Clash Of The Rockbands

Fan-Girls Meet The Objects Of Their Obsession

“My shirt is sticking to me!” I whined, tugging at my shirt. Since it was pretty much fused to my skin with sweat, it slowly peeled away like a second skin. I flapped it, trying to cool off my back. “Fucking Texas heat!”

“Don’t worry; we’re almost to the tour bus.” Rayne reassured me. I glared over at James, who looked quite comfortable in the heat.

“Aren’t you uncomfortable in this heat, what with all your dark clothing?” I snapped. Let me just say that I get pretty cranky when I’m hot and sweating and uncomfortable.

“No, not really,” he answered calmly. “We’re from California. We’re used to this heat.”

“Well, we’re from Indiana, so this weather is really, really hot to us.” Rayne explained. “And seriously Mel, stop being such a bitch.” I scowled at her, but fell silent.

A few minutes later, we stepped into the cooler, but still not comfortable, shade thrown off by our tour bus. Our tour bus was painted baby blue with TBH written in big, bold, black letters on each side, right above our symbol thingamabob: a red heart with pristine white angel wings, a golden, glowing halo, two dark red horns, and a dark red tail that tapered to a point. In middle school and high school, when Rayne and I would pass notes, we each had a little symbol that we would put under our names. Well, she would usually put it under our names; I rarely bothered, since I sucked at drawing. Mine was just a heart with a shackle around it and a huge cannonball-type thing on the end of the chain. Rayne’s had been the little heart that was half-demon/half-angel. When we first made up the band, we decided that would be the symbol because we’re all nice and sweet and stuff but we’re also kind of little demons when we try to be (evil smile).

“No doubt that this is an all-girl band,” Matt commented, looking up at the powder blue color of the bus.

“Awesome symbol, though,” Zacky added.

“Rayne’s idea,” I told them, pointing over at Rayne. I leaned back against the tour bus, wiping my forehead across the sleeve of my shirt. “I am definitely wearing shorts at the next venue. And flip-flops.” My feet hurt from walking around in heels all day. Not a smart move on my part, I admit.

I bent down and pulled my heels off as Kim and Johnny came bounding up. Kim excitedly held up a baby blue shirt.

“Look! Our band! We have shirts!” she exclaimed. TBH was splashed across the shirt and then she flipped it around to show our symbol on the back. “Isn’t it awesome?” We all nodded. “I didn’t know they sold our shirts too! This is the coolest thing ever!” She practically bounced up and down like there were springs in her shoes.

“Kim, calm down.” Rayne said, pressing a hand down on Kim’s shoulder to make her stop bouncing. Kim stuck out her bottom lip in a clear pouting face.

“But I don’t want to calm down!” she whined.

“You know, I’ve seen Johnny do that before.” James said, motioning towards Kim’s pouting lip. “Usually right after a girl refused to kiss him, though.”

“Oh, burn!” Kim joked, laughing. She pushed Johnny’s shoulder playfully. Johnny didn’t even sway.

“God, you’re a wimp.” he told her.

“Hey, Kim, at least you can finally reach a guy’s shoulder.” Rayne said before Kim could retort.

“Wow, one guy. Hell, I only come up to his fucking knee.” Kim replied, pointing at James.

“It’s not my fault you’re short.” James said.

“I’m not short, I’m fun-sized!” Kim and Johnny yelled at the same time. They both blinked and looked over at each other.

“Jinx! You owe me a soda!” Kim screamed, pointing at Johnny. Johnny blinked again, and then frowned.

“Damn,” he grumbled.

“OH MY GOD!”

“And that’ll be Jen and AM,” I said. They both came sprinting over, gawking shamelessly at all the guys. I seriously think I saw Jen drooling a little bit.

“So, you found them?” AM asked, still gawking.

“Yes, and please stop staring like a couple of fan-girls.” I snapped.

“Hello, I’m Zacky.” Zacky was the first to introduce himself. He held his hand out to AM, smiling. AM didn’t respond but just continued staring at him like someone had hit her upside the head with a frying pan.

“AM!” I chided. She snapped out of her trance and smiled back, shaking his hand.

“I’m Anna-May, but everyone calls me AM,” AM told him. Jen shook his hand and told him her name too, but wasn’t much paying attention to him. She was gawking at the other guys still. Rayne rolled her eyes and slapped her cheek gently. Jen snapped out of her trance to shake the other guys’ hands.

“Sorry about them,” Rayne said as Jen and AM went back to gawking. “They’re obsessed with you guys. It’s always ‘Avenged Sevenfold this’ and ‘Avenged Sevenfold that’.” Jen slowly turned her head to stare incredulously at Rayne.

“How can you not be obsessed? I mean, seriously, look at them!” she cried, pointing in the general direction of the guys. “Try to tell me that they aren’t simply the sexiest men on the planet!”

“They aren’t simply the sexiest men on the planet.” I piped up. Jen switched her incredulous gaze to me.

“You must be hurting their feelings so much right now, Melrose! Being told they aren’t sexy! And I always thought you were so polite and kind!” Jen cried.

“Did I say that they aren’t sexy? No, I said that they aren’t the sexiest men on the planet. They can be sexy without being the sexiest, Jen.” I replied matter-of-factly. Jen frowned as she realized my logic. I grinned at her.

“Guys, they’re right there.” Rayne cut in. “They can hear every word.” Jen and I shrugged.

“If anything, it’s adding to their egos.” I told her. “Inflating their heads a little further, you know? And don’t tell me you don’t have egos.” I snapped. All five of them closed their mouths. “Even we have egos. Small ones, yes, but we have egos. At least I think we do.” I looked over at Rayne and she just shrugged. I looked back at the guys. “Well, we will have egos eventually!” I walked over to the door of the tour bus and tugged it open. “Want a grand tour?” I asked over my shoulder as Rayne, Kim, Jen, and AM all stepped up into the bus.

“Maybe some other time,” Matt said, looking down at his watch. “I think we’re going to go rest now though. Right guys?” He looked around at the others. They all nodded; I noticed that James did it rather reluctantly. So did Syn.

“Oh, Jimmy wants to hang out with his—“ Syn began in a gushy voice but James punched him as hard as he could on his shoulder. Syn stumbled, laughing, but didn’t finish his thought.

“Oh, okay,” I answered, ignoring their little scuffle. “We’ll see you later sometime maybe?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Matt said.

“Alrighty,” I replied. I stepped up onto the tour bus. “It was nice meeting you all.”

“CALL ME!” Jen screamed over my shoulder as she passed by. She grinned quickly before disappearing. She reappeared three seconds later with two tiny slips of paper. She bounded down the steps and walked over to Matt. She pushed one slip of paper into his hand, winking and then handed the other to Johnny. “That’s Kim’s number. She’s TOO SHY—“ Jen glared over her shoulder into the tour bus and raised her voice a little bit. “—to give it herself.” She flashed a flirtatious grin at Matt and then bounded back up the steps.

“Um, yeah,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Jen. “Well, see you guys later then.” I waved and then closed the door.

I instantly rounded on Jen.

“What if they aren’t single?” I snapped. Jen just smiled.

“I would know if they are taken, and they aren’t.” she said calmly. I sighed, shaking my head.

“Hey, if she hooks up with Matt, more power to her.” Rayne said from the couch. I walked over and plopped down beside her. Kim’s cell phone suddenly rang. Her eyes widened and she quickly tugged her cell phone from her back pocket. She flipped it open, putting it to her ear.

“Hello?” she said cautiously. Her chocolate brown eyes lit up. She covered the lower half of the phone with her hand. “It’s Johnny.” she whispered before disappearing through the curtain into the bedroom.

“Already?” AM asked, amused.

“I don’t even want to know what they did when they went off by themselves.” Jen muttered as she sunk down into the monstrous hot pink armchair. It pretty much swallowed her whole. “Probably smooching in a dark, secluded corner somewhere.”

“I think they’re adorable together.” Rayne commented. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and quickly wrapped a hair-tie around it to hold it up. “And why did you just freeze when you saw James?” She turned her attention to me.

“I figured it was some young punk who stole my drumsticks. Not a famous rockstar drummer,” I answered. “He totally caught me off guard.”

“Yeah, it was kind of sudden. And you aren’t exactly completely comfortable around the opposite sex, so you were SOL from the start.” Rayne said. I nodded.

“Pretty much.” We heard a peal of laughter from the bedroom. Jen acted like she was throwing up.

“She’s such a flirt.” AM commented, still amused.

“She’s finally found someone that’s her height. Of course she’s going to try to hook up with him. And it helps that he’s famous.” Rayne replied.

“But I was surprised though.” I said.

“About what?”

“Well, from what I’ve heard, they’re always mean to him and pick on him about being short. But they really didn’t pick on him too much that whole time we hung out.” I continued.

“They called him ‘midget’.” Rayne pointed out.

“But not directly to his face.” I insisted.

“Maybe they aren’t as much of jerks as they’re made out to be.” Rayne said thoughtfully. Jen gasped.

Jerks?” she squealed. “They are far from jerks!”

“You’ve known them for five minutes!” AM snapped. “You wouldn’t know!” Jen shrugged.

“They didn’t seem like jerks.” she said quietly. Another peal of laughter came from the bedroom. “I can’t stand the sounds of a Kim flirting.” Jen seized her iPod off of the end table beside the armchair and put the earpieces in her ears.
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Heyloo. Hope you likey.

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