Before It's Over

After a full week of shows, Warped Tour had a day off to cross the border into Canada. It was the first time any of us had been out of the country, so we were excited. Aiden, being the over-organized, keen man that he is, decided that we should be in Canada as soon as possible. This lead to four sleepy musicians groggily answering border patrol's questions at four in the morning. Aiden was over stimulated and was eagerly passing all our paper work to the correct people. After some time, we were finally through and everyone except Aiden, who was on driving duty, went gratefully back to sleep.

When I woke up for the second time that morning, it was almost noon. The van was empty except for Shane snoring in the front row. I struggled out of my tangle of sheets and exited the van via the back doors. The air was warm. It was a big change from the crazy heat we'd dealt with last week.

I got changed quickly in the stuffy trailer and hopped back out quickly. I checked my cell phone, but the boys had left me no clue as to where they were. However, Kyle had texted me about ten minutes ago.

New TXT Message
from
Avery's favorite person ever
Received:
Aug 4 11:43 PM
View Now
View Later

I opened the text eagerly.

Hey I wanted to go skating. Join?

I texted Kyle back with an affirmative reply, to which he replied excitedly with the location of his bus. It was relatively close to the van, so I made it in no time flat. Conveniently, just as I made it to the red giant, Kevin and Joe were leaving. We gave each other short hellos and I thanked Joe for holding the door for me.

When I climbed up the steps of the bus, I found the FTSK boys, minus Kyle, scattered around the front lounge. Austin sat closest to the door; Marc and Kent were at the table, munching on what looked like bowls of dry cereal. Caleb sat on the couch across from the door, his feet criss-crossed, and Jonathan stood leaning against the counter.

"Hey, AB," Austin greeted as I turned into the front lounge.

"What?" I asked, confused about the way he addressed me.

"A.B.," Kent replied. "Your future initials. We've decided, due the evidence, you and Kyle will be married in the next year. You guys have been attached at the hip since Jersey."

"Yeah," Marc agreed. "It's kinda weirding us out."

"Guys," I said, taking a seat next to Caleb on the couch. "We've only been together for a week. I think that's a bit early to be thinking about monogramming my bath towels."

"Ew," Caleb chuckled from beside me. "What married couple monograms their towels these days?"

The boys' new nickname was kind of freaking me out, but I knew them well enough to know they weren't serious. All week their goal was to embarrass me and Kyle as much as they possibly could. This was just another thing to get under my skin. The bad part was that it was working.

"Just drop the nickname. Okay?"

"Hey, AB!"

"Jesus, Kyle. You're in on this too?" I asked.

I watched Kyle shut the door to the bunk area, from where he had just entered, and then pop a chip into his mouth. Kyle leaned with his hip on the counter next to Jonathan and munched on his chip loudly.

"What? I like it," he said after swallowing. "Sort of rolls off the tongue."

I glowered as his hand dived into the shiny green bag for another chip. Kyle smiled innocently before taking a bite out of a large, greasy, fried potato slice.

"It's- It's inappropriate!" I protested, upset that Kyle wasn't taking my side.

"It's just for fun," Austin retaliated. "It's not our fault your boyfriend likes it so much!"

These boys were getting to be as bad as my own band in the aspect of teasing me. I heard the crinkling of Kyle's bag of chips as he rolled it closed and then heard it hit the counter top. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Kyle approach the couch before leaning down to kiss my lips quickly. I smiled at Kyle as his face hovered over mine.

"Alright! I'm sitting right here," Caleb said from beside me. "I don't wanna see you two making goo-goo eyes at each other all day."

"Well that's fine because me and AB are going."

"And where are you and Avery going?" I asked Kyle as he pulled me up from the couch.

"Skating, remember? I saw a decent skate park a few blocks from here."

My boyfriend dragged me out of the bus with only a few short goodbyes to his band mates. This was fine with me, seeing as they were making kissy faces as we left.

Kyle had been giving me skateboarding lessons. After our first date, Kyle had spent some time outside the bus with his board. I watched and was entranced. When I asked Kyle if I could try, he was eager to start teaching me regularly. I found Kyle's lessons easy to follow and I picked up skate boarding quickly. Kyle insisted I had a natural. I just thought it was fun.

"I should design you a board," Kyle said as I hopped off of his skateboard and walked into his arms and wrapped my arms around his waist.

"You would do that?" I asked, looking up at him.

"Of course," he said pulling me closer and stealing a short kiss.

;;

The next day was the Saskatchewan date. The boys and I had a late set and Kyle and his boys had an early one. I had been invited to attend, but I had to decline. Ryan and I had our acoustic set at the same time.

"Avery," Ross said from across the table. "You better finish your breakfast. Your set's in, like, five minutes."

My best friend and I had made it to catering early, so we could eat along with Travis and Danny before my acoustic set. It didn't do much good. Apparently, it was everyone's idea to get to catering early today, so we had hardly been sitting down for five minutes.

"I don't wanna rush, though," I said dipping my spoon into my grapefruit.

"But you don't want to be late either," Travis said, ripping a piece off of his bagel. "Come on, I'll walk you over."

I sighed and stood with Travis. I dropped my grapefruit in a waste basket, but Travis held on to his bagel. We took the backstage route to the Between the Trees merch tent. Travis attracted more attention than I would if I was traveling alone. We got there just in time.

I took my seat next to Ryan and we sent each other quick smiles as greetings.

"So," Ryan said into his mic. "I'm Ryan from Between the Trees and this is Avery from the Forgetting Curve. She's gonna help me with a few songs."

;;

The set went well and afterwards Ryan and Travis stuck around to ask me about Kyle. Since we started dating, I had sort of been neglecting them. While Kyle's set was still going, the three of us caught up. After a while, my friends had respective sets to go to and we split up.

"Hey, AB!"

I must have jumped three feet in the air as I turned into the backstage area.

"What the hell, Kyle? Are you reverting back to your stalker days?" I asked, trying to slow down my heart rate.

Kyle smiled and my heart only sped up again. My rapid heart beat was a regular occurrence around Kyle. It went along with the birds in my stomach and the fire on any part of my skin that Kyle touched.

"Nah, I just like surprising you." Kyle reached for my hand and laced his fingers with mine. "Wanna walk?"

I nodded and we started to head for the backstage exit. There were certain times when I remembered how much I cared for Kyle. It was normally times like these, when everything was quiet and we were happy just to spend time together. I reminisced on the Scranton date, when Kyle was standing in front of me, pouring his heart out, convincing me to give into my feelings. I felt a smile creep onto my face.

"What are you thinking about?" Kyle asked with a smirk as he looked down at me.

"Us," I answered truthfully. "What are you thinking about?"

"Us," he said with a smile.

"What about us?" I asked.

"What's gonna happen to us when tour's over?"

"We're gonna be the same, except when I see your face everyday it'll be via web cam."

"Good," Kyle said with a stiff nod. "That's what I was hoping to hear."

Kyle placed a quick kiss on the top of my head and I smiled up at him. My eyes traveled back down to their regular level, which was parallel with Kyle's chest.

"Sometimes you annoy me Kyle," I said after a few moments of silence.

"Sometimes?" Kyle said glancing at me with a skeptical look then chuckling lightly.

"Well, sometimes this one thing about you annoys me."

"One thing?"

"Oh shut up and ask me what it is, Loser!" Kyle laughed and his smile made me smile in turn. Kyle grabbed my hand and entwined our fingers before swinging our arms back and forth.

"What is it that annoys you, AB?"

"Oh, make that two things! I forgot about the nickname," I said. Kyle laughed and I continued. "Anyway, back to the original answer. You never match."

"I never match? Match what?"

"Your clothes, silly! You never wear matching clothes."

"I do too!" Kyle protested childishly.

I stopped walking and turned to face him. He turned too and looked down at me with playful smile. Kyle's hand grazed my wrist before sliding up my arm and around my neck. His hand left a trail of goose bumps which soon spread to the rest of my body. Kyle's expression changed to one contentedness and his fingers twirled the end of my ponytail.

"Kyle you're wearing camo shorts and a red shirt. That does not match." Kyle didn't respond. "Kyle?"

"You're beautiful."

A blush rose to my cheeks at Kyle's statement and I looked down, embarrassed. Kyle's knuckle drew my face up again, however. He wasn't wearing one of his famous grins. Instead, his eyes held the smile on their own. His smiling eyes locked with mine and seemed to be searching for something behind my irises.

"Are you sure you're not reverting back to when you followed me everywhere and acted like a weirdo?"

"Shut up, Ave" Kyle said with a laugh as a smile broke onto his lips. "You're ruining the moment."

Then he leaned in for a kiss.