Page 32 of Revelry

“No.”

“Give me the goddamned phone, Ali.”

“I don’t want to.” I glare at him and he yanks it off me anyway. He removes the back, pulls out the sim card and pockets it, then he stands and throws my phone in the bin.

“What are you doing?”

“I got you this earlier,” he says, handing me a brand new shiny smart phone. “Your old sim won’t work in it, and your shitty phone won’t work overseas. This way I’ll always know where to find you. I’ve programmed all of our numbers into it, including Deb’s and Leif’s, and James’s—he’s head of our road crew, so if you get stuck you call him.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I want to know that you’re safe when you’re with us.”

“So that means getting me a new phone?”

“That means taking whatever measures I have to in order to make sure you’re looked after.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Good, then the feeling is mutual.”

The hostess walks over to us and announces that they’ll board the band last to avoid everyone stalling as they walk past.

“Can my friend board with us too?” Coop asks.

“Is she in business class?”

“No.”

“Then I’m afraid she will have to board with the other economy passengers. She gives me a condescending smile, and then she turns back to Coop, fluttering her lashes, “I don’t usually do this, but do you think I could get a picture with you and the band?”

“Sure,” Coop smiles at the attendant. He gets up and presses the sim card from my old phone into my palm. “In case you need to call anyone from that old list.”

“Well even if I did want to, I have no way of finding the numbers on that list, so what difference does it make?” I say, and stare out the window at the giant jet I’m about to board. Cooper follows the attendant and poses for photos with the rest of the band. They all wear baseball caps pulled down low on their foreheads.Idiots. It’s not like we don’t know who they are because they’re wearing freaking caps.

I’m the seat behind business class, and when they finally board the band, I can see straight through their stupid curtain to Coop and Levi. They’re a row apart and each of them has three seats to themselves. I can see all this because not only did I not get first class, but also I didn’t even get a window seat. I got the aisle. And the guy next to me is so huge that he takes up his seat and half of the seat beside me, there are all of ten centimetres between his large body and mine. And I have to spend the next fourteen hours of the journey wedged in beside him.

I pull out my DS, but I’m wound way too tightly to do any damage to that sucker, so I put it away and stare at the phone Cooper gave me. It’s switched off because I don’t want to be the one bringing the damn plane down, but I stare at the shiny screen and then turn it over in my hands. When he handed it to me before I hadn’t looked at the case, I’d been too pissed that he’d just thrown my other phone in the bin, but I run my fingers over the embossed bright green Gamers Only logo on the back. I shake my head and then put it away in my bag.

I’m exhausted. Between Zed’s banshees and Cooper’s text messages last night, I barely slept at all. I pull out a black eye mask that I bought from the newsagency before we boarded. I’m just about to put it on when the engines roar a little louder and the captain greets us with his welcoming message. I notice Cooper shifting restlessly in his seat. His hand grips the armrest tightly and his knuckles turn white. I feel kind of bad for him. He really wasn’t kidding when he said he was afraid of flying. Still, the bastard sat me in economy, so he can suck it.

About six hours into our flight and I’m staring at the wall in front of me. I’ve been hit in the elbow more times than I can count with the trolley, and the man beside me—Rick, yes, he introduced himself, and then he introduced me to pictures of his three dogs, eight cats and fourteen fucking birds—snores so loudly you’d think we were flying over the one millionth eruption of Mount Vesuvius. I’m about ready to strangle him with my headset when Coop slowly vacates his seat and stumbles toward the bathrooms, clutching the seats and partitions as he goes. He glances at me as he stumbles through the door to the bathrooms and then he shuts himself inside, looking positively green.

When he emerges, he stands in the aisle a second, and just stares at me.

“Hi,” I prompt.

“Hey.”

“How was the bathroom?”

“No nearly as calming as I thought it’d be.”

“Well, economy is lovely. Rick here—” I indicate towards the sleeping lump of a human beside me as he snores the plane down, even though he’s wearing those little nostril clamps that are supposed to prevent snoring. “Rick here regaled me with tales of his sovereign journey to Australia for the first six hours of our flight. He’s going back to the south where he’ll partake in his 100thCivil War re-enactment next weekend, but not before he visits his great aunt’s estate in LA.” I lower my voice, and I hiss, “You couldn’t even sit me near a freaking window?”

“I didn’t think you’d want the window.”

“I’ve never been overseas, Cooper, of course I want the window. Normal passengers want the damn window—”

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