Fluorescents

29

" Don't be surprised when you get bent over."

Alex sings towards the crowd before winking towards a girl in the front that I can tell he's been eyeing all night. She throws him back a smirk and he continues singing, his eyes wandering throughout the venue. I nod along to the music and even sing along, my powerful memory for lyrics doing me well.

" Who'd want to be men of the people
When there's people like you?" he finishes the song and I almost snort at the irony and hypocrisy of the lyrics. But that's none of my business.

Once the boys all begin to say their goodbyes to the crowd and make their way off the stage I once again, like every night, see Alex call over a security guard before motioning towards the girl he's been eyeing. The security nods his head and Alex begins to walk away, passing me but not acknowledging my presence or existence. I'm glad that he has the decency to no longer bother and taunt me after what he did, but I can't lie and say that it doesn't feel odd having him completely ignore me. I'll just have to get use to it. Hopefully it stays this way and I can get rid of the pent up stress and thoughts he's caused me.

" Let's get the fans out of here." I tell the crew before making my way off the stage and helping around. We finish taking down the equipment and before I know it we're getting into the buses and preparing to take the 8 hour drive to Denver.

" When is this bus gonna start moving." Shay groans. I look up at her as she sprawls her body across the sofa and acts as if she's dying. I roll my eyes but laugh shortly after. Calling her a drama queen is an understatement.

" We leave in like 5 minutes." I tell her gazing down at my phone that reads 12:53. She groans in her spot and drags her hands down her face.
" gee, how will you survive." I tease her and she turns to look at me with a deadly glare.

" I don't like your attitude." She huffs before crossing her arms over her chest and turning her head away from me. I scoff at her complaint towards MY attitude before reaching for one of the throw pillows and tossing it at her. She gasps, like a drama queen of course, once the pillow comes in contact with her body before getting up and throwing all the throw pillows on her side of the couch at me. A pillow fight breaks out and before we know it the bus begins to move under out feet and we try our best to keep our balance while we continue throwing pillows at one another.

Almost half an hour later we lay huffing on top of one side of the couch, almost on top of one another as we try to silent our laughter and calm our breaths. Once we finally quiet down we realize that the rest of the bus is completely silent and we are likely to be the only ones awake other than the driver. We make our way back to the bunks and lay down to rest. I lay down and my mind begins to wander like every other night. Except this time, I'm not thinking of all the problems going on in my life instead I'm recalling joyous memories and future memories that I'm sure to make. Nights like this remind me why I took on this job.

---------------------------------------------------

" The Rockies are the best baseball team of all time. No one, I mean no one can even compare to them." Derek rambles as we walk along the streets of Denver. I nod my head and try my best to seem like I'm at least paying attention to what he's saying, even though in reality I'm not even remotely interested in what he's talking about. I'm not purposely trying to be rude, I just don't have a spot for sports, especially baseball. I can barely even name another team other than the Chicago Bulls, and that's just because of the fact that Chicago's my hometown. " What about you?" He asks me and I shake myself back to reality.

" Uhm what?" I ask him and his grin fades. He stares down at his feet and scratches the back of his head while I try my best to recall what he could have asked me. We walk for several more minutes and Derek doesn't bother to say anything else and neither do I. I feel slightly guilty for not paying attention to him while he was talking but he kept talking for way too long about stuff I'm not even close to being interested in. Maybe if he would have taken into consideration what I would have wanted to talk about we could have actually had a legitimate conversation.