Smash Into Me

Sierra bounced off stage, adrenaline rushing through her body. She spotted Kayleigh standing right by John with her arms stretched open. Without a second thought, she rushed over to her, crashing into her.

“That was, by far, the best set you’ve played,” Kayleigh gushed as Sierra squeezed her. It was like their “fight” hadn’t happened earlier. “Did you see how many kids were singing? Fucking amazing.”

“I have to agree with Kayleigh, that set was fantastic,” John grinned as Sierra let go. She threw her arms loosely around him.

“Stop inflating her already massive ego,” Devin commented as he walked by, carrying his bass by the neck.

Sierra rolled her eyes as John and Kayleigh laughed. “So, we’re going to a signing, like, right now. Are you coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll mee – ”

“Kayleigh, back to the bus,” Mike said.

Kayleigh turned and stared, her mouth hanging slightly open. She turned back to Sierra, pouting, “…I guess not, then.”

Sierra mirrored the pout on her best friend’s face before wrapping her arms around her for a hug. “Sorry, hun, Mike’s spoken,” She muttered in her ear.

“Hey, it’s fine, I can just hang with John,” Kayleigh laughed, looking over at John, who gave a slight smile and threw his two thumbs up. “Woo, drinking and watching movies.”

“That sounds fun, though.”

“Oh, it is,” John nodded, grinning.

“Sierra, we gotta go!” Blake called.

After parting ways with Sierra, John and Kayleigh made the long walk from the Ernie Ball stage back to the bus parking lot.

“How the hell can you not enjoy a week of not working?” Kayleigh scoffed and rolled her eyes at John’s random question. “There’s something wrong in that head of yours,” He said, tapping his long index finger on the side of her head.

“I dunno,” She shrugged, feeling a bit bad. She was lucky that she was getting time off. People would kill for time off. Warped was draining everyone around her. She looked down at the pavement as they walked.

John chuckled, threw his arm around her shoulder, and gave her a little squeeze, “I’m kidding. I’d be going crazy, too.”

She looked up and rolled her eyes. She slapped his chest, “Fuck you for making me feel bad.”

John grinned down at her.

Josh stepped off bus fifty-three, mouth skewed to the side. Where the hell could Kayleigh be? His eyes scanned the parking lot. Chairs unfolded, little pools, a volleyball net set up, people scattered everywhere, but no Kayleigh.

His eyes floated to the gates of the parking lot. Aha! Kayleigh was there…so was John…with his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

Jealously shot right through Josh. Had Kayleigh spent the entire day with John? Doing what?

Not taking his eyes off the two of them, he headed in their direction. John said something that made Kayleigh laugh, then smack his stomach.

“Josh,” John muttered.

Kayleigh ripped her eyes off John and turned to see Josh right there. He didn’t look too happy. “Hey,” She said softly as Josh stopped and stood, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

John removed his arm from around Kayleigh’s shoulders. “I’ll, uh…be on the bus, okay?”

Kayleigh nodded and watched as John made his way to The Maine’s bus. After John was out of sight, her eyes met Josh’s. An unhappy Josh stood before her. Unhappy Josh was never fun.

“You and John, huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“You and John looked pretty – ”

“Are you accusing me of cheating on you with John?” Kayleigh asked, completely taken back by that ridiculous accusation from her boyfriend. “Do you honestly think I would do that to – ”

“Yes,” Josh cut her off quickly. Too quickly for Kayleigh’s liking. She stared at him, an incredulous look on her face. Josh rolled his eyes. “You move on pretty fast, don’t you?”

“What the fuck is your problem, Josh!?” Kayleigh snapped, raising her voice louder than necessary. People in the parking lot stopped whatever it was they were doing and stared at the fighting couple. “Are you that fucking stupid that you think I would cheat on you? Do you not fucking trust me? Do I give off…whoreish vibes? Please, tell me, Josh, what the fuck is going on in that fucking head of yours!”

“You know what? Yeah, you do give off “whoreish vibes”,” Josh shot back, using air quotes around whoreish vibes. “You’re always fucking hanging off other guys. You always look a little too comfortable with guys. How many guys on this tour have you slept with? Hmmm?”

Kayleigh’s jaw fell open as she stood there. Josh had crossed a line. All Kayleigh wanted to do was smack Josh, curse him out, yell, and cry. She wasn’t going to do anything of that, though. She was going to be stronger and be the bigger person in all of this.

She pushed past him, shoulder grazing his arm, knocking him back a bit. “Where the hell are you going?” He asked as he watched her storm away.

“To fuck John, obviously,” She replied without even looking back. So much for being the bigger person.

*

“Did you honestly accuse her of cheating? God, you are so fucking stupid!” Matt groaned, slamming his head down on the table.

“She’s not Hanna, mate,” Chris said from his spot on the sofa. Josh turned and looked at him. He just shrugged. “Just saying…”

“You are literally the stupidest person in the world, Josh,” Devin commented. “Kayleigh’s not like that, and you know that. Why would you even…”

Josh sighed and looked down at his hands. “I don’t know why I said what I did. I was just…jealous. But she is always with other guys looking…friendly. My ex was like that.”

“As Chris so kindly pointed out, she’s not your ex. Kayleigh is Kayleigh. She’s not this Hanna girl. She would never cheat on anyone, especially you,” Sierra explained as she passed through the front lounge carrying her sandals in her hand.

“Where are you going?” Jerry asked, watching Sierra quickly slip her sandals on, then grab her phone from off the counter.

“To spend the night with Kayleigh on The Maine’s bus. We’re having a horror movie marathon or something like that,” She replied. After checking the time on her phone, she stuffed it in her back pocket. “See you fuckers in Canada,” She yelled as she bounced off the bus.

Josh stared after Sierra. Kayleigh was spending the night on The Maine’s bus to get away from and to avoid Josh. That was like a punch to the stomach. He really fucked up with her.

**

“So Josh really thought you were sleeping with me?” John asked Kayleigh as they sat at the table. They had grown bored of the horror movie marathon, which really turned out to be a Saw movie marathon. Boring.

“Yeah,” She replied, not even casting a glance at John. She was too busy scrolling through her Twitter feed. It was just about as boring as the movie marathon, but it was something that kept her mind off Josh. If she read every tweet in her timeline, her mind would focus on those tweets, not Josh.

Josh had pissed her off to no end. After her little fight or whatever the hell that was, she stormed on to The Maine’s bus. Jared, Garrett, and John were the first three to hear her rant about how Josh was a complete dick. By the time Sierra had found Kayleigh on their bus, they'd heard the story and rant about five times. Jared and Garrett were sick of hearing it, so they mentioned a movie marathon to help distract her.

The movies weren’t a distraction at all for her. She kept thinking about Josh. His words kept replaying over in her head. She couldn’t pay attention to anything at all except those words and Josh’s face haunting her mind. John noticed she wasn’t all there, and dragged her from the back lounge to the front. He had gotten his laptop out and gave it to her. That was a good enough distraction for her; the internet always was.

“That’s…dumb,” John said after a moment.

“I know it is.”

“I’d never sleep with you.”

Kayleigh looked up at John, looking both a little offended and a little amused, “Excuse me? Am I not good enough for you?”

John’s eyes widened a bit. “Uh, I mean – you’re beautiful, Kayleigh, but I – uh, fuck, that’s not what I me – god, is it hot in here?” He tripped over his words. He ran his hand through his hair and down the back his neck, then stared up at the ceiling. “I swear, that’s not – shit, did I…I’m sorry.”

“John, hey,” Kayleigh laughed, shaking her head. “I was joking, John. You’re like my older brother. It’d be weird if we slept together.”

John looked at her, relieved. “Yes,” He breathed out. He smacked her arm, right where she had hurt it, without thinking twice about it. “God, don’t do that to me again.”

She yelped and grabbed the still healing arm, “Goddammit, John, ow!”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” John gasped, cupping his mouth with his hands. He stared at her with wide eyes. Afraid she was going to do something to him, he watched her every movement carefully. He watched as she lifted up the sleeve of her shirt, inspecting the damage.

When Kayleigh realized nothing was wrong, she glanced up at John, eyes narrowing. She punched him hard in the arm. “Fuck you.”

“I deserved that,” John choked out as he bit his lip and held his arm. For a small girl, she packed quite a punch.

***

“When we get to the hotel and get our lovely selves situated and settled in, can we go out to eat?” Sierra asked as she laid her head on Kayleigh’s shoulder. She watched Kayleigh scroll through Tumblr.

“Sure,” Kayleigh replied absentmindedly.

“Good,” Sierra said, a little too cheery. Kayleigh ripped her gaze away from the laptop in front of her and looked over at Sierra, who was now sitting up and picking at the chipped burgundy nail polish on her nails. Sierra glanced at Kayleigh and shot her a sickly sweet smile.

Okay, something was up with Sierra. Kayleigh didn’t know if she wanted to know what was running through Sierra’s brain or not. She decided that she’d rather remain blissfully unaware of whatever Sierra was planning. She turned her attention back to Tumblr.

During the movies, Sierra had been texting Josh. Josh texted her first, of course, and asked if Kayleigh was still mad at him. Sierra had responded by telling him “what the fuck do you think?” because, come on, that was a dumb question.

They went back and forth, talking about how Kayleigh was still mad, and what Josh could do to make Kayleigh forgive him. The obvious answer was just to talk to the girl. But since Kayleigh was far too stubborn, they decided, to even glance at Josh, let alone talk to him, Sierra made a plan. She knew that the only way to get Kayleigh to talk to anyone was to back her into a corner and not let her leave.

In the end, they both agreed to get to the hotel, get settled in, get ready to go out for something to eat, then Sierra was going to tell Kayleigh to just head down to the lobby and that she’d catch up. Josh would be waiting down in the lobby, ready to corner Kayleigh and talk to her, apologize for all the stupid things he’d said and done to her over the past couple of days.

Sierra had just set this plan into motion. She texted Josh to let him know that Kayleigh had agreed to go out.

“Who do you keep texting?” Kayleigh asked.

Sierra tucked her phone back into her back pocket. “No one important,” She shrugged.

“Uh huh,” Kayleigh nodded slowly. Something was definitely up. “I’m sure I don’t want to know, anyways.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means I don’t want to know what the hell you’re up to, Si,” Kayleigh mumbled, not even bothering to glance at Sierra. She just continued to scroll on down her dashboard, occasionally reblogging and liking things. Tumblr was a much better tool to help keep her mind off of Josh.