Hold Fast

To say that we were happy to be home was an understatement. When we walked into my house, my mom ran over to us and called for Kellin’s mom. She came running and wrapped Kellin up in a hug. I nudged the guys to keep walking, letting them have some privacy. We were walking into the back yard when Kyle pulled me aside.
“What’s up?” I asked, leaning against the wall of my house.
“I’m going to head home.” He gave me a weak smile. “I’m glad Kellin’s safe.” I reached over and gave him a huge hug. There were no words to express how much he had done for me. I pulled back and he patted my shoulder.
“I’ll see you around.”
“Bye.” I waved him off. He stopped and said something to my mom before walking out of the house.
“What was that about?” Jaime asked, walking up next to me.
“Nothing.” I smiled at him and pulled him over to my brother and Tony. We stayed in the backyard, talking about this and that, waiting for Kellin to join us. It was about a half hour before he came out. He joined us on the patio and sighed.
“Alright, so where’s this concert I keep hearing about?” We all stared at him. “What? You guys are still playing next week right?” I laughed a little.
“Yeah, it’s in Denver next Wednesday.” Mike explained.
“Awesome, so that means that practicing needs to be happening.” Kellin chuckled. We joined in his laughter.

Over the next couple of days, we spent almost all of our free time at Jaime’s. I knew that no one would say it, but we were really nervous. The venue we were playing at was pretty well known and as far as we had been told, we were opening for a really big band. We hadn’t heard of them, and assumed they weren’t part of the genre we usually listened to. Mike had downloaded a little of their stuff and from what we heard they were pretty decent.
Kellin, after visiting a doctor and spending a day in the hospital for a minor surgery, rarely left my side. His mom had agreed to let him stay over at my house while vacation was still going. It was nice to be so close to him after him being gone for that week. He spent New Years with us and his mom had joined us a little after the party they held at her office. They were pretty much family to us now.
The day before the show, we all sat in Jaime’s garage going over some details. It was going to be a pretty basic set up and the crew from the venue was going to help us put everything together before the venue opened. It was so much more exciting and felt more real since tomorrow was the big day.
“So what time do we have to leave?” Jaime said from behind the papers he was reading.
“Um, well Denver is like an hour from here and call time is at four so I say we leave at two and grab something to eat before heading to the venue.” Tony suggested, looking intently at the map in front of him.
“Ok, so my dad agreed to let us use his work van for transport on one condition.” Mike became the focus of attention, but looked to me to continue.
“I have to drive.” I stated simply.
“Dude, when was the last time you even drove that thing?” Jaime set down his paperwork.
“This last summer.” There were collective groans across the group.
“Hey guys, it can’t be that bad.” Kellin came to my defense. I gave him a grateful smile.
“Kellin you have no idea.” Tony laughed. “You only say his driving on the way back from Oregon, and that was on flat land.”
“Yeah, I hope you don’t get car sick easily.” Mike added. I smacked him on the arm.
“Hey, that only happened once, and it was not my fault!” I exclaimed. “Besides, I wouldn’t have drifted if someone hadn’t poked my side.” I glared at Jaime who raised his hands defensively.
“How was I supposed to know you were ticklish?”
“We’ve been friends since kindergarten!”
“Wait.” Kellin interjected. “Vic I didn’t even know you’re ticklish and we’ve-“
“Woah! Too much information alert.” Mike cut him off. Kellin and I blushed causing the guys to laugh.
“Oh Mike, don’t act like they’re the only ones who fuck on a constant basis.” Jaime smacked him on the shoulder.
“Yeah, but Tony and I don’t talk about it.” He defended.
“No, you don’t talk about it Mikey.” I chuckled. “Besides, you’re not the quietest person.” He looked at me, flabbergasted. He went to say something back, but decided against it as a red blush covered his face. Even his ears went red.
“Ah Mike.” Tony leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be embarrassed. I love your voice.” He just sighed and went back to what he was doing.
In a few more hours, we were pretty much ready for tomorrow. We had everything ready to be packed the next morning and all of the directions and paperwork was printed and set aside. We wanted tomorrow to go as smoothly as possible. The less screw ups we have in the beginning, the easier things would be in the future.
Kellin and I were walking home together. We had left a little earlier than the rest of the guys since there was nothing else for us to do. Mike stayed to get his kit packed and Tony and Jaime were going to do some maintenance on their guitars. The night was brisk, but all in all it wasn’t too cold. Kellin had his arm hooked around mine and we were walking closely together. It was crazy how comfortably we fell back into our usual pattern. It was almost as if he had never left. I was pulled from my thoughts when he spoke.
“Oh, I forgot to mention something.” I looked at him, expecting him to continue. “Justin and the guys are driving here for the show.” He gave me a big grin.
“Really?” I stopped walking. “That’s awesome. It’ll be nice to have some familiar faces in the crowd.”
“That’s what I said.” He tugged my arm and we started walking again. “They said they’d meet us in Denver tomorrow.”
“Where are they now?” I asked.
“Um, last I checked they were in Salt Lake.”
“Oh that’s still a long drive.”
“Yeah, but they’re leaving early in the morning. They said they wouldn’t miss your guy’s debut for anything.” I was really happy to hear that. Over the last week, we had been texting Kellin’s friends from home and it was like we had been friends the entire time. They were cool guys and we were glad to have met them. Albeit I would have preferred it under different circumstanced, but I was happy none the less.
Kellin and I fell into comforting silence as we made our way into the house and up to my room. We both changed and got ready for bed, wanting to be up early for tomorrow. We crawled into bed and cuddled closely together. We talked a little bit about nothing in particular until Kellin fell asleep. I watched him a little bit before closing my eyes and relaxing. My last thought of the night was “I could get use to this,” and I drifted off to sleep.