Wet Lips and a Summer Kiss

You know that annoying thing your body does, when you’re aware something exciting is happening soon, and you lose sleep over it, and it doesn’t seem to matter because you’re so stoked you could literally live off the adrenaline; only, when you’re meant to wake up for it, you actually don’t?

That happened to me. Except, when it did, I nearly got left behind by the heartless idiots I meant to travel with.

Okay. I will admit it. It was my fault, the whole not waking up early thing. To be mildly fair to myself, I had been on a daily pattern of sleeping at two and waking up at six because I constantly dreamt that the next day would be the day. Why would the day actually be any different than when I (wrongly) thought it had been?

It wasn’t like I had meant to just sleep through till eight, which was the supposed time the tour bus would be rolling into my driveway to pick me up. I hadn’t forced anyone to come up and yell at me that we were going to be late, which was exactly what had happened. The worst part was, no one was even mildly nice about it; though I could have rounded that off to the fact that I was still in my pajamas at a time we were meant to already be on the road.

It was the sound of a cannon firing that woke me up - though, I later realized, it had only been my bedroom door flying open and smacking the wall so hard no one was really sure how it had remained intact.

“Leighton! What the fuck are you still doing in bed?”

“Whatimizzit?” I grunted out instinctively, my body jolting up from the noise.

“It’s eight and you’re still in bed, you asshole!”

My vision cleared, and my eyes widened. “It’s eight?” Throwing off my blanket, I rolled off my bed, frantically attempting to get ready. Jace watched, a sour, condescending expression on his face.

“Didn’t I tell you that you should have slept over at Heath’s?” I ignored him, charging into the bathroom without a word. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“Yes, yes!” I yelled, tearing off my clothes and jumping into the shower. The first stream of water hit me hard, and I squeaked. Jace plowed on.

“Don’t be an idiot, Jason,” he yelled through the door, in a very poor imitation of my voice. “I’m going to be on a tour bus with you all summer, the last thing I want is to spend an unnecessary night with you guys-”

“I got the concept,” I shouted back, trying to compete with my shower and his excessively feminine voice. Of course, I didn’t let him hear the “dick” that followed, but that was my prerogative, and not his.

Fifteen minutes later found me hopping out of the bathroom, trying to pull a sock on. Jace was still waiting, his arms folded haughtily across his chest, like he was trying really hard not to hit me upside the head.

“Where are my stuff?” I demanded, wheeling around.

“We’ve already got them, you irresponsible imbecile-”

“Give it a rest, you twat, I didn’t mean to sleep in-”

“Oh my God, you always do this, Leigh, you always do this-”

“Oh my God, Jason, I’m sorry, okay, what else do you fucking want-”

“You guys!” Another voice entered the heated dialogue - this time, wafting up from downstairs, with a less angry, more urgent tone. “Can you not argue for like six seconds while we get a move on? Can you manage it without ripping out each others’ eyes?”

Jace cast me one more dark look before spinning on his heel and stalking out. I made a face at his retreating back before following, locking my door behind me. Heath was waiting downstairs, his fingers drumming impatiently on his thigh - he did this when he was nervous, like he was now.

“Great, you made it. Let’s go, let’s go,” he ushered the two of us out, still not speaking to each other. The bus was parked, though already humming, in front of my house. I boarded first, elbowing past Jace, who pinched me, to find Ritchie sitting on the couch, toying with the television that was mounted on the opposite wall.

“Yo, Leigh,” he said, unperturbed by my late entrance. “You made it.”

“Hey,” I greeted. Ritchie slid over, allowing me to settle down next to him. We both stared straight at the TV as Jace walked in, and finally, Heath, who signaled the bus driver to close the doors behind him. There was an initial jerk, where we were all thrown sideways momentarily, before the bus began to move, picking up the pace as it chugged down the narrow road.

I tried not to make it too obvious, but I was watching Jason from the corner of my eye. He was turning red - it started light, at the base of his neck, but was slowly crawling upwards, growing more and more violent as time progressed. Finally, when it looked like his head was about to explode, I spoke. “Just get it over wi-”

“How,” Jace burst out before I could even finish. “How could you sleep in on the start of the most important event of our joined lives?”

“Calm down,” I said, though, apparently, this was the wrong thing.

“Calm? You want me to be calm when you nearly blew this entire thing-”

“Dude, I woke up late. I didn’t blow up CircuitFest, okay? Can you just-”

“No, Leigh, no. I will not chill out or calm down or take a pill or whatever!” He said, hysterical. “Please, could you try to remember that we’re a band? Okay? Can you do that? Seriously, can you do that?”

“Yes, holy shit, dude, can you calm your nips?”

“My nips are calm!” With that, he turned and dramatically strolled into the bunk area.

“I’m feeling some majorly nega vibes from you two,” Ritchie said, treading slowly into the conversation. “Which is not good, you know. For our first day together.”

“Relax, he’ll eventually be okay, and I’ll eventually control the urge to neuter him,” I replied in reassurance. Ritchie sighed in response.

“Okay, so, with all that super refreshing screaming aside,” Heath sat down on the floor, facing us. “We all good on how to register for CircuitFest?”

“Yeah, we let you do it,” I replied, to which Heath nodded.

“Very good, Leigh.”

“What do I win?”

“A list,” he handed out a couple of neatly attached papers to me. Heath was like this - excessively organized and hated the smell of two men sweating in an enclosed space. Which is kind of what makes me wonder why he was in a band in the first place, considering three fourths of us were the same, biologically. “You win a list of states in which we will play, the different stages and at which times we will play on those stages, and the programme for every act of this tour, in case you want to watch something.”

“Oh, cool,” I flipped the first two pages, running my finger down the list of acts - Ritchie watched over my shoulder. “Anyone good playing?”

“I heard Beyonce was on the short list,” Heath joked.

“Uh huh,” I scanned through the names, feeling disheartened. “I don’t know half of these people. Oh - I found one I know: Summer Track Eight.”

“That’s our band name,” Ritchie punched me lightly on the shoulder.

“Oh, yeah,” I swept my finger down the listing. Possibly the only other name I recognized was All Time Low, but that was because Jace liked to blare out their music when he was bored, with no regard as to what anyone else wanted to listen to. Truth be told, their music was nice, and probably (actually, I’m like two thousand percent sure) where Jace had gotten his musical style, which he infused into every song of ours that he wrote, which I had to play bass to.

Of course, it wasn’t like I had a say in it, or would have said anything at all, since I usually listened to Taylor Swift in the shower. Taylor Swift, who Jace thinks is super hot, but also makes terrible country music.

Which, you know, I kind of disagree with.

But, yeah, I mean, whatever.