A Smile for Your Scrapbooks

“Someone fucking help me!” I yelled running past the bunks, “Gaskarth’s trying to kill me!”
“Take it back!” Alex shouted following me, “The Ravens do not suck!”

Then of course I made it to the very back of the tour bus and there was nowhere left to go. I looked around and he practically had me cornered. I looked around for a second time and the only thing that could probably fight him back was a full bottle of water just lying around on the floor. Just as I was about to grab it Alex snatched it up, took the cap off, and pointed it at me. I put my hands up.

“I got you cornered Bailey! Nowhere to go!” Alex triumphantly stated with a smile.
“Ok genius you have me cornered what are you going to do about it?” I asked now crossing my arms.

“I’m going to-” he paused, “Well, actually, I don’t know, but I do have this full bottle of water I could throw at you now.”

“May I just go take a seat next to Matty again? And you not throw that bottle of water at me?”

“No!”

“Well aren’t you rude!”

“I want an apology! And I want you to owe me!”

“Um how bout . . . no. and uh, no.”

Alex sighed, “Fine! Water it is!”

Alex gave me this devious smile and went at me. I dodged him and made a beeline for the front of the bus again. I then felt some ice cold water on my back and I squealed. I looked back and saw Alex had still half a bottle of water left. I didn’t want that all poured on me so the safest place I thought of was the bathroom where I could lock myself away. There was no way he could get me in there.

As I ran past all the bunks again I ran for the bathroom door and swung it open, but it was too late I felt the rest of that cold water hit my shirt. I continued inside though as I slammed it shut behind me. Then I heard someone say, “Hey I didn’t know we were having a wet t-shirt contest”

I looked behind me and there was Jack standing by the mirror doing his hair. I just rolled my eyes and sat down on the toilet seat.

“So what brings you to the bathroom?” Jack smiled.

“What do you think bathrooms are for Jack?” I sarcastically said with a laugh.

“All kinds of things really. Checking yourself out, shiting your brains out, sex. . .” he shrugged.

“Oh thank you for listing all those things I would have never guessed” I giggled.

“Ah, that reminds me! You were a no show at the hotel I booked! You tease.” He joked giving me a wink.

“Shit that was last night? I didn’t know, sorry Jack, maybe another time” I smiled.

Then out of nowhere Alex shouted, “Bailey you have to come out some time!”
“No I don’t! I could live in here forever!” I replied.

“So what did you do? I was practically dead when you guys woke me.” Jack yawned.

“Well, I said the Ravens sucked.”

“Everyone has their opinions.” Jack shrugged.

“But mostly because of last night and me changing the channels and . . . making you guys miss the biggest touchdown in history for them . . .”

Jack then got this look on his face. A look like everything from last night was coming back to him. His face dropped when he looked at me. Right then and there I knew he was going to just throw me to Alex.

“That’s right! That was you!” he said.

“Don’t give me to Alex! Please don’t do that! Anything but that!” I begged.

“What’s in it for me?” he asked.

“Anything!”

“Anything?” he smirked.

“Ok, maybe not anything”

“Then no.” he shrugged, “Alex! You can have her!”

“YES!” Alex shouted outside the door.

“FINE! Anything!” I agreed.

“Sweet!” Jack smiled, “Sorry bro no Bailey for you!”

“WHAT?!” Alex yelled, “Come on man! I could try and convert her into a fan so there is never any incident like that again!”

“Oh, sounds tempting.”

“Hey, hey, hey I said anything Jack!” I reminded him.

“Fuck. Right. Nah, Alex she said she’ll owe me anything. That’s pure gold and I’m going to hold onto that.” Jack said.

“Just watch out Bailey I’ll get you back for what you did! This means war!” Alex threatened.

With that being said I sighed and looked around at the fan art on the walls. Some of them were drawn so well and looked so much like the guys while others looked odd and slightly resembled them or just had to do with their songs. Spending the remainder of the hour in this bathroom didn’t seem so bad at all. The only problem was the wet shirt I was in was making me a bit chilly. This, all girls knew, was not a great combination especially when a guy is around.

“Hey, Jack, you don’t think it would be a problem if I borrowed one of your shirts for today or until I could get to my luggage do you?” I asked.

“Sure, no problem, you look cold anyway.” He smirked.

I just sighed and crossed my arms. Within a couple minutes he left and came back quickly with a dry shirt. He threw it to me and left me to get changed. Before I put the shirt on I looked at it and smiled. It was one of his JAGK shirts. It was the blue one with a drawn figure of Jack with his hands on the side of his face screaming in a red sweater, the one that looked like the Home Alone movie cover.

Later That Day

“Hey, Bailey, you going to give me a hand or what?” Vinny shouted outside the bathroom and I awoke with a startled jump. I also bumped my head in the tub I was laying in. I looked at my phone and saw that it was already sometime after five.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out to help Vinny. Gaskarth isn’t out there right?” I asked.

“No, the coast is clear he’s inside doing meet and great.” He replied and I heard him walk away. I got up out of the tub and stretched my stiff muscles. When I opened the door it was silent and I knew that I was alone. Rubbing my eyes I walked out of the tour bus and tripped on the second step going down.

Shit, I thought as I started to fall looking right down toward the ground and flaying my arms around hopping they would catch something. Unfortunately I did not have a rescuer and I feel flat on my face. I groaned as my face, knees, and a little bit of my arms stung.

“Fuck, Bailey! Are you ok?!” Vinny shouted running over to me. I rolled over on my back and sat up and I sure was sore all over.

“I’ll live I suppose.” I stated as my eyes started to turn red and I thought, Don’t fucking cry you baby.

But, I really couldn’t help it that fall hurt like hell. I felt something touch my lip and I put my hand there and pulled away and saw blood. I touched my nose and there was some more. Wonderful my nose was bleeding and so were my knees.

“Let me go get a first aid kit” Vinny said and rushed inside.

“Oh look who it is the Ravens hater!” Alex shouted beside me. I looked up at him and his expression quickly changed from a smartass to a concerned look.

“Just go away.” I sighed and Vinny came right back out with the first aid kit in his hands.

“Bailey what happened? Are you ok? Why are you crying?” Alex questioned crouching down to me.

“Damn, you’re like a kid who doesn’t know when to stop asking questions!” I said rolling my eyes.

“Well I wanna know” Alex stated.

“She fell.” Vinny said.

“Oh.”

“There you go you can laugh at me now.” I said wiping my eyes and taking the kit from Vinny, “Thanks.”

“I’m not gonna laugh! That’s mean. Here let me help.” Alex reassured sitting across from me and when I opened the kit he took one of the tubes of Neosporin. He squeezed a glob of the stuff onto my left knee and started to rub it in.

“OW SON OF A BITCH GASKARTH THAT FUCKIN STINGS.” I yelled shoving his hand away.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“That’s what she said.” Vinny mumbled.

“I have to admit that was a good one to call me out on.” I laughed.

“Well let me get back to work if you can’t help me much Bailey that’s ok you just better be on you’re A-game when we sell shirts tonight.” Vinny smiled and I nodded.

“Sorry for yelling at you Alex.” I apologized. He continued to help me except this time I put the Neosporin on myself and he gently put on band-aids. I handed the tube of the stuff to him and asked, “Could you get my face if I’ve got scratches?”

“Um,” he looked at my face and grabbed my chin moving my head side to side to check “looks good to me. We just need to clean up that bloody nose.”

I touched under my nose again forgetting that it had been bleeding. I definitely must have looked like hell with dried blood under my nose, great. Alex quickly got up with the kit and ran inside telling me to wait where I was. When he came back out he had a wet paper towel and a dry one. He kneeled down beside me, grabbed my chin again, and started to rub where the dry blood was. I laughed and grabbed his wrist stopping him and pulled his hand away.
“I can do this myself Alex” I giggled and took the wet paper towel from him and started to scrub my face. When I was done he handed me the dry towel.

“All done!” I exclaimed with a smile.

“Finally, you sure did bang yourself up.” He said.

He smiled at me in this very cute way. We looked at each other for a minute or two until I looked down at my band-aid covered knees and said, “Well, I better go help Vinny. Thank you for helping.”

“No problem Bailey” Alex smiled as he got up and put his hand out to help me up. I took his hand and began to stand when my knees got another wave of pain from bending them.

“Are you sure you can make it to the merch tent?” Alex chuckled.

“Don’t worry about me I’ll make it there. Check in about twenty minutes and if I’m not there send out a search and rescue team” I joked with a smile. I noticed we were still holding hands so I let go.

“Once you get better I’ll try not to be so nice anymore, Raven’s hater.” Alex said with a wink and walked away.

I got this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. What was I feeling right now? It was like something was gnawing on the inside of me, but it wasn’t pain at all. It felt more like a nervousness that shouldn’t be there. As I turned away from watching Alex leave I headed in the opposite direction toward the front of the building. Halfway there the strange feeling in the pit of my stomach vanished and it puzzled me. So I shrugged it off and hobbled my way to where Vinny was.