This rockstar life

2.11 Steve's groupie?

Content: See Introduction for general content notes. 
This is a...flashforward? Flashback? Flashforward-back? Something like that!

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"It's okay if you don't want to come?"

"No, I do want to. If you want me to?"

"Course I do. I mean, it would be fine if you didn't, but I'd like you to."

"Then yes, I'm coming."

"It'll be fine, I'll look after you." He moves to stand behind Alice, who is scowling at her hair in the mirror, and wraps his arm across her chest. "And if I'm too pissed, Phil will look after you. You like Phil?"

"Sure, he's a sweetie."

Steve pokes his tongue out at their reflections. "Come on, you look lovely, let's go."

Alice doesn't move from the mirror, so he plucks the hairbrush out of her hand and shoos her towards the door.

As this is the first time in ages that everyone has been together at Wisseloord, they'd decided to all go out for a belated celebration of Steve's 30th, and a very belated celebration of Rory's birth. Rory had been left in the care of babysitters, but Steve was allowed to attend as long as he promised to be a good boy! Alice hadn't met most of the wives and girlfriends before, with the exception of Joe's Karla who had been at Brian May's party a few weeks back, and feels rather apprehensive about socialising with so many people she knows only slightly or not at all. Everyone's always perfectly friendly and welcoming, but still she tends to cling to Steve as a security blanket.

"So when did you meet the rest of these reprobates?" asks Karla.

"Reprobates?!" scoffs Rick with faux indignation and Karla laughs.

"Let me rephrase that, when did you have the MISFORTUNE to meet these HOOLIGANS?"

Alice catches Phil's eye and says "Go on Phil, you know you want to. He loves telling this story."

Phil crosses his arms on the table and leans forward, "So, when we were demoing back in Dublin, must have been, I dunno, winter, not long after Rory was born. We were staying in these...well obviously these guys," he gestures at Joe and Sav, "have houses, so they were at home, but me, Steve, Rick, and some of the crew were in these managed apartments - little bedsits really, but with people that come in and clean them and whatnot..."

"Get on with it," jeers Sav, who has heard the story several times before, "no one's interested in your domestic arrangements."

"Alright! So one morning the car's arrived to take us to the studio and Steve hasn't appeared yet, which wasn't exactly unusual."

Everyone laughs and Steve makes a pouty face.

"I give him a call, no answer, so I trot up to his room and bang on the door. And a girl answers, in a bathrobe, towel on her head, you know." He mimes a vague complicated turban over his head.

"So we stand there and gape like codfish at each other for a bit.."

"I don't know who was more surprised!" interjects Alice.

"But eventually I collect myself and mutter something about 'sorry, wrong room' and she goes 'no, right room', and then, on cue, Steve appears behind her just in his pants, smirking!"

Joe does a vomiting impression and Steve throws a peanut at him.

"So he introduces Alice, just as Alice, no explanation. He says he'll be out in a minute, and they shut the door. Course I race down to the foyer and tell everyone that Steve's got a girl in his room! So when he appears, we all cheer and whistle and he just stands there grinning like an idiot."

Steve is wearing basically the same expression now.

"Then he made us wait, standing around in the freezing cold, because he wanted a fag and the cab driver wouldn't let him in the car with it. And we're asking for details and the smug git won't tell us anything! So eventually we decided that she must just be some girl he'd picked up in a bar, and maybe he doesn't even know her last name or where she comes from."

"They made jokes about my 'groupie' for the whole rest of the week..."

"Until I showed up again the following weekend..."

"And we were like, aye aye, stalker alert!"

"Which is why they were being really weird with me, and I got self-conscious and thought nobody liked me." Alice's tone is still light, but she's dropped her eyes to the tabletop.

Jacki is glaring at Phil, who raises his palms in a gesture of innocence, and the other girls look sympathetic.

"But only for a minute, then I started saying 'girlfriend' really loudly to everyone and it was fine, right?"

Steve nudges Alice, and she looks up again with a genuine smile. Karla notices they are holding hands under the table.

"Yes, everyone was lovely."

"See!" says Phil in Jacki's direction.

"But I was so cross when I worked out he'd set it up on purpose, getting me to open the door because he'd guessed it would be one of the boys."

"Me too, bastard!"

Steve shrugs, "It was funny. And then I kind of liked you all thinking I could still pick up women in bars!"

"You can pick me up if you like?" offers Rick, fluttering his eyelashes.

"Only to throw you out of the window!" retorts Steve.

"Huh, I'm out of your league anyway. Try Sav, he's anyone's after half a shandy."

"That's what it says on the wall of the ladies' loo!" affirms Stacy.

Steve swallows the last of his beer and stands up. "Who needs another drink?". There is a chorus of yeses and thanks'. "Come with me to the bar, Sav, I'll buy you that shandy."

Without Steve by her side, Alice becomes instantly shy again. Karla watches her silently picking apart the beermat and worries for the timid girl drawn into this uncertain and unrelenting way of life. Aside from the eyeliner, she's about as far from a typical rock chick as you could get! All the other girls were already in show business before they hooked up with one of the band - acting, modelling, music - Alice is the only one from the 'real world' and she clearly doesn't have that tough outer shell that you grow to survive in the industry. But then, Steve doesn't really have that shell either, so they're at least suited in that respect. The boys return from the bar and deposit drinks and nuts on the sticky table, and Steve takes his seat next to Alice, who is seemingly reanimated by his presence and all smiles once more. They are sort of sweet together though, like overgrown teenagers, and it's nice to see Steve happy again after the struggles of the past year. So even if it's not likely to last... With a mental shrug, Karla turns her attention back to the rest of the table, where conversation has turned to whether the barmaid fancies Sav (Rick voting yes, everyone else, including Sav himself, voting no).

Later, as they wend their way a little unsteadily back to the apartments, Alice links her arm through Steve's and says "You could totally still pick up girls in bars you know, if you wanted to."

"You reckon?"

"Totally."

"Nah, not dignified at my advanced age is it. Start turning into Peter Stringfellow! Besides, I quite like the one I already picked up."