Friends, Lovers, or Nothing

I had hardly been helping out the You Me at Six crew for an hour and I had already been booted from my job and switched over to helping out Ollie with merch.
 
Bryony said it wasn’t personal, but having to keep track of all the things she had to do along with teaching me what to do would be too much, and I understood. I didn’t particularly feel like learning all the rules and ropes anyways. Merch would be much easier, especially for a newbie such as my self.
 
As much as I would have enjoyed working with Bryony and helping behind the scenes, that would have involved a hell of a lot more contact with Josh throughout the day than I wanted or needed. Merch would be all around easier, on everyone involved.
 
Ollie and I didn’t have much to do during pre-pro because we couldn’t really set all the merch up yet. We did get all the shirts and stuff organized into boxes by size, which he said would be extremely helpful come tomorrow when everything was “bat shit mental”, his words of course.
 
When we finished organizing stuff into boxes, we were pretty much done with our job. Ollie went back to the bus to organize some spreadsheets, and I went off to see how everything was getting set up. I found that the stage had already been set up, and now the guys were sound checking. Of course, Max spotted me first and waved quickly before going back to playing his guitar. I waved back and watched for a few minutes while I could, while Josh had his back to me and the rest of the guys hadn’t noticed me yet.
 
“What do we want to try quick?” Josh spoke into his mic then, turning back around to face where the audience would be this time tomorrow.
 
The sound guy, who was right behind me, spoke then. “Any song, doesn’t matter. Just need to check the levels quick. Everything else sounds good though.”
 
I was staring right at Josh then, and I felt like he was looking right at me as well. But he wasn’t, he was looking at the sound guy. I had to remind myself this as they launched into Safer to Hate Her. It was my least favorite song, only because every single time I heard it, I felt like Josh was singing to me. I had to remind myself that he wasn’t, that none of these songs were about me, but it was still hard.
 
I was completely entranced with listening to Josh sing. He had such a talent, and he obviously loved what he was doing. Watching him was almost as good as doing it yourself, which I thought was what made the show so amazing. For that hour or so that they played their set, he made the audience feel like it was them on stage performing. Anyways, I was completely in a trance while I was watching him, so I didn’t even notice when Danielle came up and was standing beside me. She nudged me gently in the ribs and when I looked over she was smiling.
 
“You may not like him, but you can’t deny that the boy has talent,” she said gently.
 
I just nodded, because she was right.
 
When the song finished, she started clapping for them, for him, and I couldn’t help but join in. We both walked forward towards the stage then, because now sound check was over and we weren’t exactly sure what was next.
 
“I can only imagine how fab the live show is,” Danielle gushed as she hopped onto the stage with help from Josh. “I can’t wait to see it tomorrow!”
 
Just the site of Josh standing there smiling at her was making my stomach turn. I was glaring daggers into his back when Tom called to Danielle for some help with something. The rest of the guys scattered, and Max tried to get me to come with them, but I was too focused on Josh messing with his mic. I shrugged him off, telling him I’d meet him in catering, and when everyone was gone I took my chance. Now or never.
 
“Josh, I need to talk to you,” I informed him as I climbed onto the stage and walked towards him.
 
“Not now Peyt, there’s a shit ton to do and I don’t have time.”
 
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “That wasn’t a question, Josh. It will only take a minute.”
 
He sighed dramatically, but stopped and turned to face me. “Fine, what is it?”
 
I took a step closer and lowered my voice to barely above a whisper. “If you want to involve yourself with my best friend, then fine, that’s your choice. But I swear to God Josh, if you hurt her I’ll take all my anger out from the past year and combine that with whatever anger I’d feel from you hurting my best friend, and I’ll take it all out on you.”
 
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You just don’t get it do you Peyton?”
 
Confusion covered my face. “What?”
 
“You don’t get a say in this, alright? This is my life, and you aren’t in it anymore, and that’s your own damn fault. So please, back off.”
 
“You obviously don’t understand that she’s my best friend and if you hurt her or fuck with her in any way, I can and will rip your balls off and feed them to the fishes,” I hissed. I had enough of his bitchy attitude. I didn’t have a say? Obviously he didn’t understand the law of best friends.
 
He scoffed. “Sure are lady like, aren’t you Peyt? Can’t believe you haven’t scoped out a new boyfriend yet.”
 
I didn’t bother to say anymore as I stomped off. If Josh didn’t want to have a civil conversation, then that was fine by me. We could just pretend the other didn’t exist. Although we all know that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

***

“So what can I do?” I asked Ollie when I got back to the bus. He was sitting at the table with his laptop out and some papers spread around, and he looked pretty busy.

He smiled at me though, which was good; Ollie was a great guy and he was really friendly. I was actually looking forward to helping him out for the tour. “Actually, there isn’t much you can do right now. I’m just doing some inventory right now and making sure things are in order for tomorrow. Why don’t you go grab something to eat? Max said something about waiting for you over there, I think.”

I nodded. “Want me to bring you anything?”

He shook his head no, so I headed off the bus. He was right I suppose--there wasn’t much for me to do today, so I might as well relax.

It was easy to find catering, considering the venue was actually pretty large and rather confusing. It was hard to describe, aside from a large room with some tables and chairs scattered all around, and a buffet style set-up with food on a large table for people to get themselves. I got food first and then found Max and the guys sitting at a table with some other people I didn’t recognize.

When I sat down beside Dan, I noticed Danielle was sitting in between Matt and Josh. I wanted to be sitting with her, but she obviously wanted to be with Josh instead. I tried shrugging it off, but the nagging feeling that she really did like Josh wouldn’t go away. I pushed it aside though, because I didn’t have a choice. “So how’s the first day of work going for you love?” Dan asked me with a smirk.

“Good, actually. Ollie’s a great guy, and he’s really patient surprisingly. I feel bad sometimes. I can only imagine how frustrating I am.”

Apparently, the rest of the table had tuned into our conversation then and decided to leave their input.

“You aren’t frustrating, Peyt,” Danielle said with a small laugh. “You’re stubborn as hell, but aren’t we all?”

Josh scoffed then, and I turned my attention to him. “Problem?” I glared.

He returned my glare and shook his head. “Just think you’re a little more stubborn than the rest of us, that’s all.”

I smiled sweetly and took a drink of my water, then added, “You would know, wouldn’t you Mr. Know-It-All?”

“Children,” Matt said gently, trying to ease the tension.

Danielle laughed from her spot and shook her head. “You two fight like cats and dogs. It’s crazy.”

With one final glare in Josh’s direction, I snapped out of my anger induced trance and turned to Danielle. “How are things going with Tom?”

“Really good,” she informed the table with a wide grin. “I honestly can’t think of something I’d rather be doing as far as work is concerned.”

“That’s great, Danielle, really,” I smiled. I was so happy that she found something she loved. I mean, I knew she enjoyed photography, but she honestly wasn’t sure what she was going to do for a job after graduation. At least now she had some experience doing this type of work so she had a little bit of an idea of what she could do.

“You should ask Tom if he knows of anyone looking for a photographer,” Josh suggested then with a shrug. “I mean, you never know. Maybe he could get you a semi-permanent job.”

Her smile widened just as my stomach was doing flips inside of my body. Tom lived in England, meaning he would more than likely only know of jobs in the UK. What if Danielle found a job and moved, leaving me behind?

I shook the thoughts off, realizing I was getting way too ahead of myself.

We all talked for a little while longer, but then we finished eating and went off in our separate directions. I grabbed a can of pop before heading off to find Ollie and see if he needed help with anything.

As I was looking, I couldn’t stop thinking about Josh and how big of a bitch he was being. I mean, I understood he was mad at me still. I guess I even knew that it wasn’t that he was mad at me still, but rather that a whole new form of anger had brewed inside of him. I mean, I guess I even understood that. But at the same time I didn’t. It didn’t mean he had to be an ass the whole tour, though. Did it?

I guess I wasn’t paying attention. I mean, I know I wasn’t paying attention. I was completely lost in my thoughts as I made my way through the venue and towards the exit to get to the bus. But regardless of that, I hadn’t seen him. It was as if he had popped up out of nowhere and now all of a sudden he was in front of me.

It was like deja vu. As soon as I ran into him, dropping my can of pop and having it splash all over him and myself, I felt like I was back at the party, the same party I had spilled beer on him and he had later informed me what had happened with his ex-girlfriend and my then co-worker Beth.

Before I could stop it or catch the can, it was all over the both of us. The front of his white t-shirt was dark from the liquid, while the legs of my jeans were soaked through. I wanted to scream. How many more things could go wrong?

“Fuckin’ watch where you’re goin’ Peyton!” he yelled, jumping back to inspect the damage.

“I’m sorry!” I cried, checking out my own clothing as I apologized. I may have hated Josh right then, but I still felt bad.

“You sure have a habit of spillin’ things on me,” he grumbled as he shrugged out of his red flannel and started patting down his stomach.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I said, quieter this time.

The sigh he released sounded tired, as if he wanted to yell more but couldn’t. As if he was just too physically exhausted to do so. I could relate. I felt like all we did was argue, and it was exhausting.

“Just watch where you’re going next time,” he grumbled, brushing by me and heading off, probably to the bathroom to clean up.

I turned on my heel, ready to say something more, but I couldn’t. I just watched him walk away, and then when he was completely out of sight, I sighed and went to change and find Ollie.