I Will Make You Believe....

Jenna was very understanding and completely agreed to give us the time to decide when to tell everyone. We agreed to act as if Josh and I weren't together in public. Jenna did love taking me away for girl time whenever the boys were busy. Josh always came and slept in my hotel room whenever we had hotels. Today, however, we were leaving the bus to fly to the complete opposite end of the country. We'd get a new bus once we were there, but Josh had somehow gotten me the seat next to him on the flight.

"So I wanna run something by you..." I looked over at him, fully aware that the rest of the crew was spread out around the plane and most of them nearby.

"Shoot." He looked around, probably checking that everyone was asleep seeing as how it was nearly three AM.

"Date night tonight? I'd really like to take you up this little mountain we found the first time we came here..." He grabbed my hand and slowly began playing with my fingers.

"I mean, I think I can squeeze that in..." He chuckled.

"Well, it's not like you're going anywhere." I rolled my eyes at him.

"So I did an interview yesterday..." I made a face at him.

"You do an interview like five times a day, Spooky." He smiled at the nickname.

"Well yeah, but they wanted the 'dirty details' of single me." I sighed.

"I'm sorry if having to lie is making you uncomfortable..." I told him quietly.

"We'll figure it out when the time comes... Let's just focus on making us work for now ok?" I looked at him with a sad smile.

"I do feel bad sometimes..." He stared at me this time.

"Annabel, please do not feel bad for protecting yourself." He grabbed my hand and didn't let go when I tried to pull away.

"There's going to be times that you're going to grow frustrated with me and there are going to be times that I really feel like I can't hold it back anymore. You need to remember that no matter what anyone says, you're the first priority here." He finally let go of my hand after a moment.

"You're starting to worry me..." I told him honestly.

Josh

She stared at me after telling me I was scaring her.

"I've just been thinking a lot about it." I told her honestly.

"About what?" I sighed. We'd been on this leg of the tour for one week and have two more to go before Christmas. We wouldn't be together again until February.

"Honestly?" She just nodded. Now or never I suppose.

"I'm falling for you," Her face reddened and she looked away from me," I'm not kidding. I'm getting anxiety over not seeing you for two months after this is done..." She looked back at me.

I couldn't tell what emotions were swirling around in her hazel eyes. She didn't say a word though. After awhile I began to worry that I had messed up. Despite the honesty we've always approached each other with, I wish I had lied at this point in time. She had turned back to looking down at her hands in her lap.

I had fallen asleep at some point and when I woke up, Mark was sitting next to me. I didn't say a word to him as the plane landed. We all gathered up our things and were taken by van to the hotel. Chips had sat as far from me as possible and it was very evident and intentional to me, who knew her, versus the rest of the crew that had just grown to know her. Tyler must've noticed something was up when he made us miss the elevator on purpose.

"Tyler, I don't want to talk about this right now." I told him as the doors had just barely shut.

"Dude, Annabel is freaking out right now. She was pacing in the aisle of the plane for like ten minutes before Jenna had Mark sit up by you so she could talk to her. Whatever you said to her messed her up..." I was upset with myself for letting it get to this point.

"Are you gonna talk to her?"

Chips

I rushed to my room after we got the keys. My phone was in my hand and calling Trina before I even put my bags down.

"Hey! How's-"

"Josh said he was falling for me and he has anxiety over leaving me for two months." I interrupted her.

"Wait, what?" I dropped everything and flung myself on the bed.

"He said he was falling for me and he's been really thinking about it and told me that he was getting anxiety over leaving me for two months after this tour ended..." Trina was quiet for a minute. Then there was movement on the other end of the phone and her talking to someone else. It was a good ten minutes before she was back on the phone with me.

"When did he say all this?" She asked.

"On the plane..." I blew my hair out of my face.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't. I froze. I couldn't figure out what to do or say." Trina was quiet again and I just waited a minute for her to tell me I was being ridiculous or how I was pushing something away again. Instead she asked me a question.

"Chips, what do you like about Josh?" I made a face.

"What do you mean?" She sighed.

"Why are you attracted to Josh? Not necessarily physically, just what makes you want to be with him?" I sat up and looked at my hands.

"Well, I like how funny he is. I like how much he cares about those around him. I like how much he gives of himself every night to these kids. How much he cares for me and how considerate he's been. I like his eyes, the way he smiles, his love for X-Files and everything space related, his ability to perfect plan things, the way he cares to express himself, the way he twitches when he trying to make a joke, the way-" She interrupted me this time.

"Chips," I hummed to let her know I stopped," You know what that means right?" I waited for her to continue since I wasn't sure.

"You fell for him too..."