Hear You Me

“Finally, we get to stay in a hotel,” Delilah sighed in relief as she threw her bags and then herself on the bed. “I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since we left Arizona three weeks ago.”

“Someone’s being dramatic,” Ryan joked and Delilah stuck her tongue out in reply.

“I can’t believe you get a room to yourself. I don’t want to share with Alex…he snores,” Joel grumbled.

“Who’s being dramatic now?” Delilah laughed.

“You’re lucky we haven’t thrown you out of the van yet,” Joel playfully glared at Lila.

“I thought about it the other day,” Ryan said and Sean nodded.

“What?!” Lila gasped. “I hate you all. Out. All of you.”

The boys tried to argue but it was no use; Lila shoved them out the door and grinned at the empty room in front of her. The This Century boys were some of her best friends but spending three weeks in an enclosed space with them got to be a little much.

Lila laid back down on her bed and closed her eyes as a sigh of content left her mouth. That feeling only lasted for a few minutes though before the silence got to be too much. Lila tried to ignore the feeling of loneliness but couldn’t shake it. She groaned before rolling over and grabbing her phone.

“Yes?” Joel asked as he answered his phone.

“It’s too quiet in my room. Will you come over?”

“Didn’t you just kick me out about ten minutes ago?”

“It was a mistake and I’m terribly sorry. Please,” Lila pleaded.

“I can never say no to you,” Joel groaned but it quickly turned into a chuckle. “I’ll be over in a second.”

Lila grinned and got up to open the door for Joel.

“Thanks for coming over,” Lila sweetly said as Joel walked through the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” Joel rolled his eyes. “So what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know…what do you want to do?”

“You’re the one who invited me over! You should have an idea of something we can do. I’m missing an episode of How I Met Your Mother to be over here.”

“I didn’t think far enough ahead of what we could do. We could…” Delilah started but a yawn cut off her words.

“Why don’t we lie down and take a nap?” Joel laughed.

“That sounds wonderful.”

The pair laid down on the bed and Lila immediately snuggled up to Joel.

“Thanks for coming over and missing How I Met Your Mother for me,” Delilah said, her voice muffled since her head was buried in Joel’s chest.

“Anything for you, Lila.”

“You’re my favorite.”

“Really? Last week you told Alex he was your favorite.”

Lila shook her head. “I lied. Don’t tell him though.”

Joel laughed before kissing her on the forehead. “How about you get some sleep? You’re starting to sound delirious.”

Instead of answering Lila snuggled deeper into Joel and was asleep within minutes. She didn’t wake up until a couple hours later when Joel gently shook her and told her they had to start getting ready for sound check.

Delilah groaned but didn’t argue. Joel waited to go back to his room until she was in the bathroom and he heard the shower running so he knew she wouldn’t try and sneak back into bed as soon as he left.

Delilah walked out of her room a short while later and the boys wasted no time in teasing her again.

“Where’s the rodeo at, Lila?” Sean laughed.

“All you need is a cowboy hat and you’re set,” Ryan piped up.

“And to think I was starting to miss you guys,” Lila rolled her eyes. “If you’re not careful I’ll just stay in the hotel all night and not go to your concert.”

“No!” Joel suddenly yelled out and then slightly blushed when everyone gave him quizzical looks for his outburst. “You always go to our concerts so it would uhh…just be well weird if you…uhh weren’t there.”

“Don’t worry Joel David, I’m going,” Delilah reassured Joel as she wrapped her arms around him.

“Well we better get going or we’re going to be late for sound check,” Sean said.

The four boys and Delilah made their way out of the hotel and back into the venue. While the boys were doing sound check Delilah called her parents to let them know she was still alive and she hadn’t killed any of the boys yet. Her parents had been surprisingly fine with her spending the entire summer traveling in a van across the country with four boys instead of working or taking classes. She knew her parents trusted all the boys though and figured they knew she needed a break from Arizona after everything that had happened in the past year.

After hanging up with her parents, Delilah went back inside the venue because fans were starting to show up and she didn’t feel like answering any of their questions. She’d made the mistake at the first concert of talking to fans and had to answer about 50 questions about what happened with Holland and what the status was of her relationship with Joel.

The concert soon began and Delilah stood off to the side as normal. Everything was going like it normally did until This Century was supposed to play Everywhere, Everything. Joel paused and sent a smirk in Delilah’s direction which worried her.

“This next song is very special to me. I wrote it about my best friend, Lila, because she is always here for me even when I don’t deserve it. We’ve been friends for almost ten years and I’ve done many stupid things or acted like a jerk in the past decade. Along with being the best person I’ve ever known, she’s also an amazing piano player. That’s why I’d like to invite her up and have her play piano for Everywhere, Everything.”

Joel smiled over at Lila but she stood there frozen. He knew about her stage fright – it took her forever to be able to play in church – and how she’d hated playing the piano ever since Holland’s death. She had no clue why Joel was doing this to her and she wanted to be mad at him but she couldn’t. She stood there as the seconds ticked away with a decision to make – face her demons and play the piano or stay safely on the side of the stage and disappoint Joel.