Mad as a Hatter, Thin as a Dime

Ryan sat at the restaurant table nervous and fidgety, something that his band mates didn’t fail to notice. He just couldn’t sit still. If his fingers weren’t drumming the tension away on the edge of the table, then he’d be un-doing and re-doing the second top button on his white flannel shirt, trying to decide whether or not he wanted it done up. And if he wasn’t doing that, then he’d be fixing his hair or playing with the cutlery. But he was never sitting still. There was always something.

Thankfully, the rather high-end restaurant wasn’t too packed, and the members of Panic! At the Disco didn’t need to worry about screaming fangirls or signing autographs. Ryan had too much on his plate right now. He kept glancing anxiously towards the infuriatingly slow clock perched on one of the olive green walls, trying to calm himself down by remembering that he had shown up early and that she wasn’t late.

“Guys, relax,” Pete had laughed to drown the tense atmosphere. Obviously, his words were mostly directed at Ryan, whose edginess was evident in his demeanor. “You’re the famous ones. If anyone has a reason to be nervous, it’s them.”

Ryan thought about that. Kyra didn’t look like the sort of girl who could even get nervous. Sure, he’d only seen her in pictures, but in every one she seemed to glow with a sort of unfaltering confidence. The idea of her being nervous seemed strange in his mind next to who he pictured her to be.

Thankfully, though, Ryan needn’t have worried about this. A few minutes later, when Feign Eloquence entered the room, Kyra was still shining with that same confidence he’d always imagined. The group all entered the room at once, but Kyra definitely stood out. She was wearing a cute red dress with white polka-dots that hugged her curvy figure perfectly to the waist before flowing outwards gently. High red pumps supported her feet, black-painted toenails peeking out from underneath to match the color on her fingernails. Her long hair was out and dead-straight, decorated with a little white headband with a bow. Her hazel eyes popped out from her smoky lids, and her lips were painted the same bright, rich red as the dress. In a word, she was gorgeous. Ryan couldn’t find himself capable of taking his eyes off her until Pete ‘accidentally’ knocked him in the back as he stood to greet Eloquence’s manager.

Once knocked out of his trance, Ryan was able to focus on the remaining guests. He couldn’t identify any of the guys. They all seemed to have a similar hair style, cut in the way as was the scene fashion trend, but two of them had brown hair whilst one was dusty blonde and the other was jet black. They all wore variations of what each other were wearing; skinny jeans (of a normal color, for once), dress shirt, jacket and vans on their feet. Their faces were all relatively attractive; attractive enough to make Ryan jealous that Kyra knew them so well, and they were all still a bit dazed themselves by their lead singer. She had a way of unknowingly putting people under a spell.

Pete and the other manager, Anthony, made introductions that would have been uncomfortable if it weren’t for Kyra’s bright smile. Ryan was so entranced that he heard the names of the four boys, but knew that later he wouldn’t be able to put a face to a name. Mitch… Jacob… Chris… Benji… Kyra… When her eyes met his he felt like he was flying, but it was impossible to tell if she felt it too; she always seemed to be flying.

After introductions, everyone took a seat. Ryan was displeased at the fact that Kyra was sitting further up the table with Brendon and Jon, and he was stuck next to Pete and an empty chair and opposite from one of the guys whose name he couldn’t recall. He was too far away from Kyra to even make conversation. ‘Great.’

After a few minutes, a waiter came up to the table with an electric notepad in hand.

“Are you ready to order yet?” the young waiter asked quietly. No one heard him.

“Are we ready to order yet?” Pete repeated louder, looking around.

“Not just yet,” Kyra spoke up. “We’re just waiting for one more.”

Ryan frowned, puzzled. There were only five in the band, and he had supposedly met all of them, as well as Anthony. He glanced briefly at the remaining seat beside him. Who was missing? Before anyone could ask any questions, Kyra grinned and waved someone over with an elegant hand gesture. Curiously, Ryan turned around to see who the mysterious guest was.

His first thought was that she looked familiar, but at the same time she didn’t. He couldn’t quite place it. She had very dark brown hair falling a few inches past her shoulders. It was so dark that he originally thought it was black, before she stepped into the light. It probably seemed even darker because it was still slightly damp, clinging to the moisture indicating that she’d just had a shower. Her eyes were a pretty mix, swirling between blue and green and defined even more by heavy-but-classy eyeliner and long eyelashes curled upwards. Her eyelids, too, were smoky-grey in color, glimmering in the light. Her lips were a dark pink color, and her face was pale. However, when all the occupants of the table turned to look her way, a small blush immediately rose to the apples of her cheeks and she averted her eyes.

She was wearing a black and white striped dress that was like a corset at the top and flowed out at the bottom. The stripes were all of different thicknesses, so it didn’t look too repetitive. The dress was clearly made for a ‘night out on the town’, but instead of molding to fit that description she wore dark blue skinny jeans under the dress to give it more of a casual look. Simple black kitten heels were worn on her feet, and both her toenails and fingernails were painted silver. She wore a few light silver bracelets at her wrists and one thin necklace holding a purple gem around her throat, and that was it. She looked quite out of her comfort zone, but at the same time she looked beautiful.

“Guys,” Kyra began, as the other girl made her way over to join her. “This is my sister Vesper. She’s going to come on tour with us. Ves, this is Pete, Brendon, Jon, Spencer and Ryan.”

Ryan's heart skipped a beat when she said his name.

“Hi,” Vesper murmured shyly before looking down. Eye contact was not her specialty.

“Ves, there’s another seat over there.”

Kyra motioned to the chair next to Ryan and at first Vesper’s eyes showed a hint of panic, but she swallowed that with one gulp and walked over to her seat. Sliding the chair back with a little difficulty, she sat down sideways and swung her legs around so that they were under the table. A few minutes of her silence ensued as other conversations broke out among the table, until Ryan decided to break it.

“Hi, I’m Ryan.”

The poor girl looked awfully uncomfortable. The least he could do was introduce himself, right? She gave a small smile.

“I know. And as you heard only a few seconds ago, I’m Vesper, but for conversation’s sake I’ll introduce myself again.”

He found himself smiling a little at the fact that the shy girl had spoken to him.

“Are we ready now?” the waiter asked a little louder than before, eyeing both girls as inconspicuously as he could.

“Yes,” Kyra smiled one of her dazzling smiles, sending Ryan’s heart into a flurry all over again. “Yes we are.”

***

Ryan secretly watched Kyra all night. She seemed not to notice, and that only encouraged him. She was so beautiful. Every move she made brought another one of her skillful lyrics into his head, until he just had this massive whirlwind collection of lyrics that formed her perfection. As beautiful as she was, it was her lyrics that really did it. They were so conceptual, so strange, so abstract, yet at the same time so honest and expressive. They were the reason that this silly little crush of his had started. She was completely perfect for him, in every way.

“So, you really have it bad for my sister, don’t you?”

Ryan jumped out of his daydreams and turned to face the owner of the voice. Vesper chuckled a little.

“Wh-what makes you say that?”

Damn stuttering.

“Well, apart from the fact that you’ve been staring googly-eyes at her all night, your stutter just then proved my point.”

She smiled a little, taking a sip of red wine. She liked speaking to Ryan. He was nice, and easy to be around. She didn’t feel this comfortable with… well, anyone, during first meetings.

“Am I really that obvious?” he sighed. “And are you even allowed to be drinking? How old are you?”

“To answer your first question; yes, you were being extremely obvious. Secondly no, I shouldn’t be drinking, but neither should you yet you are. And lastly, I’m nineteen.

“So what, are you and Kyra twins?”

“No,” Vesper sighed. “Ky was born in April and I was born the next May. Somehow we ended up in the same year at school and stuff.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Ryan looked around the table, where everyone seemed to get on really well. He ignored the pang of jealousy when Kyra laughed at one of Jon’s jokes.

“You don’t know who anyone is, do you?” Vesper asked randomly.

“Huh?”

Ryan shook himself from the daze. He’d been staring at Kyra. Again. Vesper rolled her eyes humorously and gestured to the other guys in Feign Eloquence.

“Oh.” Ryan blushed a little. “Uh, not really, no.”

“Well, before you go humiliating yourself and getting them mixed up, I’ll teach you. Are you sober enough to pay attention?”

He gave her a swift nod.

“Are you going to stare at Kyra the whole time?”

He nodded his head again before realizing what the younger girl had said and started shaking it vigorously. She just let out a tinkling laugh before taking another gulp of wine, wincing from the bitter taste, and pointing subtly to the guy sitting next to Kyra.

“Don’t get distracted,” she teased.

“Hush you,” he scowled.

“Okay, so that’s Benji, the one next to Kyra with brown hair. He’s the bassist,” she explained in a low voice, so that no one else could hear them.

Ryan nodded.

“Benji, brown, bassist. That’s easy. Alliteration.”

Vesper laughed at his logic and he started laughing too. It was pretty stupid.

“Okay, and that blonde one sitting opposite you is Jake. Or Jacob. His friends call him Jake.”

“Okay. Instrument?”

“Lead guitar.”

“Got it.”

“The black-haired one opposite me who keeps looking at you is Chris. Don’t worry too much about him, he only looks intimidating. He’s just looking out for Kyra…”

Ryan gulped.

“… and he plays rhythm guitar.”

Ryan was now visibly tense, even more so than before when he’d been waiting for them to arrive, biting his lip at the protective frown on Chris’ face.

“Relax, Ryan,” Vesper smirked a little. The wine was going to her head. “As long as you don’t hurt my sister, you have nothing to worry about.”

“Okay then… if you say so…”

“And the last one, on the end of the table behind me is Mitch. Drummer.”

“Gah! He’s got brown hair too!”

“So does your whole band!” Vesper argued in a laugh.

“So do you!” Ryan tried to argue back, but they were both a little tipsy by this point.

“That proves my point!” Vesper exclaimed happily. “I win.”

“It was a draw.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“Was…”

“Okay, hush now kiddies!” Pete interrupted the pair’s bickering.

They both looked up to see that most of their company had now gone outside and Anthony had gone to pay the bill. Ryan panicked slightly when he realized that Kyra wasn’t in his sight, but he calmed down when Vesper pointed in the direction of the door. Still giggling at nothing, the two stumbled outside to where everyone else was gathered.

“Hide me!” Ryan said, running behind Vesper’s back.

“Why?” she whispered to him.

“I don’t want Kyra to see me like this,” he hiccupped.

She didn’t answer for a moment and he thought she hadn’t heard him, but then her sigh and whisper met his ears.

“Okay then.”

Pete and Anthony came outside, and it was time for the bands to say their goodbyes. There were a few awkward waves and a few fonder farewells. Ryan was happy hugging Vesper goodbye until he saw Brendon, Jon and Spencer all hugging Kyra and the green-eyed monster flashed in his brown eyes. He tried to ignore it, though. Soon they’d be going on tour. He’d have months to get to know her. He was already friends with her sister, right? That’s something, at least.

“Bye Vesper,” he whispered, his warm breath visibly hitting the cold night air.

“Bye Ryan,” she whispered back before breaking their hug.

“See you in a few weeks!” Brendon shouted to Feign Eloquence, Vesper and Anthony as the members of Panic! At the Disco piled into Spencer’s car in which they’d come.

A few weeks. That was it. And then six young lives would embark on the experience of a lifetime.