Like You to Me

My alarm started screeching at exactly 7-o’clock. On any other day I’d roll over, shut it off, and go into work late, but knowing I couldn’t do that dragged me out of bed. I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep. Mike and I stayed until some ungodly hour in the morning just talking and filling one another in on what’d been going on since the last time we’d had a proper conversation. Once we started doing that I realized just how much I’d missed him and I felt like I didn’t have the heart to shut him up and ask him to leave. Instead, he fell asleep on the couch and I told him I’d wake him before I left.

After making myself presentable I wandered downstairs to find Mike in the kitchen with his back turned to me. I was fairly surprised that I smelled blueberry pancakes and bacon and my kitchen wasn’t engulfed in flames. With a smug look on my face, I pulled open the cabinet next to the refrigerator and took out two glasses. After filling them with orange juice I took a seat at the table. Mike cooking was rare. So rare, in fact, that I began wondering if he had ulterior motives. He’d never cooked for me before and I’d never heard of him cooking for anyone else. His dinner situation at his house was takeout and whatever his and Vic’s mother brought over for them so that they didn’t starve.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of you cooking me breakfast?”

Mike turned around with a bemused expression. “What? You didn’t know I could cook?”

I shook my head. “Anyone can cook, Mike,” I pointed out, “but not everyone can do it without burning down the house, and that’s what I didn’t know you could do.”

He gave me the finger before turning off the stove. Placing two pancakes and two strips of bacon on both plates, he made his way over to the table where I was sitting. “You’re not going to have a good meal for a few weeks so I wanted to do something nice for you.”

If Mike and I hadn’t agreed to return to our former platonic friendship, I would’ve melted in a puddle on the floor and begged him to marry me. Something about the gentle tone of voice he used when talking to me used to annoy me; I thought he was treating me like a child. Now I reveled in it. I thought of it as something he used to show he still cared. He didn’t talk to me like he talked to everyone else. Was I special? I didn’t really know. I wanted to be. More than anything else in the entire world, I wanted to mean more to Mike than any girl off the street.

I resisted the urge to passionately attack him and resumed eating my breakfast. I didn’t have much time before I needed to be at the office to pick up the boxes. Adele wouldn’t be there, which meant I had to load and unload everything by myself. I was sure Mike would offer but with the way the morning had already progressed I wasn’t sure I could trust myself to be alone with him any longer than we’d already accomplished. I thought the whole ‘no sex’ thing would be easy. We went into it on a whim; it should’ve been that easy to cut it out. But it wasn’t. I wanted it. I wanted him.

After we finished eating, Mike cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher while I got the last of my things packed and situated. He offered to head to the office with me but I refused, saying he’d already done enough and I was more than capable of doing it on my own. What a lot of people forgot was that I’d been touring with my brother’s band since day one. I wasn’t a stranger when it came to such things and I was perfectly capable of handling it on my own. Granted, sometimes it was more difficult to get going when I had no help, but I always made it.

I reached the office sometime around 8:15. As I expected, Adele wasn’t there. Knowing her and her lack of empathy plus her hatred of waking up before ten-o’clock, I wasn’t surprised. There was only one time in the lifespan of Nova that she’d helped me load up for tour and that was because we didn’t leave until six in the evening. Regardless, I headed toward the back room where all the boxes I’d need to take with me were waiting. It seemed like ages before I was down to the last box, which only contained tank tops and other small articles, that couldn’t have weighed any more than ten pounds. When I picked it up, I could’ve swore I heard my body thank me.

By the time I got back to my apartment it was already nine. Saxon hadn’t called me so I figured I was in the clear. I decided to leave the boxes in the trunk-section of my SUV until the boys could help me unload them. My arms felt like rubber and I was sure I gained tens of pounds in muscle. As soon as I walked into the living room, my phone started to ring. The caller ID displayed Saxon’s name and I groaned. My brother was ten for ten in calling at the least opportune moments.

“Are you on your way?” I asked, cradling the phone between my shoulder and neck. I’d just realized my Vans were untied and nothing irked me more than walking around with loose shoelaces.

“We should be there in about five minutes,” he answered. There was something off about him, I could tell, and I dreaded the ride that was about to come.

“Where are we going anyway?”

“First stop’s in Houston.” I groaned. Houston and I had a history of not getting along very well. The first time I’d ever accompanied my brother there on tour, a group of kids got a little drunk before the show and wound up ruining hundreds of dollars worth of clothing. Ever since, my luck seemed to get worse every time I went back. “Hey, at least we’re going somewhere warm.”

Simply knowing we’d be kicking off tour on the wrong foot put a damper on my entire day. Normally I wouldn’t let such things bother me but I hated Houston more than any other city in the United States. The band hadn’t been offered a UK or European tour yet so I couldn’t vouch for what those places were like and how they’d treat me, but I could only assume that anywhere would be better than Houston. I mumbled a few choice words to the band’s booking manager (who wasn’t there but doing so made me feel better) before disconnecting the call and collecting my personal bags from my bedroom.

I’d just gotten the last of them down the stairs and into the foyer before my brother appeared in front of me. The last time I had seen him was on Christmas, a whole two and a half months ago, so I was surprised to see that he’d gotten his hair cut and donned a few new tattoos.

“Don’t just stand there,” I barked out, “help me with these bags.”

Saxon rolled his eyes before picking them up and carrying them outside. “It’s so great to see you, Shea! It’s not like I haven’t seen you in three fucking months!”

His sarcasm wore on my nerves ninety-five percent of the time. Somewhere in the span of growing up he never learned how to have a sense of humor without being an asshole. As a twenty-something year old band dude, it only got worse. He had the maturity level of a newborn and the common sense of a toddler. On some deep, psychological level I understood his desperate need for attention. To anyone who knew Saxon’s story, it was obvious: the band, the acting out, the sarcasm. Sometimes I wondered how it’d skipped me and went straight to him.

When we reached the parking lot, the rest of the band was standing around the van waiting for me to unlock my car so they could retrieve the boxes. We’d done this so many times that I didn’t need to bark orders at them anymore, like I had to do with my brother. But I was the older of us and it was expected of me.

“Shea, I missed you!” Luke, the bassist, ran over to me and hugged me so tight I was sure he’d leave bruises. He was the outsider of the band so, unless I was on tour with them, I never got to see him much. They recruited him from southern Florida and he spent almost all the band’s off-time at home. Well, that equaled about two weeks a year seeing as how they were almost always recording, writing, or doing something else that required his presence.

Luke was everything you’d expect him to be: he was cocky, only dated blondes, and initially used the band as a scheme to get girls. Somewhere along the line he decided to take it seriously and fell in love with everything the industry had to offer. He took up most of the band’s design projects and brought his brother on tour to sell merch when I couldn’t handle doing both theirs and mine. Him and I didn’t get along for the longest time because of his shitty attitude, but once he went through his personal transformation, everyone suddenly became aware of how passionate a person he truly was.

“Put me down,” I gasped; I literally couldn’t breathe. “Help Darby with the boxes.”

Even though Adele and Darby’s relationship was null, I found him to be quite easy to get along with. Sure, he had his moments, but every member of the band did. Expecting five guys to get along constantly with no disagreements was like expecting world peace to occur overnight: virtually impossible.

After everything was packed in the trailer, Zach climbed into the driver’s seat and I headed towards the back of the van, where Luke and Andy were sitting. If I ever said I got along with every member of the band, I lied, and Anderson was the only exception. As a frontman, he adapted the attitude and ego flawlessly. I didn’t think a person more conceited and full of themselves than Luke existed, but Andy proved me wrong. Everything about him drove me up the wall, from the way he styled his hair to the way he interacted with fans. They were probably the only people he didn’t talk negatively about because he understood how vital it was to have a strong relationship with them. Everyone else was fair game.

I’d been telling Saxon for years that things with Anderson weren’t going to work out in the long run. He had a reputation...a bad one. It got to the point where barely any bands wanted to tour with them because of it, and the people who booked the serious tours avoided paying them any attention. Anderson’s motto was that any press was good press, but the rest of the band wasn’t as convinced. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, a majority of the attention the band got was because of how good looking Anderson was. It didn’t help that he knew it, too.

“So, Mike Fuentes, huh?” Anderson asked. He threw in a condescending laugh just to spite me.

“Leave her alone, man,” my brother said from the passenger seat.

“Relax, dude, I was just asking. I mean, it is all over the internet. That makes it fair game, doesn’t it?”

I didn’t need to ask how it got there and by who. I already knew. The only question left was how Anderson found out and how far he was willing to go with it. It was obvious we didn’t like each other but I never thought he’d pull a stunt like that. I wasn’t sure if Saxon caught on as quickly as I did. Judging by his calm demeanor after Anderson’s words were delivered, he didn’t. But once we hit Houston, I had a feeling things would come to a head. An ugly one at that.

I was getting ready to give Anderson a piece of my mind when I felt my phone vibrate in my hand. My tirade was temporarily paused so I could read it and reply if necessary. Instead of being greeted by a text from Adele sarcastically telling me to have a grand time with her wonderful brother, I opened a simple text from Mike that made me feel like I was on top of the world.

I miss you already.