Into Your Icy Blues

A month later, Jade was taking another leave from work.

"Where all are we going?" she wondered as she and Bob waited to be picked up by whoever was driving them to the bus.

"We're actually going all around the states until late May with a few breaks, but you know you can go home whenever you want," he smiled at her from his spot on the living room couch.

"Yeah," she nodded. "When are we hitting Chicago?"

"Hm... beginning of March, if I remember right."

"Okay. Probably around then, then."

"You can stay for as long as you want, you know that, right?"

"Yeah, I know," she grinned. "I just don't want to leave the studio for too long, you know? Maybe I'll rejoin later in the tour."

"Fair enough," Bob agreed.

Jade watched bemusedly as Frank, Mikey, and Gerard all charged around the tour bus like mice on speed. Or something.

"I don't remember them being like this last time," she commented, dropping into the booth in the kitchen area.

"That's because they're usually not," Bob groaned. "Calm the fuck down," he growled, motioning for his sister to scoot further into the booth.

"Aw," she cooed at him. "Big brother needs his coffee?" He nodded dejectedly. "Well, my sources tell me that we will be stopping at a Starbucks soon," she reassured him gently.

"Sources?" he laughed.

"Yep," she grinned. "We all know that Gerard can't keep up the awake thing too for much longer without coffee."

"True that," Bob nodded, leaning against the back of the booth.

True to her predictions, about twenty minutes later the boy (man? boy.) was whining about wanting coffee. Less than five minutes after that they were going through a Starbucks drive through.

They considered each ordering their drinks, but in the end, wrote them all on a sheet of paper and handed them to the poor girl. Before pulling away, Jade made sure the bus driver has given her a fairly large tip for having to listen to various people asking her how long it would be every minute or so.

"I didn't even know there was such a thing as a drive-though Starbucks," Ray marveled.

"At The Drive-In," Frank laughed, sipping at whatever it was that he had ordered. Everybody within earshot rolled their eyes.

“You never make any sense, dude.”

By about the third day of tour, Jade had lost track of where they were. She was sure that last tour, there had been a sheet of paper posted somewhere that said where they were going to be that day, but she hadn't seen any such paper this time around. Someone must not want her to know where they were. Or maybe she was just paranoid.

"Hey, Mikey?" she said to him as the two of them played some racing game on the x-box.

"Hm?"

"Why am I the only girl here?" she questioned, biting her lip as she concentrated on the game. It took him a minute to answer.

"I think they're flying out in a few days," he muttered, barely missing another car that had skidded across the track.

"Ah."

When the girlfriends had joined the tour back in Detroit, Jade had her mind made up about staying in Chicago. "Thanks for coming," Bob said whilst hugging her goodbye. She had stayed for the show that night, primarily because she knew she would get to see a few old friends, before saying goodbye to the boys, who had to continue onto Kansas that night.

"See ya, kiddo," Gerard said as they shared a quick hug. After she had shared farewell with everyone except Frank, she turned to him to study him for a minute. Jamia had chosen to stay on the bus that night, so hugging him goodbye wouldn't do any harm, she decided. Stepping forward and into his arms, she had a vivid flashback.

Realizing what she was letting happen again, she quickly pulled away from the man.

"Bye Frank," she got out before spinning around and hurrying towards the back door where James was waiting to take her home.

"What was that?" James laughed as the two of them made their way out the back door.

He had obviously seen her exchange with Frank.

"I dunno," she shrugged as she followed her friend out to his car.

"Liar," he said simply. "You know exactly what it was. You're just not ready to admit it to anybody, let alone yourself."

"I, uh, kind of already did," she managed to get out when the two of them were seated safely in the car.

"Oh?" Now he sounded interested. "And how did this happen?"

"I kind of blew up at Gerard a few weeks ago," she said. "And he kind of, ah, knows."

"Knows what?" James questioned innocently. He had started the car a minute ago, but had yet to put it into drive.

"James," she whined.

"Jade," he whined back. "Never mind, it doesn't matter. I already know anyway," he smirked before shifting the car into drive and steering the car out of the parking lot.

"Know what?" her eyes narrowed.

"Frank Iero is the peanut butter to your jelly. The butter to your popcorn. The Jack to your Sally."

"Half of those didn't even make sense."

"There were only three of them. Did one only half make sense?"

"Drive."