May 15th

Ye Gods. She's back. JT has apparently redeemed himself and Ms Congeniality herself is back in town. Though, on the bright side, this little tiff of theirs has still got her being a little distant physically speaking so at least I don't have to watch them crawl over each other.

That said… I do feel like a horrible human being sometimes for harbouring all this animosity. What crime has she committed, really? Dating Justin? Being a morning person? Being an optimist while my cynical self dwells in the sarcastic netherworld of the anti-social misfit? Even my own mother said she has no idea when I became such a hostile creature and that if she was physically present to do so she'd slap it right out of me. She would, too, my mother was never shy to offer corporal punishment - a fact which still makes my butt throb now in remembrance of the hiding I got for shop lifting.

Never mind Allie, I will live with her presence. Life's been pretty quiet on tour for the last few days, I think everybody hit their adrenalin low at the same time so we've all been staying in rather than partying. That could also be down to the lack of decent bars around this town, wherever the hell we are. The most any of us has done is venture out to one restaurant or another for lunch. There were also a few poker tournaments going on in Trace's hotel suite one night - we all put a hundred bucks in and just bandied that around. I consider it an achievement that my eventual loss was only ten dollars, Marty managed to lose fifty. Eddie must moonlight as a backstreet gambler in his spare time because his pockets were considerably fuller by the time we all called it quits.

When it comes to who I'm spending the most time with, I've moved on from the band to the dancers. I haven't spent much time with the girls on this tour (nothing to do with my sexuality, even if I was straight I'd still be a guy's guy) but as it turns out some of them are pretty cool. Nanci and I had a really good conversation about the whole mod sixties movement, and it turns out Tammy and I actually have a few friends in common in LA. I even managed to start being civil to Lydia again instead of ignoring her. See, I'm improving.

"Luca?"

It took a moment to realise that it was his name she'd just said. He wasn't used to hearing it in such light voice, and he would never have expected her to be addressing him no matter how her voice sounded. They'd barely spoken since the moment they'd first been introduced.

"It is Luca, right?"

"What?" He jumped as her hand unexpectedly touched his arm. "Oh, yeah, sorry."

"Sorry, did I interrupt you?" Allie pulled a comedy grimace at him by way of apology.

"No," Luca lied. He didn't particularly like being interrupted while he was writing, but he'd been far more concerned about slamming the diary shut before even a single detail could catch her eye. Knowing what revelations lay within those pages, he squeezed it between his fingers. The book felt it should be glowing red hot, as steel in a blacksmith's forge, but though it burned his hands it remained innocuous to the observing eye.

"What can I do for you?"

"You're, like, the sound guy, right?" Perhaps his face betrayed a little of his wanting to roll his eyes, for she immediately hurried on. "I mean, I have no idea about the technical side of all this, but Justin said you do all the mixing and stuff?"

"Yes, that's right." Trying to stick to his resolve to be a little nicer to her, Luca let go of his usual sarcastic impulse.

"I was hoping you could give me some advice. I would ask Tim, but Tim can never keep his mouth shut and he always winds up telling Justin…"

"Ask Tim what?"

One virtue he had never possessed was patience. It was something he was often chastised for, but his motto was if it couldn't be explained in a maximum of two sentences then he didn't have time for it. This was yet another strike mark against Allie in Luca's book - she was very much a talker. There was little doubt that between the intense perkiness, the incessant chatter and her general sunny outlook that she would have to work very hard before Luca would ever find any common ground or hope of liking her. As much as he knew she was harmless and friendly and probably in the balance a far better person than he, his disposition was towards the more offbeat.

"Oh, sorry, you should stop me if I tangent like that! Basically, I wanted to surprise Justin with a new mixing desk for his home studio but I know nothing about this stuff and I'd probably manage to buy him a downgrade instead of an upgrade. I was hoping you could help me out, maybe you could make the suggestions and then I could get to what I'm good at which is flexing my Am-Ex."

"Umm… sure," he agreed grudgingly. He had to admit, it sounded like a good gift idea. He'd had a few boyfriends in his time that had no idea how to put any personal consideration into presents. "Don't suppose you know what he already has, do you?"

"I wrote it down on a piece of paper somewhere, it's in my planner back at the hotel with some catalogues and stuff. Thank you so much, I really appreciate this." She gave him a beaming smile, and almost despite himself he found himself returning it. "Kevin's already advised me on the guitar so once you help me pick the desk it'll be all set!"

"What's the occasion?" He asked curiously.

"No occasion, just felt like it," she said breezily. "Anyway, I have to run but thank you so much Luca, I'll bring you everything before the show."

"Bye," he said blithely as she walked away.

Thoughtfully he watched her retreating, jean clad figure. For perhaps the first time since he'd met her, he thought he might have seen something he had to give her a little respect for. He didn't give a crap that she was tall and slim and considered one of the prettiest women in Hollywood, he didn't care that her last movie had placed her opposite Morgan Freeman, and her womanly charms were utterly lost on him even in any platonic way. However, he didn't know too many women who would casually pay out thousands of dollars on their other half because they 'just felt like it,' even the ones who could afford it.

There was no way he was admitting to it though, either out loud or in writing.

May 16th

Life is so much better when your girlfriend isn't mad at you. Everybody on the tour is still dog tired - and it's obvious because Allie keeps exclaiming that she can't believe how dead we all look and asking us why we aren't getting more sleep - but I find it easier to deal with now my love life has levelled back out. She's so motherly sometimes, she's the one who keeps cutting short our poker games and reminding us we've got a TV show or radio station t o get to for seven am. I love that about her, she really looks out for me but without being bossy about it. Well, most of the time, all women are bossy sometimes; it's like a law of nature. I guess that second X chromosome must do something to ya.

I haven't exactly got off easy, I got some serious lecturing about honesty and she's not as touchy feely as she usually is, but for the most part she seems over it now. I'm so relieved - I think both she and I made that whole kiss thing into way more than it actually was, both acting like it was some huge terrible secret. I'm a dumb ass, but I love her. I haven't exactly got into all that with her too much, but I do. It's been said, I think after a certain point in a relationship you're kind of expected to have said it to your girl, but I'm now at the point where I feel it rather than just say it because I should. That's pretty bad, really, I guess that means I've told a bunch of girls a bunch of times that I loved them when I didn't, but do I at least get points for doing it to make them feel good?

Since we're all so tired, not much has been happening. That made me wonder what all the point was of me keeping this diary, it's not like I've got anything hugely dramatic to make a song out of in any of these entries, but then I had to ask myself what was A Hard Day's Night written about? It was about being dog tired after work and having your woman make you feel better, so I could probably make songs even out of all the mundane shit I've chronicled in the last few weeks. There's no way in hell I'm admitting that to my mother though. She still looks smug every time she sees me writing in this thing.

Speaking of Allie though, she looks shifty. Not appearance wise, she looks fuckable as ever, but she just seems twitchy sometimes. It's almost comedic, like those moments in movies were somebody's trying so hard to act natural they make it even more obvious they're up to something. I keep seeing her look at Luca too, which is weird. I didn't think they'd ever even spoken to each other, and Allie is just like the anti-Luca - in fact to somebody as moody as Luca (he needs to get laid) Allie is probably the most irritating person on the planet.

Huh. Why would she keep staring at Luca? I know why other girls on the tour stare at him and his stupid long hair and 'soulful eyes' or whatever shit Samantha likes to wax lyrical about, but he better hope that's not why my girlfriend is looking at him. Nah, she wouldn't, she digs me. She wouldn't be so anal about looking after me if she didn't, right? But then why the staring? Like I say, they never seem to have spoken before… at least to my knowledge. But then what I don't know could fill many books and just because I didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen… shit. Opposites are supposed to attract, right? What if they purposely avoid each other so as not to arouse my suspicions?

Okay, fuck, I just officially became Paranoid Crazy Jealous Guy. Time to chill. You only just got your woman back after one stupid screw up, JT, now is not the time to fuck it up with insane conspiracy theories. Trust, feel the trust.

But just to make me feel better, I might just pull out all the stops later to let her know she ain't going to get it any better.