The Girl At The Rock Show

-Baltimore, MD.-

“Can I please come with you?” Kate asked and Tessa just rolled her eyes. They had been having this conversation since the younger girl had found out about Tessa’s new assignment a few weeks ago. Now it was less than a week until Warped started and Tessa was just finishing packing and Kate was still trying to persuade her to let her come.

“Oh Tessa!” A loud voice yelled as the door to her apartment opened and slammed shut a few moments later. Kate and her shared a look as Vinny appeared in the doorway and rolled his eyes seeing both girls on the bed with a movie playing while Tessa finished up the last of her packing. “Are you sure you didn’t pack your whole apartment?”

“Shut up, you’re the one who gave me a list of things to pack. I was just following what you told me to.” She replied, sticking her tongue out at her older brother as he sat next to Kate and ruffled her hair. The girl instantly started to swat his hands away and started grumbling about having to go and spend five minutes fixing it.

Tessa just smiled at her siblings as she went back to packing. They really only had a few more minutes before they had to be out the door to head to the airport. She was getting really excited about the tour and seeing the boys again. The last time she had seen them was at Colussy’s wedding a few weeks before and even though they lived relatively close to each other, she wouldn’t be seeing them until they got to the hotel later that night.

She smiled triumphantly as she put the last of her things in her bag and zipped it up. “Done and done,” She said clapping her hands together and smiling.

“About time, I thought we were going to miss our flight if you didn’t hurry up.”

“Vincent be nice,” Kate said as he grabbed her and put her in a headlock. “Ow! Ow! Be nice! Let me go!”

Vinny laughed and started to mess her hair up more. “Not until you tell me I’m the greatest big brother in the world.”

“Like hell I will,”

Vinny just continued to hold her and tickle her sides making her squirm more.

“Katie, I would do what he says or he’ll never let you go, and then we’re going to be late. I’m sure you want this place all to yourself and if you don’t just say it, you never will.”

Finally she gave in and Vinny let her go with a triumphant smile while Tessa grabbed her stuff and followed her brother and sister to the main part of the apartment. She grabbed the last of the thing she needed and then shoved one of her bags into Vinny’s hands before ushering bother siblings outside so she could lock up her apartment and they could head out to the airport.

Tossing her keys to her little sister, she got into the passenger’s seat after putting her bags in the trunk and started to play with the radio. Vinny kept complaining from the backseat on each station she picked and she finally went through her cd collection and put something else on so he would shut up. It was defiantly going to be a long tour if Vinny was going to be like that the entire time.

“Are you sure you can’t sneak me on the bus?” Kate asked once they were at the airport. They had already gotten all their bags out of the car and were saying their last goodbyes before they left.

Tessa sighed as she pulled her in for a hug, “Yes I’m sure. It’s probably not going to be all that fun anyway.” She told the girl trying to get her to stop asking. “Being stuck in a small bus with a bunch of guys and trying to survive the heat isn’t something I can see you doing.”

“Oh please, that’s not what you were saying a few hours ago while you were talking my ear off making sure you were packing the right stuff.” Vinny snorted as she sent a glare at her brother when he didn’t get what she was trying to do. Kate just rolled her eyes and went over to him and hugged him too.

“Just be safe ok? And call me when you land!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the youngest? When did you start taking over the mom role for us?” Tessa asked. “Just make sure you don’t burn down our apartment while we’re away. I would like to come home to see that we don’t have to do any major remodeling due to one of your parties getting too out of hand.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, you two better get going or you’re going to miss your flight.”

Tessa smiled as she pulled her little sister in for one more hug before nodding to Vinny as they made their way inside the airport. She turned once more and waved to Kate before getting in line to check their bags and get on the plane so they could officially start the beginning of tour.

-Salt Lake City, UT.-

“Do you know who’s picking us up?” Tessa asked as they walked through the terminal towards the baggage claim. They had just landed in Utah and were trying to get past all the people rushing around them so that they could get their bags and go back to the hotel. They had spent the whole day flying and all Tessa wanted to do was get to the hotel and sleep since she couldn’t fall asleep on the plane.

“Um, Matt I think,” Vinny replied. “He said that he would unless something came up. I can call him to make sure once we finally get through this crowd.”

Tessa just nodded as she tried to stay close to him so she didn’t get lost in the crowd since she didn’t know her way around that well. Vinny was great at airports since he had been in them enough. Since his job required a lot of traveling, he had been to basically every airport in the US along with outside the country so she always relied on his directional skills when they traveled together.

Surprisingly, they got their bags in record time and found themselves waiting to be picked up. Matt had never replied to Vinny’s text he sent while they had been waiting for their bags but neither of them really worried since Matt and Colussy both knew when they were flying in and wouldn’t leave them waiting for long. But she just secretly hoped that it would be Matt picking them up.

Matt was like a big brother to her and always looked out for her. He was probably the only one who tolerated her obsession with kid’s movies since he was obsessed with Disney. He was the only other person, besides her brother, she went to when she had a problem or needed to talk. Both of them were always there for her whenever she needed to talk and needed advice. You wouldn’t expect it, but both boys usually gave really good advice, even if Matt usually incorporated a Disney quote while giving it.

Everyone always teased Matt and Tessa about being a couple, but neither looked at each other more than friends. But Tessa just ignored them, Matt was like a brother to her, there was no way they would ever date. Sure he was cute; she just didn’t see him like that. Besides, he had been dating his girlfriend for nearly four years now and they were perfect together. There was just no way that they would ever be a couple.

“Hey, I just got a text from Colussy saying he’s here!” Vinny said as they grabbed their bags and headed out to the pickup area. They only had to wait a few minutes before a black car pulled up, honking its horn and the driver waving at them.

“Matty Mouse!” Tessa squealed when she saw who was driving. As soon as he parked the car and was making his way over to them she smiled and threw her arms around him to hug him.

“Hey Minnie,” He asked hugging her tightly. “How was your flight?”

She shrugged, going over and grabbing her bags. “Long, especially with Vinny as your travel buddy.”

“Hey!”

They just ignored him as they all climbed into the car and Matt drove back to the hotel they were going to stay at until they left officially for Warped. When they got to the hotel, Matt led them to the elevators, giving them their key to the room they would be sharing and told them that they were going to meet up in an hour or so to dinner.

Tessa took the key from her brother since she knew he would just lose it as they headed down the hall to their room. When they got to the door, she unlocked it and walked in, instantly taking the bed by the window before Vinny could even try to claim it. They always fought for the window so when Vinny saw he instantly started to whine but she just ignored him and set her bag on the bed and opened it.

Grabbing some of her things from it, she made her way to the bathroom to get ready for dinner since Matt gave them about a half hour to get ready. Glancing at her reflection, she sighed taking in her messy long dark hair and old sweats and Vinny’s. Having Italian blood, she had the traditional dark hair, eyes, and olive colored skin, as did her brother and sister and the rest of her family. Unlike the rest of her family though, she was super short being only 5’3”, even her little sister was taller than her and no one let her live it down.

That’s where the nickname Minnie Mouse had come from, dubbed to her by Matt when they had first met. Besides his nickname the others came up with even worse unoriginal nicknames for her, teasing her whenever they could since they always thought of her as a little sister that they all loved to pick on. But she didn’t mind all that much even though she pretended she did, she considered them family and loved them all even if they all could be ridiculously annoying at times.

She smiled to herself as she thought of the boys, she was really excited to see them all again. She missed them and wasn’t used to not seeing them at least once a week. From the quiet and shy Zack, to the annoying and obnoxious Alex and Jack, she couldn’t live without them and needed them to keep her life at least a little more interesting when it got dull and boring and repetitive. You could always count on them to make things different.

Changing into a pair of skinny jeans and Glamour Kills shirt, she pulled her hair back into a pony tail, ignoring the makeup in her bag, not that she owned a lot. She didn’t like makeup and only wore it if it was absolutely necessary, which was hardly ever.

She only brought it just in case, or if she felt like taking a few extra minutes to get ready. And even then she only really had some cover up and a few colors of eye shadow and lip gloss. Nothing too big but enough to say that she actually did own a little.

“Took you long enough,” Vinny muttered when she walked back into the main part of the room. She rolled her eyes at her older brother when she saw him lying lazily on his bed flicking through the channels on the outdated TV in their room. For being a really nice hotel, they forgot to update the TV’s and had a stupidly old gigantic tv sitting on the stand with a horrible selection of channels.

Not that any of the guests, besides Vinny, would actually be using it. They were in the heart of Salt Lake City where there was a lot of awesome things to do and probably wouldn’t be in the room enough to even realize that a TV was in there. Vinny, must not have gotten the memo though.

“Yeah yeah whatever, can we go now? I’m starving and I want to see the rest of the dorks. I haven’t seen them in forever!”

He gave a sigh as if she was asking the hardest thing in the world as he turned the TV off and then got up following her to the door. They made their way to the elevator and then down to the lobby where they could hear the voices of the rest of the band and crew before they could see them. She smiled to herself as she rounded the corner and saw the nine other she would be sharing a bus with for the next month and a half.

“Tessa!” a voice yelled followed by something tall and heavy jumping on her. Then before she could even think to try and get him off of her, another body sandwiched her between them, also yelling.

She tried to get free again but they wouldn’t let her and she helplessly looked to where her brother was standing with an amused look on his face as the rest of the band and crew walked up also. Matt laughed when he saw what was going on and gave a glance to Vinny before walking over to help her.

“Jack! Alex! Let Tessa breathe! We don’t need her to end up in the hospital less than a week before tour because you guys want to squish her to death!"

Jack was the first to let her go, “Aw but we’ve missed her!”

“Dude, that’s no reason to kill the poor girl because of it. If you actually killed her you would miss her even more.” Zack said as he helped her get Alex off of her also. But he was putting up more of a fight than Jack did and thankfully Zack was all strong and muscular and the singer didn’t stand a chance against him.

Jack just shrugged and linked arms with Tessa before dragging her through the lobby towards the doors with Alex close behind. The others followed as they headed towards one of the restaurants they had found earlier that day when they had been exploring. They had only been in Utah for about a day, after flying from Baltimore and getting there late the night before.

When they got to the restaurant, they were given a large table at the back. Which was probably a good thing since knowing the band; things were going to start flying through the air and getting really loud as soon as they sat down.

Tessa sat between Vinny and Zack and tried to focus on her menu to figure out what the hell she was going to eat but Rian had other plans. The drummer was being almost as annoying as the rest of his band, minus Zack who was sitting quietly next to her, by throwing things at her and giggling like a girl. She rolled her eyes and glared but didn’t bother saying anything since she knew it was useless. So she just continued to ignore him and figure out what to get.

“To the best tour of the year!” Jack yelled once their drinks came. Everyone cheered and raised their glasses.

Tessa smiled as she took a sip of her beer. This was defiantly going to be one of the most interesting summers of her life. She could just feel it.