"You realise if you don't make it he's going to be a bitch to deal with, right?"

"Sure, Trace, guilt tripping me is going to make this traffic move faster."

"You wouldn't be stuck in traffic if you'd made the first flight."

"And maybe you wouldn't be such an ass if you'd got laid any time in recent history but no point dwelling on things we can't change, huh?"

The burst of laughter from down the phone lets me know that I've broken the mood and the panic. I don't particularly appreciate him bitching me out for things that aren't my fault, but I love his short ass self regardless. That and I can just imagine what he's been putting up with all day, so I need to cut him some slack. When the Pop Star gets moody, it tends to rub off on everybody around him. I notice the same thing happens with Sophie - I think it's the after effect of having all your jobs and thus lives revolve around one person so much.

"Touché, babe, touché."

"So exactly how much have I missed?" I ask while chewing on a fingernail, staring out of my rain streaked window at the still stationary traffic.

"We're nearly coming up on intermission."

"Shit." Damn, I really shouldn't have chewed on that nail. I've now broken it. "Well… I guess you'd better tell me where you'll be if I don't make it in time."

"Hotel. Randy knows where to take you."

"Okay. See you later."

"Haul ass, woman."

I hang up on Trace without answering the phone. Grumpily I perch my elbow on the dashboard and lean forward, leaning into it as I rest my chin in my hand. It's wet and it's raining and I hate London, I have decided. Normally it's one of my favourite cities in the world, but I hate London. Somebody still needs to explain to me how it could possibly be that out of London Luton, London Heathrow and London Gatwick not ONE of those damn airports is geographically in London. I'm barely in London now - that's how terrible this traffic is. I smirked at the guy in the airport who warned me I'd probably go quicker if I caught the Tube or whatever it is they call the subway here; now I'm starting to wonder if he had a point. I guess this is your typical Friday night.

Except that this is not your typical Friday night for me, I have someone important to go see and I've already missed half his damn show. He's been so irritable lately; I have a feeling he's going to be a bitch for a week if I miss this. It's hard to see Justin at the best of times. Now Sophie's got me in full swing with Light Source and she's got an eye on training me up as a Line Producer (in short, the person who runs the finances on the movie from start to finish) I'm busy as hell. He's also busy as hell, in the studio or on promotion or on tour, and the two just do not mix well. When I'm standing still he's globe trotting, and when he's standing still I'm on location.

It's only going to get worse if I do actually end up as a Line Producer; they're usually one of the first on set and last to leave. A huge part of all this craziness is the fact that Sophie bit off a hell of a lot more than she could chew project wise - way too many way too soon - so we're all stretched pretty thin. To make matters worse, a lot of these projects had already gone pretty far down the production chain (which is unusual) so all our projections about when our first shoots would be were all totally wrong, the business model and progression plan we made was all totally wrong. All in all, it makes for a lot of people running around like headless chickens and the blind leading the blind.

On more than one occasion, I have actually had to pencil my boyfriend into my diary. Ridiculous, huh?

Well, I had him well and truly inked in for tonight and if it hadn't been for that crisis with the damn re-shoots I would have caught the flight I was supposed to. Lord knows how I managed to catch the one I did get - I think Sophie might have dropped her name to get me on it. I'm not complaining. Even though I was crammed in at the tail end of the plane in some less than great turbulence and squashed up next to a really fat guy who snored, I am not complaining. I promised to be here and it's important to Justin that I am.

Listening to the relentless tapping of rain on glass and the low thrum of an idle engine, I think I'm going to go crazy. I just have this constant flashing of salacious headlines going across my eyes, and it's all making me feel yet guiltier for not being where I'm supposed to be right now. It took a very long time for the tabloids to figure out that Justin and I were together (helped by the fact I'm not a huge fan of even the smallest PDA), and as such the rumour pattern is about six months behind schedule. We're at the 'is it for real or just to pass the time' phase of the bullshit and they are relentlessly annoying about it. Unfortunately, having coincided with a lack of us being together and resurgence in the woman beater crap… my boyfriend's been kind of tetchy lately. Me being insanely late when I swore I'd be there will not help.

"Wait… what's the name of the venue again?" I ask Randy as my eagle eye spots a life line out of the window.

"Earl's Court. Why?"

I grab one of the lanyards hanging off the rear view mirror and pick up my bag. I'm about to get very wet, but sadly I don't have an umbrella. "If you don't make it, I'll see you at the hotel."

Before he can protest, I've jumped out of the car and run across the street. I didn't look either way as I did, but in standstill traffic that doesn't matter much. I'm drenched to the skin before I've even gone ten feet, but that's the breaks. I've got another few hundred yards to run anyway so I was always going to be getting very wet on this plan. I really hope I recognised that symbol properly, or this dramatic gesture is going to mean jack shit and will have made me look pretty stupid.

Lucky for me, I find success - it is in fact the train station I was hoping it was. As I throw myself at the ticket counter the young British gentleman manning it looks somewhat bemused. I'm going to take that airport dude's advice and try public transport: better late than never, I hope.

"Hi. I hope you can help me, where's the nearest station to the Earl's Court arena?" I ask him.

"Earl's Court."

"Yeah, that's what I said," I answer impatiently.

"No, Earl's Court is the nearest station to Earl's Court."

"Oh. Sorry. One way ticket to there, please." Great, now I feel really stupid. I could just see the words 'dumb American' flittering across his face. I let him process the transaction and take my newly changed British money in as much silence as is possible on my part.

"So what's the best route for me to take?" I ask out of serious necessity (wouldn't still be talking otherwise, too embarrassed).

"Just get on the District line, goes straight there." Again he gets that 'dumb American' look on his face when he sees how utterly bewildered I am. "The green one. Just look for the signs."

It's a big honking sign, too, says 'District' on it and marks the entrance to the stairwell. Time for me to cut and run before I humiliate myself yet further - I almost want to yell back to him about how I work for really famous people, but I think I'll leave it. He'd probably just view it as more evidence I'm crazy.

***

"Dear God what happened to you?" Rachael doesn't pull any punches.

"It rained. I got wet. How much did I miss?" In the end I only had to go a few stops down the line so it didn't take me as long as I thought it would.

"They're only three or four songs into the second half, you could have been worse," she yells into my ear.

Justin's in full swing with the Rock Your Body choreography, facing the other side of the arena and with his back completely to this VIP pit - perils of playing in the round, I guess, but apparently he liked it so much last tour he wanted to do it again. He, as usual, is rocking his little three piece suit look with that silly hat he likes to wear. Don't ask me why he has to have that handkerchief or whatever it is hanging out of his pants either, he just does. The volume is seriously loud in here, but I'm just grateful for the thousands of people emitting all that wonderful body heat.

"So why are you all wet? Randy couldn't be assed to drive you to the door?"

"Randy's probably still stuck in traffic somewhere," I shrug. "I got out and ran to catch the subway." Now it occurs to me that I really should have checked if my eyeliner was okay. Quickly I root in my bag for my mirror and am relieved to see that it has miraculously stayed on - note to self, do not wipe eyes until face has dried off.

"You got out in the pouring rain to catch the subway here?" I nod, and she throws her head back and laughs - not that you can hear her too well in this din. She even reaches up and wrings out my hair; there's a not small puddle of water behind me after she's done. There's a few girls looking our way and I know they're trying to work out who I am and why I'm cosy with Rachael; here's hoping they don't realise I'm the girlfriend. Last time that happened, I got insulted a lot.

"So what happened, anyway?"

"Well…" I'm not even pretending to watch the show at this point. I'll pick it back up from his next song - this is why I hate walking in halfway through things, I find it hard to pick up the thread. It's also annoying because this is the first show I'll have seen and I was really looking forward to it. Lucky for me I'll be around long enough to see the next couple as well.

"There was this huge crisis where somebody stole a whole afternoon's worth of film reels… or at least they think they did, otherwise somebody's just lost the damn things." There's a suitable gasp and an 'oh no' from Rachael before I continue.

"We had to organise a last minute re-shoot and we didn't have the permits to stay that late and I had to pull a miracle out of my ass to keep us from getting a huge fine. As it is I think it's going to cost us at least fifty grand in penalties even before you think about the actual cost of redoing the scenes. I missed check in for my flight by like ten minutes and they were complete sticklers about it, so Sophie pulled some strings to get me on the next one, but then we got here and London traffic is so awful… I seriously have no idea where Randy is right now."

I vaguely hear a 'how you feeling London' in the background and I gather that Rock Your Body is done, but I'm too intent on shaking my head at Rachael and rolling my eyes. It was like this grand conspiracy to keep me away from here, I swear. Weirdly, I busted my ass to be in this spot at this moment and now I'm here all I want to do is walk out, get one of the guys to drive me to the hotel and sack out in bed. Suddenly I'm very tired.

"So, y'all mind if I slow it down a little right now?" A volley of screams is Justin's answer to that question, so he just grins and says "didn't think you would." My boyfriend is such a cocky so and so. Bizarrely, I love that.

He starts playing, and as he does I think a slow song could be the worst thing he could play right now because the piano is so soft and soothing it's having the old lullaby effect. One of the tricks he's re-using from the last tour - or so he tells me, I never saw his last arena show - is this revolving platform for his piano. Slowly it comes round to face us and though he seeks out Rach (I assume that's who), he finds me instead. A broad grin stretches across his face, all white teeth, and he mouths 'hi' at me. I'm tired and cold and a little achy, now I think about it, but still my lips curve upwards and I mouth it straight back. The beaming smile on his face warms my bones a little.

Oh yeah… that's why I did this. I'd nearly forgotten what with the freezing my ass off.

***

"I still think you're insane," I tell Chelsea without really meaning it as I wrap a towel around her and rub her arms briskly.

Between the show and being bustled straight out of the arena and then back into the pouring rain, she never really had a chance to get dry and she's still pretty damp. I spotted her shivering a little in the car. Buckley is trying to lick the water from her leg, as if to help her dry off, but I hustle him out and shut him in the second bedroom with Brennan. Rachael put their beds and stuff in there so hopefully they won't chew the place up or anything.

"No, just desperate," she responds as she reaches out for a hug. Willingly I put my arms around her because I'm so psyched she's here.

For the whole first half of the show I didn't see her. My eyes kept scanning the pit for her, and a couple of times Trace even caught me and started shaking his head like 'you sad bastard.' I knew there'd been a delay, so I was kind of bummed out on stage thinking she wouldn't make it at all. I mean, I still gave a hundred and fifty percent, I didn't let on, but I just kind of felt it within myself. In my defence, I'd been so hyped up to see her earlier that when it looked like she wasn't coming it was a serious come down. Yet I look up in the second half and there she is, as promised. Okay, she looked like a drowned animal of some description, but I didn't care. I care even less now I've heard why - call me cheesy but it makes me feel special, you know, the big dramatic dash to make it to my show.

Of course she could have just met me at the hotel and seen the show tomorrow - might have saved her the potential hypothermia - but chicks just aren't that logical.

After a long cuddle interlude, Chelsea pulls away. "I think I need to get under the shower and warm up. Can you entertain yourself for a minute?"

"Can't I just watch you in the shower? That'd be entertaining."

Her response is to slap my arm and head for the bathroom without me. "Hopefully the food will be here in a minute. I won't be long."

I already ate at the venue - I don't pay those nice catering people for nothing - but apparently Chelsea hasn't eaten since God knows what time so we ordered some room service for her down at reception. People think this life we lead is glamorous, but actually this is about as exciting as it gets on the road. People coming in at all sorts of weird times, your internal clock getting thrown off, meal times at whatever insane hour you can grab them… not exactly living the life. It's all pretty inconvenient and hard to fit in time for the people who matter - especially when they're getting as busy as my girlfriend is. I shouldn't complain though, her career is finally moving in the direction she's been wanting it to for years. Much as I begrudge the time away, I know this is what she needs to do so I'm right in her corner.

I just cope by bitching about it when she's not around to hear me.

Still, the hotel room is pretty sweet. I haven't stayed at The Dorchester before, though I'm told Michael Jackson likes it when he's in the city. As per her prediction, she's just exiting the bathroom in one of their fluffy white robes when the door goes and the food is delivered. From then on we go for the always exciting 'sit and watch TV while eating and chatting' thing. I think I'm probably eating more of her fries than she is. Sometimes I catch myself watching her, watching her lips as she eats or talks. I'm like a lip pervert or something.

There's a few subjects we purposely avoid, and a particular channel (one I didn't even think they got in this country, namely E!) that we turn over almost as soon as it comes on because they're busy discussing the latest rumours about us. Apparently we're fighting because she wants to move in but I'm too commitment phobic and was only looking for something light. Stupid bastards. Sometimes I wonder how much longer I'm going to be able to take that crap, how many more rounds of album promo I can go through before the benefits outweigh the pitfalls. I have a shelf life, I guess.

"I'm sorry, J," Chelsea sighs as she reaches over and pushes the plate as far away on the nightstand as she can manage. "I know this wasn't exactly what you had planned."

"Meh. Plans can be changed," I shrug. "I just changed the reservation for tomorrow."

It's funny, I was blowing up at Trace earlier and ranting how catastrophic it was that everything had gone so wrong, but now Chelsea's here and actually in front of me for the first time in a month I could care less. My mom said that I was just projecting my frustration about Chelsea not being there onto the unimportant stuff like the restaurant and once she got here I'd forget all about it - I hate it when her psycho babble shit is accurate. It was just way past time for me to see my girl; I feel like we haven't spent any time together in an age.

"So there was food involved? Oh, wait, with you there always is."

She pokes her tongue out at me and gets tickled for her slight. In response she just grabs me and squeezes me round the waist until I give up and just settle into the hug with her, both of us stretched lazily out on the bed. Woman's not wrong though, part of my big plan was taking her out for a deeply extravagant lunch. It's a thing I do. If I don't see my girlfriend for a while I like to splash out on a big date - been like that with every girlfriend I ever had and I don't see it changing any time soon.

"Seriously though…" She trails a finger over my cheek and ear. It'd be sexy if it didn't tickle so much. "You're not mad that I basically missed our anniversary? I know you had so much planned and I feel awful for being so late."

"Shit happens," I shrug. "Besides, you got here. And you, like, battled the odds to do it or some shit which just goes to show how awesome you think I am."

"Clearly having twelve thousand girls scream your name every night has inflated your ego since the last time I saw you." I see her big brown eyes roll at me, though she clearly thinks I didn't.

"Wanna make tonight's count twelve thousand and one?" I waggle my eyebrows.

"You're a dirty, dirty man," she says through a wide yawn. Damn it - I'm guessing that idea's out. She does look kind of sleepy. Honestly, I wait a month to get laid and now I still have to wait until the morning? Sheesh, who on high hates me? I got a serious case of blue balls here!

Heh, I can wait. Much as I was kidding about the 'how awesome she thinks I am' shit, I mean every word when I say that knowing she busted her ass to make sure she was here for even a few hours of our anniversary means a serious fucking lot to me. Considering that a year ago I was struggling to get even the smallest sign that she cared out of her, when she does stuff like this it makes me insanely happy. Maybe I'm finally growing out of my insatiable horn dog phase when I say that's enough. She's still not the most demonstrative person in the world and I've come to terms with the fact that she and I just differ that way, it's just how she is, but I still appreciate a little display of the amore sometimes.

Though… now I think about it, is it a sign that I've gone way too Hollywood that all she did was catch public transport and I'm acting like this is a huge sacrifice on her part?

"You wanna go sleep?" I ask her. Her yawn is infectious, because now I'm doing it myself. Still, I just did a two hour show; I have an excuse to be tired. Chelsea nods wordlessly and I can see her eyes are half closed already.

She manages to stay coherent only long enough to peel off her robe and crawl under the covers, so it's left to me to reach out and turn off the lamps. I do so and the room goes dark, leaving only the barest light for me to make out her outline with. I run a hand along it, up her thigh and over her hip until I reach her rib cage. Folding my arm over her middle, I shift and fidget until I find myself in our usual position, me spooning her and the crown of her head just brushing my lips. In the foreign setting of this room, one in a long line of faceless hotel suites, the familiarity of it is like that warm rush I get when I'm sat at home in Memphis with my Grandpa and we're sharing a bottle of good whiskey. I breathe in and the smell of her hair hits the back of my throat just like that shot would.

"Love you." I thought she was gone already, but she's managed to stay awake just long enough to turn around and give me a quick kiss goodnight.

"Love you too."

"I'll make it up to you in the morning."

I let out a low chuckle, one of my dirtiest, and let that speak for me.