I Believe in Yesterday

Bailey's POV

“Tour bus! Tour bus! Tour bus!” Jack chanted. I thought my head was going to explode from his annoying antics. He was sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV that had been parked on the driveway and waiting earlier this morning. “Tour bus! Tour bus!” He continued to change his voice from bellowing, to screeching, to a lisp and all different kinds of accents. “Tour bus! Tour bus! Tour bus! Tour bus!”

“I swear to God, Jack!!” Zack’s head looked like it was going to explode. “If you fucking say “tour bus” one more time, I am going to fucking pick up your fucking toothpick body and hang you off a cliff by your giant hips!!!! I am not kidding.”

I sat sideways beside Zack in the back of the SUV with my legs draped over his lap, trying to suppress my giggles. Jack’s face was priceless, like he was trying to figure out whether to be offended about the hip comment or to be scared because Zack could actually kill him.

Almost a minute had passed before Jack spoke up again, “…Does it count if I whisper?”

“Fuckin A!” Zack boomed before Jack had finished his sentence. His body lunged over the seat at Jack, ready to smack him around. I could hear Jack’s high-pitched shrieking and I couldn’t be sure what Zack was actually doing to Jack, but I didn’t care to watch them wrestle. Instead, I hopped out of the truck and went back inside of Alex’s house to get more things to load. Being lazy with Zack and Jack in the car wouldn’t get anything done faster.

Alex and Rian were finishing up a few things and making sure their house was ready to leave. Inside the door, one of my bags sat, forgotten to be packed so I picked it up to bring back to the truck. All of the bags, instruments and equipment were loaded in the SUV and if it wasn’t in the truck, the things were already loaded into the trailer or on the bus. All that was left to do was lock up the house and drive to meet the bus and we would be off on The Compromising of Integrity Morality and Principles Tour.

“It’s official!” I said proudly, peeking my head around all the junk in the back of the truck to look at Zack. “I am going on tour!” I pushed against the bag I had just placed in the back one more time to insure its placement.

“Awesome,” Zack smiled at me through his curly bangs over his eyes. “You better get in here though; just because your stuff is packed doesn’t mean we won’t leave without you.” I rolled my eyes at Zack but ran around the vehicle and jumped in nonetheless.

“Rian, Jack, Zack and I all sat in the SUV, just waiting for Alex as he ran back and forth from the truck to the house. After that, we would be going and there would be no turning back. Not like I wanted to; I had been waiting to do this for a while and I just knew it would be amazing.

“Alright!” Alex jumped in the driver’s seat. He jumped up and down a couple times in his seat like a child on a sugar high. “Ya’ll ready to go?!?!” He looked around at the four of us with an excited spark in his eyes.

This time there was no hesitation in my voice as I yelled with the boys. “FUCK YEAH!”

==========

Leave it up to Jack. We hadn’t been on the bus for more than ten minutes and there was already a cracked cupboard. In fact, we were still walking in and out of the bus getting situated and there was already a cracked cupboard.

The cupboards on the bus were all plastic wood; virtually impossible to break them. Rian was pretty pissed, but I was still baffled at how he had done it.

I stood in front of the broken cupboard, looking over the crack and seeing if there was a way to fix it. In the middle of running my fingers over the crack, I felt fingers run over my sides.

“Your bags are outside,” his raspy voice tickled my ear as he spoke in whisper. I felt him start to tickle my sides when I didn’t respond and in reaction I jumped up and turned to hold down his arms so he’d stop.

I struggled to keep his arms at his sides so they wouldn’t attack mine but Zack was so much stronger than me that my efforts were put to shame. He easily overpowered my attempts, like always, and started to wiggle his fingers up and down my torso, causing me to laugh while I thrashed to try and get out of his grip.

“Zack!” I breathed loudly. “Zack!” I giggled and continued to try and catch his arms to hold them down again. “Zack, stop!”

“That’s not what you were saying last niiight,” Zack sang.

“Zack stop!” I continued to laugh and by now I was falling over from being so ticklish. “Zack! Zachary Steven Merrick!”

“Bailey Olivia Bates,” he taunted back, tickling me even more.

“Oo, full name,” a voice laughed from the front of the bus. Rian walked in with his bags, Jack following on his heels. “Keep ‘er in line, Zack.”

“Spank her!” Jack cheered, stopping to watch Zack torture me. By now I was falling down against the cupboards, almost sitting on the ground. I was tempted to bring my leg up right into the front of Zack’s pants to get him to stop.

Zack knew me well enough though that as soon as I thought the thought, he stopped; knowing what I was thinking about doing. “Fine, I’ll stop.”

“Thank you,” I smiled, standing up and then jumping to give him a quick kiss on the nose.

“AY!!” Alex’s voice boomed, causing the rest of us to jump in shock. “No kissy-kissy! As long as you’re under this roof, there will be none of that.”

Jack looked at me and wiggled his eyebrows, “Unless we get to watch.”

I sneered at him and then looked back at Zack. “So are you going to give me a grand tour?”

“Sure thing,” Jack jumped in. “Let me show you to my bunk and I can give you the full tour.”

I smacked Jack and looked to Zack again. “Follow me, ma’am.” He held out his hand and I linked my fingers with his and followed him.

We walked all the way back to the back of the bus, through an open door and stopped. “This is the back lounge,” Zack said dumbly, making me laugh. I had been on a tour bus plenty times before, so this was really just Zack goofing off but I played along nonetheless.

The back lounge had beige leather seats lining both sides of the bus with a table that was pushed off to the side. A big screen T.V. hung on the back wall of the bus with cupboards on either side which would soon be packed full of the boys’ junk and a couple weeks later, things would probably falling out of them.

“And if you would follow me this way,” Zack directed me back out the door to the narrow hallway that connected the back lounge to the front of the bus. “I know this is really confusing, but just stick by my side and you won’t get lost.” He smirked down at me and I bumped his hip.

In the narrow way, there were ten tiny pockets in the wall where the bunks were. The last four bunks in the hallway were stacked two on each side and they were reserved for the four band members.

“Here, my dear, is my bunk.” Zack motioned to the bottom bunk on the left side and I peeked in to see some of Zack’s stuff sitting in it. “You will probably be spending the majority of the time here…with me…without clothes…”

“Yeah, we’ll see, bud,” I joked and closed the curtain to his bunk. The other six bunks were closer towards the front of the bus and stacked three high, and were considerably smaller than the first four, all for the band’s crew.

“Last stop on the tour is a big one,” Zack smirked, taking my hand again.

“Leave the dick jokes to Jack.”

“You’re the one who said it,” he smiled crookedly and pulled me behind him back out to the front of the bus. Right after exiting the bunk area, there was a little bathroom with a mini shower, bathroom and sink and past that was simply the open area on the bus. The same beige leather sofas that were in the back lounge were in the front. The seats lined the left side of the bus wall with another big T.V. mounted overhead. On the right side of the bus, across from the sofas, was the kitchenette which held the cupboard that Jack had broken.

I looked out the window to see Alex and Rain moving around, and talking to the people that were all showing up to load the bus. Danny, Evan, Vinny, Grieco and Matt Colussy stood talking and joking along side the little hyper ball of energy with the name of Melanie. The only one missing was Matt and coincidentally he was the tour manager.

“Bailey Bates! Bailey Bates!” Alex called when he saw me peering out the bus door. He ran towards me with two bags in his hand. “I got your bags.”

“Thanks, Lex.”

“Your bags were the last ones in the SUV, ATL crew is ready to go but they’ll meet us in Virginia because they’re driving separate and so, let’s get the fuck on the road!”

The rush and hectic activity around me made time go by so fast, we were already pulling away and driving on the road. I was still absorbed in the new feeling that was under my feet in the carpet. The smell of new furnishing energized me. The aliveness that all the guys showed and the anticipation for the first show, was the talk of the bus.

I sat on the couch with my head resting on Zack’s shoulder as he played on his phone. Rian was on the other side of Zack at the table and I could tell he was getting impatient.

We were already waiting out on Matt’s street for him, but he was taking him forever to get out of the house.

“I don’t get why Matt gets a special pick-up…” Jack complained, throwing the football in his hands from where he stood by the door in the front of the bus, to Alex, who was standing in front of me.

Alex caught the ball and threw it back. “Stop whining, dickhead,”

“Rian, fucking stop,” Zack said, holding Rian’s twitching knee still.

“Seriously, Ri,” I said craning my neck to look at him. “You’re shaking the whole bus. Do you do that in your sleep?”

“Only when Kara’s under him,” Alex snickered, throwing the football to make it bounce off Rian’s head. “And…why exactly? Are you going to cheat on my brotha Zack, Bailey?!”

“Yeah…I am so cheating on Zack.”

“You’d think Zack would be enough. He’s like, fucking God.” Alex walked over to Zack and felt up his pecks. “Yeah, definitely fucking God.”

“I’m definitely enough,” Zack said, puffing out his chest. I knew they were going to start talking about subjects that always embarrassed me, no matter what, so I tried to tune out their jokes by picking at the ends of my hair.

“Hey everyone.” Following the hesitant voice, the head of Matt Flyzik poked itself in the bus.

“MATT!” everyone yelled back, aside from Jack who yelled “late” before throwing the football back to Alex. I smiled at Matt as he went around and greeted everyone quickly and discussed information with the boys. I didn’t see Matt very often but whenever I did, I realized how much I really did like him. We had always been friends since I moved to Lutherville; he was one of the first people I met since he gave me a ride to school on my second day there.

“Hot damn,” Rian breathed under his breath as Matt brought another[ item on the bus. “I thought you put all your stuff in the trailer and only had a couple bags, dude.”

“Just a couple more.”

“Shit bro, the luggage just keeps coming.”

“That’s what she said…” Jack muttered.

“Matty’s bringing his girlfriend,” Alex taunted him, tickling his chin.

Matt hesitated. “Speaking of my girlfriend, she’s in the house; I’ll go get her.” He spoke with uncertainty, probably worried that we wouldn’t like her. But with a light smile on his face, he got off the bus for the more time.

“Go long!” Jack yelled to Alex, who had opened the divider of the front lounge and the bunks and was running all the way to the end of the bus.

Instead of hearing a nice, clean catch, I heard a crash and then Alex mumble some curse words. “That’s why the Ravens have Flacco, Barakat; he can throw a football.”

“Well I don’t see you out on the field as a wide receiver either, Gaskarth.”

“You know what you need to do,” Rian suggested to both of them. “Stop dreaming you will ever play for the Baltimore Ravens.”

I could hear Alex still searching for the football in the back of the bus, but he still made his voice heard. “Don’t even deny that you don’t dream about it, Ri!”

Once again, I blocked out the boys’ un-stimulating conversations and played with the hem of my shirt with the hand that wasn’t connected to Zack’s. Finally, after a couple minutes, I saw Matt’s head bobbing outside the bus window with another head of brown hair following him. They walked slowly and paused outside of the bus for minute.

“Could they be any slower?” Rian asked annoyed with how long everything was taking. The sound of the bus door opening came a while after and Matt walked up the stairs with one hand pulling up the girl behind him.

She kept her head down the entire time, like she was nervous to look us in the eye. It didn’t matter though; I could recognize her from a mile away. She finally did look up and when she did, my jaw dropped. Rian’s shaking foot stopped moving. Jack halted in mid-drink of his beer. Zack’s arms went limp and dared to drop his phone.

The silence was unbearable; the way we all sat flummoxed by the person standing in front of us. With everyone awestruck, I heard a shuffle behind me. It was the tiniest of movement, but I immediately knew who was coming out from the back of the bus.

My eyes were glued to hers, mesmerized, but somehow, somehow I managed to tare my eyes from hers to look at Alex. When I did, I saw his face quickly turn to agony at the sight of the body standing just fifteen feet away from him.

A staggering silence hung in the air for who knows how long. Finally the voice of a broken boy, reliving his high school past, spoke with heartache like molasses on his tongue and a crack in his voice, “…J-Jay Bird?”

The sound of his sad, sad voice made me want to cry for him along with the hurt, betrayed feeling in my chest, and as I stared with my green eyes, my emerald orbs were staring right back at me.