Bleeding, Just For The Attention

[Elise]
We stood watching the luggage go round and round on the little moving thingie.

“There it is!” I yelled, pointing to the stack of instrument cases.

We all rushed forward, pushing through the crowds of small children and fat tourist types.
I grabbed my guitar case and placed it on the trolley, while the boys tried to grab all of their cases, realising that there was one guitar case that wasn’t theirs.
Shane stood with an identical case in each hand, looking for a name tag.
Because being as smart as he was, he’d forgotten to put one on his.

“Lee, don’t you laugh at me.” He scowled jokingly.

I bit my lip, it almost bleeding in my attempt to hold back the laughter, when i felt a hand come down on my shoulder.

“Shit.” I turned around to see Pete standing behind me, laughing. I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm my breathing. “Why does everybody have to do that?”

“Because we want you to die an early death.” Pete smirked, pulling his bag over his shoulder. “Good to see you all made it here in one piece, for a moment there I thought we were going to crash into the Pacific.”

About 2 hours into the flight from Melbourne airport, we’d encountered “engine problems”. AKA, one of them stopped while we were over water. Lots of deep breathing required.

“Wait,” Davie furrowed his brow in confusion. “You were on the plane?”

Pete nodded.

“And you were in first class right?”

He nodded again.
like a bobbly head toy.

“Why were we stuck in economy then? I had a little kid puke on me!” Davie whined.

“You just wanted an excuse to take off your shirt.” Shane glared at him. He’d had to sit next to Davie for the entirety of the flight.

Davie sneered at Shane, while Steve put the last of the cases onto the trolleys.

“Shane would you hurry up already?” Steve was getting impatient. “Just open the case and look.”

“No!” he shouted childishly. “A bassist’s guitar case is a sacred thing, and-“

Pete cut him off, grabbing one of the cases from him. “There’s no need, one of these is mine.”

I rolled my eyes. “And why didn’t you put your name on it?”

Pete rolled his eyes back at me. “Because everybody knows who I am, and I’ve already lost 3.”

We began walking towards the exit.

“Not conceited at all are you?”

He put his arm over my shoulder as i pushed the over-loaded luggage trolley.

“And I haven’t even told you how fucking hot I am yet. But, of course, you already know that.”

We both laughed.

“Seriously though, it’s hard to go anywhere where somebody doesn’t know my name.” He trailed off, just as a group of teenage girls spotted him and came running over. “Speaking of which...”

The girls grabbed out phones and cameras, and began taking photos of Pete.

“Damn.” He muttered, taking his arm off my shoulder. “You aren’t going to be well liked.”

“What?” i asked, as the girls came closer, asking for autographs.

Each of them gave me dirty looks as they waited. I took a step back and looked for the other guys, who were already by the exit, looking for us. I waved to get their attention and Shane waved back childishly. Pete finally got rid of the girls and came back to me.

“Well we won’t have to worry too much about publicity.” He grabbed the trolley and started pushing it swiftly towards the exit.

“What? Why not?” I panted, trying to catch up with him.

“Give it about 2 hours, and your photo will be everywhere online.”

“Huh?” I was confused for a moment. “Oh, they thought we were...”

“Yeah, ruins almost any relationship. Thousands of girls everywhere will idolise you, and millions will hate you. Welcome to celebrity.” He congratulated me.

“Oh yay.” I said sarcastically as we finally got to the exit.