Mistakes We Wouldn't Learn From

[Alex]

“Ahh, back in the van. The cramped, hot, slightly smelly van,” I said, leaning against the back seat. We had left home a few hours ago, once everyone was finally up and moving. We had gotten up earlier than we would have liked because we had a five-hour drive to Norfolk, Virginia so we could play a show tonight.

“It doesn’t smell as weird as it did before. At least we cleaned it out,” Zack pointed out.

“Yeah, and there’s no dirty laundry in here yet,” Evan added, glancing back at us in the mirror. He was the one driving.

“Oh, don’t complain. Sweat and greasy fast food is the smell of a tour,” Matt scoffed.

“I’m kind of bummed that I don’t get my own bed for another month or so, now that we left,” Rian said.

“Yeah, laying on Rian isn’t nearly as comfortable as laying on my bed. He hurts my neck,” Jack whined, poking Rian in the shoulder.

“Maybe if you didn’t lie on my shoulder, your neck wouldn’t be screwed up,” Rian rolled his eyes.

Grieco chuckled, “We’ve been spoiled by our beds for the last few days.”

“I don’t mind sleeping in the van. I get to sleep with Zack,” I said happily, leaning into Zack’s side.

“I don’t mind either,” Zack chuckled, putting his arms around me. I smiled, cuddling closely to him. We had been doing this more and more since our fight last week. Even though the fight itself was a really bad thing, it had brought the two of us a closer. I was trying to prove to him that I wasn’t going to hurt him again. Obviously he believed me, since last night he and I had both finally admitted that we love each other.

Zack seemed to be a little more withdrawn from everyone else than he had been when the tour started though. It was like he had started to retreat back into his shell again. I was hoping that I wasn’t the cause of that, but I probably had been. He didn’t talk to the other bands very much before, but now it was almost like he was avoiding them. Gabe was the only one he would start a conversation with.

“Well, unlike you two lovers, we don’t have someone to cuddle up with,” Jack said, rolling his eyes at us.

“You’ve got Rian,” Zack teased.

Jack grimaced, scooting away from Rian slightly, “He’s not my lover! I want a girlfriend, not him!”

“You haven’t had a girlfriend since like tenth grade,” I said with a laugh.

“That doesn’t mean that I can’t get one,” Jack pouted and I laughed.

“You keep thinking that, Jacky.”

Rian rolled his eyes at us, “If sleeping in the van is the only bad thing, I think we can handle it.”

“Well, I’m excited for next week,” Matt piped up, looking back at all of us.

Zack raised an eyebrow, “What’s next week?”

“We’re in Orlando, Florida next week!” Matt said. When the others gave him a blank look, Matt exclaimed, “Disney World!”

“Oh good lord,” I groaned, dropping my head against Zack’s chest.

“What’s so important about Disney World?” Rian questioned. My head shot up to look at him, and Jack, Evan, and Grieco stared at him in horror.

“What’s important about Disney World?!” Matt said in disbelief.

“Matt has an... obsession... with Mickey Mouse. All of Disney, really,” I explained. I had forgotten that Rian and Zack didn’t know about that. They hadn’t really known Matt for very long.

“It’s really creepy,” Jack added with a grimace.

“It is not!” Matt protested, frowning.

“That would explain the Mickey Mouse key chains attached to your keys...” Zack mused.

“You should see his room. It’s covered in Mickey Mouse stuff,” Evan said, shaking his head.

I nodded, “It’s really creepy.”

“Remind me to not ever go to Flyzik’s house,” Rian laughed, and Matt flipped him off.

••••••••••

“I’m starving!” I groaned, falling into one of the middle seats of the van lazily. I didn’t want to move to the back row, even though it was only one row away. We had finished packing up the van a little while ago from playing our show in Norfolk, Virginia. We had hung out for another hour or so outside of the venue, where it was slightly cooler. The small venue we had played in had been extremely hot. The temperature had neared 100 degrees today and I was hoping that tomorrow would be a little cooler for tomorrow’s outdoor show.

“I’m really hungry too,” Matt agreed, climbing into the van.

“Can we stop somewhere to eat?” Jack asked hopefully, shutting the door behind him. He was the last person into the van.

“Yeah! Please?” I asked hopefully, sitting up quickly.

Rian nodded, starting the van engine, “We only have a two hour drive to the next venue. We have more than enough time to stop and eat.”

“Let’s stop at a real restaurant,” Evan insisted. “I want real food.”

“What, you don’t like french fries dripping with grease?” I questioned.

Evan rolled his eyes, “I love french fries; I’m just not in the mood to eat fast food again.”

“Well you’re screwed, because there isn’t going to be a good restaurant open at midnight,” Rian pointed out.

“Dammit, I forgot that it was already midnight.”

“I say we go to McDonalds just to piss Evan off,” Zack suggested teasingly from the row behind me.

“Shut the fuck up,” Evan flipped him off and he laughed.

Matt laughed, “Rian, just drive around and see what food places there are in town. We’ll find something other than McDonalds.”

We drove around the town for a little while before we finally found a Burger King open. Rian pulled into the parking lot, parking at the back because our van was really long with the trailer. He shut the engine off and everyone began to get up.

“FOOD!” I said, jumping out of the van in front of the others.

“You weren’t this energetic when we first got to the van,” Zack chuckled, climbing out behind me.

“That’s because I’m hungry. I’m happy now that I’m about to eat,” I said, grabbing his hand and tugging him toward the door. We all headed inside and saw that the place was completely empty except for the employees. They looked up when we came in and I saw a few of them sigh. They probably didn’t want to have to cook food for seven people at half past midnight.

We definitely pissed off the employees. All of us were talking at once as we ordered our food, no matter how many times we attempted to wait for each other to speak up. We were finally forced to quiet down and order each thing separately so they wouldn’t mix everything up. Ten minutes later, we finally sat down in the back with our food. We had pulled a few of the tables together so we could all sit together. The employees just shook their heads at us, not wanting to argue with us any longer. I felt bad for annoying them, but come on – we were the only people in here. It didn’t really matter if we were obnoxious.

“Burgers seem to taste so much better late at night,” I said happily, swallowing the first bite of my cheeseburger.

“Definitely,” Jack agreed, his mouth full of french fries.

I glanced over at Evan’s food and laughed, “What happened to not liking fast food french fries?”

“They aren’t greasy,” Evan said, shrugging. “I like the fries here better than at McDonalds.”

“Well, you aren’t complaining about having to eat fast food again, so you must like it,” Grieco commented.

“I love it, but I’m going to get extremely fat by the end of this tour,” Evan said with a laugh.

“We all are,” Matt said, shaking his head. I chuckled and looked over at Zack to see what he had decided to eat. I frowned, realizing that he didn’t have any food in front of him.

“Zack, where’s your food?” I asked, looking up at his face.

“Um, I didn’t want any,” Zack said, pushing a balled up hamburger wrapper back and forth across the table.

I raised an eyebrow, “You’re not hungry?”

“No, I’m not,” Zack sighed, not looking up at me.

“Babe, you haven’t eaten much today. Are you feeling okay?” I asked worriedly. I hoped he wasn’t getting sick. It would be really miserable for him to be sick in this hot weather, especially on tour.

“I’m fine,” Zack said, his cheeks flushing as everyone quieted down and looked at him.

“You should probably eat, Zack. Alex is right, you haven’t eaten much at all today,” Rian spoke up, having heard us talking.

“I don’t want to. I’m not even hungry,” Zack protested stubbornly.

I sighed, “Please? I’ll get you anything you want off the menu.”

Zack’s scowl turned into a small smirk, “Fine. Get me a brownie sundae.”

“Asshole. You only chose that because it’s ice cream and I’m not supposed to eat it,” I said with a laugh, standing up.

“Exactly. If you’re gonna make me eat when I’m not hungry, I’m not sharing,” Zack said with an innocent smile.