It's Really Happening

For some reason I always woke up after very few hours sleep on a night of drinking. However, it was quite obvious what woke me up the next morning.

I made a face as the sun shone brightly in my eyes and with a yawn I put a hand over my face. But I stopped because my elbow was definitely not on a mattress. Squinting, I looked around. Abby, asleep on my shoulder, and I were lying out in the desert, thankfully within sight of the strip. And it was just after dawn.

I let my head flop back and thought for a minute. We’d been drinking, and then we went for a walk, and then… Oh. Right. “Abby,” I said, shaking her gently, “I think we should get back to the hotel.”

“No moving,” she grumbled, turning over.

“We’re lying in the middle of the Nevada Desert.”

Pause. “Oh.” Abby sat up and shook sand out of her hair. “Yeah, okay.” I stretched widely, rolled my head around, and cracked a few joints. “Have I mentioned that’s really gross?”

“No, but you’re hungover, so I’ll forgive you.” I jumped to my feet and gave her a hand up. “Why did we decide this was a good idea?”

Abby yawned and linked her arm through mine. “So long as we don’t get picked up by the cops, I still say it was.”

Our walk back to the hotel was pretty uneventful. We had to look up directions since neither of us could remember how to get there—Las Vegas is ranked number one in the country for number of hotels in a single city—and I had to keep myself from singing the Ataris’ “Road Signs and Rock Stars.” It was kind of perfect really, talking about life on the road and love and the truth that Vegas really didn’t look as pretty in the morning, but Abby said her head hurt.

As we beleagueredly made our way up to our hotel, I noticed that two men were staggering also to the hotel from the opposite direction. As we drew closer, I saw that it was Seth and Timmy. The four of us stopped in front of the rotating doors and looked at each other. Seth was all disheveled with a woman’s scarf tied on his head, and Tim strangely had confetti in his fro.

“Where’ve you two been?” Abby asked.

Seth and Tim exchanged a glance. “…Nowhere,” Seth replied. “You?”

I looked at Abby, who looked at me. “…Nowhere,” she mimicked.

“…Alright then.”

“Alrighty.”

An awkward silence descended, and it was hard to keep from snickering. “So!” I announced, and they all flinched. “Breakfast?”

We made our way through the hotel lobby. “Can I take a shower first?” Tim asked, shaking bits of paper from his hair.

“I need to brush my teeth,” Seth grumbled, making a face. “Uck.”

I smirked and pressed the button to call the elevator. “Make it fast, we’ll be back down here in twenty minutes.”

We part ways with the guys and went to our own rooms. I stood and waited for Abby to get into hers before heading off; it took her a few tries to get the key card out of her wallet and into the lock panel. When I quietly opened the door down the hall, it was hard not to burst out laughing.

Zack, Jimmie, Dave, Kurily, and Flyzik were all passed out on the bed in various positions and states of undress. I immediately flipped out my phone and snapped a picture. Blackmail orgy pics anyone? Maybe I’d post it on twitter for them to wake up to.

I changed my clothes, brushed my teeth, washed my face, threw on a little makeup, and emerged from the bathroom after twelve minutes. I am a get-ready ninja. With another stifled snicker, I managed to kiss Zack’s forehead without waking anyone up, though I did almost knock Kurily off the bed.

Abby exited her hotel room just after I passed the door, and we rode the elevator down to the lobby where we met Seth and Tim. They still showed obvious signs of a night of hardcore partying, but a cup of coffee and some food would fix that. We went down to a 24-hour breakfast buffet and sat around reveling in the glory that was their night for almost half an hour before even getting food.

“Ugh, I hate everything,” Abby groaned, leaning her head onto my shoulder after the guys went to grab food.

I smiled. “Could be worse,” I reminded. “We could’ve ended up with Seth and Tim at the strip club.”

She snorted, and we both settled into silence. About a minute later, she raised her head suddenly. “Did you leave Zack a note or something?”

“No. I said I wasn’t his mother, and he’s not mine either. That’d just be weird.” Coincidentally the guys came back exactly when I continued, “Plus he was kind of in the middle of an orgy at the time, so I decided not to interrupt.”

Abby laughed, while Seth and Tim looked at me like I’d grown another head. That spoke Portuguese. “Um. What?” Tim inquired, pouring sugar into his coffee.

I grinned toothily. “I’ve got a picture. Would you like to see?”

“No!”

I handed Abby my phone as we got up to get food, and just as I was scooping myself some hash browns, she almost fell over laughing. “Awww!”

“I know, aren’t they revolting?”

I’d learnt not to expect much in terms of food on the road, and this was no exception. “Ah, mediocrity,” I declaimed, leaning back in my seat once I finished eating.

Seth’s phone buzzed on the table, and he glanced at it before picking up. “Hey, man,” he greeted. “Breakfast at the buffet place down the street.” His expression turned confused. “Uh, yeah, they’re here.” Both Abby and I perked up. “Okay. Later.” He hung up and looked at us weirdly. “You guys didn’t go back to the hotel last night?”

“We had an adventure in the desert instead,” Abby replied. “Why?”

“Wait, did you not tell Josh we came by either?” I asked, turning to her.

“He was asleep. I didn’t want to wake him up.”

Seth laughed. “That explains it then.”

“Explains what?” Tim asked.

“You’ll see.” Things like that always made me suspicious. I said it too often for it not to.

A few minutes later a group of people we knew walked in, most of them looking a little pissed off about being awake. Josh rushed over to the table and pulled Abby up and into his arms. I looked away when they started kissing and smiled up at Zack, who magically appeared next to me. “Morning. How’s your hangover?”

“Can you please never do that again?” he asked seriously, pulling up a chair. “Ever.”

I tilted my head at him. “You never came back!” Josh exclaimed, apparently having come up for air. “Don’t scare me like that! I thought something awful happened!”

“Like what?” she asked. “I was with Eris.”

“Who’s also a chick!” he argued, stealing her seat and pulling her down into his lap. “Despite being intimidating and ass-kicking sometimes.”

“We got married,” I told the table with a straight face. “Sorry, Joshua, you’ve been cuckolded. Should’a been quicker.” For some reason, he and several other members of our crew couldn’t tell whether I was serious. The powers of observation on this tour!

Seth, among others, just thought this was the funniest thing ever, though. “Did you also find a baby in the closet?” he asked.

“There was definitely a tiger in the bathroom,” Dennis laughed, sitting down with a plate of food.

I turned to give Zack a confused look, but he’d left to get food, so I gave it to Abby instead. “You haven’t seen ‘The Hangover’?”

“Oh. No, I haven’t been to the movies in months.”

“Dude, you should’ve heard them earlier,” Alex said, stealing Zack’s seat. He too had a huge, mirthful grin on his face, and it probably wasn’t because of the pancakes. “Josh stumbles into our room and says, ‘Have you guys seen the girls?’ and Danny—” Pause for laughter, “Danny goes, ‘…I thought they were with you.”

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. “I would’ve torn that hotel apart,” Josh admitted, leaning his chin on Abby’s shoulder.

“You almost did.”

“Dude!” Zack protested, having come back and found his seat swooped. Alex made an annoyed face and moved the two feet into the next chair.

“You guys would misplace your girlfriends,” Abby laughed. I nodded in vehement agreement and jumped when Zack poked me in the ribs.

It was probably just me on this one, but I felt like the vibe got really weird when Jack joined us in one of the rooms later. Abby flushed and scooted closer to Josh when I looked at her. I watched him sink into a chair and converse with the others and generally act completely normal.

It was just…bizarre. On the one hand, I understood: it was a mistake and it would never happen again. But on the other hand, how could he! I would’ve thought that even Jack would’ve known better. True, Abby probably should’ve known better too, but she was upset. They were both at fault. But at the same time… not.

There was a lot of confused and confusing information buzzing around my head.

“Zack, your girlfriend’s staring at me,” Jack whined, breaking me out of my trance. “Make her stop!”

“She can hear you, dude,” Jimmie reminded him.

“What, Eris?”

“Nothing, nothing.”

I tried to keep my mind on other things, even succeeded for a while, but every time I saw him, I just couldn’t help but stare. Abby caught this, and knew why obviously, and nudged me a few times, but she couldn’t prevent everything.

“What?” Jack asked again as I walked past him off the bus.

“Nothing,” I replied simply, looking away.

While the bands went through their sound-checks—and the ones who weren’t sat backstage and drank beer—Abby and I were on our phones checking Tumblr and Twitter, respectively, showing each other amusing things when I happened upon a picture that Alex had posted from the night before. I didn’t think much of it as I let it load in a new window and kept scrolling through updates. Alex posted a lot of random things, mostly to the delight of his fangirls.

Once I finished reading about people’s lives, I went back to the other window and almost dropped my phone. “Oh my god,” I muttered, covering my eyes.

“What?” Abby asked, leaning over to look at the screen.

Gaskarth, amateur paparazzi and twit-whore that he was, had snapped a picture of Abby and me at some point in the casino. Admittedly, it was a flattering picture of both of us—we both looked to be enjoying ourselves immensely and, yeah, okay, hot—but we were both holding drinks and he had captioned it, “These sexy ladies make tour even more great.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “That stupid sonofabitch.”

But I barely heard her. I was looking at all the comments people had left. Some of them were positive, whether jealousy of our dresses or telling Alex how lucky he was, and a lot of them were people wanting to know who we were—a couple pointed out that Abby was Josh’s fiancée. But there were also a lot of negativity. Lots of commenters called us ugly or drunks or groupies or straight up sluts.

“We weren’t dressed that outrageously, were we?” I asked, giving my offending phone a black look as I typed out an update. @AlexAllTimeLow: You stalker.

She took it out of my hand and closed the window. “No. We’re just too awesome for some people to handle.”

I smiled. “True facts.” Conveniently the guys of ATL entered the room at that moment. “Gaskarth, I hate you.”

He stopped in surprise. “What’d I do now?”

“A fourteen-year-old just called me a whore on the internet!” Several people in the room laughed. Then I noticed Jack and started staring again.

“Your poor, bruised ego,” Alex said, patting me on the head, “Being insulted by jealous adolescent girls.”

He waved a hand in front of my face when I didn’t respond, and Jack turned around and noticed me. “Fuck, what?!”he yelled, voice jumping in pitch.

“Still nothing!” I yelled back. Alex looked between us, confused. I rolled my eyes and pretended to text someone until he went away. When he did, Abby elbowed me in the ribs. “Ow! What?”

“Stop staring at Jack!” she whispered fiercely. “You’re making him crazy, and him being crazy won’t help!”

“I’m sorry!” I whispered back. “I can’t help it!” I slouched down in my seat. I didn’t want to get Abby in more trouble. Time for a walk, I decided, and got up. “My poor bruised ego and I are going to get coffee. Anyone who wants to go is welcome.” I wandered over to Zack, who had sat down among his weights. “Want anything?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, eyes moving to the group who stood up with intent to join me. I glanced back. Jimmie, Dennis, and the rhythm section of the Audition. Still not cool with Danny, I see.

I leaned down to kiss him. “Stop worrying,” I told him quietly. Zack frowned as I backed away and joined the others. Once we were outside, I put on my sunglasses and looped my arm through Jimmie’s. “James, do you remember that enormous loud fight Abby and Josh had at Bamboozle last year?”

He blinked in surprise. “Yeah. Why?”

“What was it about?” I asked as conversationally as I could. I wanted somebody else’s view on this so I could maybe stop obsessing.

"...Why do you wanna know?" he asked suspiciously.

I shrugged. “It randomly came up in my brain.” Jimmie fixed me with a weird look. “What? I remember things sometimes!”

“Riiight.” He went back to looking forward as we walked. I stared intently at the side of his head. If Jimmie hoped I was just going to forget it, he was going to be sorely disappointed. I clearly my throat loudly, and he turned back, surprised at the ridiculous noise I made. “What?”

“…Well?”

Jimmie scratched his head. “Uh… I don’t think I should say.”

“Why? Am I asking you to violate some clause of the Bro Code?”

“Yeah, bros before hos,” he laughed.

I stopped walking and ended up making him stop too since I didn’t release his arm. “James, did you just call me a ho?” I asked neutrally.

Jimmie’s eyes widened after a moment. “…No!”

“You did too!” I took my hand back and huffed off after the rest of our group. Jimmie jogged to catch up and pulled a sad pouty face, making backwards in front of me. I tilted up my chin. “Make it up to me by telling me the truth.”

“…But—”

“I’ll buy your coffee,” I bargained, quickly dropping my façade.

After a long moment he sighed and fell into step with me again. “Fine. Abby found out about Josh’s…indiscretion.” I raised an eyebrow. Abby had basically told me that last night, but now I had confirmation.

Apparently he took my expression as further inquisition and said, “Juliet Simms” at the exact same time I said, “Juliet Whatsherslut.”

“What?” he asked, confused.

“What?” I countered.

We stared at each other until Jimmie shrugged and opened the door of the coffee house. I smiled thankfully to myself. I’d only actually met Juliet once, but I’d heard hundreds of stories and I didn’t like her, and nobody could convince me to like her, no matter how many times Gaskarth and company tried. Plus I could never remember her last name, so I deemed her Whatsherslut.

After a few minutes of staring up at the menu and handing Jimmie five bucks (I did promise), I stepped up to the cashier and ordered the first thing that came out of my mouth. “Anything else?” the barista asked, marking up a clear plastic cup.

“Venti iced mocha.” Alex stopped beside me, handed him a ten, and grinned at me.

“Where’d you come from? And are you sure you want to be paying for things after last night?” I quipped, raising an eyebrow.

He shrugged. “Whatever. So have you suddenly fallen in love with Jack?” I cocked my head at him and went to wait for my drink. “You’ve been staring at him all day.”

Oh. That. Shit. “Really, it’s nothing.” Alex gave me a flat look of disbelief. “What?”

“You’re a bad liar.”

I scoffed. “I am a great liar.”

“You are,” he agreed immediately. “I was lying. But you just admitted you’re lying.”

I frowned and replayed the last 15 seconds in my head. “…No, I didn’t.”

“Just tell me!”

“I can’t!” Another barista put our drinks on the counter, and I picked mine up. “If you don’t know, it’s not my place to tell you. I shouldn’t even know.” I quickly took a sip of my drink, because I realized I was beginning to ramble. I really didn’t want to tell Alex anything. Alex had a big mouth. Jimmie would keep it to himself that I’d been asking about things.

Alex picked up his mocha and studied me as we followed the Audition outside. “Did Abby tell you something when you guys pulled a Criss Angel last night?” he asked.

“Did you pay for my drink in hopes that I’d gossip?” I countered, peering at him over my aviators.

“I asked you first.”

“I asked you second.”

Alex rolled his eyes and groaned. “God, you’re difficult. Fine. Yeah, I did. So did she?”

“Yes.”

“…Are you lying?”

“You’ll never know.”