How Many Times Can You Race Around the Tree Before You Catch Me?

The drive lasted until the mid evening time when I pulled into The Residence Inn about a mile from the venue. Jax was still sound asleep in the passenger seat, I left her to sleep and went inside to check in.

"Hello, welcome to Residence Inn. Are you checking in?" I smiled and nodded at the young woman at the desk, resting my arms on the counter.

"Name?"

"It should be under Jake Avarice." She looked up from her computer for just a moment before smiling and looking back down at her computer.

"5 nights-" She was going over the details of our booking when my phone started to ring. I picked it up to my ear.

"Hold on" I told the person on the end of the line and returned my attention back to the woman.

"Yes that's correct." She nodded and handed me the envelope with the keys.

"Have a great stay." I thanked her before hurrying back out to the van.

"Hello?" I held the phone back up to my ear.

"Hey man, you guys get to Texas ok?" I sighed at Mikey.

"Define ok" He chuckled. I check on Jax one more time before going to find our room.

"You guys fight like a married couple." I groaned while looking at the building numbers.

"I'm just protective and she's independent. You know that." I found the room and slide my key into the door. It flew open allowing me to step in.

"No you like her and can't stand her doing anything. You want to treat her like a princess but Jax was and will never be a princess."

I sighed at the words of my friend while sitting on the couch with my legs up on the coffee table.

"It's not that, I just don't like watching her over extend herself. It's stressing her out." I could practically picture Mikey rolling his eyes at my words.

"I don't know why you keep denying that you like her, we all already know." I sighed yet again.

"Listen Mikey, even if I admitted it you know it would never happen. She doesn't believe in relationships."

Mikey was silent because he knew this very well. Jax has this view that if she's ever with anyone she'll be treated differently and it will prevent her from advancing in the industry. We don't blame her for having this view because females generally have a bad name. It doesn't help that someone flat out told her that no self respecting woman tours. That was her first tour.

"I gotta go unpack the trailer. I'll shoot you a text when I'm done." I stood and hung up the phone before heading back outside.

Jax had woken up and was on her phone reading something.

"We have a pretty big room. Do you wanna clear the trailer out and out everything into the room so we can do the writing and recording? Then it'll be ready to move into the bigger trailer and the extra merch." She gave a small, lazy nod and stood.

"Let's get this done, drop the trailer and go get food. I'm starving." I agreed with her and we started working.

We made several trips to get everything into the room. We organized everything and took a note of the condition and what we had. We also did a merch count of what little we had. Luckily the room was a large "house like" suite, it had two stories. Downstairs was a full kitchen, living room, and bathroom. Upstairs was a loft with a bed, tv, dresser, and bathroom. Eventually, we had gear spread out all through the living room area and merch all over the kitchen. Jax and I were watching TV with a bag of taco bell on the couch between us and trash sitting on top of a few guitar cases that were haphazardly stacked.

"What time is your friend coming to get us in the morning?" I asked her quietly during a commercial.

"He'll be here to get you around noon tomorrow?" I nodded and looked over at her.

"You mean us?" I chuckled.

The laugh died quickly when I noticed that she wasn't looking away from the TV.

"You aren't going?" I asked her.

"No," She swallowed her food and turned towards me,"I have calls and business to take care of. So you're going to go see Trevor by yourself."

"You can take a few hours to come do some demos." I rolled my eyes at her.

"No Jake, I have to take care of this stuff and pick up the new merch."

I just stared at her. Weren't we over this argument?

"Are you still made at me?" She glared at me.

"Aren't we over this argument?"

I shook my head and stood to gather my garbage and hers. I had at of it in the bag before I walked into the kitchen and placed it in the trash bag under the sink.

"Jake?" I sighed and turned towards her.

She was now standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at me. Her eyes were wide with anger and her mouth was a tight line.

"Clearly we're not if you won't do the things you normally do with me...."

I leaned forward and braced both of my hands on the table in the kitchen while I waited for her to reply to my statement. That reply didn't come. Instead she ran up stairs and I heard the bathroom door slam. With a sigh, I started cleaning up the merch since I had been standing right by it. I box up everything and called Mikey.

"Sup bro?" I sighed into the phone while folding shirts.

"Fight again?" He asked jokingly.

"It's not funny." Mikey remained quiet.

"You guys really have to stop this. You're going to end up stressing each other out and she is going to leave. Do you want her to leave?" I sighed again as I closed a box.

"No I don't want her to leave. For god sake's Mikey," I paused to look upstairs and make sure the bathroom door was still closed, " I love her, but everything ends in a fight." A throbbing started in my head, the opening sign of a migraine.

"Well, tell her if you love her so much." I hummed in annoyance.

"Because proclaiming some undying love for my best friend of almost twelve years is going to prevent us from fighting suddenly." He groaned.

"Well don't ask me for help if you don't-" He words were interrupted when I heard the bathroom door open.

"I'll be back on Wednesday. Here's his number, call him around 11 to ask when he's getting here." Before I could say anything she was down the stairs and out the door.

"She just left dude." with a groaned, I dropped myself down into the chair.

"This really needs to stop guys. It's all fun in games while we're actually on tour, but while we're home it's like you guys just hate each other. This is the first time it happened while we were on a tour and it's clearly not going to go away..." His words trailed off.

"Mikey, I will try and not fight with her from now on." His silence came off as irritation and disbelief, and not the good kind.

"When pigs fly is when you too will stop fighting." I rolled my eyes at his comment and stood with the intention to go upstairs.

"Or you guys finally get together like you should have been when we first met." I nearly choked on the breathe I had just taken.

"That would not have been the case." I held on to the railing along the stairs waiting for his response.

"Pssh, dude we all knew you fucking wanted in her pants and that's when we all met. You'd already known her for two years." I sighed. His words angered me in more ways than I could have ever explained but he wasn't wrong.

"I'm going to bed Mikey, I'll let you know when Jax comes back." I ended the call without waiting for his reply and headed up the stairs.

I wanted to change and then go wait for Jax.