Free Between a Rockstar and a Hard Place by Portia MacIntosh Page A

minute he was thanking the
audience for being the best crowd ever (like he always does) and the next he
was gone. Just like that.
    A
worried look spreads across my friend’s face – he knows Dylan, he knows what
he’s like – he knows that finding him might not be that easy.
    ‘No
worries, dude. I’ll have a look around, he’ll be here somewhere.’
    Mikey
doesn’t seem very comforted by my words, but that’s about as much reassurance
as I can fake right now. I know that Dylan gets distracted by things (usually
girls) and wanders off, and when he does he can be a nightmare to find. I won’t
panic yet though, not until I’ve looked everywhere.
    I
flash my pass so that I can search all the different backstage areas but Dylan
is nowhere to be seen. Even more worryingly, no one but Claire can recall
seeing him since he was on stage.
    I
run my hands through my long blonde hair and let out a sigh of exasperation,
but then something catches my eye – a little door hidden behind a huge security
bloke. That’s the door that goes out into the crowd. We drove straight into the
backstage area, so there would be no need for Dylan to go through that door, in
fact it would be quite stupid for Dylan to go through that door because he
would be mobbed by adoring fans.
    ‘Excuse
me, I don’t suppose you’ve seen Dylan King from The Burnouts since he came off
stage have you?’ I ask – it can’t hurt to ask, can it?
    ‘Are
you kidding?’ he asks, his tough-guy expression melting into a huge grin. ‘He
signed my abs!’
    The
big security guy whips up his shirt and shows me his pen-marked stomach. The
signature is all wiggly from where the pen has passed over the contours of his
impressive eight pack, but it’s definitely Dylan’s autograph.
    ‘Awesome,
you can cover that back up now,’ I tell him, a little freaked out by all the
muscle and the fact he wanted Dylan to put a pen to it. ‘So where did he go?’
    ‘Out
there,’ he tells me, gesturing towards the little door behind him with his
thumb.
    ‘Into
the crowd?’ I ask, unable to hide my fear.
    ‘Yeah.’
He laughs manically. ‘I told him not to.’
    So
let me get this straight, a very drunk Dylan King has ventured out into the
50,000-strong crowd. The man can’t even go to Starbucks without getting mobbed,
why would he think this was a good idea? What’s even more worrying is that, if
we say half of the crowd are female, that’s 25,000 girls he could potentially…
get distracted by.
    Oh
Dylan, why do you make my job so difficult? This isn’t even my job, I’m a
journalist. That’s the real reason I’m here today, to cover the event, not to
hand-hold the elusive Mr King. Somehow I always end up doing both.
    It’s
6pm now. I’ll have a quick glance around the crowd for movement – any movement
that looks like a rockstar being mobbed – and if I still haven’t found him…
well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Chapter Two: Tat for tit
     
    ‘The
fucker!’ Claire yells. ‘Fucker, fucker, fucker.’
    ‘I
get it, he’s a fucker, but stating the obvious isn’t going to achieve
anything.’
    I
may be used to Dylan’s bullshit, but Claire cannot tolerate it. I had to tell
her though, I can’t be expected to find him all on my own. Oh, and she is paid
to handle him, whereas I’m just his mug of a friend.
    ‘You
know he’s supposed to be playing a show for the Magical Star Foundation
tomorrow,’ Claire rants. ‘I thought the challenge was going to be getting him
to sober up for a kids’ charity gig, not putting together a last-minute press
release saying we found him dead in a ditch and therefore he cannot perform.’
    ‘Claire,
relax. We’re not going to find him dead in a ditch, there are no ditches in
this field.’
    ‘I
will dig a ditch and kill him in it myself if he doesn’t turn up soon,’ she
fumes.
    I
don’t point out to her that this would be counterproductive.
    ‘Listen
to me, Claire, I know how Dylan operates.