Lost in Stereo

The next morning, I was sitting with Jack and Rian at breakfast, munching on my waffles while we waited for Zack and Skye to join us. Alex had grown impatient and went off to get them, so while Jack and Rian pestered each other, I slipped my headphones on and started listening to some song I’d just downloaded. The guys had at some point gotten up and ditched me, so as soon as I was done eating, I started to head back to the room. As I was almost to the room, someone reached up and grabbed my waist, pulling me down to the floor and scaring the absolute fuck out of me.

“Jesus, what the fuck?!” I cried.

“Shh!” Rian shushed me as he pulled my ear-buds out. He put a finger to his lips and Jack pointed to the door they were sitting in front of. It was almost directly across the hall from the room Skye and I had shared, so I assumed it belonged to the guys.

“What are we doing?” I whispered.

“Alex and Skye are talking,” Rian answered. “She’s getting pissed, and I’m tired of getting secondhand information, damnit.”

“So we’re spying,” Jack added.

“This is dumb.” I shook my head and started to get up, but then I heard Skye yell something about Alex being a douche bag. I stopped and sat back down, shrugging. “On second thought, maybe I’ll stay.”

We all pressed our ears up against the door to try to hear what was being said. After several minutes of bitching and yelling, and a whole lot of Skye yelling “You can’t tell me what to do!” Alex and Skye opened the door, Jack falling the process while Rian and I sat there trying to look innocent. Alex shook his head and stepped over us, disgusted. Skye glared at all of us. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I was waiting to go back in the room,” Rian tried to explain.

“You have the room key,” I replied.

“Listening!” Jack exclaimed. “Sorry!”

“Mind your own business,” Skye growled as she stepped over us. She stalked off and then turned around and looked at me. “Are you coming with me or not?”

I nodded and pushed off the ground, taking a second to steady myself before following Skye. She slid the room key in and we stepped inside and finished packing up our stuff. I made a little small talk with Skye to calm her down a bit, since she seemed extremely pissed. Finally when she was calmed down, I asked what was wrong.

“Alex doesn’t trust me, that’s the problem,” she grumbled, throwing her clothes into her suitcase. “He thinks that if someone’s not watching me every second of the day, I’m gonna go off and get drunk. So he decided that I should be Flyzik’s assistant.”

I decided not to comment on the first part of Skye’s little rant. “He mentioned something to me about setting something up with Flyzik.”

“Well, what’d you say to that?” Skye asked.

“I told him that I didn’t think it was a good idea,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d go for it.”

“You’ve got that right,” she scoffed. “There’s no fucking way that I’m gonna be Flyzik’s bitch.”

“I don’t think you have to do that,” I protested. “I dunno, talk to Flyzik. I doubt Alex even brought it up to him. That way if it has to happen, you can figure out your duties and shit with him instead of Alex doing it.”

Skye sighed. “I just don’t want to do it.”

I shrugged. “It might be fun. You never know. It’ll give you something to do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Skye demanded.

“Calm your tits, I just mean that I’ll be doing stuff during the shows and if you don’t wanna watch them play, you’ll have something to keep you occupied so you’re not bored,” I reasoned.

“Sorry,” Skye apologized. “All this Alex shit just has me on edge.”

“Tell me about it,” I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, I totally get it. But just have a chat with Matt and figure something out before Alex does. ‘Cause then you really won’t like it.”

Skye nodded, though she was definitely not keen on the idea. We finished throwing our shit together and went out to meet the guys to get back on the bus. They had another show in California, so we weren’t going to have to be on the bus for that long. We all got situated, and Zack and Skye sat together, rather closely actually, but I decided not to say anything. I headed to my bunk to write in my journal for a little while and take a nap, but in the middle of writing, Alex swung down from out of nowhere, singing, “I hate to turn up out of the blue, uninvited!”

“Jesus, what the fuck?!” I exclaimed. “I hate Adele! You know that!”

“It felt fitting,” Alex justified. “What are you doing?”

“Writing, so go away,” I told him.

“You were right, Skye’s not hip on the idea of working with Flyzik,” Alex ignored me.

I sighed. “I might’ve talked her into it. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

“How’d you do that?” Alex asked, shocked. “I thought she was going to tear me a new asshole for even asking.”

“I suggested it calmly,” I replied. “I didn’t tell her that’s what she had to do.”

Alex nodded. “I probably should’ve tried that, huh?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Now, I’d like to get back to writing, so please fuck off.”

“Fine, fine,” Alex said, walking away. Then he started singing, “Never mind, I’ll find someone like you.”

I threw a pillow at the back of his head, hard. “Goddamnit, I hate that!”