I was stood in our dressing room, looking over the table that was full of snacks and food. We had music playing through Charlie’s speakers again, only this time it wasn’t blasting and we weren’t singing along loudly to get rid of our nerves. I had gotten used to the tour life, it being the last day of February already. That didn’t mean that I didn’t feel like I was going to pass out every single time we were getting ready to run up on stage. I still nearly threw up every single time, but I was getting a bit more accustomed to it. It was just a matter of building up experience and pushing myself every single time. The first show had just been the most difficult.

Scanning over the table once again, I decided to take some popcorn from a bowl and stuffed my mouth with it. It was quite an unadventurous day. Everybody was kind of quiet and we all kept away from each other despite having been on a bus together and sharing a dressing room for most of the day. Seeing each other 24/7 just did that to you. We weren’t necessarily fed up with each other, it wasn’t that at all. We just had our own things as well, you know?

Anyway, that wasn’t the highlight of the day…. Fortunately…

So, back to the table. I was snacking on all the food, not really caring that I had to actually share it with everybody else that was in or worked for our band. I was kind of zoned out, not really paying attention to what was going on around me. But then I heard a name being used that made me snap back to reality.

“Hey, Jack, what are you doing here?” Somebody, I was guessing Vic, asked just outside of our dressing room.

I didn’t think much of it, believing that it was just my mind playing tricks on me. I didn’t even feel my band member’s stares. Every single day, the amount I missed him increased as did my love for him. We tried to call or FaceTime every day, if not we at least texted back and forth a couple of times. I don’t know how it was possible, but he had been right that only being able to talk to each other without any physical contact made our relationship so much stronger. It was like the whole fight and break we had didn’t exist anymore. We decided not to call it a breakup and considered it more like a thing that helped us develop our relationship further. It wasn’t good to dwell on the past forever.

And then I heard a voice I recognized. “Oh, you know, just coming here to watch the show.”

Still believing I was imagining things, I turned around and saw John still staring at me, the others quickly diverting their eyes. He looked like he was trying to tell me something just by giving me a look, but I had no idea what he was trying to say. I raised my eyebrow at him, wondering what he wanted. He cocked his head in the direction of the door and gave me a small nod. I shook my head, still not understanding what he was trying to tell me. And then it clicked.

“Oh, shit, right!” I gasped, putting down the fork I had been holding in my right hand. “I still had to go help Will and Colton with setting up one of my guitars. Thanks for reminding me!”

John shouted out something after me as I left the room and went into the hallway. “No, that’s not what I meant!”

But before I could either walk away or question him, I saw what he had been trying to signal me. My ears could have been deceiving me, but my vision couldn’t have gone so far, right? Because I was quite certain that Vic was standing a couple of feet away from me, talking to no other than Jack. My Jack. This wasn’t possible. I froze in my spot and rubbed my eyes, hoping for the illusion to go away. But he was still there.

This was too good to be true.

I took the chance and ran the rest of the distance. As soon as I had reached him, I wrapped my arms around his waist and pushed myself into his back. He was real. I could smell the familiar scent and his body felt exactly the same in my arms. Not knowing exactly what to do, I just kept holding him, my face buried just underneath his neck.

“Oh, shit. Oh, shit!” Jack exclaimed, his chest rumbling with laughter. “I can recognize that chin digging between my shoulder blades any day.”

“Are you sure about that?” I challenged with a giggle, unwrapping my arms and pressing my chin into his back in a way I could only imagine was very painful.

Before it got too unbearable, he suddenly turned around, nearly causing me to topple over but he grabbed me before I could. Now I was the one to be enveloped in his arms and pressed close to his chest.

“What are you doing here?” I repeated the question that I had correctly heard Vic ask before.

“Oh, you know, I was just passing through and realized you guys were playing here today. I wouldn’t miss seeing my girlfriend play if I was in town.” He smiled down at me sweetly and briefly let our lips touch.

“It completely slipped my mind that you guys were dating,” Vic gasped, still standing there since I had interrupted his conversation with Jack, “you guys just confused the shit out of me.”

“Get used to it because I’m not planning on letting go anytime soon.”

“Well, I am because I actually have to be somewhere right now, or my guitar will be fucked up during the show.” I tried pulling myself out of Jack’s grip and looked at him. “Oh, and I call bullshit.”

“Call bullshit on what?” He asked, unwrapping his arms from my body, but ghosting a hand over my waist and the small of my back.

“That you just happen to be, I quote, ‘passing through’.” I winked with a smirk as I started continuing down the hall as I originally intended to do. “There’s no reason for you to be in Canada. If anything, you should be getting ready to go to Europe in less than a week. You’re going the wrong direction, this is west, you should be going east.”

“Well, that’s just a silly thing to think!” He scoffed in return, raising his voice as I kept going further and further away. “Hey, where the hell are you going?”

“I actually have stuff to do,” I teased him, knowing it was only going to come back around eventually.

----

Jack watched us play from side stage. I did feel a little more pressured and nervous, not wanting to disappoint him. Although he didn’t sing along, not knowing our songs well enough for that, he would always give me a bright smile and a thumbs up if I looked in his direction. I only messed up once, but luckily it was before we actually started playing a song. Sometimes I would play a chord just to check if I was right, and it seemed like it paid off that time. It wasn’t exactly my fault that I had messed up my finger placement (I corrected it in no time) because I was given a completely new guitar to play.

In the past, I had played the guitar that Cam had in his possession since he was fifteen. It was a very beat up guitar, having been fixed by me multiple times and even a few professionals had a look at it. However, it finally decided to give up. After a short drive in the trailer, it somehow managed to be unfixable. It looked fine, but everything sounded wrong. Will, my guitar tech, tried tuning it multiple times, playing around with the intonation, doing as many practically harmless things, but nothing worked. It could have easily been fixed if he got to change everything but the body, but I wouldn’t let that happen. It was Cam’s guitar, and I was going to keep it whether it worked or not. Changing it would make it lose its value.

I also got out of singing with Pierce The Veil that night. Since Jack had asked me to go out for a late dinner, we decided it would be best for us to go out right after I finished playing. It meant we missed Pierce’s entire set, but I personally would choose spending time with Jack over anything any day, especially if I hadn’t seen him in a while and wasn’t going to see him for a while longer. It was only eight pm when we got off stage, so it was very possible for us to do.
It did, however, mean that I had to run off stage to take a quick shower. I was not going not go out on a date while all sweaty.

After Jack had congratulated me on how awesome it was, I rushed to the dressing room and started collecting all the things I needed to take a shower. I had even gone back to the bus earlier on in the evening to get a nice outfit, lucky enough that none of the fans recognized me. It was the perks of being in the support band.

As I stood under the lukewarm water, my hair full of shampoo and me trying my best to quickly shave my legs and anything else I felt like needed shaving without accidentally cutting myself, I started thinking how peculiar it actually was that Jack was in Canada. His excuse about just randomly being in town made no sense whatsoever. I knew it was just him trying to cover up that he flew out just to see me for a couple of hours. On our actual anniversary, he had promised that he was going to give me the best gift when we saw each other again. The fact that we were seeing each other was probably that amazing gift he was telling me about. Or maybe it was still to come…?

After doing a mediocre job at shaving, but being satisfied enough with it, I quickly wrapped a towel around myself and blow dried my hair. Not only was I on a time crunch due to the short date Jack and I were going to have, but because I knew there were three other sweaty guys eager to take advantage of the running water. I would have felt horrible if I was the reason why they couldn’t shower until we were at the next venue. But then again, I was pretty sure they would be sneaking into PTV’s dressing room to steal some of the hot water there as well. It wouldn’t have been the first time they did something like that.

I quickly put on the black cami dress I wanted to wear and actually decided to wear some heels along with it for the special occasion, as much as I hated them. Of course, I didn’t think of the consequences the outfit would have, completely having forgotten how cold it actually was outside. We were all wearing thick winter coats and we were always all still freezing our asses off. Now I also had bare legs… Oh, well, I wanted to look pretty, and that was the only thing going through my mind. I even put on some makeup, which I rarely did anymore. Hopefully, it all paid off and Jack would like what I was wearing.

I was probably in the bathroom for only thirty minutes. Normally, I wouldn't have been astonished by how long it took me, but since I had so much more to do than I usually did, I was pretty impressed. That didn’t mean that the guys thought similarly. The guys, including Jack, were all on the couch, ignoring each other and playing games on their respective phones. They didn’t even notice me walking out of the bathroom until my moving figure got Jack’s attention.

“Hot,” he squeaked out weirdly in a high-pitched voice and cleared his throat quickly after. This managed to make all the others snap out of their trance.

“Fuck yes, my turn to shower!” Charlie jumped over the backrest of the couch and rushed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Both Carter and John looked frustrated, annoyed that somebody else took the chance before they could.

“You know, I told you to look pretty, but I didn’t mean that you should look better than me!” Jack joked, staring me up and down, his eyes lingering longer in some places than others.

“You said fancy, but not formal; casual, but not homeless. I think I did a pretty good job,” I retorted, throwing my shampoo and other products back into the large backpack I always took with me that had my towels and clothes in.

“Ok, fine. I’m not complaining. I’m going to get my jacket before I’m going to be stuck here, not being able to take my eyes off of you,” Jack joked as he stood up and went towards the door. “I left it in the other dressing room.”

As he left, I got out my smaller army green backpack that I could easily use if I went out and started putting things in such as my wallet, phone, and medication. They were all things I needed to bring with me but didn’t have space in my pockets for. However, just as I was about to close it, Carter sneaked up behind me and stuffed a handful of condoms in it.

“What the shit?” I shrieked, not only being frightened by him, but also because I had no idea where he had gotten so many condoms from. They had just suddenly appeared. I knew we had some in a drawer on the bus despite our no-sex rule, but still. Why did he have so many here?

“Better be safe than sorry.” He wiggled his eyebrows and closed my bag for me since I was too startled to do so.

“And why would I need eight or so condoms? Don’t you think that’s a little too over enthusiastic, a little too expectant? We barely have enough time to go out for dinner as it is!” I rolled my eyes, but still let the bag hang from one of my shoulders. He was right about it being a good precaution.

“Just know I can’t be blamed if you’re unexpectedly pregnant with Jack’s kid.” He took a couple of steps back, shaking his head at me.

“Unless I get pregnant using one of these condoms.”

“Ugh, now you’re the one being annoying.” He sat back down on the couch and started ignoring me.

I sighed and was relieved when Jack came back, holding his ‘jacket’. All he had was something I wouldn’t even wear during the winters in Baltimore. It was literally just a leather jacket. I had a jacket that made me look like a fat snowman. But if he was stupid enough to suffer, then it wasn’t my fault.

“Ready to go?” He asked as he stood at the doorway, putting on said leather jacket.

“Yep,” I nodded and took my own fluffy jacket. I was about to leave, but stopped myself when I realized I had one more question. So, I turned back towards everybody in the room. “Wait, what time is bus call?”

“Two am,” Colton told me as he was biting on a plastic disposable spoon.

Both Jack and I shared a look. It showed both surprise, excitement, and mischief. Now, that was going to change our whole plan. We both hadn’t expected to get much more time that just a quick dinner and having to be back at midnight latest. We had way longer than expected. More time together, more time to find more things to do together.

“Well, then, take your pajamas as well,” Jack remarked, his smirk still on, “we are definitely going to have a super early room-service breakfast as well now.”

Before anybody could make any sexual comments, I nodded and went back over to the backpack from before, already have asked Colton if he would make sure it would be brought back on the bus. I didn’t exactly have pajamas in that bag, but I did have pajama pants. It was actually a perfect plan. That way, I could ask to borrow one of Jack’s shirt without it seeming too random. A perfect plan for a girlfriend that loved wearing her boyfriend’s clothes. So, I stuffed the checkered pants into my small backpack, trying my best to ignore the numerous condoms in there as well. It was so going to bite me back.

“Let’s go.” I grinned as I started walking out again, grabbing Jack’s hand as we went to head out of the venue.

Notes

I haven't written for this story in ages (literally in weeks), but I'm going to put this up for you guys. I'm still more focused on school right now and I don't know when things are going to get better but it might in only two months. Just don't give up on me yet.

Btw here's Ireland's outfit if you were wondering what it looked like http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/set?id=223442142