The Girl At The Rock Show

-San Antonio, TX.-

“Dude, is she dead?”

“I don’t know, poke her and find out.”

“You touch me and you die.”

Tessa opened her eyes just enough to see Cameron and Mike standing above her from where she lay on the couch. She groaned and rolled over, pulling the blanket over her more and snuggled back into the pillow. It was way too early and she didn’t want to be bothered at all. Not after the kind of night they had just had. She was overly tired and had a nasty hangover and swore that she would never let anyone from We Are The In Crowd to persuade her to drink that much ever again.

“Guys leave her alone. We all know what a lightweight she is.” Rob said as he also walked in the room. Tessa replied by flipping him off and continuing to try to fall back asleep.

Someone tapped her feet and she moved them enough for whoever it was to sit down and then placed them on their lap not really caring who it was. She was too busy trying to remember what the hell had happened the night before. She remembered the drinking, and the dancing, but how she had gotten on their bus was lost to her. She would ask, but she really didn’t want to. Besides, someone would inform them on how stupid they were the night before; it was just a matter of time.

“What happened last night?” Tay asked and Tessa finally forced herself to open her eyes and saw the girl walking in. She also noticed that it was in fact Jordan she had her feet resting on. He honestly looked like death and she figured that by the way her body felt, she looked just as bad as Jordan. But she couldn’t confirm or deny that until she actually got up. And who knew when that would be?

“How the hell did I get here anyway?” Tessa asked as she slowly forced herself up and over to where Tay was making herself a bowl of cereal.

“We had to basically drag you here since all the people on your bus left.” Mike explained as Tessa grabbed the milk and a spoon and joined Tay at the table. “Everyone except Alex that is, he was basically sucking Tay’s face off all night and ended up in our bus too. I think he’s still dead to the world though.”

Tay instantly started blushing and denying it while everyone else just laughed at her reaction. “What time is it?” She asked trying to distract them before they started to make fun of her again.

“Nearly eleven.”

“Shit, is Curran pissed?”

“No, but he will be if you don’t get your lazy asses up and get ready. You’re set is at one and signing at three today.” Curran replied as he walked on the bus.

They all grumbled but went to get ready anyway, leaving Tessa and Tay alone to finish eating. Once they were done, Tessa figured that she better go back to her bus to get done herself since she had planned a few more interviews for that day and didn’t want to be late to them. She waved bye to them before going to the door and walking outside, instantly wishing she didn’t come outside since the sun was really bright and killing her eyes.

She found the ATL bus easily and pulled the door open, finding it empty save for Zack who was using his weights in the front lounge. She muttered a good morning to him before making her way to the back to grab a change of clothes and went to the bathroom to attempt to make herself look more normal.

When she was finished, she walked back to the bunks wearing black skinny jeans and one of Zack’s Amerrikan tank tops and her favorite flip flops. It was nearly 100 degrees outside that day and she wasn’t in the mood to sweat her ass of so pulled her hair up and wore the tank. She usually hated wearing them, feeling too exposed in them but for that day she made an exception.

Armed with her camera and sunglasses, she walked back outside and headed towards where all the stages were to get a timeline of the shows since she wanted to catch more of them that day. She had only been able to see All Time Low, WATIC, and New Found Glory, and maybe a few others but she really wanted to start to get some good live shots of the bands.

“Whatcha doing!?” A voice asked behind her making her jump. She whirled around to see Jack standing there with a smug look on his face.

“Trying to restart my heart after you scared me like that.”

“Sorry, I saw you here all alone and decided to come and bug you.”

She laughed as she turned and began walking through the crowd with him following close behind. “Yeah I was just deciding what to do for the day. I need to get some more live photos and was just looking at the schedule to see who I can see still. It is a little after noon and I missed a few bands already.”

“I’ll come with. I’ve been meaning to see some more too.”

“Stalker,” she muttered as she pulled out her phone and checked her twitter feed to see if she could get any set times from the bands she followed. “Oh! Mayday is playing in fifteen minutes! Let’s go!”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him through the crowd trying to find the right stage. When they got there, there was a huge crowd already waiting and she found a good spot in the back and turned her camera on focusing it in on the stage and making sure she had a clear shot for when the band came on.

By the time the first of the members walked on, the crowd was going nuts and Jack and her joined in the screaming as the first few notes of their first song began to play. As the second song started to play, Tessa noticed that Josh and Max were making their way over to them and she smiled as she wrapped her arms around them to hug them, not bothering to even try to say hi since her voice wouldn’t be heard over the loudness of the music.

After a while, Tessa gave up taking pictures once again just so she could dance and be stupid with the rest of the guys. When Oh Well, Oh Well started playing, Tessa yelled and started to dance since it was one of her favorite songs by them. Jack ended up putting her up on his shoulder so she could see and took advantage of the height and snapped some more pictures since she was well over the crowds heads since Jack was so freaking tall.

By the time the concert was over, all four of them were flushed and smiling from ear to ear. She had almost forgotten how awesome it was to be in a concert. But thankfully there were plenty more times to see some of the other bands since the tour wasn’t even half over with yet.

Josh mentioned something about getting something to drink and she nodded as she followed them towards one of the many vendors to get a water so that she could actually cool down again. And she was honestly thinking of going to the random slip and slid and taking a run through that to cool off also. But she decided against it since there was a really long line and she didn’t want to have to go change her clothes again.

“So where are we off to next?” Jack asked, still super hyper from the last concert. She smiled and pulled out her phone to check on her twitter feed to see which other concerts she could see when she remembered that her brother was still sick.

“Actually, you guys go ahead, I need to check on Vin.”

Jack nodded, since he must have seen Vinny earlier and by his reaction, she figured he still was pretty sick. It had been three days now since he had gotten whatever he caught and he wasn’t getting any better. But she honestly thought it was just a cold. He was taking medicine which was good at least and so she was hoping that he would be fine in about a week or so.

She headed towards the merch tents and smiled when she passed someone she knew. She could already see the large lettering of the tent she was looking for along with the too familiar colors and merch that were hanging on the rack at the back of the tent. But when she got closer, she frowned when she saw that her brother wasn’t the one sitting behind the table.

“Hey Danny, what are you doing here?”

The guitar tech looked up from the magazine he had been reading and smiled when he saw her. “Hey Tessie, I’m just taking over for your brother. He’s still not feeling good. Looks like crap to be honest.”

“Oh, ok thanks, I’ll see you around.”

She didn’t stick around to hear what he said back since she was too worried about her brother. What kind of horrible sister doesn’t check up on her brother when he’s sick? She felt horrible about not going to find him first thing when she woke up but she honestly only thought it was a cold. Either way she needed to check on him since he wasn’t even doing his job at the merch tent. It must be something serious going on. He would never not be working unless he physically couldn’t get up.

Rushing through the crowds, she made her way to the parking lot where the busses were and looked around for ATL’s bus. Since she hadn’t been on the bus that morning, so she didn’t know where the bus was parked and it took a little longer. But once she found it, she made a mad dash for the bus, rushing up to it and throwing the door open and running inside.

No one was inside but she figured Vinny was in his bunk in back and she rushed back and saw that his bunk was the only one with the curtain drawn. She took a breath to calm her heart down before gently pushing the curtain back a little and pushing it open.

“Hey Vin?” She asked as she saw her brother lying with his back toward her. She reached in and gently rubbed his back and jerked her hand back when she felt his shirt drenched with sweat.

“Mmm,”

“Vinny, c’mon, you got to look at me. What’s going on?” She pressed and he just moaned again and jerked away from her and then hissed in pain. “Vinny, I’m being serious, roll over so I can see you.”

“Go away,”

“Vincent Anthony Petrocelli,”

He gave a dramatic sigh and then rolled over. “There, happy now? Can you just leave me alone so I can sleep?”

“No,” she replied as she reached above him and turned one of the small bunk lights on and he instantly started to complain again. But she just ignored him almost flipping out at the sight of him.

He was laying there all sweaty and the look on his face showed nothing but pain. She cautiously reached her hand in to touch it to his forehead and gasped when she felt it was burning hot. He was also clutching his side as if the pressure would get rid of the pain but it didn’t look like it was working that well. She stared for a moment, in complete horror at what she saw before taking a breath to calm herself down and not to freak out and let Vinny know how bad the situation really was. She needed to keep him calm or she was going to be freaking out as much as he should be at the moment, but he looked really disoriented and in pain to really care and she was really glad about that.

She grabbed her phone out of her pocked and unlocked it, opening up the keypad and dialing the number she knew by heart. Pressing the phone to her ear, she listened to it ring and ring, praying to God that he would pick up before it went to voicemail. All she needed was for him not to pick up when the stupid idiot was on his phone constantly. She needed him badly.

“Hey Tessa, please tell me this is important, I’m sort of in the middle of something.” He said after picking up at the last possible moment making Tessa want to smack him the next time she saw him.

“Matt, you need to come to the bus now. We need to take Vinny to the hospital.”