“How did you end up as the lead singer, though?” I ask, sitting up in a cross-legged position.
“That was a moment of sheer desperation on Johnny’s part,” Ned says, with a laugh. “I saw them play a few times at a pub in the city and ended up getting my job there behind the bar. They were booked to play one afternoon when their lead singer didn’t show. They were used to him being late, or high, sometimes both, but he’d never been a total no-show. Johnny was spitting chips. They were due on stage in ten minutes, and they had no singer.”
“Johnny couldn’t have stepped in?” I ask.
Ned’s eyes go wide. “You do not want to hear Johnny sing. Even Johnny doesn’t like to hear Johnny sing.”
I chuckle at his grimace. “Understood.”
“Anyway, the pub wasn’t busy. The boss wanted his live music. Johnny offered to blow me.”
My jaw drops and then we both crack up laughing again.
“I think he might have done it too, which tells you how desperate he was,” Ned says between guffaws. “I knew most of their songs by then, and a ton of their covers. Plus, honestly, I missed performing.”
I grin. “You stepped up and played hero.”
“It was a couple of hours in front of a pub audience on a Sunday arvo. Not exactly heroic. But I sang, yeah.” His cheeks flush and he runs a hand over his face. “My voice was so out of practice I sounded like a wobble board by the end of the first set, to my ears anyway. But the audience seemed happy. They were dancing and having a good time.”
“Did you have a good time?” I ask.
“Oh, hell yes.” His head falls back, a blissed-out expression flooding his face. “It felt totally different from anything I’d done in Sydney. All that pressure, the obsessive need to prove myself, was gone. Only the music and the audience were left. I loved them, and they loved me back.
“Johnny called the next day to ask if I wanted to join the band permanently. I said yes. That happened about two years ago.”
“And you never looked back.”
He shakes his head. “The songs Johnny and I write together are better than anything either of us wrote alone. Oz has this knack for finishing touches. Gavin knows stuff about producing songs I have no clue about. We get along; nothing has to be forced. I’ve never felt anything like it.” He lets out a quiet laugh.
“Then we released the EP and suddenly we’re here.” He gestures to the festival around us, to the stage where Fifth Circle will play tomorrow afternoon before an audience of thousands. Instead of looking excited about the prospect, the pleasure fades from his features.
He doesn’t want to be here. This isn’t just about Zac and whatever awfulness happened between them. Ned doesn’t want to play the festival. Which makes zero sense. Why wouldn’t he want to perform at one of the biggest music festivals on Australia’s east coast? I know nothing about music, but even I know it’s a big deal to be picked for an event like this. The exposure alone is phenomenal.
Except, not every musician wants to be famous. I remember him saying those words the day we met. I also remember thinking he was full of shit. Only he wasn’t.
What happened to scare Ned off the dreams he’s had since he was a kid? Dreams he moved interstate to chase. The question forms on my tongue, but I don’t dare ask. It’s none of my business, and Ned’s made it clear he doesn’t want to confide in me. The sharing of secrets takes more than a bar room promise and a single night of wild monkey sex.
Besides, I’ve never been the kind of person others go to when they need to talk about their deepest pain. They come to me to complain about the second date they didn’t get, or when they need a sounding board for their career change ideas. I’m a good listener, and I can provide a pep-talk like nobody’s business, but it’s never for the stuff that matters most.
Maybe people worry their secrets won’t be safe in my talkative mouth, though I’ve never been one to spill the business of others. Or maybe they assume I won’t understand what they’re going through, since I don’t tend to share those parts of myself. More than one man I’ve dated has accused me of being detached, shallow, unavailable, fake. Usually when they wanted an excuse to dump me.
I rarely even flinch at such words anymore; they’ve been applied to me so liberally over the years. Despite what people see when they look at me, I’m not actually a fake person. I have a brain and a heart. I cry and sweat and poop, like everyone else. Maybe I don’t like to turn people off by expressing every dark and icky emotion out loud, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel them. It doesn’t mean I don’t understand.
I’m human, and every human is real. Even the ‘fakers’—like me. We’re just not always brave enough to show it.
Reaching out with a tentative hand, I place it lightly on Ned’s denim-clad thigh. To remind him I’m here. That Iwantto be here for him.
He doesn’t speak, or look at me, but his fingers thread through mine and he lifts my hand to his lips for a brief kiss.
We sit in silence for a while, watching the festival unfold around us. The deep furrow on Ned’s brow tells me his mind is elsewhere, lost inside old regrets. I shuffle closer, not wanting him to linger there too long.
Putting a hand on his shoulder, I lean close to speak into his ear. “I want you to know something, Ned Corbyn. In case you do become a famous rock star one day, and you’re a household name, and people mob you every time you step into the street.”
He huffs a humourless laugh. “What do you want me to know?”
“I will absolutely, without a doubt, tell everyone I meet you were my boyfriend,” I say with a grin. “No joke, I will flaunt that information like a name-dropping slut. It may become part of my personal introduction. Hello, my name is Toni Fairweather. I’m Ned Corbyn’s ex-boyfriend. Oh, and a graphic designer.”
Ned’s laugh is more genuine this time, and he shakes his head at my silliness. “I’m going to come before your job title, am I?”
