Right Place, Right Time

The venue was huge and incredibly intimidating. I had been all over Canada, festivals, shows, specials events in different venues but the Mohegan Sun was the biggest and fanciest by far.

“Okay Canadian-” Ted stood in front of me, hand on a box.

“Mack.” He remained quiet and starred at me. “Mack, my name is Mack.” I made my finger follow an invisible ball.

“Listen up Canadian,” I couldn’t help an eye roll, “You are in charge of all of it, stickers to shirts. Let me hear you say it, stickers to shirts.” He paused and together we chanted,

“Stickers to shirts. Stickers to shirts.”

“Good, any questions?” I began to pull all my hair into a high thick dark pony tail. I was wearing a black shirt with two masks on each side of a twenty one pilots logo, one was a green alien and the other a white ski mask. I rolled up the sleeves and scratched my tattoos. Summer months always made my skin a little dry and my left arm was almost completely covered in ink, it was always itchy.

Tyler gave me their CD Vessel and thanks to technology it was on my phone within a few minutes and I had been jamming a few songs while I started to organize the table.
“Hey, you’re the new merch girl?” One headphone hanging out of my shirt I looked up and I think I actually forgot how to breathe. I couldn’t talk, rather than doing nothing my big blue eyes and nodded slowly.

Spencer Smith was standing in front of me with a few boxes, another guy followed behind him with another table. “Cool! I’m Spencer, you did a good job with the table! I’m sure you’ll rock ours too.” I heard table legs snap into place beside me, causing me to jump. Spencer dropped the boxes and made his way to the back stage.
As soon as I started sorting through the merchandise for Panic! At the Disco some random guy in Fall Out Boy shirt moved my original table to put up a new one between the two opening bands and dropped more boxes.

“Have fun chick.” With a salute he was gone and I just starred at everything. Everything I was accountable for.
In reality, it took me just over an hour to get everything organized and perfected. I’m one of those people who freak out until she has a handle on everything, even if the tasks don’t take that long.

“Where do you…. You did this all yourself?” I turned around to see a team of 10 or so, all arena workers who looked mildly surprised.

“Wasn’t I supposed to? Two different people told me… I… fuck.” My hands landed on my hips and sighed.

“Cool, we’ll be back at 7:00!” The same kid said and disbanded the crew. I flopped back into the metal chair and put my forehead on the table. The arena had wifi and I scrolled through my Facebook. When I had stopped to nap last night I had done the logical stuff, I had called my college, gave them my student number and said I was deferring till the winter semester. On Facebook I switched the status to single, and deleted Mike and Rebecca. They had each sent me messages, actually a good amount of people had. At this point I had been gone for maybe 24 hours and the only person really freaking out was my mom.

It was pretty rare I didn’t reply to her. She always meant well she was very overbearing and would endlessly push into anything she believed was best… like college.
Mom, I’m on a road trip solo, I’m fine. Will message when I can, Love Rowan

“Rowan huh? That’s a cool name!” I was weird to hear someone use my first name. When I took my head off the table and looked up I saw Josh in a black wife beater, it as open on the sides all the way down near his hips. Zebra stripes lines the sides.

“Oh… no, she just calls me- Don’t you have a sound check or something?” I smiled wide and tucked away my phone.

“Yeah in like twenty minutes, just wanted to see how you were doing with the table... they're all done? Where's the crew?” He looked around and I couldn't help but stare at him, don't get me wrong it's not like I wanted a whole new relationship or anything but something to look at? Maybe someone to curl up with for a few nights? Humans like comfort and last time I checked we were both human.

“Apparently they were supposed to help me with the tables but no one told... me, uhm that.” I rested my chin in my hands and grinned up at him.

“You set up all three tables? Nice...” He hooked his thumbs on his belt loops and rocked back and forth on his heals, “Rowan.” My grin dropped and he laughed.

“No one calls me Rowan, Joooshua.” I stretched out his name and he flopped into the seat.

“I like my name, I even like it all stretched. From now on Tyler has to address me as Jooooshua. Now as for you, why wouldn't anyone call you Rowan? It's different and kinda cool. Like a dragon.” He looked so excited and I couldn't help but snort.

“Okay well tell that the years of kids in school who couldn't say my name and then just said it was stupid. Everyone can say Mack!” I threw my arms up and shrugged.

“Well I wanna call you Rowan... or Row.. Row-Row hah.” Josh started to laugh until he saw my face and he cleared his throat. “Rowan?” He smiled and my eyes rolled.

“Fine, you can call me Rowan.” Suddenly he jumped up with a huge grin.

“Wonderful! Well Rowan I have a soundcheck to run off to but, whenever you get the chance you should come check it out.” From his back pocket he pulled out a pass with the words 'ALL ACCESS.' He dangled it in front of my face.

“Awe thanks man! Maybe I'll have to sneak away.” I went to grab it by the lanyard and he caught my hand.

“You really should... wait till you see our post concert.” His smile was so infectious and gave my hand a quick peck before running back towards the stage.

I spun around quickly and twirled the pass between my fingers. I thew it over my neck and flipped my ponytail.

It wasn't long before the crew came back and we all got to work. The doors opened and like a sea the fans flooded in.

“It's totally on.” I heard one of the guys to my left muttered.