Blinded By Adoration

“Mind if we stop at my house for a minute?” Lola spoke up after a long silence in the car. I nodded my head and realized it was only 6:57 am. Leave it up to Lola, to be the first person to arrive at the event. We took a slight detour and headed to her house. She proudly smiled to herself and I asked “Why’re you so happy?” “I just know that today’s gonna be really fun, I missed you.” She blurted out in a hurry. I raised my eyebrow, knowing she was up to something. We pulled up to her house about 20 minutes later and walked up to her front door. Lola pulled her keys out and unlocked the door as she flung the door open. I gawked at her redecorated living room. “Wow. Home make-over, much?” I chuckled. “No, just the front room. Needed to feel alive.” She said. I heard pitter-patter come down the stairs to be greeted by Baby, Lola’s 2 year old Husky. “Hey girl, I missed you!” I rubbed her stomach as she rolled over with her paws in the air. I made my way to her bathroom, completely forgetting that I didn’t do my hair at home. I took my hair out of the messy bun it was in and brushed through the tangles. I turned on her worn out straightener and let it heat up. I quietly hummed a random tune in my head as I began to flat iron my dark brown hair. I ran my fingers through it a couple times before opening my eyes widely, debating if I should put on makeup or not. I shrugged my shoulders, knowing it’ll end up smeared anyways. I heard Lola rummage around in the next room before she shouted “Can you help me look for my phone?” We searched her whole entire house for a good hour before she yelled “Found it!” from her bedroom. I sighed and collapsed onto the couch “Finally” I said relieved. “Okay, now we can go!” She smiled with her phone in hand. I shot her an evil glare “The gates open in 30 minutes! You better step on it!” I said. We arrived at the venue about 15 minutes after the gates opened and it was completely flooded with people. I grabbed Lola’s hand and pulled her behind me as I made my way through the crowd to see the list of times my favorite bands would be playing. “Sleeping with Sirens starts at noon, Falling in Reverse starts at 2:30” I shouted over the normal warped noise. “And Of Mice and Men start at 4.” I added. She smiled while scanning over the list of bands “Okay, let’s go.” “Where? The bands don’t start for another 3 hours!” I raised an eyebrow. Lola dug in her purse for a second before pulling out two lanyards with attached laminated passes. She smirked and said “Put this on and follow me!” Her grip tightened around my wrist as she began running towards a gate that had an obvious sign that read “Restricted. No one without granted access beyond this point.” She stopped at the gate and showed the guards our passes as he squinted his eyes and debated on letting us through or not. I mean, why would he? It says no one beyond this point. I didn’t even know where we were going. He nodded his bald head and scanned his card to open up the gate just enough to let us through. She mumbled to herself “Easy enough.” “Where are we going?” I questioned, looking around to see that we were surrounded by tons of tour buses. Lola explained something but I couldn’t understand her over the insanely loud generators that were obnoxiously running. She stopped on her heels for a second and turned to me and said “Stop asking so many questions! Just enjoy the day, it’s your birthday!” She deviously smiled. I smacked my forehead, not wanting her to remember that is was my birthday. I hated birthdays. Everyone treated me like I was royalty or something, I’m no one special. And I, for one hate being treated like I’m much more than I actually am. I’m simply just Noah. I sighed as she groaned “Oh, come on! Seriously?! Did you think I’d forget your birthday?” “I wish” I mumbled. Lola rolled her eyes and led me down an aisle of buses before stopping infront of a half blue and half silver bus. She beamed “Do you want to meet my cousins? They’re in a band.” She nudged me and winked as she said the last part. I chuckled “Sure.” I’ve never really met anyone from her family before, besides her siblings. We walked to the door as I quietly hid myself behind her small figure, not wanting to meet anyone. She banged on the door and yelled “It’s Lola, open up perra!” I quietly laughed to myself just as the door flew open and Lola and I locked eyes with a guy, rubbing his eyes. “Call me a perra again and I won’t let you on the bus, gilipollas!” He laughed as he held his arms out to squeeze her into a hug “I missed you, Vic” She said. “I missed you too, Lola.” He smiled and backed out of the hug. She turned to me and grinned. “Noah, this is my cousin, Vic.” I looked up to meet his tired dark brown eyes with a smile “Vic, this is Noah.” Lola finished. “Noah, huh?” He questioned my name. I let out a small frustrated sigh, “Yeah.” I hated when people asked me about my name. “Well it’s nice to meet you, Noah.” He chuckled. I didn’t find any amusement in it so I just bluntly responded “You too.” I wasn’t in the mood for smart remarks this early in the morning. Did I mention I wasn’t a morning person? Yeah well, I’m not. “Come in, I’m boutta get the guys up!” He cheerfully announced. Wow, are her whole family morning people too? I followed behind Lola as we stepped up into the bus. “You know where everything is, Lola. Make yourselves at home.” Vic smiled then turned to walk towards the back of the bus.