If It Means a Lot to You

I yawned as I walked into the kitchen the next morning, pulling my hair into a ponytail.

“Morning,” Rachel greeted. I waved in response. I grabbed a cup of coffee before joining her at the table. “So I heard you singing last night for a certain someone,” she said. I rolled my eyes.

“So what? He asked me to and so I agreed,” I shrugged. I took a sip of my coffee. “Rachel, can I talk to you about something?”

“Sure, go right ahead. I’m all ears.”

“How do you feel about Neil?” An immediate smile spread across her face. She looked down at her cup for a moment.

“I care about him. I really, really care about him even though we only actually knew them for a week. Texts from him make me smile. Getting to talk to him makes my day. But-”

“You miss him like hell and feel like you just want to be with him wherever he is?” I guessed, cutting her off. She nodded, raising an eyebrow.

“How’d you guess?” Rachel inquired. I looked down at my cup, mumbling my response under my breath. “What’d you say?”

“That’s how I feel about Jeremy!” I immediately clamped a hand over my mouth. Rachel’s eyes widened and a wide grin spread across her face.

“I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I mean, we knew it!” she squealed.

“We?”

“Come on, Rose. All of the guys could tell. They saw the connection Jeremy had with you. They’ve known Jeremy all their life. They can tell he had something for you and that you were returning that.” She stopped, gasping. “And you turned down his offer to go on tour with them! Why?! You could’ve been with him and I could’ve been with Neil!”

“I didn’t want to have to say good bye all over again!” I sighed, running a hand through my dark wavy hair. “I’ll be back.” I got up and headed back to my room. I fell on my bed, dialing Jeremy’s number. “Do you have room for two more people on your bus?” I said before he could say anything. I heard a coughing sound.

“Wait what?” Jeremy coughed when he was able to talk.

“Do you have room for two more people on your bus?”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“What would that be?”

“That you and Rachel are going to join us on tour?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. So do you?”

“Of course! You girls can join us.” I smiled.

“Great.” We started making plans of when and where Rachel and I would meet up with them.

***

“Where are they picking us up?” Rachel asked. Our plane had just landed in Colorado and we were walking out to the meeting area after we had gotten our bags.

“Jeremy said he and Neil would be here waiting for us,” I replied, stretching up onto the tips of my toes to look around.

“Rachel!” a familiar voice called. Rachel immediately looked in the direction of the voice.

“Neil!” she called back when she spotted him. She dropped her bag and ran towards the guitarist, leaving me behind. I laughed when I saw her throw herself onto him. I looked over to the side and saw Jeremy laughing as well as he walked towards me. Once he was close enough I hugged him, wrapping my arms tightly around his neck.

“I missed you,” I murmured, breathing in his scent.

“I missed you too,” he whispered, pulling me closer to him. We stood like that for a moment longer before I pulled away. I glanced over at Rachel and saw she and Neil were still hugging.

“Let’s go break up their love fest,” I told Jeremy. He grinned as he picked up mine and Rachel’s duffle bags. I cleared my throat loudly once we neared them. Rachel threw me a glare as she pulled away from Neil.

“Hey, Rose,” Neil greeted as he took Rachel’s bag from Jeremy.

“Hey,” I greeted in return. “How’s everything going?”

“Great now.” He smiled down at Rachel as he spoke. She returned his smile.

“You girls ready to go?” Jeremy asked. We nodded. “Then let’s go.” Neil took Rachel’s hand and led the way.

“The guys are gonna be excited to have you two back,” Neil was saying as we headed outside.

“Didn’t you guys tell them?” Rachel inquired. He shook his head.

“Neil would’ve been surprised too but someone has a big mouth,” Jeremy joked, looking pointedly at Rachel.

“Well I had to tell him!” Jeremy rolled his eyes and shook his head. He glanced back and saw me lagging a little behind. He held his hand out for me. Raising an eyebrow, I took it. He pulled me a little until I caught up. I went to let go of his hand but he tightened his grip on it.

“How’d your flight go?” he asked conversationally.

“Good. I’m tired though. We had to get up at two in the morning to make sure we had everything packed. We didn’t actually get to the airport until four and we spent the last hour traveling,” I replied. “I’m surprised you two even got up this early to pick us up.” Jeremy shrugged.

“Anything for you.” I looked away, blushing. He chuckled. “You do that way too much.”

“I can’t help it.” I stopped walking once I saw where we were headed. “You guys brought the bus?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” Neil asked over his shoulder.

“Maybe you didn’t want to attract attention?” Rachel said incredulously. Neil shook his head.

“It’s no big deal.” We reached the tour bus. Neil swung the door open and stood back. Rachel climbed in with me behind her. We looked around as we walked in. I raised an eyebrow at the stack of trash on a counter and looked at Jeremy and Neil. They grinned sheepishly.

“We’re guys. We’re pigs,” Jeremy said.

“We’ll have to keep things clean,” I sighed.

“You girls are taking our bunks,” Neil told us. Rachel looked at him.

“What do you mean ‘taking’?” she asked.

“What it says. You’re taking them.”

“What about you guys?”

“We’ll be sleeping out here.”

“Oh no, no, no, no. You guys are sleeping in your bunks. We’re guests therefore-”

“-that means you should take the bunks.”

“Just take the bunks. She’s not gonna give in,” I tried to reason. Neil looked at Rachel and she returned his green gaze.

“Fine, we’ll share,” he decided. Rachel shrugged even though I knew on the inside she was squealing with delight. I felt eyes on me and I looked to see Jeremy looking at me. He raised an eyebrow.

“What are we gonna do?” he questioned.

“You’re taking your bunk and that’s that,” I answered simply. He shook his head.

“I’m not gonna bother.” I heard the curtain pull back and saw a sleepy Josh emerging.

“Why are you guys up?” he yawned. He opened one eye and saw Rachel and I. “Rose! Rachel!” he exclaimed. He closed the short amount of space between us and pulled us into a hug.

“Why the fuck are you yelling, Josh?” Kevin complained as he came out with Alex behind him. Alex was wide awake and moving past the lead guitarist.

“My two favorite people!” Alex yelled, hugging Rachel.

“Yeah, fuck you too, Alex,” Jeremy laughed.

“Why are you girls here?” Kevin asked as he hugged me.

“We decided to come out for the rest of the tour,” I explained, taking a seat next to Jeremy. “We were missing you guys like hell and Rachel wanted to be with Neil so I called up Jeremy and asked if we could tag along for the rest of the tour.”

“At least it won’t be just guys now,” Josh sighed in relief.

“But they’ll have to toughen up to deal with us,” Kevin reminded. I yawned, curling up against Jeremy.

“Toughening up can wait. I just wanna nap,” I mumbled as I closed my eyes. I let out a small content sigh, happy to be among everyone again.