The Girl At The Rock Show

-Glendale, AZ-

They had just finished up the last of the California dates for that tour so Tessa was now the only girl on the bus since Cass had left the night before. She had some things she had to do now that her Solo EP was out and had to go back home. So now Tessa was officially alone with ten boys in a small bus traveling to the next town. Thankfully they were at the outskirts of Glendale and from what Matt said; they didn’t have much longer of a drive.

It wasn’t that bad though. It was about eight in the morning so only the crew was up. The four lazy boys were still in their bunks dead to the world and Tessa was sitting next to a crabby Vinny, listening to music and on her laptop writing down some thoughts for her article.

She heard Vinny groan next to her and hold his side lightly and raised an eyebrow as she pulled out one of her earbuds. “You ok?”

“Yeah, my side just hurts a little. I’ll be fine.” He replied instantly pretending that he wasn’t in pain so she wouldn’t get worried.

She knew he was just trying to act like the manly big brother who wasn’t ever weak. He always made sure that he wouldn’t worry about her, saying that it was his job to look out for her, but it still didn’t stop her from worrying. He was always the carefree hyper guy that everyone knew and loved and it took a lot for him to act differently. So she knew that it wasn’t just a little pain, but she wasn’t going to say anything. She figured with a little Ibuprofen and getting his mind off of it would help.

Only about a half hour later, the bus got off the highway and began to drive through the winding streets before slowing down and entering the new parks grounds. Matt already went back into tour manager mode and began listing off things that needed to be done as soon as the bus stopped. The bus parked between two other busses, still yet to be determined who they belonged to but probably someone they knew, and everyone got out, going to the trailer to grab their things.

They grabbed all the things they needed and Tessa helped Vinny load his boxes onto the rolling cart and then began their walk toward where the rest of the merch tents would be set up for the day. Neither of them really said anything and both had a system to who did what while setting up so Tessa was left to her own thoughts.

She had finally put the kiss behind her and now her and Matt were acting as if nothing ever happened, even though after they had first talked he was still a little weird the rest of the day. But after that everything was fine. He was still acting like the annoyingly adorable tour manager that everyone liked the mess with.

“Hey, I’m going to walk around a little, you ok here?” Tessa asked once they finally set everything up. Vinny just nodded and went back to sleeping in the chair until the gates opened at eleven.

She made her way back to the bus and grabbed her camera and then rushed back outside to go find someone to entertain her. The first person on her list to find was Tay since they usually always tended to look for the other first. Tessa began to circle the parking lot looking for the right bus when the busses door she was passing suddenly opened and someone popped out, grabbing her, and pulling inside.

“Jesus Max!” Tessa said shoving him away when he started cracking up. She had no clue who had grabbed her until she heard the all too familiar laugh he had and looked around to see the rest of the guys from You Me At Six cracking up.

“Sorry, I just could resist! You looked so distracted that I had to take advantage of the moment!” Max said, while giggling like a girl.

Josh wrapped his arms around her from behind and pulled her close. “Aw don’t be made Tessie; we just wanted to hang out with you.” He said as she rolled her eyes. “What were you looking for anyway?”

“Tay, I was going to find her to see if she wanted to hang out but I couldn’t find her or her bus.”

“Hang out with us then! The boys from We Are The Ocean are coming to play some Fifa with us. You should join.” Matt said, giving her the puppy dog pout.

After seeing the pout, she rolled her eyes, pretending like it was the hardest thing in the world but then nodded and all the boys started freaking out and talking all at once. In all the confusion, Tessa heard Matt announce he was getting the snacks while Max and Josh went to set up the Xbox and began to yell at each other telling the other that they were setting it up wrong. She let the boys do whatever they needed to do and went to the couch to sit next to Dan who looked like he was still asleep.

“Heya,” she said quietly while resting her head on his shoulder. He mumbled a hi in return and went back to sleeping.

The door to the bus opened again and Tessa glanced up to see the boys from We Are The Ocean climb up. She smiled when she saw Liam and Dan and pushed herself off the couch and ran over hugging them.

“Hey girlie!” Liam said as he kissed her cheek. As soon as he let her go, Dan came and pulled her in for another hug and then ended up being passed around to the other three.

When Max and Josh, with a little help from Matt and Liam, finally got the Xbox set up, they all found placed to sit and passed around sodas and beer and chips and set out to begin playing. Tessa had never been particularly good at video games, except the racing ones, and so she let the boys have their fun for the first few round before they finally forced her to play.

After she played a round, and horribly at that, and got a bunch of teasing from the boys, she refused to continue playing, and turned her attention towards Matt and Liam who were having a interesting conversation about Llamas. She just rolled her eyes and grabbed her phone to text Tay to see if she could find the girl anywhere. Thankfully it only took about a minute for the singer to reply and excitedly opened the text to see what it read.

From: Tay
I’m with Alex and the rest of the boys. Where are you?
Thurs, Jun 28, 9:42am

Of course she would be with Alex. The two were basically inseparable as of late. Even more so now after Jack’s party, and Tessa figured that something must have happened at the party, she did after all find Alex in their room the next day. Not that they were having sex or anything, just that something was defiantly going on and Tessa made a mental note to ask the girl again later when she had a chance.

To: Tay
I’m at YMAS’ bus. You should come.
Thurs, Jun 28, 9:45am

Just as she sent it, everyone started to yell and scream and she looked up from her phone to see Josh and Max yelling at each other. Glancing at the screen, she saw that Max had just beat Josh for the first time since they had started playing and the shorter boy was now cheering and dancing around the bus. Everyone started yelling, telling Max to sit down and finally got hit to sit back down once the next round started up.

Her phone buzzed again and she pulled it out of her pocket again and opened the new message.

From: Tay
I’m on my way. :)
Thurs, Jun 28, 9:47

Just as she closed the message, the door to the bus opened Tay herself walked up the stairs and waved hi to the boys before finding Tessa and sitting next to her. The door opened again a few minutes later and Alex also walked up instantly seeing the tv and what the others were playing and announcing he got to play the winner in the next round.

“So what’s up? What are you doing up so early?”

“Tay it’s nearly ten.” Tessa replied rolling her eyes at the other girl.

“Exactly! You’re never up this early!”

Tessa just shrugged, “dunno, couldn’t sleep. But I should be asking you what is going on with you and Gaskarth.” She lowered her voice then and smirked at the blush that covered the other girls cheeks.

“I already told you wha-”

“Yeah but you hardly said anything about that how many days ago. But what really happened? Why was he in our room the next morning?”

Tay sighed, “You really want to know?” Tessa nodded. “Um he might have sort of kissed me at the party.”

By then Tessa was squealing making all the guys around them stop what they were doing and look at them. Tay blushed and Tessa bit her lip knowing that Tay didn’t want the whole bus hearing their conversation, but from Tessa’s reaction, they were defiantly going to know. Alex had a knowing look when Tessa made eye contact with him and then he looked to Tay with a smirk and she just blushed more.

“Ooh! Are you two gossiping?” Matt asked as he came closer with a huge smile on his face. “Do tell!”

Tay shot Tessa a dirty look and Tessa just laughed and began to make something up so that she didn’t get into even more trouble with Tay. But thankfully she was saved when they boys tour manager came in announcing that they had to get ready to go on stage soon.