If Only Until Morning

"Finally, a hotel," I breathed as I stepped out after Zack at our destination. And this was a genuinely nice hotel, not one of the shitty hovels we had to stay in all of last summer. Not that it bothered me to stay in a single room-- and sometimes a single bed-- with three guys. Just like it didn't bother me staying with four guys and a bitch on a bus that usually had at least two more males in it.

If you can't tell I'm being sarcastic, you don't know me.

Great. And now I've got the Matches stuck in my head. Maybe I'll have Shawn sing it for me later.

I linked arms with Aromi after we grabbed our suitcases and we strolled towards the place. I stopped and tilted my head at the sight before us in the lobby: about a hundred musicians, almost all of them male, all with suitcases, standing, sitting, and laying around, waiting for their room keys. I let go of Aero's arm to retrieve the camera from my bag. After a few shutter snaps, the guys closest caught on and grinned or posed. Those who didn't see me ducked for cover, fearing paparazzi.

"Madam," a burly man in a monkey's uniform said gruffly behind me. I turned and plastered an innocent expression on. "We have a no camera policy. You're going to have to give me your memory card and vacate the premise."

My doe eyes almost slipped, flashing to outrage, but I maintained them and bit my lip. An arm went around my shoulder. "She's with us," Trohman excused. "One of our newer bandies."

The gorilla seemed to take this for reasonable and lumbered away. I raised an eyebrow at the guitarist whose arms still lay around me and snapped a picture of him. "Thanks, Trohman," I said with a grin at his dazzled expression.

Gotta love flashbulbs.

After a few minutes, I finally got a keycard and piled into an elevator with about a dozen other people. Feeling my lungs constricting, I lifted my face to the ceiling and tried to take deep breaths. "You could have waited for an empty one, you know," William said, leaning his head on mine.

I twitched. "I also could have taken the stairs," I replied with a grin as the doors opened on the eighth floor.

Those on this floor poured out, leaving much more space. With a sigh of relief, I glanced again at the card in my hand. 1069. I rolled my eyes, imagining some kids from back home snickering, and followed the rest of the musicians out of the elevator.

At the same time, another elevator door opened and into the hallway flooded more people, including the rest of my band and Panic! At The Disco.

My face burned when I saw Ryan avert his eyes from me and turned in the opposite direction when I realised something. At the beginning of tour, Spencer and I made a deal to switch rooms whenever we stayed at a hotel, since he usually shared with Ryan and he wouldn't want to impede on... anything.
And yes, I saw Spencer looking for me, but I hid myself amongst taller people and slunk my way to the room Jesse and I would share.

Jesse looked at me, sort of surprised, as I slid the key in and opened the door. "I thought you were switching with Spencer," he said, following me.

I thought quickly and dropped my suitcase next to a couch. "Yeah, well," I said with a shrug. "I figured since I'm here, I'd leave my stuff." I crossed to the bathroom, shut the door, and leaned against the counter, staring at myself.

I stood there for a few minutes, rarely blinking, before lowering myself to my elbows and covering my face. "Liar," I accused in a whisper. "Fake." I raised my head and against studied my red-glazed eyes. "Come, step up in line. Witness my featured breakdown."

After a second, it occurred to me that was a good line, so I abandoned my morose mindset--if only a little-- and went back into the main part of the suite, stopping short in the door.

"Ali's sharing with us," Jesse informed me when he caught me staring. Alison glanced up and sneered, flicking her head back to the television, blaring MTV. "Is that cool with you?"

I grit my teeth and forced a smile. "Of course," I said through my teeth. I'll be the one smiling so hard my teeth are cracking.

As I was idly trying to think of a word that rhymed with cataclysm, a knock came at the door, and soon Gabe Saporta, Alex Gaskarth, and Pete Wentz had joined Jesse on the ceiling.

Too many famous boys for one room, I thought, rolling over and jotting down another line.

"Who wants to go swimming?" Gabe asked with a grin. Ali's head shot up, and with a squeal of delight, she ran to the bathroom to change. Alex grinned, seemingly to be whispering to himself under his breath. Jesse shrugged and agreed.

Then I had four sets of eyes pinned me and, in response, rolled my eyes. "And give the three of you, in addition to assumedly many other males eighteen to twenty-eight, the chance to ogle me in a swimsuit?" I scoffed. "Fat chance."

"Brendon and the guys are coming," Pete informed me, enticingly. I merely shot him a look and kept scribbling in my notebook.

"C'mon, Ange," Jesse urged, "You love night-swimming." I grumbled in reply, rolling my eyes when Ali bounced out in a bikini.

"...Zack and Bill are going to be wet and shirtless," Alex said innocently. "Among other people."

My hand stopped on the page. My eyes slowly lifted to stare at him, swerving around at the other faces in the room as well. I flipped the page shut and smiled slightly. "I suppose a swim would be nice after a long day," I said before slowly going to change.

"Son of a bitch," I muttered, tugging at my top. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist. "Stupid pituitary, still making me grow." Our three visitors were gone when I exited the bathroom-- Jesse said they'd gone to change. I glowered at Ali eying him in his trunks and pulled him along by the hand to the elevator.

I stepped out onto the pool deck and stopped, eyes going wide and suddenly wishing I'd brought my camera. With a few exceptions, such as Merrick and a handful of drummers, tour hadn't really presented the opportunity to... check out what my tourmates were hiding. But Jesus, if I had known they looked the way most of them did, I would have been shooting a three hundred photos a day.

"Hellooo! Earth to Penelope!" I snapped out of my stupour, only to fall into another one at the sight of Gabe standing in front of me. He grinned. "What?"

"...I think my hormones just exploded," I said dreamily, feeling my cheeks grow hotter.

Gabe laughed and led me over to the line of plastic deck chairs. "Looks like someone needs to jump into the pool and cool off." I tossed him a glare and dropped my towel on a chair. Someone in the pool whistled and Gabe's smile widened.

I smile wryly and gracefully strolled away. "Looks like I'm not the only one, Saporta," I shot back. I passed Alex shoving Rian into the pool and smirked when his eyes stuck to me. "Why, Alexander, if I'd have known you looked this delicious dripping wet, I'd have sprayed you with a hose the minute I met you."

Still grinning, I dived into the deep end and surfaced right next to Jack. He jumped when I poked his side and beamed when his whipped his head around. "Let's play chicken!" he shouted to everyone.

Well, that idea died because Ali refused to play--she didn't want to get her hair wet, the prima donna-- so we settled for Marco Polo, which was extremely fun. I think everyone went after the females playing because our voices were easier to pick out, but that's okay, because we were faster and trickier than they anticipated. Using Nate as a human shield? Tricking Brendon into standing still? Easy as pie.

Yummy, too.

After safely securing the towel around myself, I combed my fingers through my hair in the elevator and listened to the others' conversation. Unfortunately, Spencer caught me before I could sneak into the room and avoiding the ensuing awkward conversation.

"It's complicated, Spence," I sighed, hugging myself in the chill corridor.

Spencer pressed the key card into my hand. "Please do me a favour," he said. "It was hell being in the bus with him earlier; he kept grumbling and kicking around."

"But he doesn't want to see--"

"Rhi?" I spun around, sending droplets of water like bullets into the wall. Ryan clawed a hand through his wet hair uncomfortably. "I, um... I actually would really like if you and Spencer switched." He met my gaze anxiously.

I tugged up my towel and shifted. "Sure," I said softly, glancing at Spencer's back, already halfway down the hall. "I just need to get my stuff..."

"It's already there," he said just as quietly. Pause. "Matt brought it down a few minutes ago."

"Oh."

After standing in the hallway for another long minute or so, we walked tensely to his room. I quietly announced my plans of a shower, which was acknowledged distractedly, and shut the door. I bit my lip, tapping my foot rhythmically as the water warmed up, and took my time cleaning the chlorine out of my hair and skin. I felt embarrassed almost when I went to retrieve some sleeping clothes in a towel and caught Ryan watching me.

It wasn't that neither of us wanted to be elsewhere, I thought as we both lay perfectly still in the bed, feeling each other radiating body heat but not touching. It was that we were both still angry but didn't know how to solve the argument.Or didn't want to. I drummed my fingers on the bedspread and stared at the dark ceiling.

Never go to bed angry, the words popped up in my head, and I knew that I didn't want that to happen. I turned onto my side and pressed my lips to Ryan's jaw, hand sliding across his chest. For a second he didn't react. "What are you--"

"Shh," I whispered, turning his head to mine. Lips locked, Ryan hesitated before moving his hands down to where the end of my shirt met my boxers and peeling it off. With the disconnection, I made to move above him but didn't protest when he rolled me over onto my back.

I wanted him to forget the discomfited situation we'd gotten ourselves into, wanted to forget myself. If only by distracting from it. If only for a few moments that went back to how we felt about each other before. Hopefully still felt.