Unravelling

Chapter 13 - Rookie Roadie

"You stick by my side," Luke orders, grabbing my hand.

I nod.

"Like glue, you hear me?" he insists.

I roll my eyes at his being so intense. That is very unlike him.

"Ye-esss," I sigh.

"Hey, look at me."

Before I even get a chance to consider his request, a hand grabs my chin and forces my face upwards.

"It will be super crowded on the grounds and I don't want you to get lost, got it?" Luke emphasizes.

Jeez, he makes it sound as if that's all I ever do: getting lost.

"I get it. Really. Now let go of my face. Please."

I try to wriggle free from his uncomfortable grip on my chin, but my efforts are in vain. Narrowing my eyes at my brother, I hope to scare him off, or something. Eventually, his features lighten up and a grin appears on his face. He leans down and drops a kiss on my nose before finally letting go. Immediately, my hand flies up and I dramatically rub the lower part of my face.

"I got your passes," Bear announces, dangling two lanyards in front of us.

Luke takes them and swiftly hangs one around my neck. I lift it up to study the laminated card. It says CREW in bold letters on it. Raising a questioning eyebrow, I glance up at my brother. I never thought that he was actually serious about this. He grins and then shrugs before shoving a box filled with CDs and other random bits and pieces into my arms.

"Now you're officially part of the crew," he announces and pats my head.

Luke is totally taking advantage of the fact that I now have no hand free and therefore cannot push him off for treating me like a pet, yet again.

"What's the pay?" I ask instead.

Bear, the drummer of Luke's band, barks a laugh.

"I like her," he claims.

"The pay is that you get an exclusive behind-the-scenes experience with an up and coming and, quite frankly, absolutely amazing rock band – and we don't have to buy a ticket for you," my brother replies.

Inwardly, I agree with his assessment of their greatness, but I am not about to tell him that. I doubt that the "behind-the-scenes experience" will be much more than me getting to witness them rushing around the stage to set up their stuff in record time, and then being ordered to stay out of the way somewhere in the back while they perform. But hey, I am not complaining.

Actually, I am still quite shocked that Alex even let me tag along with Luke in the first place. It is no secret that he is not 100% on board with our brother's career choice and would prefer if Luke were to follow a more conventional path in life. It was decided last night that our family fun day to celebrate Jordan's return would, indeed, be a trip to San Jose to attend the festival Luke and his band are playing at. I believe Jordan cast the deciding vote on this, since he really wanted to come here, too. We all suspect that the pretty great line-up might have had something to do with his decision. Anyway, I have only been to festivals a couple of times before, and they were really small, local ones, so I am super excited about this, great line-up or not. I get to see Luke play and that is all that counts for me.

And this event is huge! They expect about 120'000 visitors, over the three days, Noah told me. He looked it up on the internet as soon as it was decided that we would come here, and I know he is just as thrilled about this as I am.

Obviously, the festival was all sold out already and Luke had to pull a few strings to get us all in. Which was no easy feat, since he required 11 tickets just to cover our family, including Hannah and Tom. And the rest of his bandmates wanted some for their families and friends, too. But since they had to fill in last minute, the festival organizers were apparently willing to be quite generous. However, Luke could not get more than ten tickets out of them for his own use.