Do Overs and Second Chances

So far this summer wasn’t going as Cameron had expected. He had expected to spend most of his time with Izy, but he so far he has barely spent anytime with her. He was sitting at the merch table with David and Eric. The two of them were talking but he wasn’t paying attention, instead he was thinking about Izy. He had never been this serious about a girl before but Izy just had that affect on him, but there was still something she wasn’t telling him.

Two people started walking to the tent were The Downtown Fiction was so David elbowed Cameron to get his attention. “What?” he snapped at David.

“Well other than your clearly on your man period, your girlfriends walking this way with another guy,” David answered.

This made Cameron look up. He hated the wave of jealousy he felt but he still felt it. He trusted Izy had a history with the people from The Summer Set. One that didn’t include him and he wasn’t sure if he would be able to compete with that. But then Cameron saw Izy smile at him and he was able to cast away his doubts. He stood up as she got closer and she was soon hanging on his side.

“Cameron, this is my brother Justin. Justin, this is my boyfriend Cameron,” she introduced the two still a little nervous about what Justin was going to say.

“Nice to meet you,” Cameron said while holding his hand for Justin to shake.

Justin just looked at it for a second before grabbing his hand in a firm handshake. “Yeah I’m sure, but tell me Cameron, what are your intentions with my sister?” Justin asked cutting right to the chase and catching Izy and Cameron off guard.

“My intentions?” Cameron repeated nervously. Now to add on to the strange jealous feeling about Izy’s past was the feeling that the people from her past, including her brother didn’t like him. Justin just nodded his head waiting for Cameron to answer. “Well she’s amazing I’m so lucky to even have her in my life,” Cameron answered.

“Yeah sure, that sounds nice and all but do you love her?” Justin kept going.

Izy and Cameron froze at his question and suddenly Izy was really nervous about what he would say. “You don’t have to answer that,” she told Cameron quietly before briefly glaring at Justin. Izy knew she loved Cameron but the two of them had never actually said it to each other. She didn’t want the first time he said he loved her, if he did love her, to be because her brother made him say it. “So Justin when are you leaving?” she asked to change the subject.

“You already want to get rid of me? That hurts Izy, but if you must know I’m going to be traveling with The Summer Set until Warped stops in Arizona next week.”

“Well it’s a shame you can’t stay longer,” she tried to sound sarcastic, but Justin still was her brother and she wanted to be able to spend some time with him.

“Yeah I know so we better spend some time together right now. Sorry Cam but I’m stealing my sister for the day.” He started walking away with Izy before turning back to Cameron, who still hadn’t really recovered from being put on the spot. “So what exactly are you doing to help out the band? Other than the lead singer.” Justin asked his sister. The two of them had started walking in no particular direction.

“Haha,” she said sarcastically. “How do you come up with it?” she rolled her eyes at her older brother.

“It’s a gift what can I say,” he responded. “But seriously what do you do?”

“If you must know, I play guitar in the band at the moment,” she told him.

“Since when do you play guitar?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah believe it or not you did leave a little bit of musical ability for the rest of the family.”

“Yeah but when did you actually learn how to play guitar?” he asked in a basic tone.

“Sophomore year,” she answered to only receive another disbelieving look from Justin. “John taught me,” she added hesitantly for clarification.

“That was a pretty smooth move for John. I would expect something like that from him now, but not back then.”

“It wasn’t a move,” she defended. “We were already together then and I asked him to teach me.”

“So you were the one putting the moves on John that explains so much,” Justin teased his younger sister.

“Like what?” Izy asked.

“I don’t really know but it sounded cool, didn’t it?”

Justin’s smile caused a similar one to form on Izy’s face. She couldn’t believe she had let this much time pass since she had last seen her brother. She had really missed him, not that she would ever admit that to him. Instead she lightly shoved him. “You can be such a loser sometimes,” she joked.

“But you share DNA with me so if I’m a loser so are you,” Justin retorted.

“No, I disagree it’s a male trait my female DNA doesn’t carry the loser gene like yours does,” she stuck out her tongue after saying this to be extra childish.

“I’m pretty sure you have it though. You are the one that went to math camp,” he reminded her.

“That isn’t a loser thing,” she argued.

“Sure it isn’t,” Justin said in order to placate her.

“It’s not, it’s a nerd thing. A nerd thing that happened to look great on my college apps and when I’m making more money than you you’ll wish you didn’t say that.”

“Yeah but that is the distant future, so what do you want to do right now for quality time?” Justin changed the subject.

“Well this random wandering seems to be working out for us and I only have an hour left before I have to get on stage,” Izy didn’t really have an idea about what her and Justin could do. She was completely out of her element here.

“Fine if you choose to be lame,” Justin responded.

“Math camp, remember?” she joked.

Izy got to the stage were The Downtown Fiction was going to be playing just in time for sound check. She felt a little relieved that she wouldn’t need to talk to Cameron about the awkwardness that Justin had caused. Throughout the set Cameron kept looking over to her but she pretended like she didn’t notice and he didn’t want to say anything in front of the whole crowd.

Izy’s was playing the songs on autopilot while her mind was spinning. So far everything about Warped Tour has been making her doubt everything she had tried to tell herself while she was living in Virginia. In what had felt like only a minute her and the rest of the band were walking off stage. Izy went to go say hi to Jess, she definitely felt the need for some girl time, but Cameron lightly pulled her back to him.

“I need to talk to you,” he told her. Izy looked back at Jess and held up one finger so the drummer would wait a minute. When she turned back to Cameron he started speaking. “Look, about earlier.”

“It’s ok Cameron, if you don’t want to say you love me you don’t have to,” she cut him off.

“No it’s not that at all. Izy Godsey I love you. I’m not sure why it took me this long to say it, but it’s true.”

“And you’re sure this doesn’t have anything to do with Justin putting you on the spot like he did?” she asked for clarification.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with it. The only thing that is has to do with is how amazing you are and how you make my life better.”

Izy felt like she was just about to burst with happiness. She had never realized how badly she had wanted to hear Cameron say he loved her until he was actually saying those three words. “I love you too,” she said with a big smile on her face before she reached up to kiss him.