Only In It For A Minute

“CALIFORNIA! WE ARE YOU ME AT SIX! ARE YOU READY TO JUMP?” Josh shouted to the crowd as they started playing a song. As they worked through their set, me, Lucy and Lizzie had watched and sang along. It was strange being thousand of miles away from home and watching kids going mental for a band you knew personally. “I wanna thank you all for coming to watch us today. I’m sure there’s plenty of others bands playing right now that are better than us so thanks for choosing us. We’ve been You Me At Six, see you next time!” Josh finished as they began the intro to Underdog.

As soon as they finished we made our way to the stage that The Ataris were playing on and once we got there I could see John, Jared and Garrett stood to the left of the stage. We went over and stood with the guys, and as the band started playing, John put his arm round my shoulder. I didn’t even turn to face him, I just smiled to myself. He seemed nervous about things like this, so I didn’t make a big deal of it, instead I just appreciated how comfortable it felt. As the crowd got rowdier, I felt John’s grip around my shoulder tighten and turned to smile at him.

“You alright?” he asked, smiling from behind his sunglasses.

“Yeah. I am absolutely fine,” I smiled back, leaning more into his body. We watched as The Ataris finished up their set, before John moved his arm.

“We need to go get ready for our set, do you guys know where you’re going?” John asked.

“Yeah I think we can find our way. Good luck guys,” I told them.

“Thanks, although I don’t think it’s luck that Kennedy needs!” We all laughed as Jared said this and the guys waved as they walked away.

“When did you turn into the luckiest bitch on the planet?” Lucy asked turning to me once they were out of listening distance.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Er, hello?! John’s totally into you! He’s like one of your dream guys and here you are wrapped up in his arms watching great bands in a great city,” she explained. “I’d say you were pretty lucky right now! And I’m pretty sure there are a lot of girls jealous of you around here right now.”

We started walking towards The Maine’s stage and I could see there was a large crowd already so we found a good spot to stand in where we’d be able to see them all play. I had only seen them once before since they barely came to the UK, so I loved getting to see them today and see how different it was over here. The rest of the crowd seemed to be enjoying it as much as I did as we all sang along and bodies moved about. At one point, John looked around the crowd from the stage and when he laid eyes on me, he broke in a wide smile.

“It’s really fucking hot today guys so thanks for sticking with us. We’ve got a couple more songs to play, is that OK with you?” John asked the crowd, who replied with a loud cheer.

He was right, it was hot. Although, I could work out if it was the amount of alcohol I’d had last night and my hangover was just kicking in or if it was in fact the heat.

“OK this is an upbeat song so I want to see you all moving, alright? This song’s called Inside Of You,” John told everyone, as the bands started the song.

As he sang, I sang straight back at him with a smile across my face. I turned to Lizzie to see her singing too, whilst watching Garrett’s every move. I looked to Garrett to see him flashing her a few smiles every so often. I looked to Lucy to see her moving about to the song, singing quietly to herself. We finished watching the set and walked back towards the merch tents and it wasn’t long before the band made their way back too.

“Hey we’re gonna chill out on our bus for a while if you want to come join us?” Jared offered, which we accepted. As walked, Lizzie and Garrett were way up ahead and deep in conversation, Lucy, Jared and Pat were walking just in front of me and John with Kennedy lagging quite far behind the rest of us.

John kept looking over at me as we walked. We weren’t concentrating on one conversation, instead just making passing comments about different things that popped into our heads.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked for about the sixth time.

“Yes, I’m just a little tired, my hangovers don’t tend to kick in straight away,” I told him again before turning to look at Kennedy behind us. “I’m not sure Kennedy’s doing so well though. Is he always like this?”

“Yeah, I don’t think we should let drink so much anymore, he’s getting less tolerant to alcohol, not more, I swear!” he laughed.

We arrived at their bus and all climbed on. As Garrett and Jared made their way to the back lounge with Lizzie following behind, John and Pat sat down in the front lounge, with Lucy and I sitting down next to each other.

“I’m gonna head to my bunk guys, I need more sleep,” Kennedy told us before disappearing.

“More sleep sounds so good right now,” I groaned.

“There’s a couple of spare bunks back there if you want to crash out for a bit?” Pat offered.

“Or there’s always my bunk?” John suggested with a wink.

“I think I’ll take a spare one,” I laughed, shaking off his comment.

“Alright, I’ll show you,” John said, standing up.

I followed him down the bus a little to the bunk area and he pulled back a curtain

“Here you go,” he said signaling for me to get in before reaching into a different bunk. “Oh and take my pillow, the ones in the bunks are really flat so I always bring one from home. I’ll come wake you up if we decide to leave or anything.”

I placed his pillow under my head. It smelt insanely good which I knew it shouldn’t have. I breathed in a mixture of sweaty boy, deodorant and there was a lingering smell of washing detergent. I close my eyes and soon fell asleep still breathing in the scent from John’s pillow.

I had no idea how long I’d been asleep for, but it had only felt like a few minutes later when I was lightly tapped several times.

“Tash?” I heard a voice whisper. “Tash, wake up!”

I opened my eyes to see John hovering over me, holding the curtain open.

“Wakey wakey, sunshine,” he half-smiled at me. I smiled back before rubbing my eyes and letting out a yawn. “Your friends want to head back out, if you want to join them?”

I nodded in response but showed no sign of moving. He looked at me for a few seconds before leaning closer to me and kissing my cheek briefly.

“What was that for?” I asked with a wide smile across my face as he pulled away.

“I don’t know. You just looked so peaceful just then when you were sleeping and it just felt right, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. It did.”

Once I finally got out of the bunk, I returned to the front lounge and found Lucy, Lizzie, Garrett and Jared all sat there.

“So, ready to see the last band of the day?” Lizzie asked, excitedly. She was a big fan of A Day To Remember.

“Yeah, just need to wake up a little more before I stand in their crowd!”

“Tell you what, hold on,” John said, getting up and walking down the bus away from where we were. Jared and Garrett exchanged glances and followed behind. Within seconds, they were back with smiles on their faces. “Take these,” John continued, each of them holding out a pass to us. “Watch from side stage, there’s far more room, and then when you’re done you can use them to come back here.”

“What are you guys gonna do?” Lizzie asked, taking Garrett’s pass.

“Probably just hang out at our tent, meet some fans,” Garrett said. “Maybe sort some more hangovers,” he joked, looking to me which I laughed in response at.

“I just needed sleep!” I protested. “Funnily enough, three boys kept us out all night last night!”

“Come on, we’ll take you back,” John said, holding out his hand to help me up before me and Garrett shot each other any more sarcastic comments. We left the bus and walked back to the main arena when we said a quick goodbye to the guys to head off in the direction of the stage A Day To Remember would be on and arranging to meet at their merch tent after.

We got to the side of the stage really easily and watched the entire set up there.As A Day To Remember finished, I turned to Lucy and Lizzie who both had smiles across their faces that mirrored mine. Watching from the side of the stage was a new experience for us and to be watching A Day To Remember up there was amazing. We walked out from the stage area and made our way to The Maine’s tent where we could see a crowd of fans surrounding them.

“Er, should we give them a few minutes?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah I think that’s a good idea!” I answered. I looked along the row of merch tents and suddenly had an idea. “Hey, I know where we can go for a bit.”

I took them along the tents and made my way round the corner. As soon as we got close, I could see exactly who I wanted. Their tent was a lot quieter than The Maine’s so I knew they see us.

“OI! HELYER!” I yelled as we got close. I saw that my friends had realised where I’d taken them and we sped up our pace.

“BARRATT! Good to see you again!” Max said as we got closer. “Lucy and Lizzie, good to finally see you!”

He pull us all in for a hug.

“Amazing set earlier, Max, you did us proud,” Lucy told him.

“Thanks, would have liked to have had a few more people out there, but having you guys there more than made up for it,” he told us. “So what are you guys doing now? Are you free to hang for a bit?”

“Actually we got to get back to The Maine’s merch tent and give them back these,” I said, indicating to the pass I had attached to my shorts. “They let us borrow them but they can’t get back to their bus without them or us.”

“Ah, alright. They seem like chill guys, those Maine boys,” he said. “I’ll make sure we have post-Warped hangouts one night!”

That was typical Max, wanting to make friends with everyone. He’s the reason we were friends with his band in the first place. We had just started at the University of Reading around the same time You Me At Six were recording in Reading and we went out one night and Max just came over and introduced himself. Since then there have been many a drunken night all of us together.

We said goodbye to Max and walked back round to The Maine’s tent. You could tell that Warped Tour was coming to an end for the day as the amount of people around was slowly decreasing. As we got back to the tent there were only about 6 girls hanging out there so we went back over but just stood to one side.

Garrett and Pat and notice us and smiled and waved in our direction. John and Jared were having a picture taken with a couple of the girls whilst Kennedy was signing a couple of things for the others. They talked to them for a while about the day and the girls walked off with smiles on their faces. As they walked past me, I made my way over to John.

“Thank you for this,” I told him, handing back his pass. “It was totally worth it,” I smiled.

“No problem, glad we could help,” he said.

“So, about earlier, I hope you didn’t-”

“Do you wanna take a walk?” John asked.

“Er, sure.”

He led me away from the tents and in the direction of the tour buses.

“John, about earlier...” I said again as we walked.

“Tash, will you just stop?” he asked before I had a chance to continue, as he stopped walking and turned to face me. I looked at him confused as he just stood and stared at me. Then he took a step closer to me and put his hands on either side of my face and pressed his lips to mine. This wasn’t like when he’d kiss my cheek. This time, there was passion behind it.

As he pulled away, I opened my eyes to see him looking back at me with a half smile on his face.

“I’m sorry, I just had to,” he said. “I know we’ve only known each other a day but this feels right to me,” he said before letting out a deep sigh and looking me straight in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” I told him, pulling him back to me, back to my lips. I gave him one firm kiss and pulled away again.

“I feel like I’ve known you years,” he told me. “I feel like someone somewhere made sure I noticed you last night.”

I smiled back at him. He was basically saying what I felt. It didn’t feel like I’d only just met him. Sure, I could assume things from what was said about him on the internet or the things he wrote songs about, but spending as much time together as we had last night and today, it was nice to hear him say the same.

We headed back to the bus and soon as we got there, we found two members of their crew sat in the front lounge. John reached into the fridge and pulled out two beers, passing one to me. We sat and chatted for a while before the others came back and joined us. Jared walked in first, followed by Garrett and Lizzie who were looking very close again, then followed by Kennedy, Lucy and Pat came last. Everyone sat around talking and drinking for a few hours. Some of the boys played some video games, several guys from other bands popped on the bus for a bit to hang out.

“We should probably head back to the hotel soon,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, I’m getting pretty tired. What time is it?” I asked.

“About 1am,” she told me. “I’ll call a cab to come get us.”

“So, when am I going to see you again?” John asked, turning to me.

“Well lucky for you, I’m sticking around for a while and we just happen to have tickets to another date of Warped Tour in four days time,” I smiled.

After about 10 minutes, Lucy got to call to say the taxi was waiting for us at the entrance. So we said our goodbyes to the guys and got ready to leave.

I turned to John and smiled.

“See you in four days?”

“I’ll be waiting,” he smiled back.