Red

July 16, 2012 – Buffalo, New York

It was the first day off we had had in what seemed like forever. I woke up and rolled out of my bunk, padding into the bathroom. I did my business and then checked the back lounge. No one was there so I made my way up towards the front. No one was there either.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said pushing my unruly hair out of my eyes. There was a note on the table and I grabbed it quickly reading Jack’s messy writing.

Hey bitch,
You slept in, so we left your ass! Have fun!
Love, Jack

“Oh how loving.” I said with a fake smile as I crumpled up the piece of paper tossing it away. I went and grabbed my phone and sent him a text.

Me: Thanks assholes. Love you too.

I scrolled through my contacts finding Alan’s name and hit his number to call him praying he was still around so I wouldn’t spend the whole day alone on the bus.

“Hello?” He asked into the phone groggily.

“Are you sleeping?” I asked with a laugh.

“Yeah, I got so drunk last night Raegan. You have no idea.” He said with a laugh. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, Jack and Alex fucking left me so I have nothing to do all day.”

“You can come with us. We’re all going to lunch I think.”

“Is Austin going to be there?” I asked feeling unsure of going.

“Yeah, probably. But who cares. Just come have fun with me and Aaron. Stop being a brat.”

“Ugh, fine. I’ll be over soon.”

We all piled into taxis to go to the local Cheesecake Factory. I had gotten smushed in between Austin and Alan in the taxi. Feeling Austin’s arm rubbing up against mine during the car ride was sending my stomach into turmoil. My arm felt like it was on fire and as we arrived and he climbed out of the car, I could still feel him on me.

I sat next to Alan at lunch and ordered the fried macaroni and cheese balls, which are a fave of mine at The Cheesecake Factory. I had a great time laughing with him and Aaron the whole lunch. Adam who was seated across from us kept snapping pictures. Austin and I kept stealing glances at each other across the table. He almost looked angry I was spending so much time with Alan and not him.

“He was pissed this morning that you called me…” Alan mumbled to me so that no one would hear us.

“Are you kidding me? He’s the one who was being a dick…”

“He stopped talking to that girl.”

“Are you sure?” I asked louder than I should have.

“Yeah.” Alan said dropping his voice even lower. “I’m completely positive.”

I looked up at Austin who was laughing at something Tino was saying. If he had really stopped talking to Kasey, then I felt like everything really did have a chance of working out.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I opened the door to Of Mice & Men’s bus clumsily and let myself in. I made my way up the stairs and stopped in the doorway when I saw Austin sitting on a couch. Thousands of letters from his fans were spread out around him and he was pouring over each one taking in every little detail. His eyes scanned the handwritten notes quickly, a smile spread across his face as he read. He paid me no attention; I didn’t even think he knew I was standing there.

I cleared my throat pushing a lock of hair behind my ear and let out a, “Hey.”

He looked up then, his smile spreading wider when his eyes found mine. “Hey.”

“Going through some fan stuff?” I asked mentally kicking myself for stating the obvious.

“Yeah,” He sighed. “I have to ship some home to make room for more.”

“That’s insane…” I muttered. He turned back to what he was doing leaving us in that awkward silence that seemed to haunt us now.

I made my way to the bathroom. I paid extra attention to my hair and makeup in the mirror before stepping back out and heading towards the front lounge again.

“This one talks about you!” He said with a laugh looking up at me from the letter. “Listen, ‘I met Raegan the other day and I couldn’t believe how kind she was. She was so willing to sit and talk with me. We shared curly fries and she gave me some advice. I really like her Austin. I’m so glad you guys are friends. She seems like such an amazing girl. You should keep that one around.’” As he read the last few lines his voice drifted away as if he was realizing what he was saying.

“I remember her.” I said keeping the subject up. “She was so sweet. I was buying fries and she came up to me and introduced herself. I saw the cuts on her wrist and I asked her to share my fries with me and I just talked to her about everything. She couldn’t stop telling me how much she loved you and how you saved her life.”

Austin had a smile on his face as he folded up the girl’s letter and placed it in the box he was shipping home.

“Look, Austin…I really want to talk to you.”

He looked up and took in my expression. He placed the pile of letters that had been on his lap on the couch next to him and turned his full attention to me.

“First of all I just wanted to say I’m really sorry for how I’ve been acting lately. It all started when your chest hurt. I was really worried about you and I came out to find you guzzling alcohol and being an idiot-“

“Rae, I-“

“Please, let me finish.” I said with a sigh running a shaky hand through my hair. He nodded for me to continue. “And then I talked to Alan about everything and he mentioned Crissy and Gielle. I freaked when I found out you had been married and I Googled her and I freaked more when I read the stuff online…” Tears started threatening to spill as I tried to pull myself back together. “I got so afraid that you would do to me what you did to her so I panicked and pushed you away. Which inevitably wasn’t a good idea, because then that awful rumor went around and you and Kasey and I was so made all over again.”

By then I was crying and Austin had stood up and came and sat next to me on the couch. I tried to wipe the tears away so he wouldn’t see them. He took my hands and held them down into his lap. I looked up into his brown eyes and saw they were full of sadness.

“Rae…” He whispered wiping away some of my tears with his thumb. “If you had told me all of this do you know how much bull shit we could have avoided the last few days?”

I laughed slightly at this and found myself smiling at him.

“I’m so sorry for what I put you through. I don’t talk about my exes because they all ended pretty shitty. Most of what you read about Gielle is a lie.” He sighed and looked away from me as he began to tell his side of the story, the side I had been dying to hear for days. “I was on tour and I met these girls who said they were good friends with one of Gielle’s friends and big fans. So we let them have backstage passes and they came to hang out with us after the show. We were drinking and we took a bunch of stupid pictures together and one of the girls put them up on Facebook. Well Gielle’s friend saw them and called up the girl I had met and asked what was going on and the girl started saying I slept with her that night, which I totally didn’t do. I slept in Shayley’s bed with him that night. Anyway, Gielle’s friend called her up and told her I cheated on her. And Gielle ran out and cheated on me to get back at me without even trying to talk to me about anything first. Long story short, Gielle called me in hysterics saying she was pregnant and that she knew I had cheated on her and she was getting a divorce and an abortion. I pleaded with her up and down to work things out with me and to realize that I didn’t cheat on her. Her and her friends plastered all this shit all over the internet and I started getting so much hate for things I didn’t even do. Then I found out she had cheated on me and had lied about being pregnant, fucking bitch.”

I sat there in shock listening to his side of the story and I felt so awful for ever thinking he would hurt someone like that. I should have known that he wouldn’t do something like that. I should have known when Alan said Gielle was the bitchest of them all that that couldn’t have been the truth. I looked up into his eyes again and shook my head. “I’m so sorry I believed her lies and I didn’t come to you.”

“It’s okay.” He said with a smile. “I understand and I accept your apology. I just don’t talk about it much because it just makes me really angry and brings back a lot of bad memories. I guess because of her I have a ton of trust issues now. But that’s something I’m willing to work on. I’m sorry for believing the lies that were going on about you too.”

I placed my hand at the back of his neck, rubbing small circles as I smiled at him. We leaned in for a kiss at the same time and when our lips connected it felt like we had both been hit by an overwhelming passion. His lips moved across mine feverishly and he was soon pushing my body down with his so I was laying on my back and he was ontop of me. Just as he deepened the kiss and I pulled back and put my finger to his lips.

“Explain Kasey.”

“I promise you I didn’t even kiss her on the lips. I was just trying to make you jealous because I was jealous you were hanging out with Alan so much and not me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him pretending to consider his answer, but my smile broke free before I could even try to hold it back and I let out a laugh before his lips came crashing back down onto mine and our tongues began to dance.

“Oh dear god!”

“AHHHHH!”

At the sound of voices we looked up to see Alan and Phil standing in the entrance both shielding their
eyes.

“I see you two have stopped being fucking pathetic.” Alan said as he made his way through the front lounge with his eyes closed. “We’re going to see Ted soon, are you two coming?”

“Yes!” Austin said climbing off of me and helping me up.

“I just wanted my weed.” Phil explained trying to get to his bunk.

“You guys can open your eyes you know.” I said with a giggle as Austin began to clean up the gifts from the fans so nothing happened to them.

This time in the taxi I found myself smushed between Austin and Alan again. But Austin and I were holding hands and purposely leaning into each other. I was glad that the awkward silence had finally disappeared and I hoped it was never to return.

We made our way into the theater and tons of kids came running up to Austin. He made time to meet with all of them, promising to catch up with us later.

“Check your Instagram.” Alan whispered to me with a devilish smile as he stood in front of me in line to buy tickets. I pulled out my phone and opened the app. I had a notification that I had been tagged in a post and I clicked on it to see Alan had taken a picture of me leaning against Austin in the car, our hands intertwined. The caption read: “So Happy Raestin worked things out! @AustinCarlile
@RaeJones #OTP”

“You’re so lame…” I said with a laugh as Austin bounded up behind us and paid for my ticket before I could have even tried.

“You didn’t have to do that!” I protested as he pulled his hood up and put sunglasses on.

“I wanted to. Now come on before I get spotted again!” He said taking my hand and pulling me into the theater.

The movie was hysterical and we all spent the drive back to the venue quoting our favorite scenes.
The guys split up to go party. I promised Austin I’d spend the night with him so as he returned to his bus; I went to mine to get jammies and a pillow. I walked back and found him in the back lounge getting ready to play Nintendo 64.

We played a few rounds of Mario Kart before calling it a night and climbing into his bunk.
As soon as the curtain was closed, his hands were all over me and our lips located each other in the darkness. I climbed on top of him and we began to grind against each other as we kissed.

“Please tell me you have condoms this time…” I mumbled as I kissed along his jaw line.
He laughed and nodded flipping me over so that he was on top. We started undressing each other, my hand found its way into his pants grabbing onto him hard. He moaned and bit my collar bone skin lightly.

He kissed his way down my body and back up again. He pulled a condom out of its package and slipped it on easily. He kissed me as he positioned himself.

“Rae?”

“Mmmm?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?” His question made me laugh which made him giggle too. “It just doesn’t seem right doing this if we’re not official!”

“Yes! Yes, I will be your girlfriend!” I said grinding my hips into his. “Now, will you please get on with it?”

He gave me a lusty smile before pushing into me hard causing both of us to moan. He started off slow as I kissed along his collar bone finding a spot on his neck that drove him wild. I raked my fingernails down his back as he started to pump faster, meeting his rhythm with my own hips. We both finished at the same time, panting loudly.

“I love you.” He mumbled kissing my forehead before rolling off of me. I bit my lip realizing what he had just said to me. I rolled to face him and looked him in the eyes as best I could in the dark bunk.

“I love you too, Austin.” I said.

He kissed me softly before going to the bathroom to get rid of the condom and clean himself up. He came back and wrapped me up in his arms. With a kiss on the back of my neck we both fell asleep easily.