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

5 days

I didn't see her for 5 days.

The bus had just pulled into the parking lot when she showed up. She hopped out of a white Jeep and waved good bye to the guy driving before walking immediately over to the driver. I joined them quickly.

"Hi, I'm Ajax. I'll be the TM for the band on this bus and this is Jake, he's the singer." I politely smiled and held my hand out for the man.

"Hi, I'm John. I'll be your driver." We all laughed at his tone.

"Well John, ready to get this show on the road?" John nodded at Jax.

"Absolutely little lady. Let me know when we're good to start driving. I'll be in the front." Jax smiled and nodded before going and starting to load up the trailer.

I silently helped her while she did her checks and got all of the equipment into the trailer. We finished with the gear and returned to the room to grab our remaining bags.

"Jax" I pulled her aside.

"What?" She looked a me calmly.

"We can't keep fighting like this. It's going to make all these tours hard." She smiled.

"We that isn't an issue any longer. I work for ADTR after this tour is over."

Before I could respond she was outside and in the bus. My mind was running at a million miles a minute after that. I couldn't comprehend what had just happened. All I could do was grab my bag and head towards the bus.

She had claimed one side of the table as her own and was probably working on day sheets or budgeting, her headphones were in. Not that i would dare speak to her anytime soon. The fact that she was calm should have been a dead giveaway to just how upset she was, but there's no fixing it now.

I ended up just going to my bunk. Jax had finally broken and there was no fixing this issue. Moving on was an option however. My phone rang for the first time in what felt like forever.

"Hello?" I answered with out looking at the caller ID.

"Jake! When are you guys rolling in?" I recognized Madi's voice almost immediately. She had pretty much forced her number into my phone last year after our small stint on warped a few years ago and I've been talking to her ever since. We really hit it off and maybe now was the time to act on that.

I sigh and looked out of my bunk curtain and into the front lounge where Jax was now on the phone. I shouldn't be waiting around for her anymore...

"Hey Madi, We're actually on our way to the venue." She squealed a bit and I chuckled.

"Sweet, I'm already here with my guys. We should hang out when you get here." I looked out of the bunk again. Jax was still on the phone and We were pulling off of the highway.

"Yeah let's grab dinner." She seemed to pause for a second.

"Really?" I had explained to her sometime this last year that theres was someone else I had strong feelings for, but it seems that this would be the best option.

"Yeah, Let's go out. We haven't seen each other in a few years." I smiled.

"Alright cool, wanna meet me at the ticket booth closest to the bus lot at 8?" I hummed.

"That should work."

She seemed excited and we continued to talk for the next twenty minutes before the bus had parked and I needed to help Jax move the gear.

"I'll see you tonight Madi." We said our good byes and I hopped out of my bunk.

"Alright John, I believe this is for you. We will see you tomorrow." Jax handed John a hotel card and some cash. John prompted waved goodbye and exited the bus.

"What do you want to get first?" She walked out of the bus and back towards the trailer with the keys for it in hand.

"Well first thing we need to do is find your stage manager and figure out what we are doing from there."

She dropped the trailer door and pulled the head cases out.

"Then why are you pulling gear out?" She hummed while opening the case.

"You guys didn't tell me that you hadn't loaded the back tracks for the new songs into this computer." She pulled our show Mac out and replaced the lid before sitting on the case.

She was scrolling through the tracks within the DAW with her right ankle tucked under her left thigh to balance the computer while her left leg dangled. Her face set in a very calm expression while she typed and clicked away at the computer. I sigh before walking over and jumping on the small case, almost falling off. I situated a leg on either side of her and pulled myself closer to her.

"What are you doing Jake?" She asked without looking away from the computer.

I wrapped my arms around her waist and rested my head on her shoulder to watch her work. She was shuffling everything around so only the currently needed and used tracks would be readily available and everything we didn't need was in a file to be sent to the drop box.

"Watching you work." She just sighed and closed the laptop before hopping off the case.

"We can't keep doing this Jake" She opened the front of the case.

"What?" She placed the computer back into its padded slot and closed it before standing.

"We fight and one of us walks away or we scream at each other until someone else intervenes. It's not a friend things anymore, it's not ok." She crossed her arms and looked down.

"I know."