In This Starless City

I could hardly contain myself as my boys and I were shown to our tour bus the next day. I immediately crammed all of my bags into my desired bunk, smiling and walking with a hop in my step as I walked back to the front of the bus to join Jack and Alex Marshall once again. Matt stood by and smiled at my excitement.

“First tour is an exciting time,” He says in an obvious tone but not one to try to ruin my high. “Is everything as it should be?”

“And then some,” Brandon says once he had returned from claiming his bunk. Nathan and Oliver followed him within a moment and we all stood and looked around our bus, all of our expressions the same: enthused and unable to stop smiling idiotically.

“Well, we’ll be leaving here bright and early tomorrow morning so be sure to get a good rest tonight and be ready to kick off this tour bright eyed and bushy tailed,” Matt says, giving each of us—well, the guys mostly—a skeptical and knowing grin.

Hours later, we were all at a bar, laughing hysterically. The boys were all borderline drunks while I was being a good little under aged girl and was drinking nothing but sodas all night long.

“Oh my God, Charlotte I love this song!” Alex proclaimed after his third or fourth shot of whiskey. I laughed but didn’t fight as he dragged me out on the dance floor with him, placing his hands innocently on my hips while I rested mine on his shoulders, lacing my fingers behind his neck.

That’s when I realized the song we were dancing to was “More Than a Feeling” by Boston and that it wasn’t exactly a slow song. But I didn’t want to break that to Gaskarth; he was being too much of a drunken sweetheart in that moment.

“You know, I think someone here likes you,” he says.

I rescind that last comment about Gaskarth.

I looked at him with cynical eyes. “Really?” I played along and he nodded statically, his brown eyes dazzling. “Care to enlighten me on who it is?”

That wicked grin of his widened and I knew I had him, but then to my complete surprise, he shook his head and snickered. I gawked at him as he said, “I can’t tell you because I promised him I wouldn’t,” I scoffed as he drew an X over his heart. “Bros before hos.”

I smacked his shoulder jokingly. “I’m glad you think me a ho, Alex,” I say as I started to walk up, but he caught my hand before I could go too far. I turned to look at him and he suddenly looked rather sober.

“Just promise me you won’t be completely crushed when you find out what kind of guy he truly is,” he says in a grave tone and I could only stare at him. “He doesn’t do it just to hurt them; he does it because he gets bored too easily.”

I shook Alex’s hand off of mine with a soft laugh. “Sounds like this guy won’t be getting anywhere close to me as long as I’ve got my guys around,” I smiled at the image of Oliver, Nathan, and Brandon standing around the bar, smiles on the faces, but I knew their eyes were twitching over at me, making sure things were okay.

Alex gave a reasonable shrug of one shoulder but took a few steps closer to me so that he was almost pressed against me. “But what if I told you that the devil was inside the walls?”

“I would tell you to stop watching so much Harry Potter,” I replied offhandedly and with that, I walked away from Alex, leaving him to find a new underage girl to prey on.

I had barely sat down at the bar when Brendon and Alex Marshall sat down beside me, both with glazed eyes and big smiles. I looked at the two of them.

“What do you want?” I asked, figuring out just by the looks on their faces that they were going to ask a favor…or at least I hoped that was what they’d ask for.

“They’re setting up poles on the bar in half an hour and we were sort of hoping that you would do us the pleasure of dancing,” Brendon says drunkenly and I honestly couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not.

I stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding,”

“Well,” another voice that was not Alex or Brendon’s floats forward, “if they weren’t kidding, would you be interested?”

Jack stood before me, an interested yet unintoxicated smile on his face. I quirked an eyebrow at him, my lips twitching upward slightly before I slid off the bar stool and sauntered past him. “Maybe some other time under some other circumstances,”

“I’m holding you to that,” he says when he caught up with me, falling into step at my side. I laughed and shook my head at him and he sighed a laugh too. “It’s getting kind of late and I was going to head back to the hotel for a quick dip in the hot tub before hitting the sack. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not start the first show of a headlining tour with a major hangover.”

“Which is understandable for anyone that’s listened to your music. No amount of Aspirin will be able to withstand that volume.” I smiled when he smiled.

“And this being true, I wanted to know if you would head back with me so I don’t feel like the only loser that doesn’t want to party.” He gave a cocky grin.

“And what makes you think that I would ever do anything that nice to you?” I crossed my arms, waiting for his response.

“Because if you do, I’ll owe you something in return,” he says and I raised my eyebrows a little higher. “Anything.”

And having already been sold, I stuck my hand out and shook his firmly. “Let’s ride,”

I started toward the door with Jack beside me and he laughed. “Actually we have to walk,”

I gave a half nod. “Well, then, let’s walk.” I corrected myself and Jack only laughed again quietly.

><><><

“Can I ask you something?” Jack asks as we walked slowly down the warm night sidewalk of LA.

“Didn’t really give me a choice there, did you?” I smart back and Jack looked at me with a half serious face and I laughed. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“Why’d you move to America?” I kept my eyes forward but I could see him looking at me from the corner of my eye.

I restrained the urge to shrug and say ‘I don’t know’ and instead answered, “My parents thought that I would have better luck finding a career in music here, and low and behold,” I finally looked at him. “Here I am, opening for one of the biggest bands in the country.”

I thought I saw Jack flush but he looked away before I could be certain. “Did you always want to be a musician?”

I nodded. “My parents said I sang before I could talk and I was playing piano and my dad’s old guitar before I could read and write,” I rolled my eyes at the contradictions of their accusations, but my heart still thudded with warmth nonetheless. I was happy knowing that my parents were proud of the choices that I had made thus far.

“Weren’t you happy in London though?” he caught me off guard with this question. “I mean, didn’t you miss all of your friends when you left?”

I heaved a deep breath. “I didn’t really have that many friends,” I said honestly and I figured Jack thought the subject was sensitive because he dropped it almost instantly after my response.

“Okay, now can I tell you something?” Jack asks. We walked a few steps in silence before I nodded, looking at him from the corner of my eye. “The real reason I wanted to leave the bar tonight with you was to make up for last time.”

I looked down at my feet and smiled to myself. “You really didn’t have to--…” I started but he cut me off.

“I know, but I wanted to,” I looked at him curiously as he looked away this time. “You just strike me as the kind of girl that has or has had her trust broken easily and I don’t want to be just another mistake in your life.”

I didn’t want to take what he was saying seriously.

Jack and I continued to walk until we arrived at the hotel, and of course, Jack being that kind of boy that he is, he held the door open for me and gave a very dramatic bow as he did so. I laughed as I walked past him and he jumped into step behind me.

"You could possibly be one of the weirdest kids I've ever met," I say as we stepped onto the elevator and rode to our floor.

Jack's grin brightened the elevator noticeably. "I'm going to go ahead and take that as a compliment," he says, rocking forward on his toes and sticking his chest out, quite obviously proud, and lacing his fingers behind his back.

I poked his chest hard with my index finger, causing it to deflate and for me to give a wicked smirk. "It's tough to breathe in here with your ego getting so big,"

He huffed. "I guess I can always keep you around to keep my eyes from getting too starry,"

"Charming," I snipe as I strode from the elevator, Jack skipping from behind me to walk backward in front of me.

"You know, you're pretty weird too," he states simply.

I stopped and grinned with forced cheekiness, putting on of my hands on my jaw. "Am I blushing?" I ask sarcastically, starting to walk toward my room again.

"Why yes you are," Jack says but when I narrowed my eyes at him, he cleared his throat and looked down. "Okay you're not,” he corrects quietly.

He looked like he was going to add something to end of that statement, so I quickly asked, “What are your plans for tonight, Jackie?”

“I don’t know,” he answers carefully, probably picking up on my forced subject change, but I didn’t care. I’d much rather talk about something like this; something that, in the long run, didn’t matter. “Maybe watch a movie or something relaxing and lazy.” I gave a nod, pursing my lips in thought. “And what are your plans, Miss Melancholy?”

I glared at him and he snickered. “I am definitely feeling a dip in the hot tub downstairs,” I say as we walked toward the door of my room together. I slid the key into the slot. “And I was going to welcome you to come along, but since you used that nickname…” I trailed off, pretending to be upset with him.

Jack shrugged nonchalantly. “I guess I’ll just have to get a keycard of my own because it’s obvious that you’re not going to let me into the pool area with yours,” he leaned on my doorframe as I walked into my room, turning to look at him when he didn’t follow. “And besides, I can’t pass up an opportunity to get you in my trunks.” He twitched his eyebrows before scurrying down the hall toward his room.

I had to laugh once he had disappeared and the door to my room had swung shut. I walked into the bathroom and snatched my swimsuit off the edge of the bathtub, frowning when I felt that it was still damp and quite freezing.

Manning up, I slipped out of my clothes and put on my swimsuit regardless of the goose bumps that were sent over my entire body when the icy fabric touched my skin. And after wrapping a towel around my torso and under my arms like I had the other night, I grabbed my keycard again and walked out of my room and to the elevator.

I was padded across the lobby, enjoying the scarcity of people but ignoring the following gazes of the boys behind the counter nonetheless. I walked into the pool area and relished the quietness and the quiet sloshing of the water in the pool. My eyes connected with the hot tub on the far side of the room and I sighed, delighted to see the steam rising from the clear yet greenish tinted water.

I dropped my towel on a chair and padded over to the hot tub, walking down the stairs slowly, drawing in a hissing breath through my teeth as the hot water smarted against my cold toes. I continued to walk forward until the water was just below my belly button, and then I sat down, sliding until I was submerged to the base of my neck. I exhaled, allowing my eyes to close slowly and my head to lean back on the stone border that lined the tub.

A few silent minutes passed with nothing to disturb me but my thoughts, but then, I heard the door of the pool area open, close, and then the sound of bare feet tapping across the wet tile floor. Then, there was a splash, droplets of water landing on my cheeks, and the water level touching my skin rippled.

I squinted my eyes and glanced to my right to see Jack smiling guiltily over at me. I smirked back and closed my eyes again.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he says and I heard him shift around in the water.

“Uh-huh,” I say skeptically, the smirk on my mouth growing. “Sure you didn’t.” I brought my hand up and sent a wave of water splashing into Jack’s chest and face, causing him to exhale sharply and look at me in stunned silence.

“Oh, you cheat,” he says as he wiped the water from his eyes. “I like it.” And he splashed me back, causing me to gasp.

I darted toward him, cutting through the water quickly, but instead of dunking him like I was planning on, he grabbed my wrists and my inertia caused him to slide back on the underwater bench until he was in the corner of the tub and in was in front of him. I glared down at him.

“Pinned you,” I say quietly, my eyes narrowing evilly.

Then, before I could register what was going on, Jack pulled his hands back, which, in turn, pulled my arms forward, causing me to lean until my knees buckled and I was straddling Jack. He then placed my hands on the back of his neck and put his hands on my hips harmlessly.

“I kind of like this,” he says playfully, his eyes scorching into mine as his fingers tapped on my skin.

I raised an eyebrow and jumped for the window that Jack had just opened for me. “You know I would like more?” And with that, I climbed out of the water and grabbed my towel, walking to the door of the pool area. “My bed. Alone.”

I gave a cheeky grin to the thoroughly disappointed Jack that was still in the hot tub before walking to the elevator and climbing into it by myself. Then, my smile faded away and I quietly pondered why my heart was racing.