Jaws On The Floor

“So, where are we going again?” Josh asked as we walked down the street.

“A café, duh.”

“No shit, but where?”

I rolled my eyes, “And I thought you were gonna rape me! Aren’t you poms meant to be getting oxford degrees or something? Curing AIDS?” I got a harsh look from Josh. “Calm ya farm, mate. We’re here, anyways.”

We walked into the coffee shop and found a large booth at the back, all 6 of us squished into a booth that held 4. I was between Josh and Dan. Very Satisfying. We ordered and started chatting.

“So, where are you guys from?”

Josh answered. “Uh, Surrey. We’re here touring with Soundwave Festival.” Ah, that would explain the accents. They didn’t sound like the chavs from East Enders.

“Oh, that sounds … cool? That’s like, hard-core bands, right?” They nodded. I don’t know what I’m talking about; I don’t really have a genre of music I listen to. “How do you guys like Australia?”

Josh started to answer, but Max cut in too quickly. “The Internet here sucks ass!” We all laughed. “Nah, but we all like it here, except Chris.” He elbowed him in the side. “Don’t you cwissy?” I looked at him, and he shrugged.

“It’s too hot, and I can’t be bothered tying my hair back.” I laughed.

“Fair enough. I don’t blame you, really. Except, I’m a chick and it doesn’t look weird if I tie my hair up.” The guys laughed, and our food arrived. The chatting stopped as everyone dug in.

I studied them while I ate. Creepy, I know. For poms, they were pretty nice, I guess. If you judge niceness on having a one night stand with one of them, and him not being a dickhead about it, unlike a few others I had encountered. Also, they were in a band and they were British. It doesn’t matter which one I could hook up with, they’re all accepted in about every woman’s bed in Australia. But aside from their general attractiveness, they seemed pretty grounded, and… I guess I was gonna miss them a bit when they left, even though I’d only known them for not even a full day. Aren’t I sentimental today?

I finished my food, sipped my coffee and attempted to steer the conversation back to where we were.

“But in all honesty, apart from our shit internet, what do you like?”

“Well, the chicks are pretty hot.” Dan winked at me. Sir, I would enjoy getting into your pants. “The beach is the best; you aren’t covered in fuck loads of layers, like they are in England.” He put an arm around me and pulled me in close.

“What about now? It’s in the middle of winter! It’s freezing! You’d be crazy to go swimming when it’s this cold!” He looked at me like I was mentally unstable, and I unwrapped his arm from around me.

“We’ve been here before, you know.”

“Whatever.” I raised an eyebrow. “But, could you be referring to anyone in particular?” Max gagged, and Josh groaned.

“Holy fuck, stop flirting. You’re going to put me off my food if you don’t stop.” We all laughed.

“Whatever, so what do you guys play?” Matt answered me this time.

“Well, I play bass, Max is on rhythm, Chris is lead, Dan drums and Josh is the singer.” I elbowed Josh in the side.

“So you’re the singer, right? Sing us a tune!” He groaned and put his head in his hands.

“God no, too much of a hangover.” He reached over the table towards the chips that were out of his reach. “Max, give us the chips!” He ate a few, and then I had an amazing idea.

“I’ve got it! Since you won’t sing here, you should totally do an acoustic set!”

“What? Why?”

I batted my eyelids at him. “Because, Joshua I want to hear your angelic voice!”

He groaned again, and the rest of the guys looked at me with bemusement. “Where would we do it? We don’t have our stuff.” Chris asked.

“Oh, that’s easy. I used to share and apartment with a guy who works at this music kit store down the street, in the city. He’ll lend us the stuff for about an hour, and you can do your set! He probably knows who you are as well, he helps organise a few events around here.”

Dan and Max high-fived. “Sweet!” Max grinned. “When can we start?”

I shrugged. “Are you guys finished eating?” They all nodded enthusiastically, like those puppy bobble heads. Cute, English, puppy bobble heads. “Sweet, how about you tweet your fans or whatever you do and tell them you’re doing an impromptu acoustic set on… Queen Street?” They nodded again, and all got their phones out. I stole Dan’s snapback while he was tweeting, and paced outside the shop, until they were done and we head off down to Queen Street.



“Yo! Troy!” I shouted as we walked into the shop. “ Where are you? ” A guy around 5”6 walked out from behind the counter. He was pretty good looking, I guess. Okay, fine. really good looking.

He was amazingly tanned, had short, chocolate brown hair that was slightly messy, and blue, blue eyes. He was wearing a white V-neck, and slouchy jeans that rested perfectly on his hips. He was gorgeous . So basically, what I meant before by ‘we used to share an apartment’ was really ‘we were fuck buddies until….. Well we decided that much was probably too much.’ He’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong. But he has girls throwing themselves at him left right and centre, and he certainly doesn’t refuse the offers.

“Hey ‘Manda!” He loped over to us in an easy stride. “What do you want?” I nodded to the guys.

“Can my friends borrow some stuff? We were thinking of doing an acoustic set…” He was looking at them, his brow furrowed. I sighed, and decided to prompt him. “English band...? Touring in Australia..? Soundwave? ” His eyes widened and I laughed. It’s honestly so much fun watching hot guy’s expressions some times. He locked eyes with me and mouthed. ‘You Me at Six?’ I nodded. His eyes widened, and I heard Josh chuckle behind me as he walked towards Troy. He held out his hand.

“Hey, I’m Josh.” Troy snapped out of his trance and took Josh’s hand.

“Troy, nice to meet you! You’re uh… Josh from… You Me At Six, right?” Josh grinned.

“Yeah! I heard you helped organise a few things for Soundwave, right?” Troy’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Yeah! I helped out with sorting out accommodation for some of the bands!”

“Good on you, we got hooked up with some real nice hotel!”

“Oh it’s nothing, really. Just doing my job. How are you guys ….” I wandered off around the store as they continued their guy talk. That stuff can get boring.

I saw Max standing by the guitars and I walked over. He looked up. “Hey.”

“’Sup. So, what do you guys need?” He nodded to the acoustics.

“Well, we need two of those, a bass, some amps,” He pointed to some weird stool things. “And one of those for Dan, it’s like a mini drum.” I giggled. “What?”

“It’s so tiny! I mean, you expect drummers to be all muscly and tattooed and like,” I put my arms up in that ‘showing off my guns’ position. “GRRRRRR. And then they pat these stool things at acoustics!” I looked around and saw Matt and Dan snickering in a corner, looking at me. I poked my tongue out and looked over to Josh and Troy, who were still talking. “Oi, Troy! Can the guys just take the stuff? They’ll have them for under an hour, don’t worry.”

He gave me the thumbs up. “Sure, watch the guitars though; my boss will go apeshit if they get scratched.” I nodded, and he kept talking animatedly to Josh, I’m guessing about something music related. I try to stay out of it. I mean, the most I’m involved with music is workout music when I’m going for a morning run.

I walked up and down the street with Matt, trying to find a shop to put the stuff outside. Eventually, after a lot of persuasion and negotiation, they let us use the space outside the shop, as long as it wasn’t blocking the entrance. Matt denied it, but I think we started making leaps and bounds in the argument after I told them that he was from You Me At Six. At least, that’s when some slut that worked there started leaning over the counter, in what I’m sure she thought was a ‘seductive’ position’.

10 minutes later, we were setting up outside a store on Queen Street, and the guys were tuning their guitars, except for Matt and Josh, who were deciding which songs to play.

“So, what are we doing, a 10 minute set?”

“I was thinking 15, about 5 or 6 songs? So like, Stay With Me, The Consequence, Underdog, Save It For the Bedroom, Always Attract and Fireworks?”

“Josh, we don’t have a chick singer. And it will take too long, the song goes forever. How about scrap Always Attract and Fireworks, and play Liquid Confidence and Finders Keepers?”

Josh sighed. “Fair enough. So,” He pulled a notepad and pen out of his back pocket, “The Consequence, Save It For the Bedroom, Finders Keepers, Underdog, Liquid Confidence and Stay With Me?”

“Sounds good.” Matt said, and looked at me. “Dee, can we start?”

“Sure! Whenever you guys are ready.” They sat back on their stools, tweeted on their phones, hooked their stuff up to the equipment, and we waited for a crowd to gather.


There was about a crowd of 15 around us when they decided to start playing. I was listening to my music, and ripped my earphones out as I realised they were playing, and I missed their band name. I guess I’ll have to ask them that later. They didn’t introduce the song, just started playing, and the band started softly singing along.



They were actually pretty good. Josh’s voice was amazing; his British accent gave it a uniqueness I hadn’t heard before. Dan looked up at me from drumming on his stool thing and winked. Ugh, he was adorable.



I laughed at Josh’s interaction with the crowd. He was holding the microphone in one hand and walking around the small space, making gestures along to the song as he went.



He walked over to me and bowed, I’m guessing he was remembering what happened this morning. I curtseyed and blew him a kiss, earning a few daggers from the audience, to which I poked my tongue out.



He kept repeating it, so I started shouting along. The crowd caught on, and soon we had a crowd of 20 shouting the lyrics back to him, and he stopped singing, and appeared to orchestrate the crowd. The song finally finished and I clapped loudly. They were pretty good. Josh started speaking, and I paid attention again.

“So, who of you have heard of our band before?” I few screams. “That’s cool, have any of you been cheated on before?” A few more, and one girl up the front looked like a 5 year old on Christmas morning. “Well, not that that’s good, but this song’s called ‘Save It for the Bedroom.’ Enjoy.”

The song started and I laughed. It was a funny song, the tune was just infectious. And slightly familiar? I found myself humming along to it, thinking I must have heard it on the radio maybe.



Josh looked at me and flicked me off.



I laughed and returned the gesture. He feigned shock, looked back to the crowd and kept singing.

The song ended and I cheered. Getting up from my stool, I left where they were playing and went for a walk to another shop. I saw an old busker playing the saxophone, with no one around him and no money in his hat. He was really good, as well. I dropped a few coins into his hat, and he dipped his head in gratitude. I looked back to where the guys were playing, and had an idea.

I ran back, pushed through all the people and got to Dan. They were playing a different song now.

“Sorry about this, hope no one takes it.” He looked at me with a puzzled expression, which turned even more confused when I took his stupid snapback off his head and put it upside down on the ground. Immediately coins were thrown in, and I thanked the people. Dan raised an eyebrow and I mouthed ‘Later’ to him. He nodded, and carried on with the song.

I walked around to the back of the crowd, and found a few girls at the back, jumping up to try and catch a glimpse at the boys behind the growing crowd.

“Do you like them?” The girls turned to me and nodded. They couldn’t have been more than 19 years old.

“Yes! They are my favourite band!”

“Seriously?” I raised an eyebrow in bemusement. “Why?”

The girl I was talking to looked down and shuffled her feet. “Uh… personal reasons.” One of the others stopped trying to see them, and walked over.

“They saved her life; we’ve been trying to meet them for over 3 years. They’re amazing people.”

“Seriously?” I was even more confused now. These random swearing poms that had turned up on my doorstep in the middle of the night, had saved lives?

I shook my head. “So have any of you met them?”

All 3 of them were around me now. “No,” one of the answered. “I almost met them last year, but we had to go really quickly.” I made sympathetic noises. These girls really sounded like they wanted to meet them.

“Well… uh…” I contemplated my options. I had let them sleep at my house, right? I could totally get them to meet the girls. They could have some coffee with us. “You should stick around after they finish, I might have a surprise for you?” Their faces lit up.

“Are you serious!?” I nodded. They squealed. “Do you know them?” I laughed

“Err, it’s a long story?” Not really, but what else is there to say in a situation like this? “Maybe later.” They all squealed again and hugged me, which took me thoroughly by surprise. “Okay, well I better get back there; check everything’s still plugged in. You guys will stay here, right?” They all nodded enthusiastically. “Sweet.”

I walked back around to hear them finish one song, and Josh started speaking.

“Hey guys, thanks for sticking around. This is our last song, and from our newest album ‘Hold Me Down’ I reckon you can buy it from the store behind us.” He looked at Matt for reassurance, who nodded. “Yeah, you can. So, uh, this song’s called ‘Stay With Me.’”



The lyrics hit a chord in me, and my eye started to itch; it happened whenever I felt the need to cry. I shook my head as if to try and clear the thoughts, that was all behind me now, right?

…Right.

I listened to the song the whole way through, it was actually really good. I also noticed a huge growing mound of coins in Dan’s snapback. I glanced over the street to see only a few coins in the saxophone player’s hat. When they finished, I picked up the snapback.

“Oi! ‘Manda! What are you doing with that?” I saw Dan walking over to me.

“Feeding it to dogs, idiot.” He legitimately looked surprised. “I’m joking; I’m giving the money to the sax guy over there.” I pointed to him, and Dan nodded.

“Sure, just not the hat. That’s mine.” I rolled my eyes, and walked over to the sax player.

“Hi, um, you do this for a living, right?” He looked at me, and nodded. “I, uh… I have these for you?” I tipped the coins from the snapback into his hat. “Um…yeah. Have a nice day.” I walked away quickly and back over to the guys who were packing the stuff away. “You guys completely done?”

“Just about,” Josh answered. “Some fans probably want to meet us, give it half an hour.”

“You better call your manager person to tell them when you’re getting back.”

“Good idea.” He gestured to the other guys. “You guys meet the fans; I’ll be with you in a sec.” He turned away to start texting on his phone, but I tapped him on the shoulder first.

“Also,” I pointed over to where the girls I was talking to were standing. “Do you think you and the guys could talk to those girls over a little longer? I promised them you would.” He looked over at them.

“Yeah I guess, they don’t look too young.”

“Thanks!” I walked away and threw him a grateful smile. Today was turning out to be much more entertaining than I expected!