship with a drug addict in the past and it was not something she was willing to repeat! She was too old for the drama, violence and heartache that came with it.
They were minutes away from going on stage, Dex downed the rest of his drink, putting the bottle down he turned to Millie and put his arms around her. She turned her head away.
"Are you alright?" He asked, confused by her response.
"Yeah, you just..uh, stink of alcohol" she replied, trying not to make too much of an issue of anything right before he had to go on stage
"Oh" he smiled
"Sorry babe" he added, leaning in to kiss her. She kissed him back and forced a smile, now wasn't the time to deal with it.
"ONE MINUTE GUYS" yelled their security manager Mac, he approached Dex, holding out his hand, Dex took his mobile phone from his pocket
"Mil can keep my phone" Said Dex, handing it over to her. Mac always took their phones before a performance, partly to look after them, Dex' phone flying out of his pocket and into the audience would be a catastrophic invasion of his privacy but he took them away more to remove the distraction, Dex had been known to send a text mid-show! More than once, much to Mac's annoyance
Mac didn't say anything, but he shot Dex a look of annoyance.
"I gotta go baby" said Dex,
"Watch me" he said, Millie just nodded as he was led away to another part of backstage to get ready to go on.
She sighed heavily. Feeling disappointed that this felt like it had to be the beginning of the end.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed someone come and stand next to her, she glanced over, a tall, thin lady stood beside her, Millie had no idea who she was or why she was backstage for the Craze show. The lady looked over at Millie, she smiled.
"Hi" smiled Millie, just being polite.
"Hi, you must be Millie, right?" Said the lady
"Uh, yeah, I am" replied Millie, confused
"Ah, I've heard a lot about you" she replied, Millie noticed her American accent as she continued to speak.
"I'm Catherine, well just Cat" she smiled, Millie was still none the wiser which must have been evident on her face prompting Cat to add
"Jesse's fiancée"
"Ahh, hi!" Said Millie, finally in the loop.
"It's good to meet you, and have another female to talk to!" Laughed Millie
"Dex has mentioned you, great to put a face to the name" she replied. As a fellow band members girlfriend she felt an instant connection to Cat, very few people, certainly no one in her own circle of friends knew what it was like to date someone in the job Dex was in, trying to survive a long distance relationship, plane-hopping from country to country, living out of hotel rooms, having to deal with fans, lusting after your boyfriend and sending you hate messages and a constant stream of abuse! It was tough and none of Millie's friends quite understood
Looking at Cat Millie couldn't quite understand why she would be with Jesse! She was stunning, she looked older than Millie, she guessed early 30's, she was tall and slim, model like. With long straight blonde hair. She looked smartly dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a cropped leather jacket with a gorgeous floral scarf tied loosely around her neck. She looked very up together - which was the opposite of what she would describe Jesse as!
"Woah, he's hit the jackpot there" thought Millie. Her attention returned to the stage as Craze was announced to eruptions of cheers and teenage shrieking. Millie winced. It really was a decibel higher than her ageing ears could take, even despite all of the practice from Sophie's shrieking.
She glanced over at Cat who was screwing up her face, frozen still as if to be waiting for the noise to pass before breathing again. Millie smiled.
Dex was his usual high-energy puppy dog, bounding about the stage, delivering exactly what his fans wanted. He was like a puppet master, every time he smiled the entire room screamed. Most of them were only around 14/15 years old, she didn't fully understand why they all loved him so much, sure he was cute and flirty and there was no denying his voice was incredible but these girls were half his age! To Millie the thought of wanting a man in his 30's when she was 15 was repulsive! With so many pretty little 18-year-old boy bands around she didn't really get the appeal Dex had to them, he was no match to One Direction surely?
But there was definitely something they saw in him; the noise level was constant affirmation of that! As were the two-thirds of the front row that were crying!
Millie's eyes moved to Jesse, she'd never really paid much attention to him on stage, there was no denying he was a good looking guy, his face was perfectly tanned, darker where stubble had just started to turn into a beard, he wore a small gold ring through the left side of his nose. His hair was short back and sides with thick dark waves on top, a long dark fringe falling to cover one side of his face. He was wearing skin tight ankle grazing black jeans, a black tshirt and denim waistcoat. His left wrist filled with bracelets and wristbands covering one third of his lower forearm tattoo. Millie wished Dex was a little more adventurous with tattoos and piercings she was a sucker for that kind of thing. He was a talented bass player and watching him play was mesmerizing, something about the way he moved, he had a real natural affinity for it, more so than Dex even. Dex didn't have great rhythm and he wasn't a good dancer, he didn't need to be, but Millie could tell that Jesse would be a great dancer and in anyone else that would have been a huge turn on for her but not him. To her his good looks and attractive stage persona was completely overshadowed by the arrogant dickhead he was off stage. He was moody and did nothing to hide it when he wasn't happy; everyone else bore the brunt of it. Dex had mentioned something to Millie in the past about Jesse having depression but she thought it more likely he was just doing it to himself with the amount of alcohol he consumed. Millie was sure he was an alcoholic! But when she'd brought it up with Dex he just brushed it off.
Her mind had put her off watching Jesse and her focus shifted back to Dex, as he moved to the edge of the stage she could barely see him through the sea of arms all reaching out for him . He must have had 20 girls hanging onto his t-shirt and more touching his arms, he could barely hold the microphone to his mouth with so many of them pulling him in every direction, she didn't know how he managed to stay focused and remember the words with half of them shouting at him. Not long ago Millie would have been one of those girls, desperately trying to touch him or catch his attention but having experienced it from Dex' side she could see how violating it was. Dex didn't seem to mind though, he dealt with it well, he rarely didn't have a smile on his face on stage. It didn't seem to bother him despite the fact that it never let up all show!
As they came off stage Dex wiped his head with a towel, took a big sip from his water bottle and walked straight to Millie, throwing his arms around her he kissed her, brushing his wet, sweat covered face against hers
"Eeew, you're gross!" She giggled, secretly she loved him sweaty and her favourite thing about watching him perform was how gorgeous he was after, his wet hair stuck to his face, sweat covering his entire body, heart thumping hard in his chest, there was something about it that Millie couldn't resist. For now she put all of her drug worries to the back of her mind and decided to just enjoy him she only had 24hrs with him before she had to fly home. She knew the drug argument had to happen, but for now it could wait, she couldn't resist him even if she wanted to! And anyway, maybe she was wrong.. She hoped to god she was wrong!
Millie handed Dex' phone back to him,
as he took it from her she glanced down at the screen, messages listed down the entire screen and beyond, she saw Dex look briefly and then stuff if down in his pocket, he looked back at her with an expression that could only be described as guilt. She knew he was wondering if she had seen any of them.
She hadn't. She'd forgotten she even had it all show but it planted fresh seed in her mind that he was hiding something.
As she turned to leave hand in hand with Dex she glanced over at Cat & Jesse expecting to see a similar reunion between the two of them, happy to be back in each others arms after all it must be ages since they'd seen each other as Millie had never seen Cat at any of the gigs before and they'd been on the road for months now, she knew they'd only got back to the states a handful of times over the summer so they can't have seen a lot of each other. Millie knew how hard it was to be away from Dex and Cat and Jesse had been together so much longer she figured it must be even harder for them.
But as Millie glanced over at them she was taken a back, instead of being pleased to see her Jesse looked mad, he walked straight past her, they briefly exchanged words but she couldn't hear what was said, Millie's heart sank as she caught Cat's eye, it was obvious she was close to tears! She followed after him and they disappeared outside.
Millie looked at Dex, from his expression she knew he'd seen it too
"What was that?!" Asked Millie, Dex shrugged
"I'm sure it's nothing" he added. Millie was annoyed with Dex' answer, it was a typical man reply! He didn't get how much of a big deal it was or how Cat would have felt to fly all that way for that kind of reaction and in front of everyone! Millie knew if that had been her she'd have been mortified! And would have been straight on the next flight home! She was so angry with Jesse, what was his deal? Why was he such a jerk she wondered?