Seven Days

"And how cute is it that Kenny and Andrea match tonight?" John asked the crowd toward the end of their set that night. Andrea felt her cheeks grow warm and looked over at Kennedy, who was rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Neither of them had done it intentionally, it just sort of... happened. She caught John's eye and he winked at her before turning back to the crowd. "And now they're getting all awkward about it. I think everyone should give a big 'aww' right now."

As per John Ohh's request, the crowd gave a simultaneous 'aww' and Andrea could feel herself wanting to throttle the man leading this chaos. It was bad enough that these insanely large crowds every night were making her really nervous about her playing ability, but to purposely call her out was driving her up the wall.

"We should probably stop before they gang up on me and attack me with pitchforks or something. This last song's called Kiss And Sell!" As they began the song, Andrea tried to push all thoughts of John and his comments out of her head, and put her all into the last song of the night. She looked out at the mass of kids jumping and singing along and thought of all the times she was in the same position, all the times when this music was the one thing that kept her going, and kept a smile on her face. That alone had her grinning and made her glad that she was on that stage, making music for people with hopes and dreams like her own.

The song quickly came to a close, and John thanked the crowd and promised they would be outside to hang out before they departed from the stage for the next band. Upon reaching the backstage area, Andrea felt a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders and nearly jumped a foot in the air as she turned around to see the culprit.

"Pat, what are you doing?" She laughed as the tall, lanky boy in front of her grinned cheesily. Pat just shrugged and pulled her into a hug.

"I don't know. I just have a strange feeling about tonight." He replied, pressing his face against her hair. Andrea had a miniature flashback from her first morning on tour with the boys and smiled to herself as she returned his hug.

"Well, strange feeling or not, we're gonna go have fun, right Pat?" She asked. He pulled away and a full smile spread across his lips while he nodded excitedly.

"Of course! Let's go meet people!" He grabbed her hand and lead her around backstage after the rest of the band. They quickly caught up and walked outside with the others, noticing a group of kids already standing around the bus. Smirking slightly, John lead the way toward the kids.

"Shouldn't you guys be inside watching the other bands?" He asked loud enough for them to hear him coming, earning him a few gasps from some over excited barely teenage girls and putting smiles on the faces of those Andrea hoped would be a little more normal. For the first few minutes every night, she always watched how the guys interacted with fans, laughing at funny faces John made in photographs or shaking her head at Pat's strange comments. Tonight though, she was quickly distracted from her people watching by someone trying to get her attention.

"Andrea!" A fairly tall brunette boy called out to her from the other side of the barrier. She was frozen in shock momentarily at how honestly attractive the boy was, but made her way to the other side to meet him.

"Hey." She called back, waving shyly at him. Meeting people still wasn't her strong suit, but she was learning.

"Hey, thanks for coming out here. You were amazing on stage tonight." He replied, giving her a bright grin. She felt her breath catch in her throat at the sheer gorgeousness of his smile and accidentally let out a nervous laugh.

"Uh, thank you. That really means a lot." She rubbed the back of her neck slightly, not good at awkward conversation. Between how cute he was, and the lack of intellectual things he was saying, she wasn't sure how long this charade could really go over, regardless of how much she would have loved him to stick around just a little longer.

"Do you mind if I get a picture with you?" He asked finally, his face giving off that childish aura that a person just couldn't say no to, not that Andrea would be able to at that very moment. She didn't really know him that well, but his looks had certainly captivated her. She nodded in response, unable to gather the right phrase to respond, and he motioned one of his friends over to take a photo. His arm went around her shoulders, which made her swoon a little on the inside as hers instinctively made it's way to his waist. However, just before the flash went off, she felt his lips pressed to her cheek, and suddenly everything about him wasn't as attractive anymore. She had personal space, and she was almost certain she always made that clear.

It wasn't just the kiss that brought her back to reality. It was the snap of plastic she heard beside her, and once the photo had been taken, she turned around to see Kennedy standing not too far away, a broken ball-point pen in grasp and blue ink smeared across his hands. Before she could say anything, he disappeared into the crowd and left her with a surprised look on her face.

Nothing could have prepared her for that sort of reaction.