‘James! Catch!’ Charlie calls. James can fish the ice cold can out of the air just in time. He’s sitting on the edge of the stage of Le Mirage, a small venue where Busted’s performing that night. For three weeks already he’s been joining the band in the tour bus, touring in Europe. They’ve already been in Holland a couple of times, an amazing gig in Antwerp, Belgium and tonight’s the first show in France.

He’s been watching the roadies finishing setting up the equipment for that night. He brushes a string of hair out of his face and looks into the empty, lightly beer stinking venue.

This is going to be great, thinks James, and smiles to himself. He loves the burning feeling of the spotlights on his back, the strumming on his guitar and the screaming girls…

If you’re on stage, the girls want you. That’s what James’ learned from all the touring so far. Charlie is the obvious favourite;  James sees him going off with a load of chicks every single night. Matt, the other band member’s doing not to so bad either, but the prettiest girls are on Charlie’s arm. He only has to smile, throw his head back in his neck or open his mouth and the girls start screaming. The other night, when they were in a club in Belgium, one girl pushed herself up to Charlie desperately, whispering, ‘Please, take me with you, I’ll do anything.’. It makes him feel a bit sick, don’t these girls know that band members have a girl in each port? And how does he keep with all those one night stands every night? James never had one…

Charlie enters the scene again with a plastic bag filled with Chinese food.

‘Feels great, huh, that big stage?’ he grins. ‘We’re gonna have some grub, you coming?’

The dressing room is filled with stuffy air that makes James hard to breathe. James sits down on the ripped leather sofa and gets some food on his plate. The other two boys are noisy,

‘Have you seen those fans outside?’ Matt yells. ‘Pretty French girls I tell you. We’re gonna have a blast tonight!’

‘Maybe there’s something for James this time as well,’ Charlie winks. ‘I bet you haven’t been laid in ages.’ James feels his cheeks flushing a shade of red. Though he doesn’t really think the whole punk thing is having some kind of tough image, he feels like a loser between those two. Matt playfully bashes him on the shoulder.

‘Don’t worry, it happens. Not everyone’s a horny baboon like Charlie.’

James enjoys the view he has from the stage, all the girls screaming on front of them. Loads of teenies, but quite a large number of real female fans that are waiting and practically begging to get fucked by one of the band members with their low cut tops, occasional boob flashing and their racy looks. Most are dressed in dark clothes, but one girl stands out and catches James’ eye. A girl wearing a white summer dress, nice long brown hair that curls over her tanned shoulders…

Charlie holds his guitar up in the air as if it were a trophy; the whole venue shakes on its establishment as the crowd starts to scream manically and jump up and down. James keeps his eyes on the girls in the crowd. Would she really like their music? She’s banging her head up and down on the rhythm of the music and jumps along with the rest of the crowd. From what James can see, she had beautiful full lips, a small, cute nose and eyes that could penetrate. In a flash, he sees the girl sliding the straps of her dress down her shoulders, while’s looking at him innocently. He feels a tickling feeling in the pit of his stomach…

Charlie’s spotted the girl too, of course. During ‘That Thing You Do’ he points at her, while singing the words with his low voice. She looks up at him, flashes a beautiful smile and quickly looks down. James notices the indents in her cheeks. But he can better get her out of his head, because Charlie’s definitely gonna work his charms on her. The dick falls on his knees and looks at her, while he so-called horny rubs his microphone. His standard trick, and it works every time, but this girl doesn’t know that yet.

An hour or so later, the band walks in the dressing room with the sweat running down their backs. They let themselves fall onto the sofa and wipe their faces with the towels that were put on the little table next to the sofa.

‘It went great, don’t you think?’ Charlie exclaims with a hoarse throat.

That’s what you get when you put on your airs like that, James thinks, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he gives his pals a can of beer.

‘Did you see that girl with the big tits at the front?’ Charlie asks. ‘I’m gonna try out my hotel bed with her! I bet she’s waiting outside right now.’ He’s so in his own world, that he doesn’t even notice James running out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

It’s half three in the middle of the night when James reaches the tour bus after being in a huff for forever in the venue, sitting on the edge of the stage. The only thing he wants, is some sleep. He tries his hardest not to think of Charlie, who is probably sharing the hotel bed with that pretty girl. A couple of hours ago, he’d seen Matt and Charlie lolling out of the building with several girls on their arms, heading for the hotel.

When he’s looking for the keys to the tour bus in the pockets of his shorts, he hears a polite cough behind him. He looks over his shoulder and looks quite surprised when he sees that familiar blonde, spiky hair and those dark eyes. His length makes an enormous shadow on the floor as the light of the street posts strikes along his manly face features.

‘What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be fucking one of those girls right now.’ Charlie blushes lightly and caresses James’ cheek while he breathes in James neck. Charlie’s after shave dominates, but the smell of alcohol, the beer and a light fruity fragrance of a girl a still there. James doesn’t care. The pieces of the puzzle finally fall into place; James was never jealous of Charlie getting all the girls, he didn’t like the girl in the white summer dress. He was jealous of the girls who got the chance to get close with him, he envied the girl in the white summer dress because she was most likely to end up in Charlie’s bed.

‘Let’s get into the bus…’ Charlie breathes, takes James’ hand and takes the keys to open the main door.

Something inside James, tells him it‘s wrong to take advantage of the situation. Charlie’s drunk. But then Charlie’s lips touch James’, and all the guilt disappears. James throws his arms around Charlie’s neck and pulls Charlie’s much taller frame against his own. Tongues entwine, lips merely touch, fingers find their way up shirts and naked skin. There’s ripping shirts, some pushing, the hunger for passion and love.

When James hits his head to one of the beds, he turns to reality, and again smells the beer, the alcohol. Guilt washes over him and he pushes Charlie away from him.

‘You’re drunk.’ Charlie looks rather startled and is breathing heavily as his arms hang limp along his body. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’ They stare at each other for what seems an eternity, then Charlie shrugs.

‘Who fucking cares? I’m gonna have a great night, you’re gonna have a great night.’ He shrugs once more and pushes himself up to James, pressing his lips against his.

‘What the fuck are you doing in my bed?’ Charlie calls, his voice is hoarse, but sexy all the same. James hadn’t noticed it before and feels himself harden again. He then realizes that Charlie was possibly so drunk that he can’t remember a thing of what happened the night before. He pulls a straight face, facing Charlie’s who’s about an inch away.

‘For your information, this is my bed. Not yours.’ They share a short glare.

‘Listen,’ Charlie whispers. ‘Matt’s not up yet. Can we lay together for a bit longer?’ James screws his face up, Charlie’s arm curls over James’ side, rubbing it softly with his thumb. ‘I wasn’t completely drunk, you know…’ He grins, ‘My dick maybe, but for the rest, I wasn’t.’

Not so long after, the three boys are enjoying their breakfast in the bumpy tour bus. Matt’s irritating glare since they’d gotten out of their beds, got to James’ nerves at one point.

‘Okay, Matt. What the hell are you looking at?’ Matt shrugs.

‘You look like you’ve had a good shag last night.’

‘Thank you, I was trying to eat.’ Goes a low, deep voice from the other end of the table. James cheeks flush red, and Matt grins.

‘It was that girl in the white dress and the long dark hair, wasn’t it? You horny baboon! I knew you could do it!’ He slaps James on the shoulder in a friendly way and winks.

‘Well, Charlie showed me some of his pulling techniques.’ James says. In more ways than just one.