Free Rockoholic by C. J. Skuse Page A

window back up.
    “Have they got any change?” she asks again, more muffled through the window. We both watch her as she shuffles back around to Jackson’s window, tries to clear the glass and have a good beak in at him. He has his face completely against the window so she must see him. She disappears around the back of the car and out of sight.
    My heart is going like fist blows to a punching bag. “Do you think she saw him?” I whisper.
    “I don’t give a shit. In fact, I hope she did see him and I hope she
does
recognize his face when it’s plastered all over the tabloids tomorrow.”
    “Don’t be so dramatic.”
    “You’ve kidnapped a celebrity, Jody. All right, he’s not Princess Kate or the president or anything, but he’s still famous. He’s still in all the gossip mags. Once it gets out he’s gone missing, presumed
kidnapped
from a concert, you’re a ghost on toast.”
    “I don’t care what you say, he was miserable in that room. When his manager was saying those things to him, all he wanted to do was to get out —”
    “— and don’t think you’re bringing him back to the pub, either, no way,” Mac interrupts.
    I forgot. I no longer have a home, do I? I’m a house-guest at the pub. I can hardly bring home some other waif and stray to stay, can I? “Please, Mac, can he just stay at yours —?”
    “No way.”
    “Well, what am I going to do, then?”
    “I don’t know. This is your problem, not mine.”
    “Where are we going, dudes?” a voice next to me pipes up. Oh, it’s the rock star I kidnapped. He’s pulling my pukey black fleece around him and he’s shivering.
    Mac snorts. “Oh nice, Ozzy Osbourne’s back with us.”
    “Uh . . . to a pub,” I tell Jackson.
    “I need a burger,” he mumbles, and falls back to sleep.
    “OK,” I say and I point to the Burger King across the parking lot. “They sell veggie burgers or cheesy somethings over there, don’t they?” Mac throws me a filthy look. “I’ll pay.”
    “Oh, I know you will.” He starts the engine again, heading toward the drive-through ramp.
    “Mozarella bites or something?” I say, turning toward Jackson.
    “Burger,” he mumbles, drool oozing from his mouth. He slurps it back up to speak. “I want meat. Bacon. Meat.”
    He eats
MEAT
?! And I went through months of eating rabbit food just for him!
    “Ha!” Mac flicks on the mirror light and reaches over the back of his seat to lift up one of Jackson’s eyelids. “Clean-living vegetarian, is he? Don’t make me wet myself, Jody.”
    “He’s just hungry. They did a long set tonight.” That must be it.
    “I know. I waited outside for most of it. Look at him. Any normal lead singer would be amped having ten thousand people calling his name. He should be bouncing off the walls. Look at him!”
    So I do. I look at him.
    “He’s a rock star, Jody. It comes with the job.”
    The guy appears at the first window and Mac places the order for a Whopper with fries, mozzarella balls for me, and two Diet Cokes. Mac says he’s not hungry. Big surprise. I hate his poor martyr act at times like this, not that we’ve ever had a time like this before, but he always does this. Goes without so I’ll feel sorry for him. I don’t feel sorry for him, not anymore. He can nail up his own cross. I’m not helping.
    “He’s not like all the others. Jackson’s different,” I tell him, getting my emergency £20 from my sock and handing it over.
    Mac gets the change and flings it back at me, moving the Saxo along to the second window to pick up our food. “The only thing different about
him
,” he says, “is that he hasn’t choked to death on his own vomit yet. He’s just as screwed up, just as miserable, just as fake.”
    And this is the point where I have had enough of his barbed little comments. “OK, fine, whatever, he lied. He lied on the
Behind the Scenes
DVD, he lied in that interview, Wikipedia lies, everyone lies, he’s a drug user, he’s not really a