Arabella || Luke Hemmings

sydney > melbourne

Somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne - April 10, 1984

"Jax, get your groupie and take her to the back of the bus." Loch sat in the small dining booth in the tour bus, trying to set down his plate so he and the rest of Kosmic could eat their usual late-night tour dinner. In the world of Jax that meant he was going to pick up a random girl in Sydney and show her what the Kosmic Life was all about. The girl sat on the table of the small booth the band ate at, occasionally she would lose balance when the driver would go over a bump, but that didn't stop her from being in a deep make out session with Jax.

Jax waved off Loch, not bothering to take his lips off the girl's.

"Seriously, come on. I don't need any diseases touching my food." Ricky took it upon himself to push the girl off the table, causing her to stumble into Jax before she caught her balance and shot Ricky a glare. Ricky immediately knew that some gossip magazine would have the inside details on how really weren't that great and he would be able to trace it right back to this girl.

"Thanks guys." Jax scoffed, grabbing the hand of the girl and walking her to the back-lounge area.

"Any guesses on her name?" Arabella questioned, popping a chip in her mouth.

Jax never bothered to learn the name of the girl he was hooking up with and never bothered to introduce her properly to his other bandmates. It had been that way since groupies started surfacing with Jax. He figured there wasn't a point in introduce anyone to his long-time friends, if it was just a temporary person. Someone to make him feel good for the night until he was done with them.

So, Ricky, Arabella, Loch, and Haze made a game out of it. They'd each put in a guess or two of the girl's name and whoever won got five bucks from each member. And that money was starting to pile high for Ricky.

"I'm gonna say...Olivia." Loch said confidently, hoping he was right this time.

"She looks more like a Hayley." Haze said without hesitation, though she was always wrong every time.

"I think she looks more like a Michelle." Ricky stated.

"Alex." Arabella spoke proudly.

Now, they'd just wait until the morning when Jax planned on dumping her off somewhere in Melbourne and ask for her name. The whole groupie process that Jax had was fucked up. He'd pick one or two up for the night then dumped them in the next city and left them to figure out how they'd make it back to their city. The girls were just objects to him and not a feminist movement in sight could make him change his mind.

The next show wasn't until the fourteenth. That gave Kosmic even time to familiarize their brains with Melbourne. Though, the time was certainly going to be spent trying to sleep or annoying the hell out of each other when they couldn't sleep.

"Jade is flying into Melbourne tomorrow!" Loch tried to hide his smile, but he couldn't. No other feeling in the world could match the feeling he got when he knew his girlfriend would be on tour with him. They had been together for five years. It was always such a shocker to everyone close to him that they had been together for so long. Long-distance phone calls and only seeing each other a handful of times a year, didn't seem exciting to anyone. But Jade had been with him since the beginning of Kosmic and supported them greatly. She was technically their first fan, maybe even their first groupie. Jade had to be kept a secret though, which wasn't hard. Management made all of them keep their private lives as private as possible so album and ticket sales wouldn't be destroyed.

"Do you think she'll be able to handle it?" Arabella gave Loch a small smile. It wasn't easy to pack up and just go every night.

"We'll find out." Loch chuckled.

"I'm glad our first official fan will be joining us." Ricky nudged Loch.

"Has Andy tried to contact you, Ara?" Haze tossed her napkin on her empty plate.

"Nah." Arabella shook her head, slightly thankful he hadn't. "Kinda hard to find me all the way out here, isn't it?"

"Sucks, I was looking forward to having him fly out to Melbourne so I could kick his ass." Loud said in a sarcastic tone. Loch loved music and he loved to beat the shit out of anyone that did his friends wrong.

"I don't think he's in a good place right now." Arabella reminded them. When she left, she found out Andy was back to his late-night's and drug habits. "I don't think he can be apart from his addiction right now. Sneaking illegal drugs overseas would scare him too." She didn't want to talk about Andy though. Her time away from Andy was meant to be solely about taking care of herself, not thinking about what a dumbass he could be. "Oh, Haze!" She turned the subject elsewhere. "Rumor has it in Frost that Parker liked the song about him, and he bought tickets for all three Dallas shows because he wants to see you." Arabella teased her older friend, giggling as Haze rolled her eyes so far back into her head.

"That's the last person I want to see."

"Rekindle the flame and whisk him away on the remainder of US leg of the tour." Ricky said in a very high pitched and awful girly voice. "But Ashton wouldn't like that very much, would he?" He hinted at the fact that Ashton and Haze spent most of their free time together. Everyone was curious about the pair now, but Ashton nor Haze would fess up about anything between them. They were two adults enjoying each other's time. Nothing more.

"Maybe Andy will show up every Texas date." Loch joined in on the teasing.

Andy would be crazy to do that, especially if him and Arabella weren't on speaking terms. He had done that twice before though, showing uninvited when they were in rough patches in their relationship. Both resolved their problems and it was almost as if they never fought and were always in love.

That was just the way things worked between Arabella and Andy.