Too Young for Love

Three days later, my sunburn had finally faded. I was now, however, pealing like a snake sheds it’s skin. And sometimes, much to my disgust and dismay, Brian would pick at it if we were just sitting around and I had a tank top on.

“Brian, knock it off!” I yelled as he started, yet again, to pick at it. It was really starting to bother me.

“Sorry,” he yelled back holding his hands up defensively. “It’s just so temping!”

I sent an evil glare at him and he turned around to talk to Jimmy, completely ignoring me.

Val poked her head of from the bunk room and waved me over to her. She had a ridiculous grin on her face and she seemed to smile even bigger as she sat down in her bunk.

“You will never guess what I just found when I was looking for dirty clothes in the guys’ drawers,” she beamed, waving her hands around a little childishly.

Hopefully she wasn’t going show or tell me something gross. I had only known these people for a week and she had already come to me with some very…odd questions. Let’s just say that Val and I were a lot closer now than we were before.

Before I could answer she pulled out a pair of jeans. The were too large to be Jimmy or Johnny’s, which left Matt, Zacky, or Brian. Then she pulled out a little box from the front pocket. I knew what it was, it was a ring.

On one hand, that made me excited, because if they were Matt’s, then that meant he was going to propose to Val. They would make such a cute married couple. And if they were Zacky’s I was happy for him. I’d never met his girlfriend, Gena I think, but I’m sure they were good together.

Then on the other hand, if they were Brian’s I would have to be honest with myself. I would be completely broken. Brian meant a lot to me, already. My small crush I had when I first met him had escalated. A lot.

“I found this in Brian’s pocket!” she said excitedly. “Do you know how great this is? Brian is going to ask my sister to marry him! Of course I always thought that Matt and I would get engaged or married first, but it doesn’t matter.”

I had to smile at her to try and hide my disappointment. “Yeah, that’s great. I can’t wait to meet her and see them together. I bet isn’t just great. And I wonder how he’ll ask? What if he does it on stage?”

I continued to rattle off question for Val to try and hide my true feelings. I think that if I seem really interested in the ‘soon to be engaged’ couple, it would make me seem like less of…Michelle wannabe.

Val seemed really excited about what was going to happen and said that she was going to drop some hints to Brian. Eventually she left me alone to go talk to Matt about what she found.

In her excited state I guess Val forgot to put the jeans with the ring in the pocket back onto Brian’s drawer, and if they continued to lay half inside of her bunk, I think he would figure out that she had found the ring. So instead of leaving them there and crawling inside my bunk to go to sleep like I wanted to, I stood up and grabbed the jeans, then I turned around and opened the drawer right under mine, Brian’s.

His clothes were all scattered around inside. Nothing was folded, at least nothing that I saw. When I put the pants back into the drawer I didn’t fold them like I wanted to, I just stuffed them in there and messed things up again so he wouldn’t notice someone had been in his things.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brian asked as he opened the door to the bunk room and shut it behind him as he spoke.

“I…,” I stuttered, not knowing what to use as an excuse for what I was doing. I surely couldn’t tell him the truth, Val would be furious with me. “What am I doing? I’ll tell you what I’m doing,” I said as if it should be obvious.

“Good,” he laughed. “That’s exactly what I want you to do. Please proceed.”

“I’m…,” I trailed off, still trying to think of something to say, then it hit me. “I dropped something from my drawer into yours on accident and I’m just getting it out.”

He smirked, “Why did you have my drawer open in the first place?”

Shit, he’s good. “Well I was looking for it and it hit me that I could have fallen into yours sometime during the week that I’ve been here.”

“And what exactly are you looking for? I’m sure that I would have found it, if it was in there and it wasn’t mine.”

“Have you seen your stuff? It’s a mess in there. And for your information it was my ipod…headphones. Last time I saw them was at the hotel a few days ago when I took a bath. They weren’t in there, so you can just get off my back about it.”

Finally, my excuse had come full circle. It was a bad excuse in the first place, but by the look on his face, I think that he believed it. Thankfully he didn’t say anything after that, he just turned and walked into the bathroom.

(Later That Day)

“He who makes a beast out of himself, gets rid of the pain, of being a man!” Matt screamed into the microphone.

They guys were about half way through the set by now and I had only gotten a couple of pictures that I truly liked. I was still so distracted by what Val had told me earlier today. Michelle and the rest of the girls would be here in two weeks. That was still quite a while away, it would give me time to get over the fact that Brian wasn’t mine and he never would be.

By the time the solo had come in the song Brian and Zacky met in the middle of the stage and I rushed over to them to snap a couple of pictures. These were always my favorite to take. The guys always made odd faces while they played solos.

After that I got a couple of Matt and Johnny then went backstage, behind the drum set and got some of Jimmy. He spun the drumsticks around for me and I snapped the picture before heading back backstage to put my camera away and find Val.

I had to get this off my chest. It was starting to bother me too much.

She was in the guy’s dressing room, sitting on the couch. I sat my camera down by it’s bag and sat by her on the couch.

“If I tell you this, you have to promise no tot tell anyone, especially Brian,” I said as she shut her phone and sat it down on the table in front of us.

“Okay..” she said, sounding unsure of what she was agreeing to.

“I’m only telling you because it’s been bugging me all day and I really need to get it off my chest.”

She didn’t say anything, just nodded and I continued. “I like Brian. And before you go and say that it won’t happen, I know. He’s with your sister. I don’t want to break them up, I really don’t. But when you showed me that you found the ring this morning I just got really jealous and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day.”

I was expecting for her to say something bad back to me, but she just laughed. Yes, she laughed then started to say something but was cut off when she started laughing again. Was it really that funny? “You…like…Brian?” she asked in between fits of laughter.

“Why are you laughing? Shouldn’t you be mad?”

“No,” she said then took a deep breath. “I find it funny. Out of everyone on tour, you are attracted to Brian. And I’m not mad at all. If you like Brian and he ends up liking you back, the more power to you guys. Mitchy would find someone else. But if you try to break them up, just forewarning you that I would have to kick your ass then tell everyone to kick you off the tour. I don’t think that you’re that kind of girl though.”

When I went to say something back to her, something, or rather someone, interrupted us. Unless you want to get technical, then some people interrupted us.

“Wait, why are you guys back so quick, you’re not supposed to be done for another ten minutes or so?” Val asked.

Matt laughed then started to explain, “Mr. Egotistical here,” he pointed to Brian. “Decided that during one of his solos that he was going to jump around on the amps. Karma came back to bite him on the ass ‘cause he totally wiped out and did some kind of back flip. It was funny as shit. You guys missed it.”

It probably happened right after I left too.

“And we decided to cut And All Things Will End out of the set so that he could get some rest. And, just for him, we’re getting a hotel room tonight. The show tomorrow is only four hours away so we would have gotten there early in the morning anyway,” Zacky explained.

A hotel? That’s just what I needed, to room with Zacky and Brian again. Between the two of them I didn’t get any sleep the other day. Zacky snores like crazy and Brian mumbles in his sleep.

I didn’t complain about it though. I, like everyone else, loved sleeping in a normal bed and taking a hot shower. Maybe Johnny and Jimmy would even let me room with them for tonight. I could only hope they were as bad as the other two.

We all got on the bus after the guys spent about an hour outside taking pictures and signing things for the fans. Even Brian participated.

As Matt handed out the room keys he failed to mention anything about how many beds each room had in them. That’s why when Zacky, Brian, and I all got to our room we all stopped dead in our tracks when we realized that there was a large king size bed, right in the middle of the room.

“I’m going to go see if Christ and Jimmy have two beds, maybe they’ll trade us,” Zacky said turning around a leaving the room. Leaving Brian and I alone.

“If they won’t trade us, I’m sure Zack will go to their room. You can have the bed and I’ll sleep in the chair or on the floor,” Brian said.

“I think that they’ll trade us.”

He shook his head, “I doubt it. But I’m going to go get my trunks on. We’re supposed to meet Matt and Val at the pool in ten minutes.”

He pulled his swim trunks out of his bag and walked into the bathroom. Zacky came back while he was in there. “They’re going to trade us. We can move our things when we all get back from swimming.”

“I told Brian that they would trade us. You can go ahead and change when he gets out. I’ll meet everyone down at the pool later on. I want to call Gena while I have some privacy.”

“Okay, I’ll let them know.”

I searched though my bag for my swimming suit while Zacky sat down at the table on the other side of the room. His phone was sitting on the table in front of him. He was probably waiting until we left to call her. I don’t blame him though.

When Brian got out of the bathroom I went in and changed. I heard Zacky telling him what was going on then Brian knocked on the door to the bathroom and told me to hurry up.

“Shall we go?” he laughed and held his elbow out for me to take.

I laughed and pushed his arm back down, “I think that fall messed with your head.”