Smoke And Mirrors

Jared scratches the words he just has written seconds ago. He looks blankly at the page. It's not empty, but there's no word without a stripe pulled through it. He rips the page of the notebook and fumble it up till it’s not bigger than a little ball.

He lets out a big yawn and rubs his hands over his tired eyes. He has no idea what time it is, but it must be something early in the morning. He can hear the two other guys breathing slowly while they're sleeping.

He has to share a room with Blake Harnage, the guitarist of VersaEmerge and Garrett Nickelsen, the bass player of The Maine. He rather sleeps alone or shares a room with his bandmates, not with some weird dudes.

It's not that he doesn't think they're nice or something, because they all seem very nice. But it's kind of awkward. They're all so much younger than him and it makes him realise he's actually old. He turns forty in a couple of days. Nine to be exact.

He throws the notebook aside. There won't come lyrics out tonight. He’ll give it another shot tomorrow. But he's sure he won't get any sleep any time soon, so he decides to get up and go for a walk.

He swings his legs out of bed and grabs the first shirt he sees. He only hope that it's his and not from one of the other dudes. Not that he would mind so much, but it probably won’t fit. And maybe those guys won’t like that Jared is wearing their shirt.

He gets out of bed as silently as possible to not wake anyone else. He manages to reach the door without tripping or making any noise and leaves the room.

Garrett opens his eyes at the clicking sound of the closing door behind Jared. What the hell is he doing at three in the morning? Garrett thinks. He must have some serious sleeping problems.

Garrett has been awake for nearly an hour. He has Jared heard while he tried to produce some lyrics and he has heard him swearing softly when nothing good came out.

He has heard him shuffling around the room, opening the fridge for a cool drink, texting on his phone and all other kind of things you aren't supposed to do at night.



Jared is the last one of his room who walks down for breakfast. No wonder, he returned to his room pretty late last night. It must have been almost five in the morning.

Shannon and Tomo are already sitting at a table along with Peter, Emma -Jared's assistent- and Tim, who plays bass for the live performance of 30 Seconds To Mars. Some other people of the Mars crew are sitting a table further. Jared gives them a small wave.

Jared takes a seat between Shannon and Emma. He's not hungry at all so he decides to wait till lunch to fill his stomach with food. In the mean time while every is eating, he looks around the restaurant of the hotel for a bit.

He sees an old couple eating together. They aren't saying too much, but it's obvious that they're enjoying each other's company. He loves to see that after all these years people can still love each other as they did the first day.

A family is sitting at the table next to them. The mother is having a discussing with the little girl about her food and the father is feeding his probably one year old son. Jared can’t help but smile at the sight. He wonders if he’s ever going to settle down and start a family. Probably not, seeing he’s almost forty now.

The Maine is seated a table closer to Jared. They're either laughing or just sitting there with tired faces. Well, it's actually only the one he shares a room with, Garrett, who has a tired face, but there's still a small smile placed on it.

VersaEmerge occupies the table closest to the Mars table. Jared notices that the female lead singer is missing and just when he's about to look around for her, he sees her walking in. Or better she limps.

“What happened to her?" Jared asks Shannon, cutting off his conversation with Tomo. Shannon gives him an annoyed look, but he anwsers him anyway, after looking at who Jared was referring to.

“She tripped in the middle of the night. I don't know what she was up to, but it couldn't be anything too good because it was two in the morning," Shannon says. "Why?"

"Well, I think that's pretty obvious. She's limping." Jared looks at his by one year older brother and Shannon raises one of his eyebrows at Jared's awnser.

"She must have fallen pretty bad. It was immediatley turning blue and purple and it's pretty swollen." Jared looks at the girls legs. One is harmless, beautiful, tan and thin. The other one is indeed swollen and bruised.

“You helped her, right? You’ve been a gentleman?” Shannon can’t help but chuckle slightly at Jared’s question. His brother has always the best manners. He would offer his help to the most dirty and bad person ever.

“No, I’ve just let her lay there on the floor,” Shannon says, rolling his eyes at Jared’s stupid question. “Of course I’ve helped her.”

Sierra’s eyes meet Jared’s as he looks once again at her. He smiles politely at her and she gives him a smile back. Only there’s a piece of pancake sticking between her teeth and she covers her mouth with her hand. She doesn’t turn red, but Jared can see that she’s a bit ashamed. Jared only chuckles.

Garrett is watching the two from the other table. He has a weird feeling at the smiles the two are giving each other. And he doesn’t quite like the feeling. Jared is obviously flirting with Sierra and it’s probably not a problem at all to let her fall for him. He seems the most perfect guy ever. Only one thing isn’t quite perfect that’s his age.

Garrett looks at Sierra. Something has happened to her leg, because it doesn’t look too good. It’s bruised pretty badly, unlike her other leg that still looks beautiful. Such beautiful legs. They go on for days and they’re tan and thin.

She gets up and starts limping toward the door. Garrett wants to get up to help her and he sees that Jared is also already half up, but Blake is already holding her arm to help her. She smiles at Blake and doesn’t give Jared a second glance.

Sierra gets a lot of attention from all these guys.

She smiles at Blake. “Thank you,” she says. Blake only returns the smile, but doesn’t say anything. She’s like a sister to him and he would always offer help to his family. VersaEmerge is basicly like a second family to him. And to Sierra as well.