Disasterpiece

My feet tapped rhythmically against the plane floor, my fingers peeled back page after page of Joey’s drumming magazine; my eyes taking in nothing except the colours and faces. My face was back to its normal shade and temperature and my heart beat at a steady pace. Joey had been gone for a while now and it had given me the chance to calm down after the little...no pun intended at all...incident.

After thinking about it, I appreciated that it was just one of those ‘natural’ things guys didn’t always have control over and if I was in his position I would want to try and forget that it happened and move on. So that was my plan, as bad as I felt for him I knew he must feel worse and the best thing I could do to help him was to play the ignorant card.

Exhaling deeply, I closed the magazine and popped it into the back of the chair in front of Joey, taking out the pack of Uno cards instead. I opened the box and began to shuffle through the cards mindlessly, trying to keep myself busy more than anything. I paused only when Joey reappeared beside me, sliding into his seat quietly without making any eye contact; his eyes downcast and solemn. I bit my lip hesitantly; wanting to say something but not sure if it would be received well.

“Do you want to play Uno?” I blurted out, holding out the shuffled cards towards him. He looked up in surprise, his eyes darting between mine and the cards in quick suspicion as if trying to suss out whether I was being genuine or not. I smiled encouragingly at him, fanning the cards out and waving them in the air slowly. He shook his head in disbelief, a small smile of relief playing on his lips.

“If I knew you enjoyed loosing so much I would’ve brought more games,” he joked lightly, taking the cards from my hands he reshuffled them and we started another round of Uno wars; both glad that we had silently agreed to forget the incident.

“Betcha never thought you’d be here!” Josie squealed into my ear, jumping up against my shoulders as we walked through the airport towards the waiting van that would take us to the hotel. I brushed her off, pushing her lightly back into Sid who had the biggest, susses grin on his face.

“Betcha never thought you’d be here accompanying a touring band,” I mimicked. Josie laughed and slung her arm over my shoulder casually.

“Betcha didn’t know we’re bunking together,” she said knowingly, her lips raised into a wicked grin. I stopped walking and turned towards her, her arm falling off my shoulders.

“What?!” I exclaimed, just loud enough so we didn’t draw any attention to ourselves. Josie smirked and folded her arms.

“Well who did you think you were bunking with?” she asked, her gaze purposely flying over to where Joey was walking with Craig, my jaw fell open.

“That’s not what I thought at all!” I protested, she just laughed and slung her arm back over my shoulders, pulling me towards the others who were getting into two black vans.

“Fool me once Vixen Jessica, fool me once,” she chuckled; I scowled indignantly at her accusation, mumbling something about best friends being annoying under my breath. We were the last ones to reach the vans, Josie pulled me into the least crowded one (or she may have just been following Sid) with Sid, Paul, James and Chris. I sat next to Paul who bear hugged me before my butt have even touched the seat and Josie sat next to, well you can take a wild guess.

The vans pulled away from the sidewalk in unison, joining the onslaught of taxi cabs and harassed looking drivers. Paul turned to me with a smile, his lip ring that he had had since we were teenagers brushing against his yellowing teeth.

“This is your first time in London isn’t it?” he asked conversationally.

“First time outside of Iowa,” I corrected with a grin, he gave me a look of surprise.

“You’re kidding, you’ve never been out of Iowa?!” he gasped in shock, I guess it was kind of sad that a twenty-nine year old had never travelled outside of her home state, but I never really had any reason or need to.

“Wait, that means that you’ve never woken up hung over to an English breakfast?” Chris asked, leaning over Paul to butt into our conversation which everyone was listening to now. I raised my eyebrow in confusion, having never heard of an ‘English breakfast’ before.

“What exactly is an English breakfast?” I asked him apprehensively, wondering what kind of disastrous concoction must be in it for him to be asking about it.

“Oh Vixen, that’s sad,” Paul said, shaking his head in feint disappointment.

“Do you know what it is?” Sid asked Josie, Josie looked between Sid and I wide eyed; evidently she didn’t want to be brought into the conversation when she had no idea what they were talking about either.

“I, er...muffins...of some sort?” she tried hopelessly, her suggestion met with a roar of laughter from the four guys. She pouted, folding her arms and shifting away from Sid.

“Not fucking funny,” she grumbled to herself. When the guys recovered from their outburst, Paul pulled me into his squishy side.

“Tonight we are going out, you two are getting wasted and we’ll make sure you get an English breakfast delivered to your room in the morning,” he informed me.

“If it’s some sort of strange disturbing delicacy, you guys are dead,” I told him, the guys all fell into another fit of laughter which sporadically came and went until we reached the hotel. Josie and I were first out of the van, having had enough of being laughed at; the others in the second van were already starting to walk towards reception where a guy with short brown hair was waving and waiting for them. Josie linked her arm around mine as we followed the group inside, stopping in the foyer just behind the congregation that were talking animatedly to the waiting guy.

“VJ over here!” Corey called suddenly; I looked around to see him beckoning me towards him. Dragging Josie behind me I made my way towards him, he was standing and talking with the mystery guy. “VJ this is John Jackson our booking agent, John this is my sister Vixen and her friend Josie who are going to work with the merch people,” Corey introduced, I unlinked arms with Josie and shook John’s hand, smiling as politely as I could at him.

“Nice to meet you both, you’re going to have an interesting few months putting up with these nine,” John said, Josie and I both chuckled and replied “we know” at the same time, interesting probably wasn’t the only word I would use to describe how this tour would go though.

“Hey you two,” Shaun’s voice came from behind, we turned around and Shaun handed us a room key each. “We’re leaving here at seven for dinner, and I’ll organise your breakfast for you,” he added with a wink, Josie scowled venomously and stuck her tongue out at him as he turned away. I laughed at her and jingled my key in her face.

“Wanna go check out our room and sleep until we have to leave?” I suggested, she nodded her head vigorously. Grabbing my arm she pulled and weaved her way through the crowd towards the lifts. I just hoped we had separate beds.

I yawned and stretched, my body wanted to continue sleeping but Josie’s noisy clambering about was ensuring I stayed awake. Yawning again, I sat up on the edge of my bed and looked across at Josie who had her suitcase open on her bed, clothes flying everywhere. She was standing in just a towel staring into the suitcase deep in thought, her wet hair wrapped in another towel.

“You do know touring means changing hotel rooms every couple of night’s right?” I pointed out through another yawn. Josie glanced up at me and huffed, placing her hands on her hips and ignoring my insight.

“Where do you think we’re going tonight?” she asked, or rather demanded.

“I don’t know, why?” I replied, face scrunched in confusion. She groaned and collapsed on her bed, sprawled out across the width.

“I don’t know what to wear,” she whined. “I don’t want to be overdressed but I don’t want to be underdressed either,” she explained, hands on her face in frustration. I got up and walked over to the pile of clothes on the floor, kicking them off the pile one at a time to see what she had.

“Why are you so worried about it anyway, I don’t think we’ll be going anywhere extremely fancy?” I asked her, bending down to pick up black jeans and her Iron Maiden singlet top and holding it up. Josie sat up and gave me a look of disgust.

“I’m not worried about it and I’m not wearing that,” she replied indignantly followed but a loud huff.

“I think you are worried about it and you’re going to dinner with a bunch of guys in a band, why not wear this?” I put to her, throwing the outfit on the bed beside the suitcase. Josie frowned at me like I wasn’t catching on to what she really meant. “What?” I snapped tiredly, knowing that if she kept me any longer I would be going to dinner in the clothes I just slept in. She twisted her finger through her hair and pouted.

“I want to look pretty,” she explained dramatically, I stepped back raising my eyebrows.

“Why?” I questioned cautiously. Josie groaned louder than ever this time, standing up she came over and pushed me away from the pile of clothes so she could throw them back into the suitcase. I sighed, rolling my eyes and headed into the bathroom to get cleaned up and leave her to her own devices. Well tonight would be interesting then.