So Easy To Love

At this point of Warped, we were about halfway done. It was at this moment I decided to give myself a pep talk to get me mentally ready for the last half of the summer. I just told myself that if I could get through the first half of the door with only a few figurative scratches I could sure as hell get through the rest of the summer unscathed. I told myself that everything was going to be okay. That Oliver had been completely pleasant for the past few days and everything was mostly back to normal. I told myself that the heat wasn't so bad anymore and that I was going to have two weeks off before touring again. I told myself that Oliver had apologized and since then everything had gone back to normal. I told myself that I had made new friends and this summer was a good one.

I sighed as I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, my hands on either side of the sink. I looked tired, worn out. And I guess I was. It was hard for me to sleep with so many things on my mind. The fact that Oliver's half assed apology bothered me as much as it did wasn't really the best thing for my anxiety. I was horrible at keeping something in that was bothering me and it heighted my risk for an anxiety attack like you wouldn't believe.

"Blair!" A loud voice came from the other side of the door, followed by a loud knocking. It startled me and I almost fell backwards and onto the toilet, but the fact I was holding onto the sink kept me balanced. "Come on, since when did yeh decided ta become a girl an' take an hour in tha loo?" Matt Nicholls, always one to voice whatever was on his mind. He was born without the filter between his brain and his mouth, I swear. "BLAIR!" He yelled louder, his knocking getting louder as well. "I gotta take a leak!" I rolled my eyes and unlocked the door, opening it to see a smiling Matt on the other side. "Took yeh long enough," he grinned slyly, pushing past me and not even bothering to wait for me to exit the bathroom to start peeing.

"Oh gross!" I yelled, taking one big step out of the tiny bathroom and letting the door slam shut behind me.

"Blair!" Tom yelled, catching my attention. I quickly spun around on the ball of my foot and looked at Tom with wide eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Flip an' I can't find tha box'a small naked shirts," he told me.

"What do you mean you can't find them?" I asked slowly, but my voice frantic none the less.

"I fhink 'e means 'e can't find 'em, right Tommeh?" Matt asked as he walked out of the bathroom, still in the process of zipping up his fly. He sent me a smile and I grimaced slightly before turning my attention back to Tom.

"'e's righ'," Tom shrugged, ruffling the back of his hair as he shrugged simply. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, silently begging my anxiety to stay at bay while I dealt with this situation.

"I just...I don't understand where they could've gone since last night."

"They could've been stolen, or maybeh they fell off tha bus, someone could be playin' a trick on us, or maybeh someone's tryin' ta sabotage us! Or maybeh-"

"Or maybe you should just stop, like, now," I instructed Matt dully. I took another deep breath and gathered my thoughts. Small was by far the biggest selling size, and the shirt that said "I partied naked with Bring Me the Horizon" was probably one of the biggest sellers. And an entire box of it was gone, vanished out of thin air.

"Blair! Do yeh fhink yeh could find me some new strings for my guitar?" Lee called from the front of the bus.

"And me too!" Jona agreed.

"And I need 'elp findin' my shoe if yeh don't mind Blair," Kean asked.

Questions were being thrown at me left and right and all I could do was swallow hard to keep my heart from beating up into my throat. I looked around the bus quickly, scanning everyone's faces and wondering how at 10 AM things were already getting to be overwhelming. Questions were being thrown at me from every which way and I wasn't in the best of moods as it was.

"Okay!" I yelled finally, getting everyone to stop talking at look at me with their heads cocked to the side. "Tom, I'll help you look for the box, and Kean, I think I put your shoe on the rack hanging on the bathroom door last night. Lee and Jona I'm gonna try over and see if You Me At Six will led us any strings until I can get a new box for us. Okay?" I asked, hoping they had followed me. In times of stress I always found it better to talk to myself out loud, to try and prioritize everything instead of just jumping into it blindly. After looking at me blankly for a few seconds they all smiled and nodded, telling me what a great job I was doing.

Two hours later I successfully located the box of "missing" shirts, borrowed some strings for Lee and Jona, and pointed Kean in the right direction of his lost shoe. And I did most of this with Matt following me around, chirping in my ear the entire time.

"Shut up Matt!" I finally yelled as we were walking back to the bus. He stopped walking for a second, grinned widely, and then jogged to catch up with me.

"Did yeh jus' get angry?" He asked excitedly. "I've neva seen yeh get angry before! Even when Oli knocked out Josh yeh weren't angry!"

"Well I'm a little stressed right now, is that okay with you?" I asked irritably.

"Tha's fine!"

I grumbled a few curses under my breath as we kept walking. Surprisingly everything was silent for the first time since I had woken up this morning and I was able to have a moment of serenity, however brief it was.

"Yeh know we're goin' ta a party tanigh'," Matt began.

"Shocker," I mumbled.

"An' yeh should come! It's at our mates house. 'e lives 'round 'ere, nice place too."

"Whatever you say Matt," I sighed, noticing the bus creeping up on us.

"So yeh'll come?!"

"I guess," I shrugged. Matt let out a loud yell and quickly scooped me up, tossing me over his shoulder and running for the bus, leaving me to flop around helplessly behind him. "Lemme down Nicholls!" I yelled at him.

"Neva!" He replied, but once we were on the bus he let me fall down onto the couch with a loud thud and I just laid there catching my breath. "I'm proper excited now," he told me.

"And I'm proper bruised," I told him, rubbing my ribs gently.

The rest of the day was just as filled with stress as the beginning of the day was. And by the time the boy's set time had rolled around I was relieved that meant my day was almost over. And thankfully, the set went on without a hitch and I was able to breathe a temporary sigh of relief.

And then we all got ready and set off for the party. I dressed myself in a fairly normal floral and splatter print strapless dress. I wasn't one to dress up much, always opting to be comfortable instead of fashionable, but I did also wear a lot of dresses for two reasons. One, because I hated wearing pants and two, because on this particular tour the less clothes you wore the less hot you were. So comfort was definetly a factor when I decided to bring every single casual dress I owned to Warped. I scrunched my hair a bit because I liked to make it look messy so the humidity wouldn't affect my hair all too much and then slipped on a pair of flip flops. Like I said, I wasn't the most fashion forward girl on the tour.

We arrived at the kid's house at around eight and the light was still holding on for dear life. We were somewhere in Virginia and the area the house was in was adorable. His house was gorgeous too and I felt bad that it was more than likely about to be trashed. I was introduced to the kid, whose name was Mike, and then I wandered off to grab a drink and find someone to talk to.

For the most part I just sat off to the side and watched everyone else. I wasn't a big socializer with people I didn't know and it seemed that Mike had invited over most of his own friends and Bring Me the Horizon were just the main attraction. Because I never wanted to pull any of the guys away from anything or make them unhappy if that meant making me more comfortable I was okay with just sitting and waiting until someone came over and talked to me.

"Yeh don't look all too 'appy." His warm breath tickled my neck as he whispered into my ear and I nearly choked on my drink as he spoke. I quickly turned myself around to see Oliver standing with a cliché red cup in his hand and a smirk settled on his lips.

"I don't know many people here," I admitted sheepishly, a blush creeping it's way to my face. He smiled widely and then reached down to grab my hand. "Where are we going?" I asked as he tugged me along behind him.

"Yeh'll see," he replied, shooting me a sly smile over his shoulder as he continued to walk further away from the party. He walked to the front of the house and then into the front yard of the house next door. After looking around the property skeptically, he turned around and stopped dead in his tracks. "Run!" He instructed.

I wasn't sure why we were running, but my nerves kept me in stride with Oliver. For all I knew he had spotted a cop car or the person who lived at the house and we were running to stay out of trouble. I didn't bother asking because I was too fucking nervous and caught up in the moment to even breathe. Finally we reached a fence and Oliver's moment suddenly stopped.

"What're we doing?" I panted.

"Yeh'll see," he repeated. He tried the latch to the door and when it didn't work he looked upwards, another smile crossing his features. "I'll boost yeh," he told me, lacing his fingers together and holding them low for me to step on.

I looked at him like he was positively insane and just asked, "Are you on drugs?"

"Not tonigh'," he smiled.

"Then what are we doing?" I hissed at him.

"If yeh mus' know," he sighed, standing up straight again. "We're gonna go fer a swim," he grinned.

"What?!" I exclaimed softly. "We can't just break into someone's house and go in their pool!"

"We're not breakin' in Twitch," he explained. "It's jus' like borrowin' or somefhin'," he stated simply. "No need ta get all worried."

I looked at him for a while as he smiled and weighed my options in my head. Worst case scenario the people who lived here would come home, yell at us, and then we would run away. Best case scenario I would find out why Oliver had been acting so strange and we would actually have a good time swimming around. So with a heavy sigh I let my shoulders slump and I cocked my hip out to the side.

"Just don't look up my dress," I instructed him. He smiled widely and clapped his hands together before boosting me over the fence. I then unlocked the gate for him and he walked in easily.

"They've got a nice pool, yeah?" He asked as he walked around the edge of the eight foot deep foot. He stopped somewhere in-between six and seven feet and briskly took off his shirt. At first my eyes bulged out of my head and I coughed to cover up my sudden shock. I blushed something fierce as I watched him strip down to his boxer briefs.

"Come on Twitch!" He yelled over to me. "Let's go swimmin'!"

"I don't have a bathing suit," I stated dumbly, to which he laughed.

"I don't eifher," he chuckled. "Jus' get down ta yeh skivves," he said. "I won't look."

And maybe it was the two glasses of wine I had drank that left me slightly buzzed or maybe it was because I was so mesmerized by him, but I did as he instructed and pulled my dress off leaving me in a strapless black bra and a pair of bright blue boy short panties. Oliver grinned, walked over to me, and then nudged me with his elbow.

"Jump," he whispered before doing so himself.