It's Really Happening

“Well, I can’t top that!” Jimmie announced when Danny and Dave stumbled off the little stage (and almost fell down the stairs). Everyone seemed to agree, but continued dragging themselves up to the microphone anyway. This was why I remained firm in my belief that tequila is the root of all Stupid, even though it did sometimes provide free entertainment.

Only, tomorrow would not be so pleasant. Well, I’d try not to gloat.

I winced when Danny slipped off his chair, causing the entire table to burst into laughter. “I’ll be back,” I murmured to Zack, who was leaning on my shoulder. He nodded absently—he was in the middle of a (doubtless) ridiculous argument with Dennis—and I downed the rest of my drink before heading over.

“Eriiiiis!” Alex whined when I got close. “Do a shot with us!”

“I told you, I’m not drinking that shit. My decisions are bad enough.” I pulled Danny up by the arm. “Darling, I think maybe you’ve had enough.”

“Naaah,” he said, waving a hand at me. “I’m fiiine.”

I watched him levelly as he took another long swig of his beer. “You know I hate having to do this,” I said, already annoyed with how motherly I sounded.

“So don’t do it!” Danny grinned brightly and pulled me into his side. Though, since I was standing, my hip was at his shoulder.

“Do what?” Matt asked, confused.

“Convince his drunk ass from doing irreconcilably stupid shit,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “It’s hard, requires too much effort, and usually ends with me pissed off at him.” Jack burst into giggles, and it took me a few seconds to figure out why. “Not like that, you perv!”

Which caused the rest of the guys to laugh. “Okay okay okay okay,” Alex said, sliding over a shot of tequila, “How ‘bout this? You take this one shot, and Danny’ll stop drinking.”

“Your solution to stop someone drinking is getting someone else drunk?”

“Well, if yur not intereshted,” Danny said, reaching for it.

“No!” I snapped, slapping his hand. He pouted at me while the others made whipping sounds. I groaned dramatically. “Fine! Give me salt and a lime wedge.”

I must’ve made a pretty hilarious face, judging by how they all died laughing. To my defense that was fucking awful! “Ugh, I hate you all.”

Danny did stop drinking, but he was so drunk that it didn’t matter, and also he insisted I stay at their table. As in, held me in his lap and wouldn’t let me leave. However, it didn’t last too long since we had to get back to the hotel and “get some sleep”.

“I mish you,” Danny said, leaning his chin on my shoulder. I leaned my head sideways to look at him. “All the time. I mish hanging out wiv you. I’m rilly glad you’re on tour, Erish.”

I smiled. “I miss you too,” I admitted, “Even though you are drunker than a frat boy after finals.” He chuckled and almost sent us onto the floor. “Okay, I need to get my purse, and you’re going to stay here until I come back.”

I pried his arms open and crossed back to my original table, where Abby had her head down on the table. I frowned. “Uh…what happened to her?”

“Too much rum and tequila,” Jimmie laughed, pulling on his jacket.

“No such thing,” Josh protested.

I crouched next to her chair. “Abby?” I gently shook her shoulder. She grumbled something about elephants and moved closer into Josh’s arms. I rolled my eyes. “Your lady. You wake her up.”

“Where’ve you been?” Zack asked when I came up behind him and looped my arms around his waist.

“Compromising my sobriety to make sure Daniel doesn’t drink himself to death.” He turned around and I smiled hopefully. “Mind if I ride in the van with them?” Zack made a face. “Just to make sure he’s okay.”

“Danny’ll be fine without you mothering him.” He wrapped his arms around my hips. “Can I get a little attention too? I can drink a lot more if I have to.”

I laughed and stood on my toes to kiss him. “Who’re you sharing with?” I asked softly.

“Jack.” We both glanced over at said guitarist, who was laughing hysterically on the floor. Zack raised an eyebrow. “Can we throw them both in a bathtub?”

“Perfect! I’ll see you back at the hotel then.”

The next day was not so pleasant. Almost everyone else was hungover, and Zack and I got a… rude awakening. Actually, I won’t mince words: a bunch of the guys tore back the covers and poured freezing cold water on us.

Luckily I took the pillow with me when I fell off the bed, but it was hardly enough. And then someone turned the lights on and I went blind. “W-w-why am I s-s-soaking wet?!” I demanded, glaring around at the group, who looked oddly surprised. “And why sh-shouldn’t I murder you all?!”

“We thought you were Jack!” Tim said quickly, stepping behind Jimmie, who pushed and tried to hide behind him.

“Why would Zack be in bed with Jack!”

“It’s happened before,” Kurily admitted with a shrug.

I rolled my eyes and got up off the floor shivering. On my way to the bathroom, I hit Dave in the face with the sopping wet pillow. (Well, we was still holding the bucket.) “When I get out of the shower, you’d better not be here!”

And they weren’t! Magic!

I wasn’t really that mad about the prank; I’d kind of expected to be pranked at some point. I just wasn’t a morning person, and I hated people waking me up. So by the time my shower was done, I was fine. The fact that Zack had salvaged one blanket and curled up on the dry floor to sleep helped.

What I hadn't known was that Flyzik had run out of the room when the lights came on, since he had the camera on and didn't want to suffer my wrath. But he couldn't resist putting it on his laptop and showing Rian. I crept up behind them and peered over their shoulders at the screen, filled with my attackers whispering and shushing each other. Then a recording of my voice shrieked, followed closely by a thump and an "oh, shit!" from behind the camera.

Both Rian and I laughed, which caused him and Flyzik to jump—the latter off the couch. "We thought—" he started, but I nodded him off. Some of the metaphorical wind went out of his terror-sails. "You're not mad?"

I shrugged and slid in next to Rian. "Swooped!"

We got out on the road eventually, which left me separated from Abby with not much to do. Except think. And text Abby. And the guys really would've done better to make sure I was entertained.

The second I stepped off the bus— in my enormous sunhat, which the guys all took turns wearing and laughing at—I heard, "When do we start?"

Abby was wearing a grin so wide I thought her head might fall off. This was reason enough for anyone who knew us well to become suspicious. Luckily they were busy and the guys around us chalked it up to wedding nonsense. Well, that certainly made things easier on our end!

Abby and I huddled together backstage, quietly brainstorming pranks in the corner and trying not to laugh too much. Everyone pretty much left us alone since they had jobs to do, but when someone did come over, I pulled up a browser window on place settings for the reception dinner. Lace doilies tend to scare men.

"You know," Abby said, when we were taking a break before doors opened, "We've been pretty mean to Alex lately."

I glanced up from my laptop. "We're always mean to Alex," I pointed out. "What's your point?"

"Think we should include him?" My eyes moved across the room to where he was sitting (on a table) with a bottle of water and his phone. I considered him a moment, idly pulling at his lip as he read something with interest. Then I turned back to Abby and shrugged. "You fill him in, I'mma go find my boytoy!"

She got up and headed for the door. "Use condoms," I reminded, boredly turning back to my laptop. She stuck her tongue out at me and I grinned before shutting the lid and getting up.

"Whatcha doing?" Alex looked up. I had my hands folded behind me and a friendly smile on my face.

"Nothing important," he replied, stowing his phone away. "What's up?"

"I wanted to apologize for the other day. I didn't mean to hit you. I was aiming for Abby. And I'm really sorry about throwing that book at you. I was really upset and thought it would be something... not as painful." I could hardly get to sleep the night before because I remembered that, but since I'd had a couple drinks, I was in no state to go make a speech to him. "So... yeah. I'm sorry." I stuck my lower lip out and tried to look pathetic.

I'm really lame.

Alex just stared at me, not really sure of what to say. After an awkward silence, he said, "You forgot the part where you called me a pansy."

I looked up from my shoes. He was grinning. So was I. "You still are a pansy, Alexander." He pouted. I held out my arms, and he hopped off the table to hug me. "So now that everything's copasetic, wanna help me and Abby fuck with our friends?"

"Fuck yeah, I do."

Alex laughed when I told him the plan, but agreed to be involved. So during Every Avenue's set, Abby and I walked to the CVS down the street and bought supplies for several of our plots. Then we returned to the venue and waited, trying to hide our excitement.

See, there's usually at least one person who stays behind in the bus or van instead of going out before curfew. Usually it's so they have a little time to themselves before they go to sleep, but they're always asleep by the time we roll out. We got incredibly lucky and had, not one, but three targets.

"Hi, I'm Eris," I announced. I'd given Abby my camera to film since she didn't want to be blamed for stealing the keys to the van from Josh (and Alex couldn't figure out my camera.)

"I'm Alex," Alex said, waving.

"And this!" I held up the canister we'd bought. "...is a can of whipped cream!"

We hit Every Avenue's van first. Tron was passed out in the row when we eased the door open. Abby filmed me squirt a mountain of whipped cream into Alex's hand, which he then transferred to Tron's, and Alex ticked his face with a bright orange feather.

We found some great, really random shit on our run.

Next came the Audition. Danny was kind enough to name me holder of the keys since the rest of them had a tendency to "misplace" them. Tron at least gave us the satisfaction of annoyed cursing. Tim didn't even wake up. But that was okay, because he smeared the whipped cream all over his face and into his fro.

But the best reaction came from Flyzik, who had dozed off on the couch in the front lounge.

"Aaaaaauuuuggh!" The three of us burst into laughter as he tried to wipe his face and only succeeded in making more of a mess. "You said you weren't mad!"

"I'm not!" I wheezed, face hurting from laughing.

Flyzik smelled and then tasted the substance on his face. "Where the hell did you get whipped cream?!"

"Drug store," Abby replied, still grinning. "You should be thankful! Alex wanted to add chocolate syrup."

That sparked, aside from a lot of hysterics from the Audition who all posted pictures on Twitter, a prank war that had been brewing for the entire tour. I was proud to be the one to bring it to fruition. There weren't really any solid teams, certainly not band versus band, but it wasn't every man for himself.

Our trio stole all of Jack's shoes and stuffed cotton into the toes so he thought his feet had grown and had to replace his entire collection. Abby and I helped some of the others get bungie cords and fix Dave and Dennis to the bed. The best part was Dave's reaction upon waking up: "Aww, man, not again!" An insanely loud alarm went off at 4 AM in our suite and it took six of us half an hour to find it under the couch.

Turns out Alex had turned against me and Abby, so in retaliation we scooped out about an inch of his deodorant and replaced it with cream cheese. While I laughed and tried not to gag, Abby was very intent on using her artistry to sculpt it perfectly. It worked because Alex smelled horrible and was covered in the gooey mess.

He then helped members of both the Audition and Every Avenue hide an animatronic Gremlin in the fridge to come to life, singing and dancing and scare the shit out of Abby. Weird what things guys remember. But showing no loyalty to their fellow men, a few of each band helped us give Seth a makeover—hairspraying his hair straight up and covering him in garish makeup so he scared himself half to death when he looked in the rearview mirror— and leave Jimmie a "lovenote" on his chest in lipstick after a hard night of drinking.

Since nobody would sell us out, but noticing the culprit had used the same lipstick, they teamed up and blamed Rian. Well, you know how much Rian cares about dental care, right? Imagine the nasty shock he got when he brushed his teeth and discovered his toothbrush was covered in salt. In exchange for a promise to inform us of anything he was in on, Abby and I broke into the Audition's room at the next hotel early in the morning.

In addition to slathering all the doorknobs in vasoline, I bought some fake extensions that were about Danny's colour, cut them to his length, and scattered them around his pillow. Abby hid my camera and set it to record before we tiptoed out. I'd been recording all our antics, as well as those we caught the reactions of, and posting them somewhere discreet, but still findable.

That was probably our masterpiece. Danny freaked when he woke up, blamed everyone in the room, and when they convinced him they weren't involved, they joined in Freak Out Fest '09 because they thought they were locked in the room.

Of course amid all these larger pranks there were smaller ones. The popular hit was messing with people's drinks. Salt, vinegar, corn syrup, replacing regular water with flat seltzer. We always made sure our pranks were harmless and nobody got hurt. We just wanted a few more laughs.

Not that we really needed more insanity with the guys on this tour.

Almost a week after Alex, Abby, and I lit the match on this haystack, I woke up to find Zack not in the bunk. Feeling around for my phone, I discovered it was almost noon. Guess I shouldn't have stayed up so late editing footage, I thought, blearily finding some clothes to wear.

Only, I couldn't find a bra. Actually I couldn't find any of my bras.

I stole one of the extra large hoodies from a box of merch that had been brought up into the cabin and zipped it all the way up before going in search of people. The guys were talking and laughing about something when I walked out, and then they all collectively quietly down. Suspicious much?

I leaned down and whispered in Zack's ear, "Have you seen any of my bras?" He tilted his head in confusion, and I widened my eyes pointedly.

"Nope," he said with a shrug. "What'd you do with them?"

"What'd you lose, Eris?" Jack asked loudly.

I scrutinized each of their faces: all trying to hold back snickers and not doing a very good job of it. Zack was better, but he still wouldn't hold eye contact. "...Alright, you bastards, where are they?"

The lounge erupted in varying levels of snorts, snickers, and maniacal laughter. "You gotta find 'em, babe," Danny said with a grin.

I narrowed my eyes at him and started tearing the room apart. "This was your doing, wasn't it? I mean, that's why you're here. To get back at me for the fake hair."

He held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, I'm just the idea man!"

"Zack actually did most of the work," Vinny pointed out with a laugh as I was running out of places to look.

I rolled my eyes and closed the microwave. "I hope so," I declared dryly. "I don't want any of the rest of you anywhere near my underwear."

Danny guffawed. "You're so not getting any for the rest of forever, bro."

I surreptitiously watched my boyfriend's expression as I continued searching. He'd been avoiding hanging out with Danny and trying to limit me doing the same since his discovery of our conjunctive past. I hadn't really pinned Zack for the jealous type, but I think it had something to do with them being sort of similar in a lot of ways. I didn't think anybody else had noticed—Danny certainly hadn't; if they did, they didn't mention it to me.

I opened the mini freezer and groaned, which produced another chorus of giggles. "You guys fucking suck." I snatched my bras from the cold container and headed back into the bunk room, where I threw all but one into my bags before going into the bathroom.

The bathroom on the bus always made me claustrophobic, being barely more than a closet with a toilet and sink, and I used it as little as possible since only liquids could be flushed. Being the only chick and therefore the only one who used toilet paper? Unsanitary!

But I sucked it up and took off the hoodie and my tank top. I sucked in a deep breath and braced myself. It didn't matter. They all heard my squeak anyway. "I hate you all!" I called, pulling my shirt back on.

Later, after the heat of the South had defrosted my undergarments, we all went for lunch. There was another round of laughter (and a mild scolding from Abby) but I'd gotten over it in favour of maturity. And really clever revenge, of course.

"What's wrong with you?" Abby asked down the table as we were getting ready to leave. I frowned, but realized she wasn't talking to me, she was talking to Gaskarth. "You look like you just swallowed a goldfish."

"Nothing!" he answered quickly. He'd been listening to something on headphones Jimmie had given him, which he quickly pulled off.

"How can you tell it from normal?" Seth quipped.

Everyone else's attention waned, but my curiosity had been struck. And you know what curiosity did. It opened a box and let out all the evil in the world. Well, I was named after the goddess of chaos and I intended to live up to it.

"Hey, Alex," I said sweetly, sidling up beside him as our massive group exited the restaurant.

"What do you want, Eris?" he asked in faux annoyance. I put on a hurt expression, making him roll his eyes and grin. "You only call me Alex when you want something. Otherwise it's Gaskarth or Alexander or Alexander William."

"Your name's fun!" I glanced down at the iPod stuffed in his pocket. "What were you listening to?"

Alex's eyes turned shifty. "Uh... Eminem. Thought I'd give it a try."

I snorted. "You're a bad liar. What is it really?" He cast a furtive look in front of us. "C'mon. You know I'll bug you until you tell me."

He pulled my arm and led me into the bus, through the whole thing to the back lounge and closed the door. We both sat down and he handed me the headphones. "Listen to this song," he directed, pressing buttons.

Naturally suspicious, I gave him a dubious look, but put in the earbuds anyway. "What can you do with a girl like that?" Dave's voice sang in my ears, "Taking everything, giving nothing back. Stuck between her legs when she sets her trap. What can you do with a girl like that?

"I think I've heard this," I said when what was obviously the chorus repeated.

Alex shushed me. "Just listen!"

So I listened. It took me two more choruses and a repeat of the whole song, but I finally figured out why the chorus sounded so familiar. It was an adaptation of the card Josh sent Abby with the roses after we came back from LA. Well, more like a complete reversal.

I pulled out the headphones, looking thoughtful. I suppose inspiration strikes anywhere, but why take a love note and turn it into... whatever this song was?

Alex, on the other hand, looked like he was about to explode. "This song's about Abby!" he exclaimed as quietly as he could. Which wasn't that quiet to be honest.

I blinked at him expressionlessly. "...You're a terrible person, Alexander."

"I'm serious!"

"So'm I."