Warped Vision

A date, in Justin's mind, was spending time with him on the Sleeping With Sirens bus. Surprisingly, Alex had no problem with this and let me spend the ride to Chula Vista with the band. I guess this was fine by me, since Kellin and all of them would be there too. I'd much rather spend it with Pierce the Veil, of course, but that certainly wasn't going to fly by Alex, so I'd have to deal with this. I just hoped it wouldn't be too uncomfortable.

“Hey, little one!” Kellin greeted me that morning when Alex dropped me off at the bus. He took my bag for me and soon, Justin was right beside him to say hello as well. I stepped onto their moving home without a single clue what I was getting myself into. The rest of the band exclaimed their greetings once I was inside.

At first, I just spent time listening to Justin talk about the band for a while. It wasn't boring, but he didn't stop for me to talk at all, so it really didn't make me attracted to him any more than I already was. I understood, though. He knew he was part of my favorite band and thought that acknowledging that fact as much as possible would appeal to me. It might have worked if he hadn't forgotten the golden rule: always ask questions.

An hour or so passed, and I turned to watch Jesse and Kellin playing Call of Duty or something on their Xbox. Call me rude, but I longed to be playing with them instead of listening to Justin drone on about the history of the band – which I already knew.

Kellin glanced over and must have noticed, coming to sit on the other side of me. “Hey Justin,” he spoke up, “How about you teach Hannah how to play CoD? She strikes me as someone who would like it.”

I turned to him in expectancy as he stopped speaking and raised his eyebrow, silently questioning my approval. I had to clear my throat after not talking for so long. “Yeah, that'd be fun,” I squeaked.

He and Kellin both nodded and Justin stood up to get the controllers, handing one to me. I had only watched my brother and his friends play a few times, and was sure I would suck. But playing video games horribly was definitely better and less awkward than sitting with Justin with nothing to say.

“Okay,” he seemed more nervous now, “so there are two joysticks, one for moving and one for looking around. The buttons are for shooting and selecting and all that. You hold it like this.” He demonstrated something I could actually do, having picked up on it from watching Alex.

But once he started the game and tried to get me to actually do something, I was absolutely hopeless. I couldn't even attempt to move my character without running into walls or moving the wrong joystick and looking up instead of moving forward. I couldn't accomplish anything if my life depended on it.

However, I'd been so focused on my own half of the screen that it wasn't until a while later that I noticed Justin was struggling as well. I turned to him with a giggle, pushing into him with a failed attempt to get my character to move along with me. He did the same and I fell over onto the floor in front of him, still laughing. We spent quite some time doing this, but only managing to move in circles and not killing anything.

“Do you have anything else to play?” I asked him after I decided we were both better off just giving up trying to have any hand-eye coordination.

He bit his lip, squinting his eyes and looking over at me hesitantly, “Guitar Hero?”

“Okay, that's not fair because you actually play guitar!”

“Hannah,” He chuckled at me, “It's a video game, it's different.”

“Fine, fine,” I sighed as he handed a guitar to me.

Twitching my hand on the pedal, I remembered that the last time I'd played the game, it'd been at Tony's house in San Diego, and he completely kicked my ass. I'd been so sure that the video game was completely 'different,' that him being good at guitar made him bad at guitar hero. After doing so horribly, I'd had to do all of his sweaty laundry. Just the thought of it made me sick, and for less than obvious reasons.

I turned to Justin with a smile regardless, “Just don't be surprised when you kick my ass.”
He started the game and I let out a nervous breath as the song began to play. We both played on medium, and surprisingly, I was doing better than him.

“You're so letting me win!” I cried.

“Nope.” He pushed me with his hip, making me mess up and putting him ahead of me in rank. My mouth went agape and I returned the gesture, pushing him harder and into the couch with a laugh.

Despite doing this back and forth, I still ended up in first place for that song, and neither of us could believe it. We played song after song for hours after hours and he had only won a few of them. I must say, I felt pretty great, and even better knowing I didn't have any weird flashbacks about that night at Tony's house.

After finally giving up, we both fell back onto the couch and within moments I felt more exhausted than I had ever been, ever. I felt myself fall over so my head rested on Justin's shoulder, and then eventually his lap. I still didn't want to make him think I felt anything more for him than I actually did, but I was too tired to even move.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” I heard him ask. By the time I could think up an answer, though, I was already half asleep.

–

The first thing I felt when I woke up was the feeling of someone's arms around my upper back and behind my knees, carrying me somewhere. I felt the urge to open my eyes and roll over, but immediately with this urge came a wave of panic. I kept my eyes closed and continued to pretend to sleep.

In an instant, the movement I felt stopped and soon, I heard a soft, muffled voice, “I don't think her brother would like the idea of that.” It was Kellin, vicariously taking the place of Alex. And for once, I was thankful for that. I mean, I had a clue as to what was going on. A date was one thing, but sleeping in the same, closed-off bunk was another.

“I just thought she'd be more comfortable in a bunk,” Justin satisfied my assumptions, “It's not like I'd do anything.”

I heard Kellin laugh sarcastically, “No, Justin, I know you. Put her back.”

There was a long silence before I heard Kellin sigh. Soon, I could feel myself being transferred from Justin's arms to his. After a moment, I opened my eyes and smiled at him, and he placed my back on the couch.

“You're welcome,” He returned the smile before shutting the main light off and returning to his own bunk.

–

As I awoke the next morning, Kellin's whisper was once again the first thing that I heard. He must have told me to wake up a billion times before I finally obliged. I opened my tired eyes to see him kneeling beside me with a small grin and yawned, smiling too.

“We made pancakes, but Alex is here and says he needs to talk to you.”

“Darn,” I yawned again and slowly got up on my feet. Within moments of being up, I saw my brother waiting for me at the front of the bus, looking quite impatient. Right as he saw me, he handed me my bag and led me down the steps.

“Tony was looking for you,” He said simply, and I couldn't tell if the look in his eyes was excitement for me or disapproval. Inside, too, I wasn't sure how I felt either. Should I be excited or disappointed? I turned to Alex with a sigh.

“But anyway, how was it?” He asked, looking back at me with hope.

“It was good, I--”

“Hannah, wait!” I was interrupted by Justin's call and turned to see him rushing toward me. I felt my stomach tie itself in knots, and not for a good reason either. I had fun, but...well, I knew what was coming.

“Oh, hey sorry I didn't get to say goodbye,” I smiled at him before looking back to glare at Alex, but he had backed off for the moment. “Yesterday was great.”

“Yeah, it's totally fine. I was just wondering if I could try to redeem myself sometime?”

A second date, I'm guessing? Well... “Of course!” I giggled, sticking my tongue out at him, “Maybe in a few days. You need time to practice.”

He laughed too, “Alright.”

And there it was again, the awkward tension and silence. As always, I really wasn't sure what to do. Did I part ways with him at this point, or what? I stood still, my hands in my pockets, starting at my shoes. I hoped he would do the honor of returning to his bus, but nope.

Instead, he decided to be brave. Yes, it is what you're all probably thinking. He put his hand under my chin, lifted my head up, and kissed me. My stomach was still fluttering, but I'm almost certain it was because I wanted to throw up. My first kiss, and it wasn't even wanted? Wonderful.

As much as I wanted to pull back, tell him I just wanted to be friends, and rush off in the direction of the Pierce the Veil bus, I didn't. I kissed back with as much feeling as I could possibly fake and prayed Tony was watching.