Am I Messed up, Am I Loud?

“The kind I dream about all day. The kind that keeps me up all night. Gimme that can't sleep love.” I sing into the mic.

People cheer. I get off the stage. I love karaoke bars. They always have fun songs to sing. I go up to the bar and order a glass of scotch.

“I caught the end of that, but you sounded great,” A man says.

I look over at him. Blonde hair with brown roots, a scruffy stubble, grayish blue eyes, his mouth left open ajar so I can see his gold grill, not super skinny but not chunky. There is something about him that seemed familiar.

“10 dollars,” The bartender says.
“I got it,” the man says, taking out his wallet, sliding a tenner to the bartenders.
“Oh, um, thanks. You didn’t have to pay. I mean I don’t even know your name,” I finally speak.
“Don’t mention it. Also, I am Tyler,” The man, Tyler, says with a smile. God, that’s a gorgeous smile.
“Nice to meet you Tyler. I am Ella, well Isabella, but I like Ella,” I say.
“Nice to meet you too Ella,” Tyler responds with.
I grab my scotch and take a rather big sip, which I regret right away, “I’m going to,” I start as I point to my group of friends.
“Oh, yeah, sorry, go for it,” Tyler apologizes and orders a beer.

I walk to my friends. They were all squealing over Tyler. I just brush my hair back. I ignore them. I finish my scotch after a length of time. I said bye to my friends. I ordered myself an Uber. I get in and the guy and I chat. He gets me home. I thank him. I walk in and hear a squeal and walk to the sound of the squeal.

“ISABELLA! LOOK LOOK!” My sister, Cassadee, says and hands me her phone.

I look at it. It was Tyler profile on Twitter. It was a short video of me finishing the song with he caption it with “This is the type of girl I want to marry. So lost in the music.” I groan as I hand it back to her. She then slides down to show me his last tweet. I read it “Ella her name is Ella. I love it. She’s great and beautiful to look at.”

“How the hell do you know who Tyler is?” I ask her.
“He sings for Issues and his single EP,” She answers.
“That’s why he’s familiar!” I say as I walk over to her wall to his Issues poster and look at the picture of Tyler.

I sigh and walk out.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU MET TYLER CARTER!” She squeals!
“Do your homework. I know you have that big paper due in a week.” I call back at her.

She’s been fine and not that rebellious since our parents passed away when I was twenty and her thirteen. She’s a sweet heart. She behaves. I’ve basically have raised her anyways. My parents were so busy. I’m going to school and have part time and work study. I had this Friday off, so I did something that I like to do, which is sing crappy covers of random songs to strange people. I crawl into my bed. This was my typical 23 year old life. Two crappy jobs, raising a sister, going to school, and contemplating on wither or not I should try to get a record deal. Every once in a while my sister would help me record some crappy video of me singing songs. Come to think of it, I did the cover of Tears On The Runway Part One. The singer is head over heels for me and I just want to punch his face. I pull out my phone and check Twitter. I make an anonymous tweet about tonight.

“Did Cant Sleep Love tonight by PTX and Got a leader singer in a band interested in me, cool.”

I regretfully go to Tyler’s twitter and press follow. I then followed all his bands mates and the band’s account, just to not come off suspicious. I retweeted those two tweets. I put my phone down and slowly fall asleep, enjoying the faint smell of lavender in my pillow.

*-*-*

Waking up the next morning. I got up all early. I go into Cassadee’s room. I check on her. She’s laying there on her phone. I sit down next to her.

“What do you want for breakfast?” I ask as I run my hand through her short green locks.
“I want bagels with blueberry cream cheese,” She answer.
I peck at her phone and see she’s on Tyler twitter, “Did he say anything about me?”
“Yeah, he’s happy you followed him and he noticed,” She says with a smile.
“Fuck, I’m in too deep aren't I?” I ask.
“Good luck. If you go out with him, I want to meet Sky and Josh,” She mumbles.
“Josh is pretty cute,” I mumble back and get up.

I walk off to the kitchen and start toasting the bagels. I walk back to my room and grab my phone. I walk back to the kitchen. I look at my notification center. DM from Tyler. Nope. I refuse. I see my sister had mentioned us in a comment, with a link…to my cover of “Tears on the Runway Part One”, damn her. I click open the DM and read it out loud.

“I watched the video YOUR SISTER linked,” I hear a small squeal and foot steps running to the kitchen, my sister appearing, “You’re pretty great and I would love to do a track with you in the future. Also, would love to grab a cup of coffee or some ice cream before hand.”
“You’re in deep shit. I want your laptop. You’ll get it back Monday,” I say to her.
“But, you want a record deal, this is it! You just need to record and send it in and he’ll promote the hell out of you,” She argues.
“I’m not going to use for my famous gain,” I say.
“He’s practically asking you to use him,” she says.
“No…never. Go get me your laptop,” I bark at her.
“Fuck you,” She says as she walks off to get her laptop.
“YOU LOST IT TILL WEDNESDAY!” I scream.
"OKAY!" She screams back.

She comes back down with her laptop and hand it to me. I put it down on the counter for the mean time. I give her breakfast. It is my free weekend. It's nice. I open the DM again as I start my breakfast. I type in a reply of "What are you doing later? A cup of coffee would sound great." I hope that doesn't sound too desperate. He replied after a few long stressful minutes. A simple “Hey, yeah that sounds great. Starbucks at 12?”

*-*-*

I stand outside the coffee shop for minute, I can see Tyler sitting there. I walk in and over to him. I bite my lip as I wave at him.

“Hey,” I say.
“Hi,” Tyler says with a smile.
“Should we get coffee now?” I ask.
“Yeah, let’s do it,” He answers with a smile.

He gets up and we walk to the line. I look at the options. I could use a cinnamon roll frappuccino. Once it becomes our time, I order my frappuccino and take out my wallet.

“We are together,” Tyler pipes in and takes out his wallet.

I roll my eyes a bit. He does his order and pays for the drinks. We wait for a few minutes then get our drinks.

“Do you want to walk?” Tyler asks.
“Sure,” I say with a smile.

It doesn’t seem like he was going to kill me. We leave Starbucks and start walking in a random direction.

“I like Pentatonix,” Tyler pipes up after a few minute sou silence and slurping of drinks.
“I do too. Can’t Sleep Love is my favorite song to do at karaoke,” I reply to him.
“I liked your cover of Tears On The Runway,” Tyler says with a smile.
“That’s a fun song to do. I like doing all the parts. My sister was insistent on singing your parts or Nylo’s parts,” I say.
“My actual name is Derek, not Tyler, but I just go by Tyler,” Tyler informs.
“That’s pretty cool. My middle name is Genivive, so Isabella is way better. Actually Ella is better,” I inform him.
“That’s pretty though,” Tyler comments, “So, whats your story?”
“Ummm,” I say and take a sip of my drink, “My sister is 16, name Cassadee. She’s a sweet girl. I take care of her, my parents passed three years ago. I go to college, I have two jobs. She’s working on getting a job at the local venue.”
“Wow, shit, I am sorry to hear that,” He says with a small frown.
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” I nod with a smile.
“That must be rough on her,” He comments.
“It is,” I say with a nod, “What’s your story?”

Tyler does his side of story telling. We just met and we are giving away our life stories. We stop once I whined I was out of drink and my legs hurt. He and I head back to the Starbucks. I feel my phone buzz in my pocket and I try my best to not check it.

“I think my sister,” I say as I take out my phone, “messaged me. I need to check.”
“Okay,” He says with a small nod and smile.

I take out my phone and I check it.

From: Cassie Love
He tweeted that he was excited for something and that “cinnamon bun” is something that is special to him.

I let out a small quiet sigh as I type my reply.

To: Cassie Love
Why is he so in love with me? We only just met. Fucking hell.

I put my phone away and I apologized again. He insisted that is fine, and he gets that I have to be a grown up. He also mentions that his band is playing at the local venue tomorrow, he’ll get my sister and I backstage passes. I tell him he’s too kind, but he insist that I go. I give in and decide to keep it a secret from Cassadee. She’ll appreciate it. Tyler says he’ll wait for us outside by the back.

*-*-*

CONCERT NIGHT

Cassadee and I are in the car on the way to venue. She just goes on and on about wanting to go, how it’s sold out and she can’t go. I park across the venue. She shuts up and raises her eyebrow.

“Why are we here?” She asks.
“Because we just are,” I answer.

We walk up to the back of the venue, where we meet Tyler. She squeals as he hands her a backstage pass. He then hands me mine. I put it around my neck. Cassadee is dying and she hugs him and thanks him so much. He just laughs and rubs her back, telling her “no problem.” We walk in the venue. He leads us to the tour manager to let us know we are here. Cassadee asks if she can help set up, the tour manager says it’s cool. Tyler leads us to the green room. Cassadee is jumping up and down, getting ready to pee herself. Tyler walks us in after walking in ahead of us and letting the guys know we are here. Cassadee walks up to Josh and Sky, introducing herself. Tyler takes time and introduces me to the guys. Cassadee had no problem telling the guys who she is. They all seem pretty chill with us being here. Times had passed, Cassadee had chatted the ear off of all the guys. I watched them from a far. Tyler watched me, watch them listen to Cassadee talk.

They had to go on. Cassadee and I watched them from backstage. Cassadee was having a killer time. I was glad I was able to do this for her. I feel like I have been pretty shitty lately. I was enjoying their music. Michael and Tyler were hella good vocalist. AJ and Sky was killing it on guitar. Josh was a great drummer. They were really fucking good.

Tyler had taken the time after they get off and thank us for coming. I had to get Cassadee home, because she has school tomorrow. She thanked Tyler and the rest of the guys.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” I ask.
“Hell yeah! Thank you!” She answers.

We enjoyed our ride home and she went to bed right away. I climbed into bed. I sent Tyler a quick DM, “Thanks for tonight, it means the world to me. IOU.”