Better Than Me

Parting at the airport on Wednesday afternoon wasn't nearly as hard as the other times because Andy, Christian, Jake, Jeremy, and Ashley had saved some good news until just that moment. The guys were flying back to Los Angeles in two weeks for the Revolver Golden God Awards. They had three days off following the night of the awards show.

Riley and Corinne boarded the plane after hugs and kisses from the guys. Corinne was ecstatic about the Golden God Awards bringing Christian home so soon. Riley was happy, but she wasn't as thrilled as she should have been. She had enjoyed the last three days with Andy. She loved him and wanted to be with him. And yet...

I'm not dreading the time away from him, she realized.

Even before the guys had announced that they would be home in two weeks, Riley hadn't been depressed about being separated from Andy again. She'd known that she would miss him, but it hadn't filled her with the same impending sense of loneliness that she'd experienced when she'd first heard about the six months of touring.

I'm getting used to being the one left behind, she thought.

That was a good thing. She had to be able to cope with Andy's long absences if she wanted their relationship to continue.

Riley glanced out the window at a stretch of endless space, occasionally obscured by a wisp of cloud. Corinne was already dozing and Riley was sure Christian had kept her up for most of the night. Riley had barely slept at all last night, thanks to Andy. She was exhausted; however, just like on the flight from Birmingham to Louisville, she wasn't going to get any sleep.

Resigned to her state of wakefulness, Riley dug out her cell. She had downloaded Lynam's Slave to the Machine and Tragic City Symphony to her iTunes. She stuck the buds of her earphones in and set her new Lynam playlist to shuffle. Then, she signed in to Facebook.

Riley hadn't been on since Sunday night during the show. She had several notifications, many of them comments or "likes" on the photos from the Lynam show in Birmingham that Cody had tagged her in. Piper had posted a photo of an extremely irritated-looking Ghoul to her Wall. Riley snickered. She was going to be thoroughly ignored by the cat once she was home. She would have to grovel to earn his forgiveness for being gone so long.

Next, Riley checked her messages. She had another one from David that had been sent Monday morning:"Are you saying I'm unforgettable? I'm flattered."

Riley giggled to herself. "That's just what I tell the unimportant people to spare their feelings," she replied.

She went to the message from Jacob that was still in her inbox. "We've listened to all of the albums," she informed him. "My favorite songs are 'Just Say Anything,' 'The Best Thing,' 'Letting Go,' 'Tanis,' 'White Trash Superstar,' 'Sister Babylon,' 'Enemy,' 'The Party Starts Now,' and 'Left for Dead.'"

By the time she'd finished this, she'd received another message from David. "Ouch. That's cold."

"Well, you know how we rock star girlfriends can be. ;-)"

"Bitchy, apparently. Lol. What are you up to?"

"I am on a plane, flying back to my home sweet home."

"You mean Alabama? :-P"

"You wish."

"I did enjoy seeing you and Cori. We should do it again sometime."

"There will be another reunion in five years."

"I meant without all of the lame people we didn't care about."

"So we'll skip the reunion and go to a bar again."

"Five years is a long time. We're getting old and we drink too much. Are you sure we'll remember?"

Riley laughed, quickly stifling it as Corinne shifted in her sleep. "We might not. Perhaps we should meet up in less than five years."

"I vote one week."

"Maybe if you fly your ass to Cali. Otherwise, those of us with REAL jobs have to wait for another vacation."

"Oh yeah. You're not lucky enough to be your own boss. Maybe you should get some talent."

"Because it takes so much talent to get up in front of people two or three nights a week and drop your drumsticks."

"You noticed that?"

"How the hell could I miss it? There were random drumsticks flying all over the place."

"I'm simply enthusiastic."

"Riiiiiight."

"Have y'all listened to the CDs yet?"

"Yup. God, y'all are awful! I don't know why we liked y'all so much this weekend. Must have been the alcohol."

"I was afraid you'd come to your senses."

"Lol. Y'all are seriously amazing. The guys liked y'all, too."

"Tell Jacob. It'll make his day."

"And you?"

"No offense, but I'm not a huge fan of BVB."

"Everyone's entitled to their own opinion."

Riley and David continued to chat for almost a full hour. He was easy to talk to and just as sarcastic and humorous as in person. The conversation ended when Brian arrived at David's house. They were going to a mutual friend's stocked pond to fish.

Riley was on the verge of logging out of her Facebook, but a notification stopped her. She had a message. She knew it was from Jacob. Something very much like excitement caused a pleasant sensation in her stomach and she opened his answer: "Thank you! What are your least favorites?"

Riley frowned. She always hated that question. Andy had asked her what her least favorite tracks on both We Stitch These Wounds and Set the World on Fire were, and he would undoubtedly do it with the new album once it was finished. Even though he asked, it was still hard to tell Andy she disliked something he'd worked on. It was no less difficult now to tell Jacob the same thing.

"There's nothing I absolutely can't stand," she said. "But if I had to choose, I'd say 'Dead Again' and 'If You Leave.'"

She didn't wait to see if he would respond again. For some reason, she believed that conversing with him was much more dangerous than conversing with David. Corinne had warned her to "be careful" when talking to Jacob; she obviously sensed that same danger of which Riley was aware.

Riley settled herself more comfortably, upping the volume of "Giving Up on Rock N Roll."

"Hang the DJ's driving me insane/I'm watching all my heroes fade away/Where are you, Mr. Ice Cream Man?/Where are you, Mr. Brownstone?/Whoa-oh-oh/I'm giving up on you/Whoa-oh-oh/I'm giving up on you!"

Riley smiled. With all the references to 80's music, this song had gone over particularly well with the Black Veil Brides.

"Whatever happened to the youth gone wild?/Too fast for love and rock and roll all night/Where are you, Mr. Pyromania?/In the still of the night/Whoa-oh-oh/I'm giving up on you/Whoa-oh-oh/I'm giving up on you!

"Somebody save me, rock is dead/Somebody save me, rock is dead..."

Riley could feel herself relaxing. Jacob's singing voice was almost as beautiful as his speaking voice. That faint Southern lilt gave Riley a feeling of nostalgia. Home. Her real home. She still had that accent and it became extremely pronounced when she was emotional.

"Just Say Anything" came on next. Riley's eyes slid shut. Darkness enveloped her, swallowing her thoughts and worries. For the first time ever, Riley slept on a plane.

**********

"Girls' night out!" Sammi enthused, sashaying into Corinne's living room, where the other three girlfriends were already gathered.

It was the Wednesday following Corinne and Riley's return to L.A. Having not seen the other girls since their departure for Alabama, Corinne and Riley had been eager to get with Sammi and Piper. The four were typically inseparable. Riley was amused at the notion that she hated being away from her girls almost as much as she hated being away from Andy, but it was true. These girls and their guys were her family here on the West Coast.

"Where are we going, and who's staying sober enough to drive?" Sammi inquired.

"I'll be the designated driver," Riley volunteered. "I have to work in the morning, so I can't drink too much anyway."

"Let's go to the Whiskey," Piper suggested. "We haven't been there in a while."

The girls agreed. Riley led the way to her car.

"We want to hear that band that you guys know," Sammi said as she slid into the back with Piper.

Lynam's Slave to the Machine was already in Riley's CD player. She'd been listening to them on her way to and from work.

Corinne, Piper, and Sammi talked the whole ride to Whiskey A Go-Go. Riley offered random inserts but was focused mostly on driving.

Sammi and Riley were recognized at the door, ensuring that all four girls were let in free of charge. Riley and Piper went to claim a table while Corinne and Sammi stopped at the bar to order drinks.

"Okay," Sammi said, approaching the table and setting a Sex on the Beach in front of Piper. She situated herself on one of the chairs, crossing her long legs and tossing her white-blond hair. "You two--" She pointed at Corinne and Riley. "--have to tell me and Piper more about the band guys from your class. The e-mails both of you sent were annoyingly tantalizing."

Riley sipped her Long Island ice tea. She was letting Corinne handle this one. She didn't want to be accused a second time of being attracted to Jacob.

"What do y'all want to know?" Corinne asked.

Piper smirked. "Are they hot?"

"Why don't you just look them up on YouTube, like your dear boyfriend did," Riley said to Sammi.

Sammi pulled out her cell, and she and Piper put their heads together and searched Lynam on YouTube. "Jacob's the front man, right?" Sammi queried.

Corinne nodded.

"Did he play the fiddle when you saw him?"

"No."

Interested, Riley leaned over so that she, too, could see Sammi's phone. The screen showed Jacob with a fiddle nestled between his shoulder and his chin, his jet-black hair hiding his face.

"The bassist is cute," Piper remarked. "He kinda resembles Ash."

"In more ways than one," Riley muttered.

"He loves the ladies," Corinne explained in response to the questioning glances Sammi and Piper gave Riley.

"So what's the deal?" Sammi said. "You two were friends with these guys, Jacob and...David, was it?...in high school?"

Corinne shrugged. "Not exactly. We knew David and talked to him some, but we never really hung out. And Jacob. Well..."

"He was the person in our class that no one remembered," Riley said. "Every class has one."

Piper nodded in agreement. "Yeah. The guy that, when you're told he was in your class, you're like 'Really?'"

"He was obsessed with music," Riley announced. "And, according to David, he was painfully shy. A social butterfly he was not."

"My, my," Sammi giggled. "He grew into something quite nice, though. Are his eyes blue?"

"Yeah," Riley confirmed.

"He's like a mix of Jeremy and Andy. Is he still shy?"

"Not when he steps on the stage," Corinne answered. "But otherwise, he's still really quiet and kind of awkward."

"Well, I'm glad you two didn't have an absolutely horrible time at the class reunion," Piper said. "In fact, it sounds like you had a lot of fun."

Corinne laughed. "Everywhere except the class reunion."

"How long did you stay?" Sammi wanted to know.

"About an hour and a half," Riley said. She met Corinne's eyes. It wouldn't have been that long if they hadn't gone skinny-dipping with David, Jacob, and Cody. But why bring that up?

The conversation shifted to the subject of the Golden God Awards. The other three girls were drinking steadily; Riley, on the other hand, had only two Long Island ice teas.

Late in the evening, Riley was left alone at the table while the other three stumbled to the ladies' room. Riley used the opportunity to check her Facebook. She had been exchanging random messages with both David and Jacob over the last few days, and she had a message from each waiting in her inbox.

She typed a brief reply to David, then read Jacob's message: "My favorite movie is The Lost Boys."

Almost against her will, Riley had started to quiz Jacob about himself. So far she'd learned his favorite color (purple), his favorite two songs ever (Prince's "When Doves Cry" and Queenryche's "Silent Lucidity"), and his favorite movie.

Now, with her discovery that he played the fiddle, she asked, "Do you play any other instruments besides the guitar and fiddle?"

Corinne, Piper, and Sammi returned. It was pretty late and they were pretty drunk, so Riley ushered the three of them to her car and took them back to Corinne's. She made sure they got inside and to bed before heading home.