I Love Your Bubblegum Smile

Unfortunately, the hotel life could not last.

Soon, Harley and the rest of All Time Low were back to spending hours on the tour bus, arguing over living areas and sleeping in cramped bunks.

It was a few days later, and the group had stopped in Cleveland for their next venue. The day was mostly normal, other than a rather late start as the All Time Low set was not until later in the day.

The set had just begun around one, and Harley had done what she usually had, and set up the shirts in the merch tent.

The tent that covered her was decorated with the Nothing Personal album cover, so at least she had some shade, and the shirts had been pinned along clothes lines and stacked on tables.

A new shipment of merch had come in, ordered by Vinny, to introduce the fans to a ‘new line’ in the middle of Warped Tour.

It had made no sense to Harley, but Vinny had been in the ‘merching business’ longer, so she assumed that he knew more than her.

Speaking of Vinny, he had yet to show up at the merch tent to help her out.

Cleveland shows were apparently notorious for having rowdy fans, and Harley did not want to deal with them alone.

It was scorching outside, and the sun remained perched at the top of the sky.

Harley was seated under the merch tent, fanning herself with a piece of paper that had the set list scribbled on it, as she watched the nearly-deserted pathway.

Normally, all the All Time Low fans would be at their set right now, and she only had a few stragglers that would come in every so often to buy a shirt. At the moment, she was all alone.

“Hey!” A voice cut her out of her thoughts, as she spied a flushed looking Travis coming towards her.

She smiled, as he bent down and kissed her on the lips, before sliding a metal chair from the corner and joining her.

He looked absolutely breathtaking yet relaxed in a black shirt with the Hurley logo and khaki pants.

“Hey,” She sighed, wiping the beads of sweat away from her forehead, in hopes that she would appear more attractive without a glistening forehead.

“Why so sad?” He eyed her curiously, but sympathetically at the same time.

“I’m not sad.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m fucking bored.”

“You have the dream of a lifetime.”

“You have the dream of a lifetime. I have the dream of a Wal-Mart cashier.”

“No you don’t!” Travis laughed optimistically, but Harley just pouted. “Cheer up, youngster.”

“You can’t call me youngster anymore!”

“Why not?” Travis pretended to pout, but ended up looking confused.

“Travis, we’re dating. It would be awkward if I would go around calling you grandpa. It’s even worse when you call me youngster. You make me sound like I’m jailbait or something.”

“But you are just like jailbait, Harley!” Travis noticed the glare he was getting, and softened slightly, “Harley, I’m twenty three. I’m twenty fucking three. You’re nineteen.”

“I’m almost twenty!”

“That doesn’t make much of a difference,” Travis smiled sadly, “you know how Rian feels about this. I’m just a little sad that it had to break up WTK and ATL’s friendship. I mean, I don’t mind not being friends with them as long as I’m with you, but I feel sorry for Hunter, Drew and Danny.”

“Travis...”

“It’s fine,” he smiled genuinely, before leaning back in the small chair. “We just finished our set a while ago. You should have come.”

“My fucking job sucks.” Harley frowned, “Duty calls.”

“Will this make it better?” Travis asked, before his lips crashed onto hers.

She nearly toppled over in her chair at his sudden body weight, but slowly, she managed to catch her balance at kiss back. After a few moments, and many butterfly eruptions in her stomach, Harley pulled back and smiled.

“I lied,” she said.

“About what?”

“You can call me youngster, if you kiss me like that again.” Travis laughed, but happily obliged.

Harley smiled, before tumbling with Travis onto his metal chair, so she could sit in his lap.

The kissing continued for a while, as Harley managed to tangle her fingers in Travis’ glorious red hair and Travis had slid his hand under her shirt.

It would have probably continued for longer, if someone had not walked into the tent and yelped.

“Harley?” A deep voice bellowed, and Harley practically fell off Travis’ lap.

She looked up from her spot on the floor to see a very distressed looking Vinny Vegas. His signature baseball cap was pulled off of his head, and he rubbed his newly-grown beard vigorously.

“Yes?” Harley let out a surprised squeak, as she stood up and brushed herself off.

“We need you,” he barked, already walking away.

Harley shared a confused look with Travis, before sending an apologizing look and running off after Vinny.

Now, not only was she the girl who complained to her boyfriend, but she was the girl who left her boyfriend in the middle of a makeout session to be with another man. How ironic.

Harley barely managed to catch up to Vinny, who was weaving his way through a crowd of excited teenagers.

“What’s going on?” Harley managed to puff out, while still speed-walking to match Vinny’s long strides.

“Alex is having an anxiety attack, the crowd is getting kind of restless. Flyzik is singing Dammit, as a cover, but we can’t really stall them for long,” Vinny explained fluidly, stumbling over his words as he neared the stage.

The crowd was insane, yelling, moshing and squealing as Matt continued to sing. Harley sent Vinny a desperate look.

“What do you mean Alex is having an anxiety attack?” Vinny sent her an obvious look, “Well, what am I supposed to do?!``

“Calm him down, distract the crowd—I don’t know—we need as many crew members as possible to help.”

Vinny disappeared, leaving Harley to figure out what to do.

If she helped, she knew she would have to deal with either an embarrassing performance on stage or an even worse confrontation with Alex. If she didn`t do anything, VInny would probably find out, and she would definitely get yelled at later.

Harley sighed, as she ventured through the side stage.

She glanced out at the crowd, and seeing the hundreds of them made her retreat towards the back of the stage. Being on stage had never been her forte.

As she made her way through the winding turns of the dimly-lit backstage area, she found herself coming face to face with a small group of crew members huddling around a door.

In the centre of the small crowd stood Lisa, looking extremely pissed off. She stood outside the restroom door, with her arms crossed over her chest.

Wherever Alex was, Lisa was soon to follow.

Harley felt her heart beating in her ears as the crowd began to yell as Matt finished his song.

Jack was rambling on about the awkwardness of being on stage by himself, without the help of Alex, while Zack played random notes on his bass guitar.

Harley knew that things would soon get out of hand.

It was complete mayhem backstage.

Crew members ran back and forth behind the stage, walkie-talkies crackling while they tried to find Alex.

Harley knew by the small crowd that she had found him.

“Hi Lisa,” she smiled widely, trying to seem genuine.

“What?” Lisa asked, not because she couldn’t hear, but because she didn’t want to say hello.

“Is Alex in there?”

“Obviously.”

“Well, why don’t you help him?” Maybe, Harley could help him indirectly, and instead get someone else to help him. She wouldn’t be good at helping anyway. “I’m sure he’ll listen to you.”

“He’s probably puking or something, and these are four hundred dollar Jimmy Choos.”

Lisa pointed towards her expensive looking heels, and Harley growled.

Why the fuck would you wear heels like that to a concert anyway?

Harley hated Lisa and her selfish attitude, but it was clear that she could not show it.

Instead, she pushed her small frame through the crowd of sweaty men—and Lisa—and pounded on the door.

“I’m not coming out,” Alex shouted, though it was muffled through the door of the bathroom. His voice was muffled as he muttered continuously, and it sounded as though he was pacing.“I can’t do this, I can’t do this.”

“Alex, it’s Harley and you better fucking unlock this door in the next ten seconds or I will make sure that you will never get to have children.”

Threats obviously wouldn`t work.

“I’m not going to!”

“Alex, you need to calm down. The fans are out there waiting. I know you can do this.”

“No I can’t!”

Jesus.

“Alex,” Harley frowned. Tour drama was not her thing. “I know that you enjoy what you do. I see it in your eyes. You love to perform for fans and to make them happy. I know that you’re happy when you make them happy. And they need you right now. The band needs you. The crew needs you. I need you to come out of there. You can’t be happy unless you come out of there.” She took a deep breath, hoping this would work. “There is nothing to worry about, and nothing can go wrong. Your band is great and everyone loves you. You are living your dream.” Harley noticed her serious tone, and attempted to lighten the mood. “Hell, Jack is running out of dick jokes. And if Jack runs out of dick jokes, some serious shit had gone down.”

There was a long pause as the crew members waited, and slowly, the door creaked open.

A sweaty Alex stood with his eyes wide and his hair in a mess. His breathing was labored, and he was tense and shaking as he walked into the arms of the crew.

Immediately, he was handed a bottle of ice cold water and a wash cloth. He chugged down the water in a matter of gulps, and sighed in contentment.

“You can do this,” Harley said, holding Alex by the shoulders as he steadied himself.

“I can do this,” he echoed, a look of confidence crossing his face. “ I can do this. I can do this. I can fucking do this.”

“Go get ‘em.” Harley smiled, glad to know that Alex was okay now.

“Thanks,” He grinned while looking her in the eyes, as Harley blushed, dropped her hands to her side and nodded.

It was extremely wrong that Alex could give her one look and she would melt. She knew she didn’t like him, and that Jack had been wrong.

She had just wanted to help him. It wasn’t her fault that he was so good looking, or that his brown eyes were like liquid pools of chocolate..

“What are friends for?” She smiled shyly, testing the boundaries that Alex and Harley had established at the beginning of the tour.

A simple question could ruin everything that had been building between them, and a bridge wasn’t that easy to build anymore. Thankfully, Harley watched as Alex’s eyes crinkled and a smile soon followed.

“You’re right,” he smirked, swiping the sweat mop of hair that clung persistently to his forehead. “What are friends for?”

And with that, Alex jumped up and down to hype himself up, before taking off back onto the stage.

The crowd went wild as the lead singer reappeared, and you could hear the relief in Jack’s voice as he made another dick joke, before welcoming Alex back onto the stage.

Harley smiled, before crossing her hands over her chest. Vinny appeared by her side, giving her a relieved look.

“You did good, kid.” He beamed, stroking his beard as he watched Alex begin to bounce around the stage as Jasey Rae began to play.

“All Alex needed was a friend,” Harley said.

As Harley watched Alex continue to play, it kind of made her stomach do flip-flops—not only because he looked so good in his skinny jeans, as sweat began to moisten his hair and spiral down the nape of his neck to soak through his shirt—but also because she knew that he had a flaw.

Even though Alex tried to be the popular, cocky boy that Harley had first been introduced to on the tour, she could see that he was slowly changing into something more.

It was as though he actually had a heart.

And for some reason, Harley had begun to like it.